Children's Literature Part 20

INTRODUCTORY

The forty-three tales in this section have been chosen (1) in the light of what experience shows children most enjoy, (2) to represent as fully as possible the great variety of our traditional inheritance, (3) to afford an opportunity of calling attention to additional riches in various collections, and (4) to suggest a fair minimum of the amount of such material to be used with children. As in all such questions of judgment, there must inevitably be differences of opinion. Many will doubtless find stories missing that seem necessary even to so small a list, while others will find tales included that may seem questionable.

Such a selection can be, and is intended to be, only tentative, a starting point from which there are many lines of departure.

_Folklore._ These tales are all from the traditional field. They are mainly of anonymous and popular origin, handed down orally by peasants.

The investigation of their origin, distribution, and interrelations belongs to the science of folklore. A good-sized library could be filled entirely with the books concerned with the studies and disputations in this interesting field. While the folklorists have very much of value to tell the teacher, their questions may be largely ignored until the latter is quite fully acquainted with a large body of the acknowledged masterpieces among folk stories, especially those which the schools have taken to themselves as useful in elementary work. Teachers interested in pursuing the matter further--and it is to be hoped there are many such--will find suggestions in the notes at the head of each tale and in the preceding bibliography that may prove serviceable in directing them some little way. Each book will point the student to many others; when he is once started on the road of investigation, there will open up many unexpected and fascinating vistas.

_Objections to fairy tales._ These objections seem to fall as a rule under two main heads. First, there are those who object to any stimulation of the fanciful in children, and who would have us confine ourselves to what they call realities. They would eliminate as far as possible all the imaginings of children. The make-believe world so dear to infancy has no place in their creed. Second, there are those who doubt the moral tendency of all fairy tales. They observe that many of these tales come to us from a cruder and coa.r.s.er social state than our own, that they contain elements of a superst.i.tious and animistic past, that they often deal with cruelties and horrors, trickeries and disloyalties, that they are full of romantic improbabilities and impossibilities. It may as well be admitted at once that the folklore of the world contains many stories to which these and other objections are valid.

_Is there a proper line of defense for fairy tales?_ Dr. Felix Adler, who certainly cannot be accused of being insensible to realities, puts the case thus, as between defenders and objectors: "I venture to think that, as in many other cases, the cause of the quarrel is what logicians call an _undistributed middle_--in other words, that the parties to the dispute have each a different kind of fairy tale in mind. This species of literature can be divided broadly into two cla.s.ses--one consisting of tales which ought to be rejected because they are really harmful, and children ought to be protected from their bad influence, the other of tales which have a most beautiful and elevating effect, and which we cannot possibly afford to leave unutilized." Dr. Adler proceeds to point out that the chief pedagogic values of the latter cla.s.s are (1) that they exercise and cultivate the imagination, and (2) that they stimulate the idealizing tendency.

John Ruskin, another teacher who constantly in his writings throws the emphasis upon the necessity of a true ethical understanding, has this to say about the mischievous habit of trying to remake the fairy story in the service of morals: "And the effect of the endeavor to make stories moral upon the literary merit of the work itself, is as harmful as the motive of the effort is false. For every fairy tale worth recording at all is the remnant of a tradition possessing true historical value;--historical, at least in so far as it has naturally arisen out of the mind of a people under special circ.u.mstances, and arisen not without meaning, nor removed altogether from their sphere of religious faith. It sustains afterwards natural changes from the sincere action of the fear or fancy of successive generations; it takes new color from their manner of life, and new form from their changing moral tempers. As long as these changes are natural and effortless, accidental and inevitable, the story remains essentially true, altering its form, indeed, like a flying cloud, but remaining a sign of the sky; a shadowy image, as truly a part of the great firmament of the human mind as the light of reason which it seems to interrupt. But the fair deceit and innocent error of it cannot be interpreted nor restrained by a wilful purpose, and all additions to it by art do but defile, as the shepherd disturbs the flakes of morning mist with smoke from his fire of dead leaves." Instead of retouching stories "to suit particular tastes, or inculcate favorite doctrines,"

Ruskin would have the child "know his fairy tale accurately, and have perfect joy or awe in the conception of it as if it were real; thus he will always be exercising his power of grasping realities: but a confused, careless, and discrediting tenure of the fiction will lead to as confused and careless reading of fact." Still further, Ruskin defends the vulgarity, or commonness of language, found in many of the tales as "of a wholesome and harmless kind. It is not, for instance, graceful English, to say that a thought 'popped into Catherine's head'; but it nevertheless is far better, as an initiation into literary style, that a child should be told this than that 'a subject attracted Catherine's attention.'"

Finally, we cannot forbear adding one more quotation, from the most delightful of attacks upon the attackers of fairy tales, by Miss Repplier: "That which is vital in literature or tradition, which has survived the obscurity and wreckage of the past, whether as legend, or ballad, or mere nursery rhyme, has survived in right of some intrinsic merit of its own, and will not be snuffed out of existence by any of our precautionary or hygienic measures. . . . Puss in Boots is one long record of triumphant effrontery and deception. An honest and self-respecting lad would have explained to the king that he was not the Marquis of Carabas at all; that he had no desire to profit by his cat's ingenious falsehoods, and no weak ambition to connect himself with the aristocracy. Such a hero would be a credit to our modern schoolrooms, and lift a load of care from the shoulders of our modern critics. Only the children would have none of him, but would turn wistfully back to those brave old tales which are their inheritance from a splendid past, and of which no hand shall rob them." And upon this ultimate fact that in literature the final decision rests with the audience appealed to, the discussion may end.

_How to use fairy stories._ Briefly, the whole matter may be summed up thus: _Know your story perfectly. Don't read it (unless you can't do better). Tell it--with all the graces of voice and action you can command. Tell it naturally and simply, as the folk-tellers did, not with studied and elaborate "elocutionary" effects. Tell it again and again.

If you do it well, the children will not soon tire of it--and they will indicate what you should do next!_

SUGGESTIONS

(Books referred to by authors' name are listed in bibliography.)

The one important full-length discussion for teachers on the whole subject of the fairy tale is Kready's _A Study of Fairy Tales_. It is enthusiastic rather than severely critical, and that adds to its helpfulness. It has exhaustive bibliographies. The Ruskin quotations above are from his introduction to Taylor's _Grimm_; it may be found also in his collected works, in _On the Old Road_. Miss Repplier's "Battle of the Babies" in her _Essays in Miniature_ should be read entire. A thoroughly stimulating article is Brian Hooker's "Narrative and the Fairy Tale," _Bookman_, Vol. x.x.xIII, pp. 389, 501; see also his "Types of Fairy Tales,"

_Forum_, Vol. XL, p. 375. For the scientific phase start with Hartland's _Science of Fairy Tales_. For pedagogy see Adler, MacClintock, McMurry.

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Many English folk tales have doubtless been lost because no one made a serious attempt to collect them until railroads, newspapers, and popular education had greatly changed the life of the English folk and destroyed many of the traditions. For the preservation of many folk tales that we have, English-speaking peoples are indebted to the scholarly antiquarian James Orchard Halliwell (afterwards Halliwell-Phillips, 1820-1889), who in the year 1842 edited a collection of _The Nursery Rhymes of England_ for the Percy Society. He followed it a few years later with _Popular Rhymes and Nursery Tales_. They have long been regarded as the basic books in their field. These two collections were reprinted as _Nursery Rhymes and Tales_. This one-volume edition is the one referred to in the following pages. Halliwell should be remembered as the first person to collect in a scientific way the folk literature of England. He gathered these rhymes and tales from the mouths of the folk, from chapbooks, and from many other sources and endeavored to tell them as they had been told by the folk.

"The Old Woman and Her Pig" is perhaps the most familiar of all nursery stories. It belongs to the type of story known as the "acc.u.mulative,"

of which "The House That Jack Built" is the purest model. In such a story there is a constant repet.i.tion of the plot, with an addition or slight change at each repet.i.tion, until at the end there is a quick unwinding which carries us back to the initial situation and solves the difficulty with which the story started. Halliwell gives two versions of this particular story. It is so widespread that many slight variations would be expected in successful retellings of it. The traditional version which follows seems to be the favorite with primary teachers. It introduces at the sixth stage the attractive rhyme "I see by the moonlight, etc.," which originally formed part of another nursery tale.

THE OLD WOMAN AND HER PIG

Once upon a time, an old woman was sweeping her little house, when, to her great joy, she found a silver sixpence.

"What," said she, "shall I do with this little sixpence? I think I will go to market and buy a pig." So the next day, she went to market, and bought a nice little white pig. She tied a string to one of the pig's legs, and began to drive him home.

On the way, the old woman and her pig came to a stile, and she said,--

"Please, pig, get over the stile."

But the pig would not.

Just then a little dog came trotting up, and the old woman said to him,--

"Dog, dog, bite pig; Pig won't get over the stile, And I sha'n't get home to-night."

But the dog would not.

So the old woman held up her stick, and said,--

"Stick, stick, beat dog; Dog won't bite pig; Pig won't get over the stile, And I sha'n't get home to-night."

But the stick would not.

So the old woman gathered some bits of wood together to make a fire, and set them on fire, and then threw her stick into the fire, and said,--

"Fire, fire, burn stick; Stick won't beat dog; Dog won't bite pig; Pig won't get over the stile, And I sha'n't get home to-night."

But the fire would not.

So the old woman fetched a pail of water that was standing near, and said,--

"Water, water, quench fire; Fire won't burn stick; Stick won't beat dog; Dog won't bite pig; Pig won't get over the stile, And I sha'n't get home to-night."

But the water would not.

Then the old woman saw an ox coming; so she said,--

"Ox, ox, drink water; Water won't quench fire; Fire won't burn stick; Stick won't beat dog; Dog won't bite pig; Pig won't go.

I see by the moonlight, It's long past midnight; Time pig and I were home an hour and a half ago."

But the ox would not.

So the old woman turned round, and saw a butcher, and she said,--

"Butcher, butcher, kill ox; Ox won't drink water; Water won't quench fire; Fire won't burn stick; Stick won't beat dog; Dog won't bite pig; Pig won't go.

I see by the moonlight, It's long past midnight; Time pig and I were home an hour and a half ago."

But the butcher would not.

So the old woman took a rope out of her pocket, and said,--

"Rope, rope, hang butcher; Butcher won't kill ox; Ox won't drink water; Water won't quench fire; Fire won't burn stick; Stick won't beat dog; Dog won't bite pig; Pig won't go.

I see by the moonlight, It's long past midnight; Time pig and I were home an hour and a half ago."

But the rope would not.

Just then a large brown mouse ran across the meadow, and she said,--

"Mouse, mouse, gnaw rope; Rope won't hang butcher; Butcher won't kill ox; Ox won't drink water; Water won't quench fire; Fire won't burn stick; Stick won't beat dog; Dog won't bite pig; Pig won't go.

I see by the moonlight, It's long past midnight; Time pig and I were home an hour and a half ago."

"Yes," said the mouse, "I will if you will give me some cheese."

So the old woman put her hand in her pocket, and found a nice piece of cheese; and when the mouse had eaten it,

The mouse began to gnaw the rope, The rope began to hang the butcher, The butcher began to kill the ox, The ox began to drink the water, The water began to quench the fire, The fire began to burn the stick, The stick began to beat the dog, The dog began to bite the pig, And the pig began to go.

But what time the old woman and her pig got home, you, nor I, nor n.o.body knows.