Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf? General yawning… Fairy tale expert Oliver Geister explains why the scary stories are nevertheless relevant – and how they lost their eroticism.
Barbara: Mr. Geister, you were just at a fairy tale conference. met witches and fairies?
Oliver Geister: No. Such congresses are more about scientific questions.
Is it possible to get new things out of old stories?
At the conference, for example, the importance of the beautiful princess waiting for the prince was discussed. Is it still up to date? Or about whether, as a storyteller:in, one should present the stories in a more gender-sensitive manner.
Who organizes this?
The European Fairy Tale Society – one of the largest literary societies in Germany. In the 19th century, the Brothers Grimm collected and wrote down fairy tales so that they would not be forgotten. This tradition should be maintained. Storytellers, authors and researchers are involved in the fairytale society.
You yourself are a fairy tale teacher. How did you get into it?
I studied German and pedagogy and was surprised that the “Children’s and Household Tales” by the Brothers Grimm – the most influential pedagogical book of all – are so rarely used in educational science. Psychology, German studies and folklore all deal with fairy tales – in education, of all things, “Little Red Riding Hood” and “Sleeping Beauty” hardly ever take place.
And then?
I initiated that I regularly give seminars on the subject of fairy tale education at the University of Münster.
When the wolf eats a bedridden old woman in “Little Red Riding Hood” or the stepmother has Snow White killed and wants to eat her liver and lungs to prove it, that’s pretty cruel and doesn’t seem to be of any educational value.
Despite this, you will hardly find anyone who rejects fairy tales for education.
Why not?
Because they are particularly suitable for children: they are told in a short, simple and linear way. With clear contrasts such as young and old, poor and rich, good and bad, children can better sort the world that is still confusing for them. And because the good wins in the end, fairy tales always have something positive.
And parents don’t have to reckon with nightmare-ridden children?
Well, I wouldn’t tell all fairy tales to little kids. But if, for example, the wolf in the fairy tale has its belly slit open, then most children do not experience it as a literal act of cruelty. At least I can hardly imagine a child saying: No, that’s not possible, that’s animal cruelty.
That’s what you say…
… for good reason: On the one hand, fairy tales describe atrocities in a very neutral way. They are only named without gloating over them. On the other hand, children tend to perceive the scenes positively because they usually avert a danger. In children’s imaginations, when the witch is burned in the oven, it is not necessarily a real person who is being burned, but evil is being destroyed.
Some scenes are brutal though.
Yes, for example the final scene of “Snow White”: The stepmother, who has attempted to murder her stepdaughter several times, has to dance to her death in glowing slippers at the wedding. “Snow White” is still the most popular German fairy tale.
Everyone just has the funny Disney film in their head.
A great movie. Walt Disney was a big fan of fairy tales. When he was once in Germany, he bought many fairy tale books. The fairytale castle in its logo is based on Neuschwanstein Castle.
Why are fairy tales originally so cruel?
Drastic punishments, torture, executions were part of the reality of life at the time when the fairy tales are said to have originated. Just like the famine in Hansel and Gretel. And Snow White’s dwarfs probably mean children or people of short stature who were exploited in mines.
Are Grimm’s fairy tales particularly scary?
Yes, even in an international comparison. After World War II, English scholars even claimed that the German soldiers were particularly barbaric because they had been socialized with the Grimms’ fairy tales. This later proved to be unfounded.
The most brutal fairy tale?
I find “Fitcher’s Bird” intense.
Sounds nice.
Wait and see. In the story, three sisters are kidnapped one after the other by a magician. Each of the girls gets a key to a chamber that they are not allowed to open under any circumstances. The first two look anyway and find a room full of slaughtered people. They are caught by the sorcerer, who kills them as well and hangs them in the chamber. Only the third manages to remain undetected when opening the chamber.
In contrast, “Little Red Riding Hood” is Pillepalle!
Both are warning and fright fairy tales. “Little Red Riding Hood” was told to convey to children: Don’t lose your way, don’t let yourself be spoken to. In “Fitcher’s Bird” curiosity is punished.
But in the end does good win?
Yes, as befits most fairy tales. In “Fitcher’s Bird” the girl can put her dead sisters back together into living people – and the magician burns.
What else is typical of fairy tales?
The classic magic fairy tale has no clear reference to place and time. But there is the well-known fairy tale staff: prince, princess, queen, craftsmen like the miller. And when a simple person turns up, they are usually called Hans, because that was the most common name at the time. These figures are not characters, they represent characteristics. So the wolf is always angry and dangerous. There are also unreal characters like witches. Natural laws are overridden. And the hero is not surprised that a frog speaks to him.
Fairy tales were originally told among adults.
That’s right, at first they were for entertainment. Then the pedagogical became more important. Wilhelm Grimm gradually added desirable virtues to the original versions and de-eroticized them.
Fairy tales were once erotic?
In older versions, for example, Rapunzel becomes pregnant. Wilhelm Grimm didn’t like the fact that the prince got her pregnant in the tower. It was less and less discussed until finally Rapunzel only asked: Why don’t my clothes fit me anymore, Ms. Gothel?
What else has he changed?
For example, that in “Hansel and Gretel” the stepmother and not the mother abandons her children in the forest.
Is Wilhelm Grimm responsible for the bad reputation of stepmothers?
You could say that. A stepmother was never mentioned in the original versions of the fairy tales. Wilhelm couldn’t bear it that biological mothers are so cruel.
You wrote a book about fairy tales being used as a propaganda tool in the Third Reich. As the?
In a 1935 film, Puss in Boots was praised with the following words: “Heil dem Kater Murr!” During the Second World War, the National Socialists used fairy tales to convey their virtues, such as unconditional obedience, bravery, and the willingness to fight. The Brothers Grimm deliberately did not call their fairy tales “German fairy tales”. Because they are not: the sources are international.
But the Grimms traveled across the country to collect German cultural assets.
That is the common assumption. But the brothers had the fairy tales told to them in the comfort of their own homes – by mostly young, educated women. They spoke French, which is why many fairy tales, such as “Little Red Riding Hood”, have their sources in France.
Little Red Riding Hood is French?
Originally yes.
Do you get a different view of the world if you deal with fairy tales every day?
I wish yes But I’m not so good at taking the fairy-tale serenity, that in the end everything somehow turns out for the better, into everyday life.
Do we really need fairy tales?
Of course I’m convinced that fairy tales are useful for us, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say that children without fairy tales lack something in their upbringing. You can live a good life without fairy tales.
But?
Goethe’s “Faust” is not known to everyone, “Sleeping Beauty” is. One could see the last remnant of our common educational canon in the classic fairy tales. There is something very unifying about that.
dr Oliver Geister is a teacher, author of two books on fairy tale education and produces radio play music.