6 ms·

Important point many are missing: Folktales were not originally for children. They were told among adults after children had gone to sleep. But when folklorists

by goto11 7y ago

Important point many are missing: Folktales were not originally for children. They were told among adults after children had gone to sleep. But when folklorists (like the Grimm brothers) started collecting and publishing folk tales, it became a trend to publish sanitized edition for children. Read something like the Arabian Nights tales in an uncensored version - these were clearly not intended for children anymore than 50 Shades of Grey are for children. The children's editions are heavily sanitized. I suspect their change into children literature was because of cultural changes - educated 19th century adults couldn't take folktales serious anymore (except as anthropological studies) and found them childish. The same way that 19th century popular literature like Dumas and Verne became children's books in the 20th century. Walt Disney is often criticized in this context, but both Snow White and Cinderella are actually pretty faithful to the source material. Cinderella is just based on the Charles Perrault version of the story, not the Grimm version which contain a lot more maiming.

jan_Inkepa 7y ago
For those interested in seeing the scope/variation of cinderella stories, there’s a book “cinderella; three hundred and forty-five variants” https://archive.org/details/cu31924007918299 https://archive.org/details/cu31924007918299 that is ... I wouldn’t recommend reading it cover-to-cover like I did, but there are some interesting variants hidden in it!
dannygarcia 7y ago
> Folktales were not originally for children. I learned this the hard way. I purchased a beautifully made "Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales" to read to my then toddler. There are some particularly disturbing stories but I was surprised by how many were flat out nonsensical or silly (like The Story of a Boy Who Went Forth to Learn Fear [0]). It's fascinating to read these in their (translated) original form. Not your typical bedtime story. [0] https://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm004.html https://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm004.html
- MichailP 7y ago
  It kinda makes sense to me. In the end he learned to shudder with his SO (she did a weird trick but is it that weird?)
- voldacar 7y ago
  Wow, what a strange story. Super surreal and dreamlike
- edjrage 7y ago
  seriously what the fuck did I just read
- canada_dry 7y ago
  > flat out nonsensical e.g. The Story of a Boy Who Went Forth to Learn Fear That reminded me of GOT... the ending was a disappointment to an otherwise interesting tale.
- vorpalhex 7y ago
  I must be broken because this is reasonably sensible to me. The boy was too naive and his life too austere to know fear, and thus was able to survive the night (and his other challenges). It wasn't until he knew what it was to have a warm bed, food and a wife that he was able to shudder with fear.
- taneq 7y ago
  Even the 'sanitized' versions of them haven't aged well and are often pretty silly IMO. Maybe it's just because we tend to see them as morality plays these days and try to infer a lesson, while the originals seem to just have been local stories from various villages. Terrible people do well for themselves, lots of people die to no real gain or purpose, etc.
  - vharuck 7y ago
    I recently got this surprise when practicing Japanese by translating a folk tale [0]. Even revenge I was able to understand quickly turned into outright sadism. Maybe it was the morals of another time, maybe the tellers didn't care if all the characters were unlikable. [0]: http://life.ou.edu/stories/sarukani.html http://life.ou.edu/stories/sarukani.html
mikeInAlaska 7y ago
> Walt Disney is often criticized in this context Disney hired Pixar to put out Tolstoy 1 and 2, then they acquired Pixar and have since released Tolstoy 3 and 4.
romwell 7y ago
>Important point many are missing: Folktales were not originally for children. How does this apply? What is this in response to? Tolstoy's stories weren't based on folk tales, and were specifically meant for children. Yet they are, at times, pretty grim, and often lack a punchline or a clear point, other than "such is life". Which might have been the point anyway.
- goto11 7y ago
  I wrote in the response to the article and many comments here which assumes that folktales were intended for kids. I'm not asserting anything about Tolstoys stories which I don't know (and I'm not sure the article gives a fair representation of them).
renewiltord 7y ago
Were they not for children or did we decide later that children should read bowdlerized forms? After all, I read Arabian Nights uncensored with people cavorting[0] with courtesans and that one with the false sexual assault but with bad defence arguments when I couldn't have been even a teenager. Also all the Russian stories published translated to English by Pravda involved a lot of violence and head cutting and men trying to sleep with daughters and whatnot. Turned out all right. 0: Pretty sure that's where I learned the word 'cavorting'.
- goto11 7y ago
  They were passed on orally, not read, and they were not in particular intended for children. The frame itself is Scherazad telling the stories to her husband, a grown man.
MichaelMoser123 7y ago
On the other hand I am not quite sure what these people told their kids and if one can apply the same standards. I think people used to be more cruel than they are now, for example public executions were drawing huge crowds. Also mortality was higher and people died at a younger age, especially child mortality used to be much higher. The concept and meaning of childhood was probably not exactly the same as today, child labor was quite common. As a result I don't quite know how to read the cruelty in original folk tales. In addition to that you can't tell exactly if the Grimm brother weren't doing some editing on their own behalf.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
barry-cotter 7y ago
> Important point many are missing: Folktales were not originally for children. They were told among adults after children had gone to sleep. Do you have any evidence for this? Nothing I’ve ever read in anthropology supports it. When most children die before their fifth birthday, the average family lives in one room and a family is rich if they have two beds, a table and six good chairs people think very differently than the fabulously wealthy Victorians. And they were pretty much ok with children working in factories or as chimney sweeps. Life used to be nasty, brutish and short. Attitudes were substantially less delicate as a result.
- watwut 7y ago
  1.) One bit of context is that German propaganda during WWI did not allowed death at all in children books. This is something I have from book about occupied territory. 2.) The other is that "folk" likely did not told stories to kids every evening the way we do. This I gather as unprobable after reading book about childhood in Germany before wars. The kids did not get as much individual attention and general attention. Demographic that was ok with kids working in factories had both parents working 12 hours a day with no weekend. These had 5 years old whole day alone on the streets or "responsible" for gooses with no adult present. There was no one to gently tuck them to bed and tell them story so that they learn "morals" or what. These were overworked adults desperately needing a bit of rest for themselves. Your kids are not getting bedtime stories at all in that situation. 3.) My observation from kids: We push stories and reading on kids a lot and very soon. Sooner then they actually like it. Small kids like shorter super simple stories. The original form is not for kids not just because it is dark, but also because it is unnecessary long and slow moving for such kid.
  - barry-cotter 7y ago
    Your “we” is likely unrepresentative even now. Reading or telling stories to children every night is not a universal pastime. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s below 50% though it’s quite common. Children got less attention because there were more of them and people were busy but they weren’t feral. When it’s dark and cold outside they were mostly inside. There’s always work but if you spend a lot of time in cramped quarters with no tv, radio or books people’s people want entertainment apart from gossip. That means music, song or story telling. You’re not going to get a five year old to sit still for half an hour to listen to a recitation of a book of the Iliad or Odyssey but ten minutes is an unremarkable attention span. Total agreement on reading. Be like Finland, leave it til primary school, which starts at 7 years old.

by goto11 7y ago

jan_Inkepa 7y ago

For those interested in seeing the scope/variation of cinderella stories, there’s a book “cinderella; three hundred and forty-five variants” https://archive.org/details/cu31924007918299 https://archive.org/details/cu31924007918299 that is ... I wouldn’t recommend reading it cover-to-cover like I did, but there are some interesting variants hidden in it!

dannygarcia 7y ago

> Folktales were not originally for children. I learned this the hard way. I purchased a beautifully made "Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales" to read to my then toddler. There are some particularly disturbing stories but I was surprised by how many were flat out nonsensical or silly (like The Story of a Boy Who Went Forth to Learn Fear [0]). It's fascinating to read these in their (translated) original form. Not your typical bedtime story. [0] https://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm004.html https://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm004.html

MichailP 7y ago
It kinda makes sense to me. In the end he learned to shudder with his SO (she did a weird trick but is it that weird?)
voldacar 7y ago
Wow, what a strange story. Super surreal and dreamlike
edjrage 7y ago
seriously what the fuck did I just read
canada_dry 7y ago
> flat out nonsensical e.g. The Story of a Boy Who Went Forth to Learn Fear That reminded me of GOT... the ending was a disappointment to an otherwise interesting tale.
vorpalhex 7y ago
I must be broken because this is reasonably sensible to me. The boy was too naive and his life too austere to know fear, and thus was able to survive the night (and his other challenges). It wasn't until he knew what it was to have a warm bed, food and a wife that he was able to shudder with fear.
taneq 7y ago
Even the 'sanitized' versions of them haven't aged well and are often pretty silly IMO. Maybe it's just because we tend to see them as morality plays these days and try to infer a lesson, while the originals seem to just have been local stories from various villages. Terrible people do well for themselves, lots of people die to no real gain or purpose, etc.
- vharuck 7y ago
  I recently got this surprise when practicing Japanese by translating a folk tale [0]. Even revenge I was able to understand quickly turned into outright sadism. Maybe it was the morals of another time, maybe the tellers didn't care if all the characters were unlikable. [0]: http://life.ou.edu/stories/sarukani.html http://life.ou.edu/stories/sarukani.html

mikeInAlaska 7y ago

> Walt Disney is often criticized in this context Disney hired Pixar to put out Tolstoy 1 and 2, then they acquired Pixar and have since released Tolstoy 3 and 4.

romwell 7y ago

>Important point many are missing: Folktales were not originally for children. How does this apply? What is this in response to? Tolstoy's stories weren't based on folk tales, and were specifically meant for children. Yet they are, at times, pretty grim, and often lack a punchline or a clear point, other than "such is life". Which might have been the point anyway.

goto11 7y ago
I wrote in the response to the article and many comments here which assumes that folktales were intended for kids. I'm not asserting anything about Tolstoys stories which I don't know (and I'm not sure the article gives a fair representation of them).

renewiltord 7y ago

Were they not for children or did we decide later that children should read bowdlerized forms? After all, I read Arabian Nights uncensored with people cavorting[0] with courtesans and that one with the false sexual assault but with bad defence arguments when I couldn't have been even a teenager. Also all the Russian stories published translated to English by Pravda involved a lot of violence and head cutting and men trying to sleep with daughters and whatnot. Turned out all right. 0: Pretty sure that's where I learned the word 'cavorting'.

goto11 7y ago
They were passed on orally, not read, and they were not in particular intended for children. The frame itself is Scherazad telling the stories to her husband, a grown man.

MichaelMoser123 7y ago

On the other hand I am not quite sure what these people told their kids and if one can apply the same standards. I think people used to be more cruel than they are now, for example public executions were drawing huge crowds. Also mortality was higher and people died at a younger age, especially child mortality used to be much higher. The concept and meaning of childhood was probably not exactly the same as today, child labor was quite common. As a result I don't quite know how to read the cruelty in original folk tales. In addition to that you can't tell exactly if the Grimm brother weren't doing some editing on their own behalf.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

barry-cotter 7y ago

> Important point many are missing: Folktales were not originally for children. They were told among adults after children had gone to sleep. Do you have any evidence for this? Nothing I’ve ever read in anthropology supports it. When most children die before their fifth birthday, the average family lives in one room and a family is rich if they have two beds, a table and six good chairs people think very differently than the fabulously wealthy Victorians. And they were pretty much ok with children working in factories or as chimney sweeps. Life used to be nasty, brutish and short. Attitudes were substantially less delicate as a result.

watwut 7y ago
1.) One bit of context is that German propaganda during WWI did not allowed death at all in children books. This is something I have from book about occupied territory. 2.) The other is that "folk" likely did not told stories to kids every evening the way we do. This I gather as unprobable after reading book about childhood in Germany before wars. The kids did not get as much individual attention and general attention. Demographic that was ok with kids working in factories had both parents working 12 hours a day with no weekend. These had 5 years old whole day alone on the streets or "responsible" for gooses with no adult present. There was no one to gently tuck them to bed and tell them story so that they learn "morals" or what. These were overworked adults desperately needing a bit of rest for themselves. Your kids are not getting bedtime stories at all in that situation. 3.) My observation from kids: We push stories and reading on kids a lot and very soon. Sooner then they actually like it. Small kids like shorter super simple stories. The original form is not for kids not just because it is dark, but also because it is unnecessary long and slow moving for such kid.
- barry-cotter 7y ago
  Your “we” is likely unrepresentative even now. Reading or telling stories to children every night is not a universal pastime. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s below 50% though it’s quite common. Children got less attention because there were more of them and people were busy but they weren’t feral. When it’s dark and cold outside they were mostly inside. There’s always work but if you spend a lot of time in cramped quarters with no tv, radio or books people’s people want entertainment apart from gossip. That means music, song or story telling. You’re not going to get a five year old to sit still for half an hour to listen to a recitation of a book of the Iliad or Odyssey but ten minutes is an unremarkable attention span. Total agreement on reading. Be like Finland, leave it til primary school, which starts at 7 years old.