To Live in a Time of Fairy Tales

Jeff—Saturday

In these days of worldwide Covid-19 depression, as Spring struggles to bring us on to hoped for relief in Summer heat and humidity (at least for the northern hemisphere), I thought it might be a good idea to come up with something light and cheery for today’s post.  Something to get Barbara’s mind off thoughts of a potential season or more of shared bucolic isolation with her beloved (see photo above), ever mindful as I am, that one man’s Walden Pond, may prove to be one woman’s Chaillot.

I skimmed the Internet in search of inspiration for an upbeat topic, but quickly realized there’s little of that sort of thing out there these days. So, I searched further, and lo and behold found the perfect inspiration: A History of Greece and the Fairy Tale. 

I expect that most who read Murder is Everywhere have at least a passing familiarity with ancient Greek myths.  Greeks think most of the world does because a few years back they tied their national tourist campaign to the slogan, “Live your Myth in Greece.”  And it is hard to imagine an educated soul in the western world who hasn’t at least heard of Greece’s legends, if not the Iliad, certainly the Odyssey. 

So, what is a fairy tale anyway?  Their written origins go back thousands of years, and their oral roots thousands more.  Yet, it’s still hard to say what is precisely a fairy tale for, as with so many other things in life, there is serious academic debate over that seemingly simple question. To make things more complicated the actual name “fairy tale” didn’t exist until the late 17^th Century and at one time much of Tolkien’s work and even Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz would have been considered fairy tales but today are called fantasy.  God bless progress.

As I see it, the stories we grew up with, the ones we always thought of as fairy tales, brought out gnomes, trolls, elves, dwarfs, giants, and that sort of creature, featured magic and sometimes—but far from always—an actual fairy.  Yes, fairies are no more required for fairy tales than reality is for certain economic tales.  But I digress. Back now to Greece’s seminal role in the fairy tale.    

Although the Egyptians generally are credited with reducing the first fairy tale to writing in 1300 B.C.E., it was Greece’s own Aesop who brought fame to the genre with his collection of fables in the 6^th Century B.C.E.  And the oral tradition of such tales in Greece goes back thousands of years before then.  That’s not to say other cultures didn’t have similar rich oral traditions.  Indeed it’s striking how so many different societies shared similar stories passing the same bit of wisdom or moral guidance across Europe, China, India, Egypt and elsewhere in Asia and Africa.  

Some say the similarities sprung from shared values.  Others claim they spread through tellers and listeners traveling and battling their way to far off places, but if so, for those tales to survive must they still not have rung true to each culture that absorbed them as its own?

So, what are examples of these similar tales?  I don’t want to sound Grimm (pained looks noted) but there are many.  For example, if you’re looking for something in the “Let’s rescue the maiden in the tower” vein, you can have the Greek champion shouting “Anthousa, Xanthousa, Chrisomalousa let down your hair,”—yes, that one young maiden had all those names—or go with the snappier “Rapunzel” of the Brothers Grimm version. 

Then there’s the one about how sometimes success in life is nothing more than a matter of “being in the right place at the right time.”  The Greeks call their version “Almondseed and Almondella,” but the Grimm Brothers’ went for “Doctor Know-all.”  Just in case neither title seems particularly fetching, doesn’t the Grimm Brother’s moniker at least make you wonder if their version didn’t tickle a homonymic chord in Ian Fleming’s search for a title for perhaps his 007’s most celebrated escapade?

And then there is the most famous fairy tale of all, or at least one of the top five.  Its recorded history goes back to the 1^st Century B.C.E. as the story of the Greco-Egyptian girl, Rhodopolis.  Over ensuing centuries she moved around quite a bit until finally finding a home in Charles Perrault’s Mother Goose tales as Cinderella.

Which reminds me.  I’ve got to start rounding up the mice and get my pumpkin moving, to take my beloved Princess off to town for supplies.

Stay safe, everyone.

Jeff — Saturday