Off with Their Heads! Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood by Maria Tatar

Off With Their Heads!: Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood. I also recommend Maria Tatar's commentary found in: 'The 'Abandoning Impulse' in Human Parents.' The Lion and the Unicorn. Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited, 1999.Īlso, while many scholars have written refutations of Bettelheim's analysis, a particularly salient (and at times humorous) article is recommended in connection with Hansel and Gretel: New Tales for Old : Folktales As Literary Fictions for Young Adults.

An excellent table comparing the changes and their timeline is available in:ĭe Vos, Gail and Anna E. The Grimms substantially altered the tale to suit their personal agenda. First, most of his theories are centered on the final Grimms' version of the tale which is more literary creation than oral fairy tale, even by the Grimms' standards. Note: While I have referenced some of Bruno Bettelheim's analysis of this tale in the annotations, I have left out most of his main points. 178, 179) of the twelve who go to the giant (Turse), and who are previously warned by his wife, and told to go into the bedroom, is only altered so far as concerns the moral. To this group also belongs a Tyrolese story in Zingerle, p. Thumbling puts all the purses of money and valuables into the seven-league boots. Afterwards there is the changing the seven crowns during the night for the seven red caps. When they are in the forest with the man-eater, they have to comb his hair, but Thumbling springs in among it, pulls it, and always comes back again. There are six children he is the seventh. 37 and 45), and thus appears in the German stories. 138, as here, the boy who is imprisoned reaches out a bit of stick to the man-eater, instead of his finger but in a Swedish story his captor is a giant (Cavallius, 31).

In this there are three King's children who are twice brought home by the cleverness of the youngest the first time by a thread which had been given to her by a fairy, the second by strewn ashes the third time, the two elder provide an expedient and scatter peas, but the pigeons eat them, and the children cannot find the way back. Clearly allied too, especially in the beginning, is Nennillo and Nennilla in the Pentamerone (5-8), and so is the first part of Finette Cendron in D'Aulnoy, No. Oberlin gives a piece, in the dialect of the district of Luneville, in his Essai sur le patois. The story of Der Fanggen, from the Oberinnthal in Zingerle's Kinder und Hausmarchen p. In Danish the Pandekagehuset (see further on). Also Pröhle's Kinder-und Volksmarchen, No 40. The house of sweetmeats (see further on). In Swabia it is a wolf which is in the sugar-house.

Off with Their Heads! Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood by Maria Tatar