In this episode, Geoff and Katrina go back to the previous episode's topic of moralizing fairy tales. If anyone can get a moral out of these tales…seek help. Our brains naturally want to make sense of, and gain life lessons from, the stories that we hear, especially when they are told to us in fairy tale forms. Thanks to people like Charles Perrault and centuries of children’s publishing, fairy tales have gained a reputation for being a teaching tool. But that was not the original intent. Some stories were meant to amuse with their raucous and ridiculous situational comedy. And some teach the beautiful moral (that Katrina made up), “You can’t outsmart a helpful idiot.” Stories Told: The Louse and the Flea from the Brothers Grimm collection   Freddy and Katy from the Brothers Grimm collection   Other Episodes Mentioned:  #134 The Fisherman and The Stonecutter

Episode Description: #134 In this episode, Geoff and Katrina tackle a sticky question that comes up time and again when talking about and defining the genre of fairy tales. Are fairy tales supposed to teach a moral? Or are the morals something that readers bring into the tales for themselves? Geoff and Katrina test the theory while looking at a tale type that really lends itself to moralizing, ATU 555 The Fishman and His Wife. While Geoff and Katrina agree that these tales might be easier than others to bookend with some moralizing, what does our time, place, and culture bring to the discussion? Regardless of whether the storytellers of the past meant for us to get any meaningful life lessons out of these stories, we're gonna do it anyway. It's our right as listeners and consumers of tales.   Stories Told: The Fisherman and His Wife by Grimm Brothers The Stonecutter as found in The Crimson Fairy Book by Andrew and Leonora Lang   Books and Essays Cited: Teaching Fairy Tales edited by Nancy L. Canepa Morals and Miracles: The Case of ATU 555, “The Fishman and His Wife” by Victoria Somoff The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm Translated by Jack Zipes The Crimson Fairy Book by Andrew and Leonora Lang   Other Episodes Mentioned:  #82 Disability in Fairy Tales: Riquet of the Tuft #119 Tales of the French Salon

In this episode, Geoff and Katrina celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States declaring independence from Great Britain. Katrina wanted to acknowledge the occasion by indulging in the story tradition of "tall talk" or more commonly "tall tales". Geoff retells the story of Stormalong, which is a great story to represent America because while these tales became common in the northern east coast, they have old sea shanty roots from African song traditions that traveled through Mobile Bay. Then Katrina retells the tale of The Iron Moonhunter, which is a west coast legend of new Chinese immigrants who built the railroads while holding onto the spirits of those they loved and lost. Stories Told: “Stormalong” found in American Tall Tales by Mary Pope Osborne “The Iron Moonhunter” retold by Kathleen Chang Books and Essays Cited: American Tall Tales by Mary Pope Osborne Shanties from the Seven Seas collected by Stan Hugill From Sea to Shining Sea: A Treasury of American Folklore and Folk Songs compiled by Amy L. Cohn Other Episodes Mentioned:  #80 Mothman and Other American Cryptids  #5 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow #42 Sea Shanties and Folk Songs

In this episode, Geoff and Katrina talk about the social historical interpretations for fairy tales. Using the essay Fairies and Hard Facts: The Reality of Folktales by Eugen Weber, we move from talking about fairy tales using the psychoanalytic approach to using historical perspectives to find out when forest might simply be a forest and when famine makes monsters of mothers. Katrina starts off by retelling The Children of Famine before Geoff retells the tale of The Three Journeymen. Finally Katrina retells Eve’s Unequal Children to discuss how while these tales might not sit well with modern audiences, they might have rang true to the tellers when they were circulating around the hearth. Stories Told: The Children of Famine by Brothers Grimm  The Three Journeymen by Brothers Grimm  Eve’s Unequal Children by Brothers Grimm Books and Essays Cited: The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm Translated by Jack Zipes Teaching Fairy Tales Edited by Nancy L. Canepa Fairies and Hard Facts: The Reality of Folktales essay by Eugen Weber  Mules and Men by Zora Neale Hurston The Great Cat Massacre: And Other Episodes in French Cultural History by Robert Darnton

In this episode, Geoff and Katrina dive back into Little Red Riding Hood variants in other parts of the world. ATU 123 and ATU 333 can be found in China, Korea, Japan, and the African Diaspora. But while Bruno Bettelheim and others want to talk a big game about the wolf being a representation of the dangers of sexuality, what can we glean from a shapeshifting tiger/old woman, a yokai, and ...a rabbit? Find out as we have a fun time retelling these tales to explain how some "universals" might not be so universal.   Stories Told: Grandaunt Tiger found in Little Red Riding Hood: A Casebook pg 23 Essay by Wolfram Eberhard The Golden Chain from Heaven found in Folktales of Japan by Keigo Seki Cutta Cord-la found in Afro-American Folktales: Stories from Black Tradition in the New World by Roger D Abrahams Books and Essays Cited: Little Red Riding Hood: A Casebook Edited by Alan Dundes The Story of Grandaunt Tiger essay by Wolfram Eberhard  The Uses of Enchantment by Bruno Bettelheim

In this episode, Katrina and Geoff use what we've covered in episodes #126 and #128 to examine one of the most famous fairy tales of all time, Little Red Riding Hood. First, Katrina retells the tale from Charles Perrault and then goes into the Brothers Grimm. But she tells their ATU 123 tale, The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids before Geoff retells the classic Brothers Grimm ATU 333 tale, Little Red Cap. As we look at all of these fairly short stories, we're ready to dive into research from Little Red Riding Hood: A Casebook by Alan Dundes, where he examines the history of the psychoanalysis done on this tale starting with Freud, himself. But most importantly, Dundes discusses the flaws in only looking at the Brothers Grimm or Perrault's versions when forming an analysis.

In this episode, Geoff and Katrina talk about Northern European folk and the tales they tell. Last year, Geoff reached out to Free League Publishing to ask them about their role playing game, Vaesen and was gifted some books to explore. While he and Katrina try to figure out the best use of RPGs for them and the podcast, Katrina has dived into the folklore that inspired the game. She starts with a fan favorite, The Devil, and a folk song with a deadly fiddler. Geoff retells a tale of a boy and his beer (with a splash of Death). Then Katrina tells us a Norwegian tale about a blustering pastor.Books Used in this Episode: Vaesen by Johan Egerkrans Norwegian Folktales by Peter Christen Ashjornsen and Jorgen Moe

In this episode, Katrina and Geoff continue on with this year's curriculum project by talking about the psychoanalytic approach to fairy tales. We're talking Freud. We're talking Jung. We're talking Bruno Bettelheim's The Uses of Enchantment. But mostly we are talking about the story Snow White and Rose Red, found in the Brothers Grimm collection. In this story, a bear comes to stay with these two girls in their idyllic cottage all winter. But what can it teach a child's subconscious mind about sexuality before marriage? Everything. Or...maybe nothing. Understanding different lens and frameworks that fairy tales have been examined through is important. What's also important, is to understand when to question at what point those lens become cloudy.

February is the time of year where we are all sitting in liminal space. We're waiting for the seasons to shift and change. In this episode, Katrina and Geoff are embracing this space and retelling tales of ghosts and fairies. Do the dead walk among us? Are they partying way too hard? Which would you prefer? Ghosts or fairies? Katrina begins the episode by talking about Daniel Crowley, the anthropologist and partygoer.  Then Geoffrey tells a completely different tale about a Daniel Crowley that was a coffin-maker and partygoer. Finally Katrina pulls us away from ghosts to talk about strange men that we meet on the side of the road.

New Year, New Project! In this episode, Katrina and Geoff kick off their new project and take a break from talking about ATU tale types and motif indexes, to discuss a different way of examining tales, structuralism! Now, don't run off all at once! We're going to break down Vladimir Propp's approach to tales and discuss how being able to recognize Baba Yaga as a villain or a donor character actually makes it a very powerful tool to analyzing these wonder tales. Katrina and Geoff take turns retelling tales so that we can use Vladimir's functions to see what is and what is not in the tales. And they also discuss what works about this approach and what doesn't.