In this episode, Geoff and Katrina talk about the social historical interpretations for fairy tales. Using the essay Fairies and Hard Facts: The Reality of Folktales by Eugen Weber, we move from talking about fairy tales using the psychoanalytic approach to using historical perspectives to find out when forest might simply be a forest and when famine makes monsters of mothers. Katrina starts off by retelling The Children of Famine before Geoff retells the tale of The Three Journeymen. Finally Katrina retells Eve’s Unequal Children to discuss how while these tales might not sit well with modern audiences, they might have rang true to the tellers when they were circulating around the hearth.

Stories Told:

The Children of Famine by Brothers Grimm

The Three Journeymen by Brothers Grimm

Eve’s Unequal Children by Brothers Grimm

Books and Essays Cited:

The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm Translated by Jack Zipes

Teaching Fairy Tales Edited by Nancy L. Canepa

Fairies and Hard Facts: The Reality of Folktales essay by Eugen Weber

Mules and Men by Zora Neale Hurston

The Great Cat Massacre: And Other Episodes in French Cultural History by Robert Darnton

In this episode, Geoff and Katrina dive back into Little Red Riding Hood variants in other parts of the world. ATU 123 and ATU 333 can be found in China, Korea, Japan, and the African Diaspora. But while Bruno Bettelheim and others want to talk a big game about the wolf being a representation of the dangers of sexuality, what can we glean from a shapeshifting tiger/old woman, a yokai, and ...a rabbit? Find out as we have a fun time retelling these tales to explain how some "universals" might not be so universal.

Stories Told:

Grandaunt Tiger found in Little Red Riding Hood: A Casebook pg 23 Essay by Wolfram Eberhard

The Golden Chain from Heaven found in Folktales of Japan by Keigo Seki

Cutta Cord-la found in Afro-American Folktales: Stories from Black Tradition in the New World by Roger D Abrahams

Books and Essays Cited:

Little Red Riding Hood: A Casebook Edited by Alan Dundes

The Story of Grandaunt Tiger essay by Wolfram Eberhard

The Uses of Enchantment by Bruno Bettelheim

In this episode, Katrina and Geoff use what we've covered in episodes #126 and #128 to examine one of the most famous fairy tales of all time, Little Red Riding Hood. First, Katrina retells the tale from Charles Perrault and then goes into the Brothers Grimm. But she tells their ATU 123 tale, The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids before Geoff retells the classic Brothers Grimm ATU 333 tale, Little Red Cap. As we look at all of these fairly short stories, we're ready to dive into research from Little Red Riding Hood: A Casebook by Alan Dundes, where he examines the history of the psychoanalysis done on this tale starting with Freud, himself. But most importantly, Dundes discusses the flaws in only looking at the Brothers Grimm or Perrault's versions when forming an analysis.