Cap O'Rushes

This material is designed to be presented to students along with recommended fairy tales for analysis. After the students have internalized the motif structure they are able to write their own original literary fairy tales using the traditional motifs. Finished stories can be bound as an anthology or individually bound and illustrated as picture books. The material is presented in outline form, first with notes for the teacher, and next without notes in a form which can be duplicated for students. It is also possible to give students and empty outline form to fill in which would add the teaching of the outline form itself to the lesson.

Preparation:Discuss the oral nature of fairy tales. Until the Grimm Brothers in Germany made a project of collecting the folk stories of their country, fairy tales existed only in the memories of local storytellers. Part of the nationalistic and romantic movement of the nineteenth century included the preserving of folklore, specifically fairy tales. Jacobs in England, Perrault in France, Asbjorsen and Moe in Scandinavia all collected the stories of their countries, but the Grimm Brothers made the most influential contribution to the body of literature known as fairy tales. I recommend getting a complete collection of Grimm tales for this project. In any complete Grimm the stories are numbered and are always the same whereas the titles may be translated differently.

Fairy tales were the entertainment of the people in the Middle Ages, a time when life has been called "nasty, brutish and short". Some discussion of the quality of life in the Middle Ages would help set the scene for the project.

Note: This material was developed for use with children from notes from an excellent course I took many years ago at the Harvard Extension School, given by folklore expert David Bynum.

I. Character Motifs(This is based on what the character DOES in the story. The character can change but rarely does. Characters in fairy tales are stereotypes, that is they are patterns rather than fully developed persons. One prince is the same as another. In fact the essence of the fairy tale is predictable pattern, or motif, where the predictability is comforting but the details of plot and particulars make it interesting. There are seven character types in fairy tales. A story may not have all seven, but every character in the story may be classified as one of these types.

A. Elder

1. Usually a king or a father

2. Stationary (Stays home.The hero does the adventuring)

3. Sometimes disabled (Can be sick, impoverished, or have a rotten kid)

B. Hero (Male or Female)

1. Person who gets the most out of the story (This is the most difficult concept to get across. Kids will argue that Cinderella is not heroic, she is weak, but when asked who is better off at the end of the story than at the beginning, the answer is clearly Cinderella.)

2. Moves, often vertically (This is meant very literally. The hero is the one who climbs glass mountains, goes down into wells and caverns, etc.)

C. True Love (Male or Female)

1. Object of hero's affections

2. Hero often does battle for his/her True Love

D. Villain (Evil deeds can be done before the story opens, as in Frog Prince, Beauty and the Beast, etc.)

1. Opposes hero

2. Force of evil (can be a traditionally evil creature such as a witch, giant, gnome, etc.)

E. Helper

1. Often a powerful, magical person (Cinderella's Fairy Godmother)

2. Gives advice or a valuable gift to the hero (Manniken, Grimm #91)

3. Often tests the hero (and others - Manniken, Grimm; Old man in the Fool of the World and the Flying Ship, a Russian story. See Remarkable Servants page for bibliographic information.

F. Friend (Sometimes difficult to say if character is helper or friend, such as the Woodsman in Snow White. The important thing is for the student to use reasons that fit this outline in determining where to classify the character)

1. Friend or companion of the hero, often of lower social class, a servant

2. Binding/unbinding relationship with the hero (Again, very literal. Snow White is freed by the dwarves from the comb which binds her hair and the girdle which is laced too tight.)

G. Messenger

1. Brings news (Messenger in Rumplestilskin, also the Mirror in Snow White, which while not human, behaves like a character)

(Read Frog Prince (Grimm #1) and chart the characters. Rather than trying to fill in every slot in the chart, students should list the characters in the story, then put them where they belong. Henry is an excellent example of the binding/unbinding relationship with the hero.

Other good stories to chart are Cinderella, Snow White, Hansel & Gretel, Sleeping Beauty. To save time, these can be plotted from students' memory however one does run into contamination from Walt Disney. To save argument I usually accept those silly mice as friends in Cinderella.)

II. Place Motifs (These are less definite than characters because places are not always discreet)

A. Home (The hero's home. Mention Home Adventure Home pattern- good example Where the Wilds Things Are by Sendak)

1. An ordinary place, not magical

2. Often the starting or ending place of the story

B. Paradise

1. Where the hero gets his/her heart's desire

2. Often a monster here to overcome first (For example, in Hansel and Gretel, to hungry children the gingerbread house is paradise, but they must first overcome the witch)

C. Bad Place

1. Escape desired (The oven in Hansel & Gretel)

D. Limbo (very often a forest - very Germanic and Romantic)

1. Seems dangerous, but isn't

2. Shadowy, mysterious

3.Transitions occur, deals are made (Hansel and Gretel are frightened in the forest, but they are not in danger there. Cinderella is transformed in the garden)

III Motifs of Objects (Good stories to use: Molly Whuppie (Jacobs) or The Nixie in the Pond (Grimm #181). The fun of looking at objects is to discern the pattern. In cases like the Nixie the pattern is absolutely elegant.)

A. Objects in groups usually make a pattern. Patterns can be of:

1. Size - Increasing or decreasing (Molly: sword, purse, ring. also in proximity to the giant)

2. Material (Everything is gold, for example, as in Nixie; comb/head, flute/ torso, spinning wheel/ whole body)

3. Power (each object has some kind of magical or symbolic power. In Molly the sword could be seen as force, the purse, wealth, the ring, authority. Since Molly calls the giant's house "Spain" the story could refer to England's conflict with Spain and Molly (Elizabeth I?) outwits the giant and takes his treasures. Just a hypothesis)

B. Ordinary objects with magical powers such as objects of:

1. Transportation (seven league boots, horseless saddle, traveling cloak Grimm #122)

2. Weapons ("All heads off but mine" Grimm #92)

3. Supply "Table be set" Grimm #36, bottomless purses)

4. Medicine (elixir, a medicine that restore life, Snake's Three Leaves, Grimm #16)

C. Objects that serve a special function in the story

1. Token of Recognition - by which the hero/true love recognize each other (Cinderella's slipper)

a. Often has some relationship to water or liquid (ring in cup Bearskin, Grimm #101, also ring in gruel, Cap O'Rushes, Jacobs)

IV. Motifs of Action

A. Actions of the Hero

1. Quest (The Water of Life, Grimm #97)

2. Endurance test (girl can't speak until task done or time is up)

3. Tasks to perform, usually 3, involving

a. food or water

b. wood

c. fire or stone (Drummer Boy Grimm #193, also Jack Tale King Maroc)

B. Means of success for Hero (Remember the Wizard of Oz - brains, heart, courage)

1. Cleverness or wit

2. Virtue

3. Courage and strength

C. Rewards of the Hero (If your class is sophisticated and politically correct, you may get some argument here, but remember that these are worthy rewards in a Medieval world. Job satisfaction is not a medieval concept and status or class change almost impossible. There are beginnings of the middle class in medieval times as is shown in some stories that contain a rich miller, for example. An interesting discussion is possible on noble arranged marriages and the fact that princes never marry peasant girls no matter how beautiful. In fact princes rarely get to choose whom they marry. Marriage was a political arrangement, not a romance.)

1. Wealth

2. Love

3. Status

V. Motifs of Style

A. Use of numbers: 3, 7, 12

B. Opening and closing lines ("Once upon a time, ...happily every after" Other cultures have different patterns. See Virginia Tashian's Armenian folk tales "Once there was and was not ...three apples fell from heaven"

C. Chante Fable, the inclusion of a song, change, incantation, etc. in story (This French term may throw the kids but they can come up with any number of chante fable examples like "Mirror mirror on the wall," "I'll huff and I'll puff, etc.")

 

Sources for teachers:

A first Dictionary of Cultural Literacy: What Our Children Need to Know, ed. by E.D. Hirsch Jr. Houghton Mifflin 1989

Cook, Elizabeth. The Ordinary and the Fabulous. Cambridge University Press 1969.

Yolen, Jane. Touch Magic; Faerie and Folklore in the Literature of Childhood. Philomel, 1981.

Student version of the outline:

I. Character Motifs

A. Elder

1. Usually a king or a father

2. Stationary

3. Sometimes disabled

B. Hero (Male or Female)

1. Person who gets the most out of the story

2. Moves, often vertically

C. True Love (Male or Female)

1. Object of hero's affections

2. Hero often does battle for his/her True Love

D. Villain

1. Opposes hero

2. Force of evil

E. Helper

1. Often a powerful, magical person

2. Gives advice or a valuable gift to the hero (

3. Often tests the hero

F. Friend

1. Friend or companion of the hero, often of lower social class, a servant

2. Binding/unbinding relationship with the hero

G. Messenger

1. Brings news

II. Place Motifs

A. Home

1. An ordinary place, not magical

2. Often the starting or ending place of the story

B. Paradise

1. Where the hero gets his/her heart's desire

2. Often a monster here to overcome first

C. Bad Place

1. Escape desired

D. Limbo

1. Seems dangerous, but isn't

2. Shadowy, mysterious

3.Transitions occur, deals are made

III Motifs of Objects

A. Objects in groups usually make a pattern. Patterns can be of:

1. Size - Increasing or decreasing

2. Material

3. Power

B. Ordinary objects with magical powers such as objects of:

1. Transportation

2. Weapons

3. Supply

4. Medicine

C. Objects that serve a special function in the story

1. Token of Recognition - by which the hero/true love recognize each other

a. Often has some relationship to water or liquid

IV. Motifs of Action

A. Actions of the Hero

1. Quest

2. Endurance test

3. Tasks to perform, usually 3, involving

a. food or water

b. wood

c. fire or stone

B. Means of success for Hero

1. Cleverness or wit

2. Virtue

3. Courage and strength

C. Rewards of the Hero

1. Wealth

2. Love

3. Status

V. Motifs of Style

A. Use of numbers: 3, 7, 12

B. Opening and closing lines

C. Chante Fable, the inclusion of a song, change, incantation, etc. in story

CapORushes

If you have questions or comments about any of the material offered here, please email Carole at carole at slattery dot com. .