Once Upon a Time - A Short History of Fairy tale by Marina Warner - review
This book is a lot slimmer than the usual hefty tome that we have come to expect from Marina Warner and it bears some of the hallmarks that she sees as defining for the folktale – clarity, directness and hope.
She does not analyse the stories in terms of motifs and tale types, as many folktale scholars have done in the past. She treats them as vivid, lively and precious works of art in their own right. The stories are built around strong, primary emotions of love, hate, joy, desire, disgust and shame and, in spite of the magic that permeates them, we treat them as real and believable, entering wholeheartedly into their world.
The protagonists in these stories suffer terribly but we need to remember that our ancestors of only few generations ago would have been very close to this level of pain and loss and, indeed, many people still are. Marina Warner sees this level of intensity as a fair and accurate representation of our worst real-life experiences. This is important because the restoration of justice and peace that resolves the conflict of folktales is a central theme. Even though dependent on magic, this points towards the achievement of peace and justice in the real world.
Stories and magic are real
Interestingly, she is very clear that the magic in these stories is not supernatural. This genre of stories treats everything in the stories as having agency. Not just people, but trees, animals, objects and the weather. Magic is an act of engaging, deliberately or accidentally, with this power and agency. Magic is often verbal. Spells uttered in these stories always have an effect and are taken seriously by all the characters. It’s important to remember that blessings and curses are just as relevant in our secular age. I can’t be the only person in the world who took years until he could happily sing with others in a choir, having been told, ‘You can’t sing’. Our words have power. Both positive and negative.
The extremity and magic of the stories balance an everyday-ness that we recognise. People cook, wash, take goods to market and feed their chickens. Marina Warner quotes Angela Carter, ‘A fairy tale is a story in which one king goes to another king to borrow a cup of sugar.’
If there is overt moralising in a folktale it is almost definitely an editorial intrusion. The Grimms put these in when they realised that children and the literate working-class were getting their hands on the books. However, the versions of the stories that are closer to their oral roots treat us as grown-ups. They expect us to deal with the events and resolutions of the stories according to our own ability and experience. They are deliberately open-ended because of their oral roots. There is no coded message or authorial intention. They expect us to discuss, laugh and argue about them when the telling is over.
Books and the invention of copyright give us the illusion that stories are things but Marina Warner insists that the voice of these stories is ‘polyphonous’, varied and adapted for each new telling and each new audience. An audience that expects to take part.
Stories migrate like animals
Folktales are often grouped by national identity and distinct cultures treasure their versions of the stories as the ‘real’ versions, rather like we have a feeling of belonging and loyalty towards our national and regional food. Marina Warner feels that this is a mistake and, while there are great local variations, the story itself travels far and wide. She likens stories to migrating animals. The cuckoo or swallow that flies each year between Northern Europe and Africa does not change identity from German to Senegalese with each flight but remains what it is - a cuckoo or a swallow.
Once cheap, good-quality printing became available the flourishing of illustration that followed became a key element in the life of these stories. As Marina Warner says of her own experience, ‘I can bring up in my mind's eye images from books I had as a child of moments that artists crystallised.’
Lucid, informed and intelligent this little book is a great introduction to the folktale for those who like to experience stories rather then just analyse them.
Click here for more blog posts about traditional stories, Pig Boy and much else besides...