Who needs to think?

Once upon a time, a youth was sent to make his fortune. It was past time, for he had reached the age of independence. His mother wrapped in a napkin two braided loaves of bread, a wheel of cheese, and a pot of butter. His father gave him his own set of wood-working tools wrapped in a leather roll. They told him to walk until he found a green valley with straight trees for they lived on the mountain where the wind twisted the trees into odd shapes and thus everything was a little wobbly.

The youth walked until he came to a ridge where he could see the world spread before him on every side. He gazed at the horizon but he felt lost and could not chose his way. So he closed his eyes, turned in a circle three times to the sun, two times to the moon, and three times to the stars and opened  his eyes. The path suddenly before him wound up and down stony mountains, and he hoped it would lead to a green valley with straight trees.

He walked for days and days until his bread and cheese and butter was gone and all he had left to eat were the nuts and berries he picked as he walked. To pass the evenings when he sat alone by a small fire, he carved two life-like figures: a deer from oak and a horse from chestnut.

He walked and walked, and one day he could not find any more nuts or berries. They were gone, and the wind blew cold

The path he followed angled down through the forest, and, as he turned a twist in the path, he saw propped against a tree a poppet of a doll. “How odd,” he thought as he drew even with the tree. He picked up the poppet which was heavier than it appeared and tucked it in his knapsack. He did not tuck the entire poppet in the dark sack with his carvings, but he left her head peaking out. Maybe he would find her mistress further down the path.

He walked all day, stopping to drink from a rushing stream so his stomach would not feel so empty. The night gloamed between the trees and he came upon a hunter’s hut. By now he was very hungry and quite cold. He knocked on the door and, when no one answered, lifted the latch and entered. He saw dried wood stacked neatly by the stove and started a fire which smelled sweetly of cinnamon and apple wood. He found some hard sausage and started roasting it on the fire grate when the door flew open and a huge man walked in. Two dead rabbits swung from his hands and a scowl was on his face.

“Who are you?”

“I am just a woodcarver travelling through these woods and very hungry.”

“Who said you could eat my food and burn my wood?”

No one, but I will give you this as compensation.” The woodcarver reached in his sack and pulled out the exquisitely carved deer, which looked like it wanted to bound away. The hunter turned it over in his huge hands and smiled. He stood the deer on the oaken table. The carver took the rabbits, skinned them, and made a savory stew while the hunter put up his feet and ate slices of the hot sausage. They made a merry meal with fresh bread which the hunter had baked that morning and tart cider which the hunter pressed from forest apples.

The next morning, the hunter gave the woodcarver an entire load of bread, a bag of dried fruit, and a whole sausage. As the woodcarver opened his sack, the hunter saw the poppet and shuddered.

“Where did you find that?”

“In the forest.”

“You must return it, but the way will not be easy. You must cross the bridge of glass, pass through the iron wood, and find the witch’s house. It is her poppet.”

The carver set out on the path and walked quickly, looking straight. The poppet seemed to get heavier with each step, but he could not be sure.

At last he came to a chasm, deep and dark. The sun struck bright reflections off the air, and he realized he had come to the bridge of glass. He peaked over the edge, and the chasm seemed to have no bottom. He looked across the gulf, but he could not be sure where the bridge stopped and the air began. He sat down, his head hanging between his knees. The poppet tipped headlong from his sack and fell in the grit and dirt of the path. He picked her up and brushed the sand from her skirt. The wind flung the sand over the edge except where the bridge was. Now he could see the first few steps of the bridge. He picked up handfuls of sand and threw the sand until he could see the entire length of the bridge. He tucked the poppet safely in his sack and crossed the bridge whistling, but he kept his eyes straight ahead and did not look down.

He walked and walked until he came to a green meadow. The trees ahead were dense and black. When he approached nearer, he saw that the trunks and branches were studded with iron thorns. He paced along the edge of the wood but could find no path through the iron wood. He sat down, his head hanging between his knees. The poppet tipped headlong from his sack but this time her yarn hair was dripping wet. He gathered the yarn into his hand and wrung out the water. He flicked the drops from his hands at the iron trees, and, right before his eyes, the thorns rusted and dropped off, leaving smooth trunks and branches and revealing a path. He tucked the poppet back into his sack, took out his water flask as a precaution, and walked straight.

He walked and walked until at last he came to a small house made of bones and antlers. It had a crooked chimney and a garden of weeds and stunted trees. He walked to the door and rapped on the crooked door frame. The door sprang back. There stood the witch, taller than he. She had a nose crooked and hooked and teeth filed into points.

“What do you want?”

“The hunter told me to bring you this.” The woodcarver held out the poppet which seemed to get heavier in his hands.

She snatched the poppet from him and set it up on a high, high shelf near the peak of the roof in the darkest corner.

“Did he? Well, he is not as ignorant as I thought. I suppose I must thank you for returning what is mine. Here. Sit. Eat.”

The woodcarver came in and sat at the table on the chair. She set before him a wooden bowl full of a thick stew and a tankard of spiced wine. He looked at the poppet and suddenly did not feel hungry. The witch sat at the other end of the long table, and, since he did not want to appear rude, he slyly fed the stew to the brindled cat under the table. He only wet his lips with the wine for he was not thirsty either despite his long walk.

“It is time for bed,” announced the witch. There was only one bed, and she made him lay against the wall. But first she made him take off all his clothes, but he refused to take off the long white linen shirt his mother had woven and sewn and embroidered for him. The shirt was so long it reached to his knees, and he tucked it tight around him. The brindled cat twisted around his ankles and curled into a warm ball. He stared at the poppet on the dark shelf and pretended to fall asleep. When the witch climbed into bed after dropping her clothes on the floor, he lay as still as if he were dead. After a long while of tussling and pulling, she fell asleep.

Just before dawn, he sat up exhausted. The witch snored on, but the brindled cat was stone cold.

He crept out of bed, gathered up his folded clothes, picked up his sack and softly, softly opened the door. The woodcarver looked back at the poppet, and the dawn light touched her face. From his sack, he took a sharp ax and went back inside. He lifted the ax and cut off the witch’s head. The poppet fell from the high, high shelf right into the pool of blood, and suddenly there stood a lovely woman. They looked at each other, their eyes on level.

She smiled. “This witch changed me into a doll, because she hated how all my mother’s trees grew straight in our family’s valley. Ever since then, the witch has dragged me everywhere. Not long ago she left me behind when she was picking nightshade in the dark of the moon. Sometimes even a witch cannot find what she has lost. You were the first person who bothered to pick me up.”

The woodcarver did not know where to look.

“Give me your horse carving.” He pulled the carving from his sack.

She went outside and set the carving on the ground. She tapped it with the witch’s wand, and suddenly there stood a tall horse. The horse looked at the wood carver with a question, and he blushed. The horse looked at the woman with an answer, and she nodded.

The woman grabbed a handful of chestnut mane and sprang onto the horse’s wide back. She gazed down into the woodcarver’s hopeful eyes and reached out her hand. He gently took it into his own calloused one, and then he sprang up behind her with his knapsack slung over his right shoulder.

She gave the horse his will, and they rode across the morning.

You would think this a simple question, but I have looked in several books about fairy tales and not found a clear direct definition.

The 2nd edition of The Harper Handbook to Literature (1997) which I saved from my graduate student days has a most unhelpful definition. It does not even mention any protagonist but only the villains. Then it goes on to list collectors, editors, authors of fairy tales.

In his book The Great Fairy Tale Tradition, Jack Zipes does not offer a straightforward definition either. He talks about how the literary fairy tale emerged as a separate literary art form in seventeenth-century France from the oral tradition of wonder tales. He writes, “All the early writers of fairy tales borrowed from other literary and oral tales, and thus their narratives can be regarded as retellings that adapt the motifs, themes, and characters to fit their tastes and the expectations of the audiences for which they are writing” (xii).

Max Lüthi, an early 20th century Swiss folklorist, described fairy tales in his book Once Upon a Time: On the Nature of Fairy Tales by examining a series of famous stories. The English word “fairy tales” translated the German one “Märchen.” He says that the fairy tale should not be taken literally but interpreted symbolically so that the actors (Proppian term) and the motifs should be understood as representations of larger themes and questions of the human experience, the human soul, and the human interaction/confrontation with the world.

In her book Once Upon a Time: A Short History of Fairy Tale (2014), Marina Warner spends several pages describing  the genre:

• it is a short narrative of a page or a long novel
• it seems familiar and connects to other similar narratives
• it shows some allegiance to the past
• it seems to have some connection to oral tradition or story-telling
• it uses symbolic language or motifs to suggest larger issues of the soul or morality or human development
• it contains acts of imagination or creation
• it seems to have a flat surface which allows multiple interpretations

But she does not give a straightforward definition.

In her book, The Classic Fairy Tales, Maria Tatar says the fairy tale is a narrative of transformation. I don’t have the book right in front of me, but that is what I remember from my perusal of it last night.

In his 1905 edition Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know, Hamilton Wright Mabie finally gives a simple definition:  “The fairy tale is a poetic recording of the facts of life, an interpretation by the imagination of its hard conditions, an effort to reconcile the spirit which loves freedom and goodness and beauty with its harsh, bare and disappointing conditions. It is, in its earliest form, a spontaneous and instinctive endeavor to shape the facts of the world to meet the needs of the imagination, the cravings of the heart. It involves a free, poetic dealing with realities in accordance with the law of mental growth; it is the naïve activity of the young imagination of the race, untrammelled by the necessity of rigid adherence to the fact” (Introduction).

It is fascinating that the simplest definition of “fairy tale” as a genre comes from the earliest source. What does that say about how in the late 20th and early 21st century we have destabilized and undermined and caveat-ed any definition so it cannot be authoritative.

But wait! The New Oxford American Dictionary (2001) does provide a definition of “fairy tale.” How could I forget about the dictionary?

In conclusion, I don’t feel too badly that I could not come up with a comprehensive, sweeping definition of “fairy tale” for my seniors, who were asking under the pressure of having to write an original fairy tale or retell an old fairy tale.We did agree on a series of descriptors:

• it contains a constellation of motifs common to fairy tales (think Stith Thompson’s motif index)
• it contains at least one magical element or event
• characters who are somewhat abstract and can represent virtually anyone
• narrative contains a conflict or challenge
• uses the language or phrases of fairy tales (godmother, witch, dragon, etc)
• repetition of threes
• set in the past or a faraway place or a non-named contemporary place

I will say that in my quest to find a definition, I was reminded of some German terms which might be useful to introduce:

Kunstmärchen or literary fairy tale

Volksmärchen or oral folk tale

Zaubermärchen or wonder tale

German is such a wonderful language to be able to create compound words to capture shades of meaning. And given that the Grimm Brothers were two of the earliest and most influential creators / editors / collectors of fairy tales, it is quite appropriate.