Permit me to introduce myself, my name is Arthur Nonimus. For quite a few years I have been a story teller, following in the footsteps of a tradition thousands of years old. Since before there was writing to record history, since before anyone can remember story tellers have provided the story that have not only entertained but also been used to understand the world. Throughout history the story tellers can be broken into two classes, the religious class and the entertainer class (I count myself to be in latter). The religious class may be considered the shaman and elders who held the knowledge of the gods and knew what should be done and when. They provided the stories and myths that allowed the people to understand the world around them, to worship the gods and keep their favour and to follow the rules of civilised society. The entertainer class on the other hand were everyone else from grandparents telling cautionary tales to the young children of the village through adults discussing what we now call 'Urban Legends', to the travelling barber surgeon who would carry with them their stock and store of myths, legends and tales to be recounted for a small fee. Personally I am more like the barber surgeon than anything, I will tell my stories to anyone who will listen.
Yet when the subject of my tales comes into conversation, fairy tales and legends, many people expect to be bored and listen only out of courtesy. However more often than not people are left sitting enthralled for the half hour of the story and ask for an encore. So why would they be so reluctant to hear the story but then so entertained by it? Certainly the skill of the story teller comes into it, a bad tale told well will entertain and a good tale told badly will bore, but this is only the beginning. Fairy tales as we understand them today are only the latest guise of a medium that has transformed itself thousands of times throughout hundreds of cultures the world over. Yet we fail to realise that this everlasting medium has once again transformed itself into a newer form for our culture. Disney animated movies, Dreamworks and Pixar Animation Studios, Live action movies, theatre productions, TV and internet, computer games, well the list is truly endless. Just as pervasive as any Shakespearian sonnet, fairy tales shape and sculpt our view of the world. Imagine the world without the tales of the brothers Grimm like Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella. Without such tales the cultural references of 'fairy godmother', 'wicked stepmother' and 'white knight' (although the last one could have come from the Arthurian legend, maybe) would not exist. Or imagine if the tales of Jack and the Bean Stalk, Little Red Riding Hood or even Beauty and the Beast did not exist. In fact fairy tales can bridge cultures unlike just about anything else. For example The world’s most famous fairy tale Beauty and the Beast is not just a French fairy tale written for children in the 1700's, variations of the tale can be found across the globe and have even been found as far back as ancient Babylon. These references to fairy tales have found their way into books, films, TV shows, magazines, games and internet articles. From romantic chick flicks that reinvent the classic fairy tales of Beauty and the Beast, Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, through horror movies that retell the cautionary tales of Hansel and Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood to action and adventure flicks that reflect elements of the Soldier and Death and the Corpse Bride, fairy tales have morphed themselves like they have always done to accommodate a new audience.
For thousands of years fairy tales took the guise of legends and myths, used as a tool to instruct as well as entertain. For each new audience the tale would morph slightly, for each new listener the adventure would play out anew. Over time the stories grew different in their characters and locations but their heart, that which made them worth listening to, that which made them true to the audience remained intact. It was only during the revolution of the 16 and 1700's when fairy tales were recorded for the first time did they begin to age. Once captured on paper a tale cannot change, and so as the world progressed they did not, bound in black and white shackles. Soon as the world entered the industrial revolution and the king and country aesthetic that these tales embodied was slowly lost to the city worker, more and more people began to see these tales as irrelevant and even childish. As if they were looking to a time, place and people that no longer existed. Soon these tales became relegated to the domain of children’s literature, for only children have the time to dream of such things. Yet even this did not forestall the indomitable spirit of these tales. Fairy tales continued to evolve, as new writers came along each one would put a new spin on an old tale. As theatre productions were written for the emerging middle class writers often found inspiration in the pages of these books, a spark planted years earlier in youth. As the twentieth century dawned and motion pictures were evolving fairy tales once again provided the raw framework for intricate stories committed to celluloid. As a fledgling company entered the market of full length pictures it opened the door for another medium for fairy tales to live on in, animated pictures. Disney has re-worked many fairy tales, and even given us some new ones, for a more conservative and at the same time liberal audience. Fairy tales have even held their stock and trade in the spoken medium in the form of urban legends. A classic one is of the man who had a fight with a utility company over a bill of $0.00, who finally wrote a check for that amount to the utility only to have the banks systems fail when the check is processed. The utility is then ordered to pay compensation and fix their system.
Fairy tales, far from being the long dead children’s tales we grew up with, are alive and well. It is my intent here to chart the history of fairy tales and to give a window into what this unstoppable medium is doing now and where it is going in the future.
The story has only just begun......
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