Narrator> This program is dedicated to Albert Einstein.

In 1934, he offered this advice, "Bear in mind that the wonderful things you learn in your schools are the work of many generations, produced by enthusiastic effort and infinite labor in every country in the world.

All this is put into your hands as your inheritance.

In order that you may receive it, honor it, add to it, and one day faithfully hand it on to your children.

Thus do we mortals achieve immortality in the permanent things we create in common."

♪ Oh I can believe ♪ ♪ in everything I read ♪ ♪ A little boy blue ♪ ♪ a lady with a shoe ♪ ♪ and a dish run off ♪ with a spoon ♪ ♪ Well Hickory Dickory Dock ♪ ♪ a scholar ♪ he's late to school ♪ ♪ And I like a cow ♪ ♪ I jump over the moon ♪ ♪ Rick> "There was once upon a time a little country girl born in a village.

The prettiest little creature that ever was seen.

Her mother was beyond reason, excessively fond of her.

And her grandmother, yet much more.

This good woman caused to be made for her a little red riding hood.

Which made her look so very pretty that everybody called her the Little Red Riding Hood."

Everybody knows the rest of the story, too.

It's a folktale.

A piece of traditional literature.

A story that everyone hears as a child.

Apparently, as long as there have been human beings, there have been unusual and fantastical stories that pass from one generation to the next.

For eons and eons, these stories were preserved and transmitted orally.

Men and women listened, learned, told, and retold the things they heard.

This oral tradition sustained myths, histories, legends, fables, folktales, fairy tales, riddles, nursery rhymes, and all manner of anecdotes and adventurous yarns.

As writing was developed, people in various cultures began to record the things they considered important.

The curious short tales that ordinary people told each other for entertainment were ignored by early scribes.

Folktales didn't seem significant.

Even Aesop, apparently didn't live long enough to see his fables preserved in writing.

But evidence indicates that Demetrius of Phalerum may have done that for posterity as early as the 4th century BC.

People kept telling each other stories, but no one made a concerted effort to write down folktales until relatively recent times.

Charles Perrault, a Frenchman, a prominent lawyer in the late 17th century, is often credited with assembling the first important collection of folktales.

His manuscript, which included eight tales for children, was printed in 1697.

Titled, Histoires ou Contes Du Temps Passé it was immediately popular in France.

In 1729, Mr.

Robert Samber translated it into English, calling it Histories or Tales of Past Times .

Included in that early collection was the passage from "The Little Red Riding Hood," which opened this show.

Perrault had called the story "Le Petit Chaperon Rouge."

The serious study of folktales as an important part of world literature didn't really begin, however, until 1812, when two young Germans, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, published Kinder und Hausmarchen , a collection of stories which they tried to record in a style which preserved the traditional oral aspects of storytelling.

Their work has been translated into English many times.

First as German Popular Stories , later as the Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales, Grimm's Tales for Young and Old, and dozens of other variations.

In a book called The Classic Fairy Tales, Iona and Peter Opie, distinguished scholars in the field of children's literature, commented on the work of the Brothers Grimm.

"Their collection stands as the pre-eminent commendation of the traditional tale, the work that was to inspire the serious collecting of folk and fairy tales in Britain and in the rest of the world, and the work that laid the foundation of a new discipline, the scientific study of folklore and folk literature."

The study of folktales has grown and continues to flourish.

Scholars in many fields, from psychology and anthropology to literature and education, have studied the tales.

Hundreds, maybe thousands of books have been written about folktales.

It would be impossible to mention all the rich and fascinating ways to approach the study of this topic.

What we're going to do in this half hour is look at folktales and books that have been published primarily for children in recent years.

This topic alone could provide enough material for many programs.

We've tried to select versions of tales which are interesting, important, popular, or unjustly overlooked.

We are at the same time going to look at motifs which appear throughout folk literature.

And we're going to take a brief look at several types of folktales.

Although these stories are now primarily shared with children, that's a relatively modern development as well.

For centuries, folktales were a source of entertainment for people of all ages.

If there were no radio or television, we might still sit together in the evenings and listen to these exciting stories full of action and adventure, magic and romance.

But as it is, these tales seem especially suited for kids.

Three basic elements seem to exist in the folktales of all cultures.

First, simple language.

The centuries of oral tradition have led to an elimination of any unnecessary or irrelevant words.

These stories are told in the language of the common man.

In many cases, the first written version has remained the best.

The second element of most folktales is simple plot.

The conflict is usually established in the first few sentences.

Action is clear, quick, and direct.

The third common element is simple characters.

Whether they're humans or talking animals or elves, the characters in most folktales are described simply and succinctly.

Their essential qualities are identified immediately.

They're stereotypes, and there's seldom any doubt about who's good and who's bad.

The simplicity of these basic elements is undoubtedly what makes them appealing to children.

Probably the most important and influential modern study of fairy tales is a book called The Uses of Enchantment by Bruno Bettelheim, a prominent child psychologist.

He points out that "While it entertains the child, the fairy tale enlightens him about himself and fosters his personality development."

Bettelheim also stresses that, "As with all great art, the fairy tale's deepest meaning will be different for each person and different for the same person at various moments in his life."

Bettelheim dismisses most objections to fairy tales and folktales, saying, "True, on an overt level, fairy tales teach little about the specific conditions of life in modern mass society, these tales were created long before it came into being.

But more can be learned from them about the inner problems of human beings and the right solutions to their predicaments in any society, than from any other type of story within a child's comprehension."

Parents, teachers, or anyone who works with children may want to read all of Bettelheim's book.

It's a highly regarded explanation of the possible psychological meaning and impact of fairy tales.

He explains the history of the tales in their written forms, and speculates about the symbols in several important tales, including "Little Red Riding Hood."

He dismisses Perrault's first version of the story, which ends with the Wolf eating Little Red Riding Hood.

Bettelheim objects to Perrault's addition of a moral at the end of the tale.

Bettelheim emphasizes that "It destroys the value of a fairy tale for the child if someone details its meaning for him, Perrault does worse, he belabors it.

All good fairy tales have meaning on many levels, only the child can know which meanings are of significance to him at the moment."

Most modern picture books are based on a version of the same tale, as it was told by the Brothers Grimm.

Little Red Riding Hood's German name was Rotkappchen which translates literally as "Little Red Cap."

The classic illustrator Walter Crane called her Little Red Cap in his edition of the Grimm Tales, which was titled Household Stories.

Most of the recent versions, including this one illustrated by Harriet Pincus, include the arrival of a huntsman who has heard the Wolf snoring loudly after swallowing Little Red and her grandmother, both.

He cuts open the Wolf and releases the two undigested females.

Paul Galdone has included the happy ending in his "Little Red Riding Hood," too.

His scarlet robed heroine is blonde enough to play Goldilocks and must be very naive to trust this slobbering, yellow eyed wolf.

In 1972, Beatrice Schenk de Regniers published a striking new edition of the tale, retold in verse for boys and girls to read themselves.

The oddly sedate but very funny illustrations were drawn by Edward Gorey.

In 1978, the British artist Tony Ross wrote a sassy, updated version of the tale.

He calls it "Little Red Hood," a classic story bent out of shape, and he rates it PG.

Ross tells the tale in flip lingo, a new kind of oral tradition.

It's a very funny parody.

In an article titled "Traditional Literature Children's Legacy," Bernice E. Cullinan states that "Because the folktales are so well known, children can enjoy parodies of them.

In order to appreciate a parody, one must know the original well."

Knowing the originals well can involve a lot of reading and a lot of listening.

The more folktales one knows, the more interesting they become.

One begins to recognize motifs.

Folklore experts have developed an elaborate system of classification for folktales based on motifs.

A recognized authority on folklore, Stith Thompson defines the term motif in his book The Folktale .

He says "A motif is the smallest element in a tale, having a power to persist in tradition.

In order to have this power it must have something unusual or striking about it."

He identifies three classes of motifs.

First, are the actors in the tale.

They can be gods, witches, little girls in red capes, cruel stepmothers, whoever.

The second class comprises items in the background of the action.

In this group, Thompson includes magic objects, unusual customs, strange beliefs, and the like.

The third class consists of single incidents.

And Thompson says these comprise the majority of motifs.

The villainous wolf in the "Little Red Riding Hood" is one motif, a speaking animal.

The same talking wolf motif appears in the story of the "Three Little Pigs."

Around the turn of the century, L. Leslie Brooke illustrated that tale in his collection called The Golden Goose Book .

His Pigs walk on their hind legs, but they're naked, and their mother doesn't seem to upset about their leaving.

Brooke's Wolf is a sleek brown villain, a persistent rascal who huffs and puffs and eats two of the three Pigs.

In the 1930s, the Walt Disney Studios created an animated film version of the tale, and Disney's musically inclined piglets were featured in the "Little Golden Book" series.

The wolf motif received a special boost in the Disney version.

The villain was greeted with a song, "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?"

Which in effect gave him a name which has stuck.

You might say it's now part of the oral tradition of the tale.

A Danish artist, Eric Blegvad, illustrated an admirable new edition of the tale in 1980.

His Pigs each have distinct personalities Blegvad's Wolf is wondrously evil.

Yet he's also obviously an accomplished chef, expertly cranking a pepper meal as he prepares a feast made from the second brother.

There's no wolf in the story of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears."

But because the Bears speak, the two tales can be linked by the motif of the talking beast.

These bears are also the work of L. Leslie Brooke.

They're more funny than ferocious.

Lorinda Bryan Cauley created this version of the "Three Bears" in 1981.

She dresses her animals in finely detailed clothing, and her Goldilocks is a spry, obviously opinionated little girl.

In many of these picture books, the artist also claims to have retold the story.

In most, the variations in the prose are minimal.

It's often interesting to compare styles, however, both in the telling and the illustrating of various folktales.

For example, these three bears were drawn by Anne Rockwell for her collection of illustrated tales printed in 1975.

Her beasts not only talk, but they apparently also cook on a gas range.

Her book, titled The Three Bears and 15 Other Stories , is full of simple, often silly pictures along with traditional tellings of the tales.

The 15 other stories include a variety of tales and many motifs.

Thompson's second category of motifs includes all the unusual items in folktales.

A good example of an item motif is the magic cooking pot.

Miss Rockwell includes this motif, in the story she has called "The Little Pot."

The pot was given to a little girl, but her mother tries to use it and doesn't know how to make it stop.

Porridge flows from the pot, filling the whole town.

The magic cooking pot motif also appears in Strega Nona , an Italian tale retold and illustrated by Tomie de Paola.

In his version, which was named a Caldecott Honor Book in 1976, the pot belongs to a wise old witch, Strega Nona, who knows how to make the pot start and stop.

She hires Big Anthony to help her with her cleaning, and he finds out about the magic pasta pot.

That same motif appears in a book called The Magic Cooking Pot, which is a folktale from India, retold and illustrated by Faith M. Towle.

She did her pictures on fabric using ancient Indian batiking processes to help unite the text and the illustrations.

The magic pot in this tale supplies its owner with unlimited quantities of rice.

The plot is different here.

There's no trouble making the pot stop.

It's just that the pot is stolen from the poor man who received it from the goddess Durga.

East of the Sun and West of the Moon is a complex tale which comprises many examples of motifs which are single incidents.

The third category identified by Thompson.

The tale comes from Norway, where P.C.

Asbjornsen and Jorgen Moe collected the traditional folklore.

This volume of their Norwegian tales includes these pictures by Kay Nielsen, one of the most respected 20th century illustrators of folk literature.

In East of the Sun and West of the Moon, a talking white bear who's another motif himself, promises to make a poor man wealthy in exchange for the poor man's youngest daughter.

She rides away on the bear to a magic castle, and the family becomes rich.

Such a sudden reversal of fortune is a common incident motif.

An American couple, Kathleen and Michael Hague, retell that same tale in a handsome edition illustrated by Michael.

In his detailed and colorful paintings, the white bear seems to glow magically.

Hague also provides a picture of the bear's magical transformation into a handsome prince.

A change which occurs every night in the young woman's room in the castle.

A magical transformation is another example of an incident motif.

Some authors have assembled a folklore collection based on a motif.

For instance, P.L.

Travers, the woman who wrote Mary Poppins, has retold two traditional stories from the Middle East in her book titled Two Pairs of Shoes , illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon.

The two tales are from the same part of the world, and they share a motif an old pair of shoes, but their messages are different.

Ms.

Travers is commented that "These two stories have been lying around for hundreds of years in the minds of men, yet no one has thought of linking them and showing how each reflects the other."

Another author, Diane Wolkstein, put together this collection Lazy Stories, around the motif of a lazy person.

She has selected three folktales, each with a main character who is either rewarded or punished for his do nothing attitude.

The lively pen and ink drawings throughout, are by James Marshall.

Let's move on now to consider some types of folktales.

Obviously, identifying all the different types of folk tales would be an impossible job.

The kind of task which is often assigned to characters in these tales.

In his book The Folktale , Stith Thompson explains how most tales are classified and indexed.

There's first of all, the major division between simple tales and complex tales.

Simple tales are short narratives, often just anecdotes or jests, containing only one narrative motif.

Characters can be humans or animals.

Yet many of these simple tales are realistic, involving no magic.

One type of simple folktale is the cleverness tale.

Stone Soup , an old French story retold and illustrated by Marcia Brown.

Is a cleverness tale that's also realistic.

Three hungry soldiers trick the inhabitants of a village by arousing their curiosity about a soup made from three round smooth stones.

The American novelist Alison Lurie published a collection of cleverness tales in 1980.

Illustrated by Margot Tomes, the book is titled Clever Gretchen and Other Forgotten Folk Tales.

The female characters in these tales are all unusual and clever women.

Miss Lurie explains that some people now object to the passive roles played by women in so many tales.

But rather than fabricate feminist variations, she has instead selected some lesser known traditional tales.

She says there are thousands of tales with active women.

A second type of simple folktale is the fool story, the tale about a numbskull or noodlehead.

Thompson states that "Sometimes the interest is in the contrast between a clever and a foolish person, with the main interest in the latter."

Turnabout a realistic Norwegian tale, retold and illustrated by William Weisner, tells of a foolish husband who thinks his wife's housework is easier than his job in the fields.

They decide to switch roles for a day.

Everything goes wrong for the numbskull husband.

In this book called Needle and Noodle and Other Silly Stories , Jan Wahl retells a group of noodlehead tales.

Stan Mack did the clever cartoon illustrations.

There are also many simple tales which feature animals.

The Bremen Town Musicians is such a one.

In this 1981 edition, it was retold and illustrated by Donna Diamond.

Her beautiful drawings, made up entirely of tiny dots, feature realistic looking animals who talk among themselves and who manage to scare some robbers from their hideout.

Another type of simple tale is the cumulative tale, one in which the narrative form becomes an important element.

Here's an example.

Paul Galdone's version of The Old Woman and Her Pig.

When her new pig won't go over the stile in a fence, the Old Woman asks a series of creatures to help her.

In The Folktale , Stith Thompson says "Such tales as The House That Jack Built, or The Old Woman and Her Pig are so well known that no reader of the English language needs to have explained to him the way in which a simple phrase or clause is repeated over and over again, always with additions.

Most of the enjoyment, both in the telling and listening to such tales, is in the successful manipulation of the ever growing rigmarole."

Marcia Brown illustrated this cumulative tale from Russia, called The Bun .

In this one, an old couple bakes a bun which rolls away before they can eat it.

The bun rolls past a series of hungry creatures until a fox outsmarts the dough ball and eats it.

The Gingerbread Boy , illustrated here by Paul Galdone, is another version of that same basic story.

In another cumulative tale, Chicken Licken another sneaky fox gets a more substantial meal poultry this time.

The tale is retold in this edition by Kenneth McLeish, with pictures by Jutta Ash.

It's the familiar old story of the chicken who gets bonked by an acorn and then decides the sky is falling, and the king should be told.

When it comes to complex tales, obviously there are going to be thousands of types, all of which include many different motifs.

Many of the complex tales feature magical or supernatural elements.

Such tales are often identified as wonder tales and sometimes as fairy tales.

The term fairy tale, however, is now used to describe many more tales than just those with magical fairies.

Many experts consider "Sleeping Beauty" as the best example of a wonder tale.

It involves both good and evil magic.

Although Perrault included this story in his collection, it was the Brothers Grimm who wrote it down in its most familiar form.

In 1977, Trina Schart Hyman retold the story and designed an unforgettable set of illustrations.

Perhaps the best ever.

Her pictures feature windows and arches that add visual depth to the well-known tale.

Errol Le Cain also illustrated the Grimm's tale, translating their title as "Thorn Rose" instead of using the French title "Sleeping Beauty."

His illustrations are highly detailed and seem almost like medieval icons.

He sets each page of text in an intricate border, which reflects the changing tone of the story.

Another type of complex tale is the helpful animal tale.

"Puss in Boots," shown here in a classic illustration by Gustave Doré.

Is probably the best known helpful animal tale.

Its origins are apparently ancient.

Several versions were recorded even before Perrault put it in his Book of Histoires.

In 1977, the artist Nicola Bayley put together an unusual book based on Puss in Boots .

The text, as retold by Christopher Logue, is printed on the end papers and on two center pages, while the rest of the book is a spectacle.

Five remarkable pop up scenes that can be viewed from any angle.

Some of the paper effects seem nearly as magical as the events they represent.

Yet another type of complex tale is the tale of magic powers.

In these tales, certain characters have special physical and mental abilities rather than magic objects.

Six Chinese Brothers is an ancient folktale of this type from the Far East.

In 1979, Cheng Hou-tien illustrated his version of the tale with figures and scenes cut from paper.

Each of the six Chinese brothers has an unusual power.

For example, the second son can stretch his arms to either end of the world.

This book, The Riddle of the Drum, is based on a Mexican folktale of the magical powers type.

Tony Chen illustrated this translation by Verna Aardema.

The tale concerns a prince who enlists the help of five men with magical powers.

Tales of magical powers are obviously the precursors of comic books about superheroes.

Many other folktales are tales about journeys to another world.

The Twelve Dancing Princesses is an example of a journey tale.

This picture book version was illustrated by Laszlo Gal with a text by Janet Lunn, based on an old French wonder tale.

The twelve princesses pass magically through a mirrored wall in their room, and then descend a dark stone stairway into a magic land, where they dance the night away in an alabaster castle.

Arlene Mosel has retold a Japanese tale about a journey, as well.

It's called The Funny Little Woman, and it was illustrated by Blair Lent.

In this tale, the title character, who likes to laugh, drops a rice dumpling which rolls down a hole in the floor.

When she tries to retrieve it, the Earth gives way and the Little Woman finds herself underground on an unusual hilly road lined with statues of her gods.

She keeps laughing, even when she is carried away by one of the Oni, a group of monsters who eat a lot of rice.

The woman eventually outwits her captors and escapes in a boat with a tiny paddle.

The Funny Little Woman was awarded the Caldecott Medal as the most outstanding picture book published in America in 1973.

In 1976, the Caldecott Medal was awarded to this book, called Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears .

Based on a West African tale as retold by Verna Aardema with pictures by Leo and Diane Dillon, it's another kind of folktale, one which tries to explain a natural phenomenon.

This type of tale is called an explanatory or pourquoi tale.

Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears is about a chain reaction of silliness and paranoia, all caused by an exaggerating mosquito who still buzzes in people's ears, asking if everyone is still angry with him.

This program could go on for days, looking just briefly at different examples of the many types of folktales.

But we're going to stop here.

Bringing things to a conclusion as quickly as in most folktales.

Reader> When the feasting and merriments were over, Jack and his wife moved to a grand house of their own, where they lived happily ever after.

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