As a child, we were not told that Little Red Riding Hood ate her own grandmother, and that the Cinderella sisters cut off their legs.
320 years ago in Paris, the book "Tales of Mother Goose, or Stories and Tales of Bygone Times with Moral Teachings" with nine tales, which were destined to gain world fame, was published. The author was Pierre d'HARMANQUOURT. Charles PERROT was hiding under this name.
The writer was one of the first to undertake the processing of well-known plots, which were full of chilling details and frivolous hints. What prompted the storyteller to do this, I asked the historian, specialist in European folklore Andrei Izhorin:
- Imagine medieval Europe. Dirt, poverty, epidemics, lawlessness - whoever is richer and stronger is right. Absolutely free morals: to kill, rape, rob as natural as to relieve themselves. I'm exaggerating a little, but the people really lived hard. There is little entertainment: singing, dancing and drinking in a tavern. And also - listen to interesting stories. At first they seem to be real, they say, in a neighboring village, this happened! And, as a rule, tragic ones: with murder, violence, even cannibalism. The horrors are deliberately exaggerated - this makes it easier for the audience, they say, we still have nothing, it can be worse. Fairy tales are passed from mouth to mouth, because the poor are illiterate. Therefore, details, nuances change, the ending can be dramatic or happy depending on the mood and setting. Magic characters are introduced, magical abilities appear in people. Storytellers need to keep their listeners' attention, and the competition is great. These bikes were not intended for children. As there was no tradition at all to entertain kids in poor families with many offspring. While the baby, feed and swaddle tightly so as not to hurt yourself. Grew up, learned to walk - help as much as you can around the house, in the garden, etc. However, if the children of that time had heard these terrible tales, they would not have discovered anything new for themselves. Everything was happening before their eyes.if the children of that time had heard these terrible tales, they would not have discovered anything new for themselves. Everything was happening before their eyes.if the children of that time had heard these terrible tales, they would not have discovered anything new for themselves. Everything was happening before their eyes.
The first to write down folk tales was the Italian writer Giovanni Francesco Straparola at the very beginning of the 16th century, then the Neapolitan Gianbattista Basile took up the same task. Both immortalized stories without embellishment out of ethnological and literary interest. But for the pampered aristocrats, marginal plots are painfully crude. Moreover, in the 17th century, in the era of the Enlightenment, ethics and morality gradually changed. So Charles Perrault takes on the ennobling of old subjects. Some he hardly touched. For example, in the original, Puss in Boots really begged the peasants to say that they belonged to the Marquis Karabas. A small detail has been blotted out: he intimidated people with terrible punishments if they refused. "Thumb-boy" did not change at all: Perrault considered that devouring his own daughters by a cannibal was a punishment worthy of a villain. Other tales had to be shoveled harder. Charles Perrault's business was continued after more than a hundred years by the brothers Grimm, and then by other writers. But in the form in which with their help the fairy tales reached us, they were of interest only to children.
FOR REFERENCE: Charles Perrault made an excellent career at the court of Louis XIV. He was his adviser, chief inspector of buildings (under his supervision, including Versailles was built), head of the Committee of Writers and the King's Glory. But he lost all posts and favors at court after the death of his patron Jean-Battiste Colbert, who controlled the finances of the king and all of France. Retiring from business, Perrault took up fairy tales. But he was ashamed to sign the first book with his own name - after all, he held such high positions! Therefore, he put the name of his 19-year-old son Pierre and his noble surname d'Armancourt.
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How it sounded in the original
What did the fairy tales familiar to us all look like before Perrault's literary adaptation? We retell the most popular stories in the original.
1. Sleeping beauty
The thorn of thorns got stuck under the nail of the princess, and she "fell asleep", that is, fell into a coma. Her father ordered to put her to bed in his castle, lost in the forest. The king of a neighboring country, passing by, decided to look into the castle for some reason. Seeing the sleeping beauty, he raped her and drove on. Nine months later, twins were born to the princess who did not come to her senses - a boy and a girl. The hungry son, in search of a breast, began to suck his finger and sucked the unfortunate thorn. The princess woke up as a single mother with two children. Just then their father drove into the castle again. Seeing the offspring, he was imbued with paternal feelings. However, he could not marry, he already had a wife. Therefore, he began to secretly visit the second family and provide them with everything they need. His wife, of course, found out about everything and ordered the cook to cook a roast from the children, feed them to the unfaithful spouse,and burn their mother at the stake. This is the end of the fairy tale. However, there was a variant of a happy happy ending: the chef saved the children by making a lamb dish. The princess was sent to execution, but the queen coveted her dress and ordered to take it off. The king, seeing his naked mistress, realized that the young wife was better than the old one, and sent his first wife to the fire.
2. Little Red Riding Hood
The girl's hat was invented by Perrault, in the original it was a cape with a hood. When the granddaughter reached her grandmother's house, a wolf was already in charge. He bit granny to pieces, changed into her clothes, cooked a dish from her and invited Little Red Riding Hood to the meal. The unsuspecting little girl has a hearty dinner, and then, for some reason, undressed, jumps with the wolf-"grandmother" into the bed. There, something happens to her that should happen to girls who are recklessly left alone with adult men. Then the wolf rips open her neck and feasts on fresh meat.
3. Cinderella
One of the most popular and oldest stories in the world. It is over two thousand years old and has existed in about 700 versions. For example, in the Chinese version (850 AD), a poor but kind girl receives clothes, gold and pearls from a giant talking fish.
In the European version, Cinderella was helped by her late mother who rose from the grave. From the ball, the girl ran away from the prince, who began to harass her roughly. The material of the shoe changed depending on the country and the climate: it was made of squirrel fur, leather, gold, and few people understand why it suddenly turned out to be crystal. The prince, not having achieved his strength, decided to get married. The older sister of Cinderella, in order to get into the shoe, cuts off her toes. The younger, seeing that it did not help, cuts the heel. Both are exposed by spattering of blood from their shoes. To top it off, white pigeons peck out the eyes of the wicked and their mother, and the kind Cinderella leaves them to their fate and leaves with the groom to the palace.
4. Snow White
Let's start with the fact that it was not her stepmother who sent Snow White into the forest to certain death, but her own mother. She told the servants to bring the lungs and liver as proof, as well as a bottle of blood. And not only show, but also prepare delicious dishes for a dinner party from this. However, the girl bribed the escorts with her youth and beauty (or maybe something else), so they just threw her in the forest, and made dinner from reindeer giblets. Snow White is captured by the seven mountain spirits. When the mother got to her daughter and poisoned her with an apple, they put the coffin on the mountain. The prince, who saw the dead beauty in a crystal coffin, for some reason decides to take her for himself and bargains with perfume. Apparently, the price does not agree, because a scuffle begins, the coffin falls, breaks, a piece of apple jumps out of Snow White's throat (it turns out that she was not poisoned, but choked). The prince happily marries a living girl, and her mother is even invited to the wedding. But only to make it dance in metal shoes on a hot brazier until it burns out.
5. The Frog Princess
We consider it a Russian fairy tale, but it came from Europe, and in the original the frog was a male. He sneaked behind the princess into her chambers and lay down beside her on a silk pillow. The girl, seeing such disgust, threw the animal with all the foolishness against the wall, and then it turned into a handsome prince. In another version, the princess cut off the head with a knife that turned up under her arm, however, with the same result. Much more logical than kissing an amphibian, isn't it?
6. Rapunzel
Of course, in fact, the prince risked his life, climbing through Rapunzel's hair into the tall tower, not for the sake of platonic relations. And if so, after a while the girl became pregnant. The witch cut her lovely hair and kicked her out. That had to beg with the child in her arms. And the villain lured the prince by hanging her hair from the tower. When he got up to the window, she pushed him down. True, he was not killed, but he was blind. After some time, they met in the forest: a blind beggar prince and a dirty beggar Rapunzel with his offspring.
BTW: Why is Baba Yaga and her dwelling so often mentioned in Slavic tales? The explanation is simple. In the northern forest regions, where the ground is frozen, the dead were not buried, but buried in domina. Several nearby trees were chopped down to form a dome. A wooden "house" was erected at the top, where a corpse was placed with a small amount of food and belongings (for the first time in the afterlife). The construction was stable, and predators would not get to the body. Here is a hut on "legs" for you, where Death is in charge. In the fairy tales “melt the bathhouse, feed it and put it to sleep” corresponds to the rituals that were performed with the deceased: they washed, put food in the house and put them to sleep - forever.
7. Three bears
It seems to us that the originally Russian fairy tale is actually English. There was no Masha in it, but there was a fox who climbed into the den to the bears, ate their salmon and fell asleep on their bed. Everything ends badly: the fox is eaten, and its skin serves as a warm bedding for the bear cub. In later versions, the fox turns into an old woman who crawled to the bears because they, you see, offended her. And the same questions arise: "Who was sitting in my chair ?!" The final is available in two versions. In the first, the bears catch an old woman and think what to do with her: “They threw her into the fire, but she did not burn. They threw her into the water, but she did not sink. Then they took her and threw her on the spire of St. Paul's Church. If you look carefully, you will see that she is still there! " In the second, it is even more confusing: “Did she break her neck, did she freeze in the forest,whether she was arrested and rotted in prison, I don't know. But since then, the three bears have never heard of that old woman. " The girl Masha appears already in the Russian version.