our tradition, sustainable. For example, the motifs “The Fox Steals Fish from the Cart” and “The Wolf at the Ice Hole” are always told together.

3.2. Fairy tales

Fairy tales, like all others, differ from animal epics primarily in that their main character is a person. The hero of fairy tales is young: he has reached marriageable age, is full of strength and ready to adult life. But first he has to endure difficult trials and come into contact with various miraculous powers. Wonderful fiction lies at the heart of fairy tales.

Old Russian pagan priests (astrologers, sorcerers and soothsayers) were called "magi". “To conjure” is to perform witchcraft or fortune telling. This is where “magical” comes from – “wonderful, supernatural.

Scientists called fairy tales “mythical”, “wonderful”, “fantastic”, but the term “magical”, introduced by V. Ya. Propp, is used most often.

The Comparative Index of Plots (CIP) takes into account 225 plots or plot-forming motifs of this genre, the most popular of which have been published in hundreds of variants. Among them: “The Conqueror of the Snake”, “The Fight on the Kalinov Bridge”, “Three Underground Kingdoms”, “The Death of Kashchei in the Egg”, “The Miraculous Escape”, “Animal’s Milk”, “Stepmother and Stepdaughter”, “Sivko-Burko” , "The Little Humpbacked Horse", "Dunno", "The Magic Ring".

Fairy tale has its own historical roots. Unlike the animal epic, it dates back to a later, agricultural period, reflects new features of everyday life and the already developed worldview of people, their pagan beliefs and rituals.

The agricultural cults of the earth, water, and sun left a deep imprint on the fairy tale. In a fairy tale, to be reincarnated, you need hit the damp ground. Diverse magical power water has: it revives the dead, rejuvenates the old, gives sight to the blind, makes the hero strong and his enemy weak. An integral artistic feature of the genre is the colorful shine of golden objects of the fairy-tale world - in this case, the epithet “golden” means the color of the sun.

The golden objects of the fairy tale reveal this meaning in their functions. For example, in the fairy tale "Sivko-Burko" the princess marked her groom golden ring, from whose touch it was like the sun shining on his forehead.

The fairy tale contains various traces of totemistic beliefs. Tales of wonderful brides and grooms are associated with ancient ideas about the totem spouse. Main character often enters into an alliance with a bird bride. An echo of ancient marriage rituals is their first meeting near water: on the shore of the sea, river or lake.

The same situation is constantly repeated: the hero is hiding, at this time three ducks fly in, land on the shore, turn into girls and go for a swim. While they are swimming, the hero steals the clothes (or wings) of one of the girls. Having bathed, the sisters fly away, and she turns to the kidnapper with a ritual challenge: “Answer me,” he says, “who took my wings? If an old man, be my father, and an old woman, be my mother; if a young man, be my dear friend, and a fair maiden, be my sister!” The hero comes out of hiding, and the girl confirms her oath: “Having given my word, I cannot change it; I am going to marry you, a good fellow!"1

Associated with totemistic beliefs are plot motifs about miraculous birth hero. One of these tales is “Ivan the Bear’s Ear”:

Jiu pop. The priest had a very beautiful butt, and a bear walked around and had his eye on her for three years. On the fourth day he took her away. Here they live, live - a son was born, they named him: Ivan, Bear's Ear. Ivan Bear's Ear is growing by leaps and bounds, and he has grown big and says to his mother: “What is it, mom, we have a furry little boy, but we are not furry?” - “Why, Vanya, we are Russians, and he is a forest beast.” - “Let’s go, mother, to Holy Rus'!”2

The progenitor totem was also a fish. In the fairy tale “The Battle on the Kalinov Bridge,” the childless king orders it to be fried and served to the queen. goldenfin pike. The queen ate it, the cook tried one feather, and the cow licked the peelings. As a result, all three gave birth to a hero: voice to voice and hair to hair.

1 Russian folk tales by A.N. Afanasyev... - T. II. – P. 117.

2 Fairy tales and songs of the Belozersky region. Recorded by B. and Yu. Sokolov. – M., 1915. – P. 190.

Especially often, animal totems are wonderful helpers of the hero. They may be related to deceased parents. The orphan girl is helped by a cow (“Stepmother and Stepdaughter”), and Ivanushka is helped by a horse (“Sivko-Burko”).

A horse always accompanies the hero of a fairy tale. He is associated with the sun and the thirtieth kingdom. A wonderful fairytale horse - in the stars, with a month and the sun, with a golden tail and mane - appears at night and emits a dazzling light.

A wooden toy wheelchair in the shape of a horse, always painted red, was quite widely known among the people. And in the royal life the custom of making a horse for boys was preserved.

When the future Tsar Peter I was one year old, they began to prepare a “funny horse” for him. A horse figurine was cut out of linden wood - such a size that it would fit the prince. The horse was covered with white foal skin and mounted on four iron wheels. They made a saddle, upholstered on white felt with red morocco: silver studs on top, copper studs on the bottom. Buckles and tips for girths were made from silver. Iron stirrups covered with gold and silver sheets were attached to the saddle; A saddle cloth lined with scarlet taffeta was placed under the saddle. The silver and niello bridle was decorated with “stones with emeralds.” There was a silver and gold braid, and a silver paper decorated with precious stones. The prince's toy resembled a fairy-tale horse1.

The “funny horse” prepared the boy for initiation: the ritual of mounting a live horse, which usually took place at the age of seven. Once upon a time it was a military rite, initiation into military rank: in the saddle and with arrows. At the same time, the boy’s hair was cut, which is why the ceremony was called “tonsuring.”

Fairy tales mention a variety of tools: an axe, a plow, a plow, a yoke, a spindle, a spinning wheel, and a weaving mill. They have long been considered sacred, as they were used in the production of food and clothing - everything that comes into contact with the human body. In everyday life they were decorated with magical ornaments, and in fairy tales they turned into wonderful objects: a self-chopping ax, self-assembled tablecloth, golden spindle, magic millstones (grain grinders) - "No matter what you turn, it's all damn and pie." Along with them appears the archaic weapon of hunters - a club: a gilded club worth fifty pounds, a wonderful club.

1 See: Zabelin I. Home life of the Russian people. – T.I.: Home life of Russian tsars in the XVI-XVII centuries. – Part 2. – M., 1915. – P. 201-202.

Mythological consciousness was based on the idea of ​​immortality and the unity of living beings. Werewolf is associated with these ideas - poetic device fairy tale Living things can appear in different forms. For example, in the fairy tale "Tricky Science" the motif of "pursuit" plays an important role.

Salvation." Two lines of reincarnation develop in it: the sorcerer and his disciple1.

In East Slavic fairy tales, the image of Baba Yaga is of particular importance. It dates back to the era of matriarchy and much about it remains mysterious (for example, there are several assumptions, but there is no convincing explanation for the name “Yaga”). To Yaga at her call Every animal runs, every reptile crawls, every bird flies. She is not only the mistress of living beings, but also the keeper of the fire for the hearth (it is no coincidence that the fairy tale associates utensils with her

- mortar, broom, poker).

ABOUT Baba Yaga's ancient history speaks of the duality of her properties: she can be both a helper and an adversary. Yaga shows the way to the Kashcheevo kingdom, from her the hero receives wonderful objects and a magic horse. At the same time, Yaga acts as a warrior, avenger, and child abductor. In tribal society, Yaga personified mother-ancestress, and the fairy tale emphatically exaggerates her feminine characteristics, although, due to the fall of the cult, she does this with mockery: “Yaga Yaginishna, Ovdotya Kuzminishna is sitting, nose to the ceiling, tits across the threshold, snot across the garden bed, raking up soot with her tongue.” 2 .

The motif of the hero's meeting with Baba Yaga's hut is known from many fairy tales. V. Ya. Propp explained its origin in connection with the initiation rites of the clan society, by which young men who had reached maturity were initiated into hunters (warriors), and girls were accepted into the circle of mothers3. The rituals were based on an imaginary death, when a person supposedly visited the kingdom of the dead and acquired miraculous properties there, and then was reborn in a new quality. In two books ("Morphology of Fairy Tales" and " Historical roots fairy tale") Propp showed that the uniformity of the plot structure of different works of this genre corresponds to such rituals of antiquity. Summing up his research, he wrote: “We found that the compositional unity of a fairy tale does not lie in some

1 See: for example: Russian folk tales by A.N. Afanasyeva... – T.II. – P. 228.

2 Collection of Great Russian fairy tales from the archives of the Russian Geographical Society / Published by A.M. Smirnov. – Vol. I-II. – M., 1917. – P. 432.

3 Propp V.Ya. Historical roots of fairy tales. – L., 1946. – Chapter III: The Mysterious Forest.

features human psyche, not in features artistic creativity, it lies in the historical reality of the past. What they tell now was once done, depicted, and what was not done was imagined."1

Inside fairy tale plot two spaces are clearly distinguished: the human world and the miraculous distant kingdom, thirtieth state - nothing more than the mythical kingdom of the dead. In the minds of the ancients, it was associated with the sun, so the fairy tale depicts it as golden. In different stories, the wonderful kingdom is located underground, under water, in a distant forest or on high mountains, in the sky. Therefore, it is very distant from people and moves like the daily movement of the sun. It is there that the hero of a fairy tale goes for wonderful golden wonders and for a bride, and then returns to his home with the spoils. From the real world Far Far Away kingdom always separated by some kind of border: a heavy stone, a pillar with an inscription about three roads, a high steep mountain, a fiery river, Kalinov bridge, but especially often - Baba Yaga's hut. V. Ya. Propp came to the conclusion that Yaga

- deceased mother, deceased, guide to the afterlife.

IN In the rituals of ancient people, the hut was a zoomorphic image. The fairy-tale hut retains the signs of a living creature: it hears words addressed to it ("Hut, hut, turn your back to the forest, turn your front to me"), revo-

she wiggles around, and finally she has chicken legs. The zoomorphic image of a hut is associated with a chicken, and the chicken in the entire system of ethnography and folklore of the Eastern Slavs symbolized female fertility. The fairy-tale motif of the meeting with Yaga’s hut conveyed echoes of female initiation.

The hero of a fairy tale goes to another world most often because a woman close to him has been taken there: his fiancee, sister, wife, mother. The plot of the abduction of a woman (the “main plot”) was singled out by V. Ya. Propp as the most typical for the fairy-tale genre. He wrote: “If we could unfold the picture of transformations, then we could be convinced that morphologically all these tales can be derived from tales about the abduction of a princess by a snake, from the type that we are inclined to consider the main one”2. Historically, this is associated with actual female sacrifices. The fairy tale, in contrast to rituals, reflected a more ancient ethnographic reality: it contains a “memory” not of the substitutionary, but of the original sacrifice

1 Propp V.Ya. Historical roots of a fairy tale... - P. 353.2 Propp V.Ya. Morphology of a fairy tale. – 2nd ed. – M., 1969. – P. 103.

The woman herself. But, like rituals, the fairy tale expressed the inevitable progressive desire to overcome this cruel custom, which at a new level of human consciousness has already lost its motivation. main topic fairy tales - the liberation and return of women. A hero-liberator appeared in the fairy tale, with whom its ideology began to be associated. With its ending - a wedding feast - the fairy tale began to poeticize a person’s personal feelings.

The plot of the return of a kidnapped woman is typical of all world folklore. It arose typologically from different nations world as a contrast to the rituals of antiquity, in which there were sacrifices. The main feature of the hero’s mythological enemy is also associated with it - the function of abduction, although this image itself is in the process of historical development changed many times.

Various mythological characters, who in ancient times personified the powerful forces of nature and the other world, began to be attached to the function of abduction. In the fairy tale “Three Underground Kingdoms” (SUS 301 A, B), the kidnapper is

old man; old grandfather; small person; an old man as long as a fingernail, a beard as long as his elbows, a mustache dragging along the ground, wings lying a mile away. Sometimes he flies in in the form of a bird and, hitting the floor, takes on his own form; in some cases it is simply a bird(Eagle, Voron Voronovich). It also has other names: Whirlwind, Vikhor Vikhorevich, Whirlwind bird, violent whirlwind, unclean spirit. Sometimes he takes the form Snake.

A. N. Afanasyev interpreted the Serpent as “the embodiment of lightning, once brought down... to the hearth”1. V. Ya. Propp saw in it a connection with various elements (fire, water, mountains, heavenly forces) and with the animal world (in particular, with fish). He wrote: “The serpent generally defies any single explanation. Its meaning is diverse and versatile”2. The Fairytale Serpent is fire-breathing and multi-headed; his image is often tripled (Serpent with three, six, nine heads).

Another is close to the snake mythological image - Koschei the Immortal. Afanasyev wrote: “Kashchey plays the same role of a stingy treasure keeper and a dangerous kidnapper of beauties as the snake; both of them are equally hostile to fairy-tale heroes and freely replace each other...”3 However, unlike the Snake, Kashchey is still

1 Afanasyev A.N. Tree of Life: Fav. Articles. – M., 1982. – P. 261.2 Propp V.Ya. Historical roots of a fairy tale... - P. 257.

3 Afanasyev A.N. Tree of Life... - P. 279.

is thought of as a humanoid creature. He never eats his prey. In addition, the image of Kashchei does not receive triplings. The word "koschey" was borrowed from the nomads; it was freely used in the Old Russian language in the meaning of "captive, slave." The fairy tale features an image of Kashchei in captivity (“The Death of Kashchei by Horse”), so we can assume that his name was originally an epithet.

The hero's fantastic opponents are also Sea king, Chu- pre-Yudo. Often the enemy acts as a pursuer, which is especially characteristic of the image of the “flying” Yaga: Baba Yaga is catching up with them 1 .

on an iron mortar, driven by a copper pusher The origin of this type of Yagi is revealed by comparing different variants

fairy tales "The Battle on the Kalinov Bridge" (SUS 300 A). In the fairy tale there is a motive for chasing the fleeing hero. As A. N. Afanasyev noted, it goes back to the myth of a cloud swallowing the sun. The pursuer acts primarily as a scavenger with an open mouth into which the hero throws horses, falcons, and dogs; she swallows his brothers too - and continues the chase. The image of the pursuer has undergone transformation. Its initial appearance is a huge cloud: A cloud comes and flutters its mouth from the sky to the ground... 2 Then the cloud became a Snake, an enraged avenger, the mother of three Snakes killed by the hero in a duel. But the swallowing function led to the fact that it could simply be mouth gaping from earth to sky 3, or the pig is the most voracious animal: opened my mug from the ground to heaven4. The defeated pursuer turns into water, fire, ashes, dust, dirt -

A defeated cloud could turn into all this in myth. Even later, the Mother Snake began to be replaced by the image of Yaga. This became possible because over time (under the influence of Christianity) the negative characteristics of Yaga intensified, but her maternal essence was very firmly retained in memory. However, Yaga initially retained the signs of a cloud absorber: Baba Yaga launched one lip under heaven, drags another on the ground

5 . Thus the design took place

1 Great Russian fairy tales in the notes of I.A. Khudyakova. – M.; L., 1964. – P. 74.

2 Collection of Great Russian fairy tales from the archives of the Russian Geographical Society... - P. 518.3 Russian folk tales A.N. Afanasyeva... – T.I. – P. 234.

4 Fairy tales and songs of the Belozersky region... - P. 59.

5 Fairy tales, proverbs, etc., recorded in the Ekaterinoslav and Kharkov provinces. I.I. Manzhuroy. – T.II. – issue 2. – Kharkov, 1890. – P. 26 (The quote is given in translation. the second, completely negative type of “flying” Yaga. And after that it formed as an independent one and became widespread throughout the world. motive “Escape from the Witch” (SUS 313 N*). Throwing horses, dogs, bags of salt, loaves of bread, etc. into the mouths. was replaced in it by throwing wonderful objects: a comb that turns into a dense forest; a pebble that grows into a huge mountain; a towel that spills into a river (sometimes a fiery one). Yaga dies in her water or fire.

The genre form of the fairy tale was determined in folklore quite late, only after the decline of the mythological worldview. At this time, new problems generated by the collapse of clan society became relevant. Among the Eastern Slavs, life took the form of a patriarchal family. The relationships between its members and the contradictions between them formed the basis of the second conflict layer of the plots of fairy tales. A new conflict has been layered on top of the ancient, mythological one. A destitute and innocently persecuted family member became a hero: the younger brother, younger sister, stepdaughter. A new group of his opponents, also real ones, appeared: older brothers, older sisters, stepmother. By using magical powers the fairy tale began to endow its hero with wealth and happiness, and punish his persecutors - and this became its ideological pathos.

The hero of a fairy tale is an ordinary person, morally and economically disadvantaged as a result of the historical reorganization of everyday life. The fairy-tale conflict itself is a family conflict; it is in it that the social nature of the fairy tale genre is manifested. Two conflicts of different historical depth - mythological and family - were united within one genre thanks to the image of the main character, who in all his modifications combines mythological and real (everyday) features.

From mythology, the fairy tale inherited two types of hero: “tall” (hero) and “low” (fool); The fairy tale itself gives rise to the third type, which can be defined as “ideal” (Ivan Tsarevich). A hero of any type, as a rule, is the third, younger brother and goes by the name Ivan. This name itself has developed more than 150 derivative forms, and in the fairy tale it was also supplemented with nicknames(prince, fool, Bear's ear...).

The most ancient type of hero is the hero, miraculously born from a totem. Endowed with enormous physical strength, it expresses the early stage of human idealization. The plot develops around the extraordinary strength of the hero as his main quality, culminating in the hero’s feat in the battle with the Serpent (in fairy tales: “The Battle on the Kalinov Bridge”, “The Winner of the Serpent”, “The Serpent Fighter Kozhemyaka”, “Three Underground Kingdoms”, “Ka”) -tigoroshek" etc.).

The image of a fool is typical for the fairy tales “Sivko-Burko”, “The Little Humpbacked Horse”, “Dunno”, “At the Command of the Pike”. It combines unsightly appearance and the emphasized beauty of the inner world. In this type of hero, an important ideological setting of the genre is especially noticeable: testing the moral qualities of the person being gifted. The hero of a fairy tale goes through not only fantastic trials, but also through the test of kindness, hard work, responsiveness, patience, courage, and respect for elders. He also passes this test. Philosophical meaning The genre can be defined as follows: empowering the deprived, but worthy.

Particularly characteristic of the fairy tale is Ivan Tsarevich - an image that expressed a new historical stage in the idealization of man. Fairy-tale royalty is the people’s poeticized dream of the utmost possible personal well-being and happiness. But such an idea could only arise in a socially developed society, when the historical idea of ​​kings appeared. The image of Ivan Tsarevich is typical for the plots “The Frog Princess”, “The Copper Forehead”, “Rejuvenating Apples”, “Wonderful Children”, “The Magic Mirror” (“The Dead Princess”) and many others. In the later period, the fairy-tale king was sometimes endowed with specific social and historical characteristics, which indicated either the destruction of traditional poetics, or the evolution of the fairy tale into a short story, for example, “The Beautiful Wife” (“Go there - I don’t know where...”) .

A fairy tale knows all three types of protagonist in the female version (Tsar Maiden, princess, stepdaughter). But there are few such stories; the most common are tales about the stepdaughter. The main role of the heroine of a fairy tale is to be an assistant to the groom or husband. Such a plot role coming from ancient custom active behavior of a woman in choosing a groom, influenced the content of the image fairy princess. She is a sorceress, related to miraculous forces: the solar world (Golden-haired Elena), sea ​​element (Marya Morevna, beautiful princess), the thirtieth kingdom (tsa- jealousy frog).

Her siblings - Wind, Whirlwind and Storm - appear if you blow into a magic horn. But the most valuable thing in the image of a bride is that she is certainly a beauty and a princess. The tale seems to find no words to convey its beauty: “I would have matured, looked, and couldn’t stand it!” Marrying her is the ultimate desire of the hero.

Associated in origin with ancient initiations and with man’s eternal dream of happiness, the fairy tale retains in its depth the vital idea of ​​the continuation of the human race. In mythology, the magical call of fertility identified man, the plant and animal world, and united all living things according to the characteristics of life. In a fairy tale, its entire wonderful world (animals, plants, giant heroes - Dubynya, Gorynya, Usynya; wonderful artists - Ate, Drink, Frost-crack;

wonderful objects) - the whole world is united by a common desire to help the hero, to crown the path of his trials with a wedding feast. Subject to the established formal laws of the genre, the fairy tale created new wonderful images as the artistic embodiment of the dream of easier labor, material abundance, freedom and happiness. Even without knowing airplanes, trains, cars, television, people in their own way talked about all this in fairy tales. Carpet plane, walking boots, mirror - I'll show the whole world

And

much more was born as a prediction of the appearance of the future world. A fairy tale is one of the largest narrative forms of classical folklore. All its plots retain the traditional uniformity of composition: their kingdom - the road, the wine kingdom - the wine kingdom - the road from another kingdom - your own kingdom.

According to this narrative logic, a fairy tale combines a chain of motifs into a whole (plot). In the construction of fairy-tale plots, traditional style played a certain role: beginnings, endings, as well as internal formulas of a compositional nature. They connected related motives and were especially important in cases where the semantic, logical unity of motives turned out to be weakened: How long, how short..., Soon the fairy tale is told, but the work is done quietly... This role could also be played by a simple repetition of the verb, denoting the hero’s movement in the fairy-tale space:

He walked, walked...; They swam, swam in a barrel...

The presence of formulas is a clear sign of the style of a fairy tale. Many formulas are figurative in nature, associated with wonderful characters, and are their unique markings.

1. What kinds of fairy tales are there?

2. Name folk fairy tales. Who are their heroes? What miracles happen in fairy tales? Find the answers in a textbook or educational reader

Russian folk tale "Khavroshechka". Main characters: Khavroshechka, stepmother, three daughters, old man, cow.

The miracles in the fairy tale are that the girl spoke to the cow, got into her ear and came out of the other, the mistress had daughters with one eye and three eyes, an apple tree grew from the seeds of the cow.

Tatar folk tale "Three Sisters". Main characters: mother, three sisters, squirrel.

Squirrel turned eldest daughter into a turtle, the middle one into a spider, the youngest into a bee.

3. Name a fairy tale by A. Pushkin. Thanks to whom the fairy tale happens magical transformations? Find the answer in the textbook and read it.

A fairy tale by A.S. Pushkin "The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish". In this fairy tale magic item- gold fish.

4. What fairy tales foreign writers You know? Name it.

Charles Perrault "Puss in Boots"; Brothers Grimm "Musicians of Bremen".

5. What fairy tales are these excerpts from? Name them, find the fairy tales in the textbook. Read or tell about the characters of a fairy tale that you like.

1st excerpt: Russian fairy tale “Khavroshechka”.

2nd excerpt: Charles Perrault “Puss in Boots”.

3rd) excerpt: A.s. Pushkin “The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish.”

6. Name your favorite fairy tale and favorite fairy-tale character. Tell about him.

My favorite fairy tale is “Two Frogs” by L. Panteleev. She teaches that in any situation, even the most difficult one, you should not lose your presence of mind, but rather try to find a way out of the situation. Any activity is better than inaction.

7. What fairy tales by H.-K. Did we study Andersen? Find them in the textbook and reader. Which one do you like? Why?

Fairy tale by H.-K. Andersen "Five from One Pod". In this fairy tale, a green pea sprout helped a little girl who had been sick for a very long time to recover.

8. Remember the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. Which fairy tale by these authors did you like the most? Tell it to your friends.

Fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm "Little Men", "Puss in Boots", "Seven Brave Men". I liked the fairy tale “Little Men” because in this fairy tale the little men helped the shoemaker’s family get out of poverty, and the shoemaker and his wife repaid these little men with kindness.

9. Look at the illustration. Name a fairy tale. Find and read the passage that matches this illustration.

Fairy tale by C. Perrault “Puss in Boots”.

Excerpt: “Stretched out on the grass and pretending to be dead... the simpleton rabbit immediately jumped into his bag.”

10. Compose a fairy tale with one of the fairy-tale characters.

In autumn there are a lot of mushrooms in the forest. People walk, collect, but everything is different. He who is attentive will not step on the mushroom, he will look under every leaf. Those who are lazy will knock off the caps of all the fly agarics. And fly agarics are a medicine for moose.

People don’t know that the wood fungus lives in the forest. He keeps order in the forest, protects mushrooms from bad people. He has a magic staff. With this staff, he points out mushroom places to neat mushroom pickers, and substitutes mushrooms as pointers. Based on these mushrooms, a person goes to a mushroom place. And the bad ones are the opposite: they hide mushroom families with a staff. This mushroom picker walks and walks through the forest and returns home with an empty box.

So think about it, what kind of mushroom pickers are you?

Noticing the tendency to call not only fairy tale/folklore fantasy a fairy tale (which is very close to this genre and the boundaries between them are sometimes blurred), but even modern romance novels, meaning by this concept something that does not exist in real life, I have long wanted to write about fairy tales as a genre.
Additionally, I hope this blog will help those who decide to take part in fairytale competition, which started on November 1, on the mystical and magical Veles Night, which in our country is often replaced by American Halloween (which grew out of Samhain, an ancient Celtic holiday, during which it is believed that the boundaries between worlds disappear, and fairies and elves can come to us, and we - into their magical seeds, or hills). Be that as it may, this is a time of secrets and mysteries, travel between worlds and magic, for which there are no limits. Time for magical stories.

In this post I will try not to copy-paste from various scientific articles and will try to convey everything in my own words, in a simple way. Therefore, those who expect something scientific and schematic, with conclusions and theses (there were reproaches of this kind last time, I had to clean up the comments) may be disappointed. I offer a conversation and do not intend to lecture anyone or tell anyone how to write to you. All this is a personal matter for everyone.
If you are interested in a specific question (there is no time or opportunity to cover everything at once), ask in the comments, I will definitely try to find the answer.

One of the first and main differences between fairy tales and fantasy is the use of certain symbols and archetypes by fairy tales (you can read more about archetypes in Propp in “Morphology of a Fairy Tale” and in Jung in his studies, but I will touch on this topic here), fantasy usually does not uses symbolism and archetypes to the extent that is typical of a fairy tale (or rather, fantasy has its own clichés, but they are somewhat different, unless, of course, this is fairy-tale fantasy, here the line is more difficult to draw). And it is important that the fairy tale does not pretend to be authentic.
The world of a fairy tale is another world, with its own laws and images.
It is also fundamentally wrong to believe that a fairy tale must have a happy ending - on the contrary, before fairy tales were close to gothic and horror, and if you get acquainted with the brothers Grimm or Basile and Perrault in the original (or read our Afanasyev), you will find that the usual childhood stories have a completely different development (no one woke up Sleeping Beauty with a kiss, and she gave birth to children in her sleep, and then the children and she herself were almost eaten by her cannibal mother-in-law, no one saved Little Red Riding Hood, etc.), even Andersen’s fairy tales , which had a strong religious bias, were reworked into Soviet time, and many have not read the original versions.
And yet - a fairy-tale setting does not mean that this is a fairy tale. You can write about Kashchei, Baba Yaga and Vasilisa, but it will be one hundred percent fantasy. And vice versa - you can describe an ordinary city and ordinary children, but it will be just a fairy tale. The main thing is the competent use of archetypes and a certain set of symbols.
In addition, fantasy worlds (classic, especially) are still based on real world, with all its laws and history. Fantasy is a subgenre of fiction, and everything in it is logically justified, the fantastic assumption is also usually explained somehow, magic has its own structure and laws (I am not taking into account some pseudo-fantasy novels with a complete lack of logic, which are generally difficult for me to classify, since the authors write about cliched orcs-elves-witches and use the same type of plot, which is easy to predict).
But in a fairy tale, magic usually does not require explanation (but this does not mean that the author can do whatever he wants, because folklore archetypes have not been canceled, the fairy tale will use them to the fullest, expanding or changing them, but still observing them) .
Fairy tales are different - and good does not necessarily triumph over evil (as in a classic fairy tale), as we said above, but any hero usually gets what he deserves, that is, a fairy tale often contains a certain moral (often, but not always, you need to understand that This morality may differ from what we are used to or even contradict it, because before people had a different mentality, and this also needs to be taken into account).
Another mistake is to think that a fairy tale is intended for children. This is not entirely true - it’s just that when the concept of children’s literature appeared, many fairy tales were adapted for them. In Russian folklore, Afanasyev was a collector of fairy tales - he has both not quite decent fairy tales, and very cruel ones (like Perrault, Basile).
In fairy tales, heroes have precise and clear roles - heroes are usually brave and kind, noble, heroines are beautiful and kind, witches-stepmothers are evil, antagonists plot intrigues, good helpers provide support to the hero and help him win, etc. The exception is the so-called “dark” fairy tale, which is similar to dark fantasy, but this is a separate topic. There are a lot of “masks” and archetypes, as well as plot options; later I will expand the article, paying attention to this topic.

A little theory: the basis of a fairy tale is the image of initiation - hence the “other kingdom”, where the hero needs to go to find a bride or acquire fairy-tale values, after which he must return home. The narrative is “taken entirely beyond the boundaries of real life.” Characteristics fairy tale: verbal ornament, sayings, endings, stable formulas (rhythmic prose phrases like “once upon a time”).

Last time there were questions about archetypes. And again a little theory.
Archetype (from the Greek arche beginning + typos image) is a concept introduced by K.G. Jung to designate the original primitive images, universal symbols or motifs that exist in the collective unconscious and appear in the dreams of each of us. They are repeated in the plots of myths and fairy tales of different peoples, since they have been “stored” in the collective unconscious since the first days of humanity. Dragon, hero, sage, mother, treasure are examples of archetypal images. “Hero slaying the dragon”, “struggle between good and evil” are archetypal motifs.
https://www.b17.ru/article/1226/ here is a good article on Jung, written in quite simple language

In fairy tales, there is an image of a sage (wizard, teacher) giving advice to the hero, expressed in a completely different form, this is considered an image of our subconscious, a desire for a dream to come true - while clear instructions are attached (go there, do that), and the archetypes of magical helpers - this is essentially the desire to get everything at once (the image of the Goldfish, which grew out of the Western European fairy tale about the wishing tree, or our Pike in the fairy tale about Emelya).
There is also the archetype of travel between worlds, one of the most beloved by storytellers (and not only in fantasy, this archetype has also begun to be used). The classic hero's journey (Paul Proppu) is a reflection of the rite of rebirth, a journey to the “other world” and return to one’s own world. And fairy tales reflect both the heroes of the “other world” and the real one. But there are still heroes of the border world.
They have the characteristics of a man and an animal, or a man and a dead man. Meeting them is the hero’s transition to another state, to another world. One of bright examples- Baba Yaga. Bayun can also be included there with his terrible songs that can kill, and many other heroes.
The image of a fairy-tale magical country, another world is another symbol. For us it’s Nav, in Celtic it’s Hills or the land of fairies (elves), there can be a lot of names for this world. But the main thing is that there are certain conditions that are similar among all peoples. Time moves differently there (in reality, a hundred years may pass and the hero will return, but everyone he knew has died, or he himself may crumble into dust), you cannot eat or drink in this world - you will remain forever, etc. Our ancestors considered the ancient forest to be the Other Side (Butler uses this myth well in her books), so hunters, for example, were not allowed to go to the common table until they washed themselves and proved that they were people. They could be tested with iron, they could be evicted for a week outside the fence, etc. This is all related to this. that people believed in the afterlife and were afraid that it would snatch away a living person.
The fairy-tale/other side is different in all fairy tales, despite the signs that unite it - it can be both evil and good, beautiful and ugly.
And the answer to the archetype and its ubiquity is that in fairy tales the magical world and the world of the dead are essentially the same thing. One of the most ancient cults among ancient peoples is the cult of worship of the dead. And magical creatures are the souls of the dead (which can be seen in the images of mermaids, etc.). From the eerie custom of some peoples of bringing home the heads of enemies from the battlefield in order to force them to serve and help, for example, such a magical hero as the brownie appeared. In Slavic fairy tales, this is essentially the spirit of an ancestor.

There are a lot more of all kinds of symbols and archetypes (the hero’s journey, going there-I-don’t-know-where, etc.), and I will definitely return to the blog.

What is a fairy tale?
Let's talk about genre varieties.
The fairy tale genre includes everyday fairy tales (habitual reality, everyday life), fairy tales and fairy tales about animals.
In the magical ones that interest us, different types of plots stand out, but JOURNEY is the most common among them ("overcoming" something is also often included in this type of plot), the archetypes are played out in a variety of ways, and their presence is very important, but the most important thing is The hero must have some purpose. He must strive for something, accomplish something, overcome some obstacles, defeat someone. If the hero doesn’t do any of this, then we just have an attempt at fairy-tale stylization. Often in a fairy tale, the hero violates some kind of prohibition, loses something, and this is what serves as the impetus for the plot to begin. The symbolism of triplicity and the presence of magical helpers are inherent in this particular type of fairy tale, and its main difference from others is the presence of two worlds, ordinary and magical. Most often, the Journey leads the hero to another world; sometimes he is given a difficult task that he must complete. to an ordinary person it will be unrealistic. Everything is always resolved miraculously; the banter and sarcastic element inherent in everyday fairy tales are not and cannot be here. Everything is hyperbolic, exaggerated. The composition of a fairy tale is complex - with a beginning, exposition, climax and denouement. Propp identifies seven characters in such tales - antagonist (pest), giver, helper, princess or king, sender, hero, false hero.
That is, magical ones include heroic tales (snake fighting and quests, which became the basis for epic fantasy), archaic tales, tales about heroes who find themselves in the power of demons (the persecuted hero), tales about wonderful spouses, about wonderful objects, about wedding trials (so that the theme of Selection is so popular today, the theme of Brides was born in old fairy tales, and, by the way, some authors play on these fairy-tale plots very successfully).
It turns out that many topics are rooted precisely in folk art, into folklore.

Literature:
Vladimir Propp. Historical roots

IN fairy tale A special, mysterious world appears before the listener, different from that in fairy tales about animals. It has extraordinary powers fantastic heroes, good and truth conquer darkness, evil and lies.

"This is a world where Ivan Tsarevich rushes through the dark forest on a gray wolf, where the deceived Alyonushka suffers, where Vasilisa the Beautiful brings from Baba Yaga scorching fire, where the brave hero finds the death of Kashchei the Immortal.". 1

Some of the fairy tales are closely related to mythological ideas. Such images as Frost, Water, Sun, Wind are associated with the elemental forces of nature. The most popular of Russian fairy tales are: “Three Kingdoms”, “The Magic Ring”, “The Feather of Finist - the Clear Falcon”, “The Frog Princess”, “Kashchei the Immortal”, “Marya Morevna”, “The Sea King and Vasilisa the Wise”, “ Sivka-Burka", "Morozko" and others.

The hero of a fairy tale is courageous, fearless. He overcomes all obstacles on his path, wins victories, and wins his happiness. And if at the beginning of the fairy tale he can act as Ivan the Fool, Emelya the Fool, then at the end he certainly turns into the handsome and well done Ivan Tsarevich. A.M. drew attention to this at one time. Bitter:

“The hero of folklore is a “fool”, despised even by his father and brothers, always turning out to be smarter than them, always the winner of all everyday adversities. 2

A positive hero always gets help from others fairy tale characters. So, in the fairy tale "Three Kingdoms" the hero is chosen to White light with the help of a wonderful bird. In other fairy tales, the heroes are helped by Sivka-Burka, the Gray Wolf, and Elena the Beautiful. Even such characters as Morozko and Baba Yaga help the heroes for their hard work and good manners. All this expresses popular ideas about human morality and morality.

Always next to the main characters in a fairy tale wonderful helpers: Gray Wolf, Sivka-Burka, Obedalo, Opivalo, Dubynya and Usynya, etc. They have wonderful means: a flying carpet, walking boots, a self-assembled tablecloth, an invisible hat. Images of positive heroes in fairy tales, helpers and wonderful objects express people's dreams.

The images of female heroines of fairy tales in the popular imagination are unusually beautiful. They say about them: “Neither to tell in a fairy tale, nor to describe with a pen.” They are wise, possess witchcraft powers, have remarkable intelligence and resourcefulness (Elena the Beautiful, Vasilisa the Wise, Marya Morevna).

Opponents of goodies - dark forces, terrible monsters (Kashchei the Immortal, Baba Yaga, Dashing One-Eyed, Serpent Gorynych). They are cruel, treacherous and greedy. This is how the people’s idea of ​​violence and evil is expressed. Their appearance sets off the image of a positive hero and his feat. Storytellers did not spare colors to emphasize the struggle between light and dark principles. In its content and in its form, a fairy tale contains elements of the wonderful and unusual. The composition of fairy tales is different from the composition of fairy tales about animals. Some fairy tales begin with a saying - a humorous joke that is not related to the plot. The purpose of a saying is to attract the attention of listeners. It is followed by a beginning that begins the story. It transports listeners to fairy world, denotes the time and place of action, setting, characters. The fairy tale ends with an ending. The narrative develops sequentially, the action is given in dynamics. The structure of the tale reproduces dramatically tense situations.

In fairy tales, episodes are repeated three times (Tsarevich Ivan fights with three snakes on Kalinov Bridge, three beautiful princesses saves Ivan underground kingdom). They use traditional artistic media expressiveness: epithets (good horse, brave horse, green meadow, silk grass, azure flowers, blue sea, dense forests), similes, metaphors, words with diminutive suffixes. These features of fairy tales echo the epics and emphasize the vividness of the narrative.

An example of such a fairy tale is the fairy tale "Two Ivans - Soldiers' Sons".

The beginning of the tale abounds everyday paintings and little reminiscent of magical circumstances. It conveys ordinary everyday information: there lived a man, the time came - he joined the soldiers, in his absence twin boys were born, who were named Ivan - “soldier’s sons”. Thus, there are two main characters in this tale. Nothing miraculous or magical is happening in her yet. It tells about how children learn, how they master literacy, “they put the children of lords and merchants in their belts.” In the development of the action, a plot is planned when the fellows go to the city to buy horses. This scene is filled with elements of a fairy tale: the brothers tame the stallions as fairy-tale heroes have heroic strength. With a “valiant whistle” and a loud voice, the stallions that ran away into the field are returned. The horses obey them: “The stallions came running and stood in place, as if rooted to the spot.” The main characters of the fairy tale are surrounded by special objects that emphasize their heroism (heroic horses, sabers worth three hundred pounds). It is also miraculous that they received these items from a gray-haired old man, who led out the horses for them, opening a cast-iron door in a large mountain. He brought them two heroic sabers. This is how peasant children turn into heroes. The good fellows mounted their horses and rode off.

The fairy tale includes images of crossroads, pillars with inscriptions that determine the choice of path and the fate of the brothers. The objects accompanying the brothers turn out to be miraculous, for example, the handkerchiefs symbolizing death that they exchanged. The narrative is framed by stable fairy-tale formulas. One brother reached the glorious kingdom, married Nastasya the Beautiful and became a prince. “Ivan Tsarevich lives in joy, admires his wife, gives order to the kingdom and amuses himself with animal hunting.” 3

And the other brother “jumps tirelessly day and night, and a month, and another, and a third.” Then Ivan unexpectedly finds himself in an unfamiliar state.

In the city he sees great sadness. “The houses are covered with black cloth, people seem to be staggering sleepily” 4. The twelve-headed serpent, which emerges from the blue sea, from behind a gray stone, eats a person at a time. Even the king's daughter is taken with a snake to be eaten. The snake personifies the dark forces of the world with which the hero fights. Ivan rushes to help. He is brave, knows no fear and always wins in battle. Ivan chops off all the heads of the snake. The magical-fairy-tale element is enhanced by the description of nature, against the background of which a snake appears: “Suddenly a cloud moved in, the wind rustled, the sea shook - a snake emerges from the blue sea, rises up the mountain...” 5. Ivan's duel with the snake is described laconically.

Repeated verbs add speed to the action: “Ivan drew his sharp saber, swung, struck and cut off all twelve heads of the snake; he lifted a gray stone, put the heads under the stone, threw the body into the sea, and returned home, went to bed and slept for three days.” . 6

It would seem that the fairy tale should end here, the plot has been exhausted, but suddenly new circumstances are woven into it with the introduction of a character from the royal entourage - a water carrier, whose thoughts are vile and base.

The situation is getting worse. The climax 7 arrives. The water carrier acts as the “savior” of the princess, who, under pain of death, forced her to recognize him as a savior. The episode is repeated two more times with two other daughters of the king. The Tsar made the water carrier a colonel, then a general, and finally married his youngest daughter.

And Ivan fights the monster three times, three times the water carrier threatens to kill the king’s daughters. However, the story ends with the victory of the hero, evil is punished, the water carrier is hanged, truth triumphs, the youngest daughter is married to Ivan. This episode of the fairy tale ends with the well-known saying: “The young people began to live and live well and make good money.”

The narrative in the fairy tale returns again to another brother - Ivan Tsarevich. It is told how he got lost while hunting and met an ugly monster - a red maiden, the sister of a twelve-headed serpent, who turned into a terrible lioness. She opens her mouth and swallows the prince whole. The fairy tale reveals an element of reincarnation. A wonderful object comes to the hero’s aid - his brother’s handkerchief, notifying him of what has happened. The search for my brother begins. The tale repeats the description of the hunt and the actions of the hero. Ivan the peasant son finds himself in the same situation as Ivan Tsarevich, but remains alive thanks to a wonderful helper - a magic horse. The red maiden puffed up like a terrible lioness and wanted to swallow the good fellow, but a magic horse came running, “clasped her with heroic legs,” and Ivan forced the lioness to throw Prince Ivan out of her, threatening to chop her into pieces.

An extraordinary miracle in a fairy tale and living water, saving, reviving Ivan Tsarevich. The tale ends with the ending: Ivan the Tsarevich remained in his state, and Ivan the soldier’s son went to his wife and began to live with her in love and harmony.

The fairy tale "Two Ivans - Soldiers' Sons" combines all the elements of a fairy tale: composition, three-fold repetition of episodes and actions of the heroes, development of the plot, positive heroes and the opposition of negative monsters to them, miraculous transformations and objects, the use of visual and expressive means (constant epithets, stable folklore formulas). The fairy tale affirms good and debunks evil.

It is interesting to note that the text of the tale has a continuation (Russian folk tales A.N. Afanasyev, No. 155). Here is the text:

“At some time, Ivan, the soldier’s son, went out into the open field for a walk; a small child came across him and asked for alms. It became a pity good fellow, took a gold piece out of his pocket and gave it to the boy; the boy accepts alms, and sulks himself - he turns into a lion and tears the hero into small pieces. A few days later the same thing happened to Ivan Tsarevich: he went out into the garden for a walk, and an old man met him, bowed low and asked for alms; the prince gives him gold. The old man accepts alms, but he sulks. - He turned into a lion, grabbed Ivan Tsarevich and tore him into pieces. And so the mighty heroes perished, and their serpentine sister tormented them." 8

The good feelings of Ivan, a peasant son who took pity on his snake sister, a beautiful maiden, and let her go, were punished by the death of his brothers. Although similar tragic ending in general, it is not typical for fairy tales.

Fairy talesRead fairy tales

The word "fairy tale" appears in written sources around the 16th century, but its meaning is far from what is accepted today. But initially a fairy tale is a list, list or description. The same thing that we used to call a fairy tale, our distant ancestors called “blasphemy.” And only in the 11th century, after the baptism of Rus', the blasphemy lost both its mythological, sacred meaning and the name itself (the current meaning of the word blasphemy is blasphemy, desecration of a shrine, a crime against religion, faith), receiving in return a new one - a fable, which lasted until the 19th century, giving way in turn to the name of the fairy tale already known to us. Nowadays there are many types of fairy tales - literary, folklore, everyday, about animals. But probably the most exciting, interesting, and beloved are fairy tales. The ones where the wolf can speak in a human voice, the firebird can be caught with your hands, and the reward for fearlessness and fortitude will be a wedding with your beloved, and often a kingdom to boot...

Composition and plot of a fairy tale.

Unlike other types of fairy tales, fairy tales are based on a very clear composition and plot. And also, most often, a recognizable set of certain universal “formulas” by which it is easy to recognize and distinguish. This is the standard beginning - “Once upon a time there lived in a certain kingdom in a certain state...”, or the ending “And I was there, drinking honey and beer...”, and standard question-answer formulas “Where are you going?” “Are you torturing or getting away with it,” and others.

Compositionally, a fairy tale consists of an exposition (the reasons that gave rise to the problem, damage, for example, the violation of a prohibition). The beginning (detection of damage, shortage, loss), development of the plot (search for the lost). Next comes the climax (battle with evil forces) and denouement (solution, overcoming the problem, usually accompanied by an increase in the status of the hero (entrance)). In addition, in a fairy tale, characters are clearly divided into roles. This is the hero, false hero, antagonist, giver, helper, sender, princess (or princess's father). It is not necessary that all of them are present, and each role is played by a separate character, but certain characters are clearly visible in every fairy tale.

The plot of a fairy tale is based on a story about overcoming a certain lack, a loss, and in order to overcome the antagonist - the cause of the loss, the hero necessarily needs wonderful helpers. But getting such an assistant is not easy - you need to pass a test, choose the correct answer or Right way. Well, the conclusion is most often a wedding feast, the same one at which “I was there, drinking honey and beer...”, and a reward in the form of a kingdom.

A fairy tale is a teacher. What's the lesson?

It is the fairy tale that most often turns to those who are looking for traces of ancient knowledge in ordinary children's fairy tales, carefully preserved and passed on from mouth to mouth by our distant ancestors. Those very “blasphemers” who teach, educate, lay in the child the basis of those qualities that were considered necessary and correct. Both knowledge and these qualities were very different for future men and women, although, of course, there was a lot in common. And now, if you look closely, it’s easy to notice that some fairy tales are intended more for girls, while others are more for boys. Although these differences, as well as hints of knowledge, suffered somewhat over the centuries when blasphemers turned into fables, bringing to the fore not the mythological, sacred, but the entertainment and artistic component. But even in these fairy tales that have come down to us, it is not difficult to find simple human values- that it is better to be kind than evil, generous - than greedy, hardworking - than lazy. That evil and deception are ultimately punished, and kindness, courage and honesty are rewarded. Perhaps many of these values ​​will be considered outdated for our world. But how difficult and sad it is to live in a world of deception and evil. And here fairy tales give us a guiding thread, a ray of light leading to the hope that this is not forever, the time of difficulties will pass, evil will be punished. Naive? May be. But maybe it’s smart fairy tales that will help our children make this world a better and kinder place.

A fairy tale as a healer.

Psychologists who practice the now quite popular area of ​​fairy tale therapy are very fond of turning to fairy tales. Why? It’s very simple - it’s fairy tales that have a wonderful set of clearly defined roles - a positive hero can be easily distinguished from a negative one, bad from good, black from white. It is in a fairy tale that it is easy to find a hero “to your liking” - that is, someone similar to yourself. And then go through a long journey of trials with him and return from it different - renewed, wiser. Often they not only solved a certain problem, overcame a crisis, but even matured - after all, it is not without reason that a number of scientists (in particular, V.Ya. Propp, one of the outstanding Russian folklorists, the French researcher P. Centiv) see in fairy tales a reminder of initiation rituals, rite of passage from childhood to adulthood. By the way, it is the absence of such a ritual in our modern culture that some psychologists consider to be the cause of crisis states and even suicidal impulses in adolescence, after all, initiation is nothing more than a transition to another, adult state through ritual “dying” in the original childhood status. And a fairy tale can also help to overcome such a crisis.

Danish psychologist and psychiatrist Bruno Betelheim, who devoted a lot of attention to fairy tales and their meaning for a child, considers a fairy tale to be the most suitable for a child to perceive, and specifically a folk tale. Why? Firstly, the simple language of this fairy tale is understandable to a child; the characters are few and simplified as much as possible (often they don’t even have names). The plot of a fairy tale is as simple, understandable, and not tied to time and space as possible. This helps perception go beyond the ordinary. In his research, Bruno Betelheim compares the fairy tale with very similar myths and fables. The conclusion is that neither myth, which often carries a negative connotation (the death of characters), nor fables, the moral of which is aimed more at adults, are suitable for children’s perception; moreover, they can even suppress the child.

A fairy tale is an excellent teacher, a healer of souls, and simply a kind and intelligent interlocutor. The meaning of the tale is different for different people and even for the same person at different periods of his life - from early childhood and until old age. She is like a priceless treasure, from which everyone will take only what he needs, what he is able to understand, assimilate, and appreciate. But the most valuable and necessary lessons are fairy tales for children.

A fairy tale reflects the cultural heritage of mankind, sifting out the superficial and unimportant for centuries. She carefully preserves grains of truly valuable things. A fairy tale promotes the development of imagination, fantasy, creativity child, she helps him look at the world through someone else’s eyes - through the eyes of a hero, teaching empathy, sympathy, and empathy. The heroes of a fairy tale always have a clear moral orientation. There is no place for halftones here. Good - or evil, good - or bad. It is impossible to stay away. At the same time, the positive hero of a fairy tale is always in a more advantageous, interesting, attractive position, so more often the child identifies himself with him. A positive hero attracts the child to his side - the side of good, thereby instilling in the child a craving for goodness, for cultivating positive qualities in himself.