Reading Fairy Tales: Where to Start

I know as many of you know if you've been here a while or even if you've just been here longer than five minutes I love fairy tales and I run a series of videos on this channel called fairy tales den where I take the history of a fairy tale and tell you all about it how its evolved over time how it's different to the modern-day versions that we are used to hearing the dark side of fairy tales so today I'm going to take you to the dark side because this is a video but a lot of users being requesting you would like to know where to start with reading fairy tales not fairy tale retellings but the original fairy tales I use the terms original very loosely because obviously they have changed and been passed down and told by lots of different people there are so many fairy tales tellers that I could point you in the direction of and so many fairy tales that we could talk about so bear in mind I'm going to have to be quite selective in this video the most famous that fairy tales in the Western world are the Brothers Grimm the Brothers Grimm were very very revisionist which means that they changed their stories over time their first edition of their fairy tales were published in 1812 and 1815 in two volumes but then they changed them in all of them the decades that followed so if you would like to know the original tales ie the most gory then you need this Edition here which is edited and translated by Jack cites that came out a couple of years ago this is the only English translation of the original German tale the other translations tend to be as the 1840 editions these are of the 1812 in 1815 so always definitely recommend this one it also got some beautiful cut out illustrations inside if you're not bothered about knowing the originals health and I'd recommend this one which is a collection that was allocated and put together by Philip Pullman here he retells 50 as his favorite Brothers Grimm fairy tale but after each one of the paragraph listing which other fairy tales that one is similar to and also listing the fairy tale types because you can catalog fairy tales based on the messages inside them and the tropes that they contain a publisher recommendation for you and recommend oxford university press about boxes or classics have several editions of fairy tales this one is their hands Christian Andersen one and they're really good another publishers that I would recommend you check out as the permanent collection library because they have lots of these little editions of fairy tales which are really really lovely they've got gilt-edged this one is best fairytales of the world this one is English fairy tales and then we also have another canvassing hands in one hand Christian sinner's best fairy tales if you would like to understand the historical importance of fairy tales and why we tell them there are three people that you need to keep your eye on Kate Bernheim Oh she runs the fairy tale review which I will link in the description box down below Jack cites a marine and one an hour jet sex is a person who translated and edited that edition of the Brothers Grimm that I showed you first and this is one of his non-fiction books on fairy tales called the irresistible fairy tale the cultural and social history of a genre it is one of those must read books when it comes to fairy tales or contextualize a lot of things for you marina Warner's little book called Once Upon a Time is also a great mini history of fairy tales i also recommend her other nonfiction this is one of them here which is called from beast to the blonde on fairy tales and their tellers and this focuses on the importance of women in the fairy tales and women who told fairy tales women he was often beautiful got and in history who played a very large part in molding the stories that we know today carrying on in the nonfiction vein if you would like to learn more about a specific elements of a fairy tale and animal that's repeated in lots of different stories that you know then these three might be interesting the South Lawn is mermaids and myths legends and nor by sky alexander and business published by adams media and it's part of the great series some book on vampires someone's dragons etc and looks at how those mythological creatures appear in different cultures and is different tales another great one to pick up is Sarah Maitland gossip from the forest this is an exploration of the importance of forests in western fairy tale so if there are camps in different forests with her son in different seasons and she explains where she is describes her surroundings and talked about historical importance of the location that she happens to be staying in at the end of every chapter shiri tells a tale that has a florist at its center if you want to know more about fairies I recommend this book here which is troublesome things by Diane Perkins this looks at fairies both are sweet innocent things and also is changelings and child Snatchers and how fairies have been used to explain different phenomena in different cultures across the centuries writing out away from fairy tales that you're quite possibly familiar with I'd recommend picking up Angela Carter's book of fairy tales emissions collective fairy tales from all around the world and I think it's a great starting point to look at fairy tales from other cultures to decide which countries you would like to know more about which cultures you would like to read more from for instance when I read this I particularly it was interested in the West African and also any work sorry tale but have since gone on to find out more about those separately I've got lots from different countries for instance this one which is on the fairy tales of your way and this one which is very tales from Japan another press that I will particularly recommend is korra book a lot of their books focus on fairy tales and folklore in india such as this one here which is sun and the moon folk tales by various artists I did a video actually hauling a lot of their book following that up here and also down below but it's definitely worth checking out their catalogue I'll link their website in the description box fairy tales aren't just stories that have been knocking around for ages that we all think we know that sometimes fairy tales become lost so you would like to read some more obscure ones that have recently been discovered that I'd recommend these two collections here the first one is this one called determent princess and other newly discovered fairy tales by Franz Xavier's Wang Xuan worth this is a German collection that was pulled together in the 1850s but was thought to be lost until it was discovered a few years ago and published by Penguin Books another one that was recently discovered as this one here which is published so beautifully by Penguin Classics there's also an Edition that looks like this they're penguins black classics but this is their cost round one and this is tales of the marvelous and use of the strange it says saving at least and millennia ago this is the earliest known collection of Arabic stories surviving in a single ragged manuscript in a library in Istanbul some found their way into the Arabian Nights but most have never been read in English before that as monsters lost princes jewels beyond price the princess turned into a gazelle sword wielding statues and shocking reversals of fortune before I go in case you're after a recommendation for a book of fairy tales that is extremely beautiful and will be a lovely gift I have two recommendations for you the first one is this one here called celtic tales fairy tales and stories of enchantment from island scotland brittany in wales this is illustrated by Kate Forrester it has plates inside that like this and then finally the last book I have to show you is this one here which is one I've shown on my channel many times before and it's a fairy tale princess seven classic stories from enchanted forest by soon Blackwell's because it doesn't get much more beautiful than that so those are the books that I wanted to recommend to you today I'm also going to leave some links in the description box down below with online resources in case you would like to check those out as well and all the books as I said will be linked in the description box too I hope this is helpful and serves as inspiration for places you might want to go to to need more about fairy tales let me know in the comment section down below what your favorite fairy tale is or what fairy tales you're curious to know more about I'll be back soon and I will be uploading more episodes as fairy tales with Jen in the not-too-distant future I hope you guys have a great week let's fish up [Music]

Channel: Jen Campbell

Views: 23,790

Rating: 4.9862261 out of 5

Keywords: fairy tale, folklore, fairy stories, brothers grimm, hans christian andersen

Id: 9YhBCcnHPJA

Length: 7min 40sec (460 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 14 2017