The virtuous circle of fairy tales

Via Matt Stages linkage posts

There's a Guardian story about a scholar that denies fairy tales come from oral roots. As you know, Bob, I have more than a passing interest in fairy tales.

Now Dr. Ruth Bottigheimer is no piker in this argument (no, seriously, just do an Amazon search) but what I think we have here is a basic sandbox conversation. Some fairy tales do have their origin in printed material and specific story telling, even if those tales were sold as an "as told by" kind of fashion. To deny that many of what we consider modern fairy tales (ie. those that have been or could have been Disneyified) don't owe their "tradition" to the various publishing centers and groups (such as the Les Contes des Fées) of Europe is to be silly. And not all of those tales were of "oral descent." Many were fabricated out of bits and pieces of existing tales and brought together (Disney wasn't the first to take a idea as template and hang a story around it, and if you don't know what I'm talking about, you might want to read any of the Disney fairy tales in pre-Disney texts).

But then to take that idea and make a blanket statement to all fairy tales is also to be silly. You'd have to ignore the preponderance of evidence against it, such as ethnographical sources, tales that specifically go against the values of those who were publishing, older echoes of tales withing the tales that come down to us (this is like identifying books that no longer exist by the references made in books that still do exist), and the ongoing creation of fables and tales by the general population (although in this modern day of mass communication, cross talk between folk and media is inevitable, but just thirty years ago it was possible to make bright lines between the forms). I'll just note that I sometimes do posts about the modern myths we tell ourselves (like the internet is "instant").

Now, of course, I could be making the argument that the elderly gentleman did after having it explained to him in detail that there were no little people in the TV and how TV worked when he replied, "Okay, I understand, but there still must be some little people in there." However I think I'm on pretty solid ground. Heck, there's a show that (somewhat) is devoted to these things called "Mythbusters" (when they're not specifically doing "movie myths"). Urban legends are just a form of folk tale.

And here is where knowing about other disiplines comes into play. Classical music (actually Romantic or Barroque) also has some ties into "folk" music. The composers lived in a world surrounded by live music, not all of which was "composed for the stage." They took the melodies they heard and wrapped them into thier compositions. Which would be heard by the common people, who would then wrap them into their own folk music. It's a cycle that feeds itself.

When we write, we have history. We've been reading, listening, soaking up all that makes humanity for however many years, and all that comes back out on the page. You can't stop the signal. It's the common baseline, the archetype of life and existance. So to take one side and say an author writes including only what they've read is to be silly. You can't turn off all the conversations you've had since you were a child, all those come into play when you write dialog. Everything you've seen if grist for the visual mill of story. And once it's out there on the page, and somebody reads it, their world is changed. The words give frames and meanings to things. It's a self-feeding cycle. Our brains are wired this way.

So to weedle out where one starts and the other ends is to travel the mobius strips that are our lives. Each one will end up with proof their concept is right and the other side is wrong. And their booth looking at the same side, but talking about different things. Although the use the same language, which is our frame on life, so we think we're talking about the same thing.