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Little
Red Riding Hood:
What
is the origin of the Little Red Riding Hood tale?
According
to fairy tale scholars Iona and Peter Opie, authors of The
Classic Fairy Tales, ".the earliest datable version of
the Little Red Riding Hood story anywhere in the world occurs
in Perrault's 1695 manuscript of Histories or Tales of
Past Times, published in French in 1697.
The first
English version was published in A Pretty Book for Children;
or, An Easy Guide to the English Tongue circa 1744.
Where
can I find out more information about the tale?
As mentioned
The Classic Fairy Tales by Iona and Peter Opie, published
in various editions by Oxford University Press, is an excellent
place to start learning more about the history of the Cinderella
tale and how it came into English folklore. The tale is also
discussed in many other sources which can be accessed from
your local public or school library by using the subject heading
Fairy Tales - History and Criticism.
Jack
and the Beanstalk:
Who
is the author of this tale?
No one
knows. Jack Zipes in The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales
classifies the story of 'Jack the Giant Killer/Jack and the
Beanstalk' as a "Wonder Tale" which grew out of the oral tradition.
Iona and Peter Opie, authors of The Classic Fairy Tales,
quote Sir Francis Plagrave, who once wrote, ".Jack, commonly
called the Giant Killer, landed in England from the very same
keels and warships which conveyed Hengist and Horsa, and Ebba
the Saxon," in other words, the tale was brought to England
by conquering Norsemen.
The Opies
go on to state that the earliest known written version of
the tale was titled The History of Jack and the Giants
and was printed by J. White of Newcastle in 1711. Tales of
'Jack the Giant Killer' do not contain the beanstalk storyline
familiar to modern readers. These older versions reflect the
medieval belief that Giants were real and lived among men
on earth-no magic beanstalk was needed to encounter them.
You can read The History of Jack and the Giants in the Opies'
book The Classic Fairy Tales ( Oxford University Press, 1974)
When
did Jack the Giant Killer become Jack and the Beanstalk?
Many fairy
tales in their original forms contained bawdy, sometimes erotic
passages, as well as cruelty and violence. For a while they
were out of favor as children's stories. In the early to mid
19th century, however, many of the tales were rewritten to
eliminate these unacceptable descriptions (See Zipes, When
Dreams Came True: Classic Fairy Tales and Their Tradition,
Routledge, 1999). In the case of the Jack tale, Zipes writes
in The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales (Oxford University
Press, 2000), ".[the] gory killings disappeared, King Arthur
faded away, Jack became an earthly Everyboy and the Giant
a geographically unlocalizable married oaf, reachable only
by the magic of a bean that grew endlessly heavenward." An
early version of this tale was published as a Chapbook in
1820 by Francis Orr and Sons in Glasgow.
Where
can I find out more information about the tale?
As mentioned
The Classic Fairy Tales by Iona and Peter Opie, published
in various editions by Oxford University Press, is an excellent
place to start learning more about the history of the Cinderella
tale and how it came into English folklore. The tale is also
discussed in many other sources which can be accessed from
your local public or school library by using the subject heading
Fairy Tales - History and Criticism.
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