A Study of Fairy Tales Part 8

Moore, Annie E.: "Principles in the Selection of Stories for the Kindergarten." _I.K.U. Report_, 1913.

Moses, Montrose: _Children's Books and Reading_. M. Kennerley.

Olcott, Frances J.: _The Children's Reading_. Houghton.

CHAPTER III

THE TELLING OF FAIRY TALES

The telling of stories refreshes the mind as a bath refreshes the body. It gives exercise to the intellect and its powers. It tests the judgments and feelings. The story-teller must wholly take into himself the life of which he speaks, must let it live and operate in himself freely.

He must reproduce it whole and undiminished, yet stand superior to life as it actually is.--FROEBEL.

The purpose of the story.--To look out with new eyes upon the many-featured, habitable world; to be thrilled by the pity and the beauty of this life of ours, itself brief as a tale that is told; to learn to know men and women better, and to love them more.--BLISS PERRY.

Expertness in teaching consists in a scholarly command of subject-matter, in a better organization of character, in a larger and more versatile command of conscious modes of transmitting facts and ideals, and in a more potent and winsome, forceful and sympathetic manner of personal contact with other human beings.--HENRY SUZZALLO.

Story-telling as an art. No matter how perfectly the tale, in a subjective sense, may contain the interests of the child, or how carefully it may avoid what repels him; though in an objective sense it may stand the test of a true cla.s.sic in offering a permanent enrichment of the mind and the test of literature in appealing to the emotions and the imagination, in giving a contribution of truth and an embodiment of good form; though it may stand the test of the short-story--furnis.h.i.+ng interesting characters, definite plot, and effective setting; though its sequence be orderly and its climax pointed, its narration consistent and its description apt--the tale yet remains to be told. The telling of the tale is a distinct art governed by distinct principles because the life of the story must be transmitted and rendered into voice.

Story-telling is one of the most ancient and universal of arts.

Concerning this art Thackeray has said:--

Stories exist everywhere: there is no calculating the distance through which stories have come to us, the number of languages through which they have been filtered, or the centuries during which they have been told. Many of them have been narrated almost in their present shape for thousands of years to the little copper-colored Sanskrit children, listening to their mothers under the palm-trees by the banks of the yellow Jumna--their Brahmin mother, who softly narrated them through the ring in her nose. The very same tale has been heard by the northern Vikings as they lay on their s.h.i.+elds on deck; and the Arabs couched under the stars on the Syrian plains when their flocks were gathered in, and their mares were picketed by the tents.

In his _Roundabout Papers_, Thackeray gives a picture of a score of white-bearded, white-robed warriors or grave seniors of the city, seated at the gate of Jaffa or Beyrout, listening to the story-teller reciting his marvels out of _Arabian Nights_. "A Reading from Homer,"

by Alma Tadema, is a well-known picture which portrays the Greeks listening to the _Tales of Homer_. In the _Lysistrata_ of Aristophanes, the chorus of old men begins with, "I will tell ye a story!" Plutarch, in his _Theseus_ says, "All kinds of stories were told at the festival Oschophoria, as the mothers related such things to their children before their departure, to give them courage." In his _Symposium_ he mentions a child's story containing the proverb, "No man can make a gown for the moon."--

The Moon begged her Mother to weave her a little frock which would fit her.

The Mother said, "How can I make it fit thee, when thou art sometimes a Full Moon, and then a Half Moon, and then a New Moon?"--

In the works of the German, Schuppius (1677), appeared this:--

Your old folks can remember how, in the olden times, it was customary at vespers on Easter day, to tell some Easter tidings from the pulpit. These were foolish fables and stories such as are told to children in the spinning-room.

They were intended to make people merry.

In England, _Chaucer's Tales_ reflect the common custom of the times for the pilgrim, the traveler, the lawyer, the doctor, the monk, and the nun, to relate a tale. _The Wife of Bathes Tale_ is evidently a fairy tale. In Peele's _Old Wives' Tale_ we learn how the smith's goodwife related some nursery tales of Old England to the two travelers her husband brought to the cottage for the night. In Akenside's _Pleasures of Imagination_ we find:--

Hence, finally by night, The village matres, round the blazing hearth Suspend the infant audience with their tales, Breathing astonishment.

The custom of Florentine mothers has been described by the poet, Dante, when he says:--

Another, drawing tresses from her distaff.

Told o'er among her family the tales Of Trojans, and of Fesole and Rome.

The French troubadours and the Italian counts of Boccaccio's time told tales. It is recorded of the French Galland, the first translator of _The Arabian Nights_, how the young men of his day would gather under his windows at night and shout for him until he showed himself and told them stories. The German Luther paid a high tribute to stories; and Goethe's mother, in giving her experience in telling stories to her children, has shown how the German mother valued the story in the home. To-day, savage children, when the day of toil is ended with the setting sun, gather in groups to listen to the never-dying charm of the tale; and the most learned of men, meeting in the great centers of civilization to work out weighty problems, find relief and pleasure when wit and culture tell the tale.

In the home the tale is the mother's power to build in her little children ideals of life which will tower as a fortress when there come critical moments of decision for which no amount of reasoning will be a sufficient guide, but for which true feeling, a kind of unconscious higher reasoning, will be the safest guide. In the library the story is the greatest social a.s.set of the librarian, it is her best means of reaching the obscure child who seeks there some food for his spirit, it is her best opportunity to lead and direct his tastes. In the school it is the teacher's strongest personal ally. It is her wis.h.i.+ng-ring, with which she may play fairy to herself in accomplis.h.i.+ng a great variety of aims, and incidentally be a fairy G.o.dmother to the child.

Story-telling is an art handling an art and therefore must be pursued in accordance with certain principles. These principles govern: (1) the teacher's preparation; (2) the presentation of the tale; and (3) the return from the child.

I. THE TEACHER'S PREPARATION

1. The teacher's preparation must be concerned with a variety of subjects. The first rule to be observed is: _Select the tale for some purpose, to meet a situation_. This purpose may be any one of the elements of value which have been presented here under "The Worth of Fairy Tales." The teacher must consider, not only the possibilities of her subject-matter and what she wishes to accomplish through the telling of the tale, but also what the child's purpose will be in listening. She may select her tale specifically, not just because it contains certain interests, but because through those interests she can direct the child's activity toward higher interests. She must consider what problems the tale can suggest to the child. She may select her tale to develop habits in the child, to clarify his thinking, to give a habit of memory or to develop emotion or imagination. She may select her tale "just for fun," to give pure joy, or to teach a definite moral lesson, to make a selfish child see the beauty of unselfishness or to impress an idea. The _Story of Lazy Jack_, like the realistic _Epaminondas_, will impress more deeply than any word of exhortation, the necessity for a little child to use "the sense he was born with."

In the selection of the tale the teacher is up against the problem of whether she shall choose her tale psychologically or logically. As this is the day of the psychologic point of view in education, the teacher realizing this feels that she must select a tale for a particular purpose, according to the child's interests, his needs, and the possibilities it offers for his self-activity and self-expression.

Looking freely over the field she may choose any tale which satisfies her purposes. This is psychologic. But in a year's work this choice of a tale for a particular purpose is followed by successive choices until she has selected a wide variety of tales giving exercise to many forms of activity, establis.h.i.+ng various habits of growth. This method of choice is the psychologic built up until, in the hands of the teacher who knows the subject, it becomes somewhat logical. It is the method which uses the ability of the individual teacher, alone and unaided. There is another method. The teacher may be furnished with a course of tales arranged by expert study of the full subject outlined in large units of a year's work, offering the literary heritage possible to the child of a given age. This is logical. From this logical course of tales she may select one which answers to the momentary need, she may use it according to its nature, to develop habits, to give opportunity for self-activity and self-expression, and to enter into the child's daily life. This method of choice is the logical, which through use and adaptation has become psychologized. It uses the ability of the individual teacher in adaptation, not unaided and alone, but a.s.sisted by the concentrated knowledge and practice of the expert. Such a logical course, seeking uniformity only by what it requires at the close of a year's work, would give to the individual teacher a large freedom of choice and would bring into kindergarten and elementary literature a basis of content demanding as much respect as high school or college literature. It is in no way opposed to maintaining the child as the center of interest. The teacher's problem is to see that she uses the logical course psychologically.

2. Having selected the tale then, from a logical course, and psychologically for a present particular purpose, the next step is: _Know the tale_. Know the tale historically, if possible. Know it first as folk-lore and then as literature. Read several versions of the tale, the original if possible, selecting that version which seems most perfectly fitted to express what there is in the tale. As folk-lore, study its variants and note its individual motifs. Note what glimpses it gives of the social life and customs of a primitive people. The best way to dwell on the life of the story, to realize it, is to compare these motifs with similar motifs in other tales. It has been said that we do not see anything clearly until we compare it with another; and a.s.sociating individual motifs of the tales makes the incidents stand out most clearly. Henny Penny's walk appears more distinctly in a.s.sociation with that of Medio Pollito or that of Drakesbill or of the Foolish Timid Rabbit; the fairy words in _Sleeping Beauty_ and the good things they bestowed upon Briar Rose in a.s.sociation with the fairy wand in _Cinderella_ and the good things it brought her; the visit of the Wolf in _The Wolf and Seven Kids_ with the visit of the Wolf in _Three Pigs_ and of the Fox in _The Little Rid Hin_. It is interesting to note that a clog motif, similar to the motif of shoes in _The Elves and the Shoemaker_, occurs in the Hindu _Panch-Rhul Ranee_, told in _Old Deccan Days_.

All the common motifs which occur in the fairy tales have been cla.s.sified by Andrew Lang under these heads:--

(1) Bride or bridegroom who transgresses a mystic command.

(2) Penelope formula; one leaves the other and returns later.

(3) Attempt to avoid Fate.

(4) Slaughter of monster.

(5) Flight, by aid of animal.

(6) Flight from giant or wizard.

(7) Success of youngest.

(8) Marriage test, to perform tasks.

(9) Grateful beasts.

(10) Strong man and his comrades.

(11) Adventure with Ogre, and trick.

(12) Descent to Hades.

(13) False bride.

(14) Bride with animal children.

From a less scientific view some of the common motifs noticeable in the fairy tales, which however would generally fall under one of the heads given by Lang, might be listed:--