Folktales

V

Märchen

Fairy tales, or Märchen (the German word preferred by scholars to designate this genre), are fiction. Taking place in a wonderland filled with magic and strange characters, they are believed by neither narrator nor audience. Although the supernatural abounds in Märchen, few of them have to do with fairies (see Fairy and Fairy Tale). Although Märchen deal with a great range of subject matter (as stories such as “Cinderella”, “Snow White”, or “Little Red Riding Hood” demonstrate), a typical plot involves an underdog hero or heroine who is put through great trials or must perform seemingly impossible tasks, and who, with magical assistance, secures his or her birthright or a suitable marriage partner. Frequently, such stories begin “Once upon a time” and end “And they lived happily ever after”. Often (especially in the United States) called “Jack Tales” after the name commonly given to the hero, Märchen have become popular stories for children, although originally adults and children alike enjoyed them.

VI

Overlapping of Forms

Attempts at clear-cut definitions such as those given above for myth, legend, and Märchen may be useful, but must not be taken too literally, for the three forms overlap. Bodies of tales such as those relating the exploits of Hercules or King Arthur are mixtures of myth and legend, hovering between the two forms, frequently using concepts and motifs common to Märchen as well. A major reason for this is that tales are continually shifting function (and so definition) as societies conquer one another, mingle, and change beliefs. A story no longer accepted as religious and explanatory may survive as history or even fancy. On the other hand, legendary heroes and heroines may assume godlike qualities, and their adventures may become encrusted with mythological significance.

The definition of any folktale depends on its function in a society and the way the narrator and the audience think of it at the time of performance. Brer Rabbit stories were recited as part of the mythology of West Africans before Africans were brought as slaves to the American South. In America, however, West African religion was almost obliterated by Christianity, and although African-Americans continued to tell Brer Rabbit stories, these tales no longer functioned mythologically.

VII

Other Folktale Forms

The other forms of folktales are also widespread throughout the world. Animal tales fall into two major categories: those, such as the trickster tale, in which animals are actually believed to have the power of speech and the ability to conduct themselves as humans; and those in which the animals’ human qualities are simply a convention that is accepted during the course of the narrative such as in the medieval beast cycles (for example, the tales of Reynard the Fox), or in the fable, with its moralistic ending. When they are not mythological, animal tales have often been a means to hide political or social satire. Although the point is sometimes disputed, the Brer Rabbit stories may have served a similar function. Certainly the medieval beast cycles were filled with criticism of church and state that would have been dangerous to present directly.

Tall tales, stories that the narrator does not believe but that are supposed to dupe the naive listener, are particularly associated with the US frontier, although variants of such stories were well known in earlier times in Europe and Asia. In the United States, tall tales were presented to the city dweller as true pictures of life out West. They rely for their comic effect on the incongruity between sober narration and fantastic elements in the stories themselves. They feature two protagonists whose character traits are frequently interchangeable: the Roarer, a bragging, swearing, hard-drinking brawler; and the Yankee, a quick-thinking trader who is a rogue beneath a bland exterior. The American frontier scouts Davy Crockett and Mike Fink are two of the most famous characters in American tall tales, but many of these stories do not feature a hero; they simply tell of such phenomena as corn that grows so fast it knocks people down or hoop snakes that roll in pursuit of their prey.

Formula tales include endless stories (a person carrying grains of wheat across a river one at a time); cumulative tales, involving additions to a repeated basic statement (for example, the well-known “House That Jack Built”); and catch stories, with surprise endings that often shift the story from serious to punning or clever. Many formula tales, and a good many tall tales as well, are related to the vast body of jokes and facetious anecdotes that circulate in all societies. This genre comprises a huge range of material—both inoffensive and risqué—from vignettes about numbskulls and fools, sexual encounters, and confusions caused by dialects, to the modern shaggy-dog story.

Another folktale form is the cante fable, a form that has always been more popular in the Caribbean region than in mainland North America. The cante fable is a story, often an animal tale or a Märchen, in which song or rhyme is interspersed into the spoken prose narrative. The Märchen “Jack and the Beanstalk” has such a rhyme: “Fee-fi-fo-fum/I smell the blood of an Englishman”. Where Caribbean influence is strong in the United States, singers may perform songs such as “Frankie and Johnny” or “John Henry” as cante fable, reciting more than they sing.

VIII

The Role of the Folktale

Human beings have always been storytellers. Where they have not had a Bible, history books, novels, or short stories, and before such literary forms were devised, they have entertained themselves, instructed younger generations, and kept their records with the many-faceted folktale.