Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Abbreviations
- Dedication
- Introduction
- 1 The Interpretation of Fairy Tales
- 2 Creativity and Tradition in the Fairy Tale
- 3 The Ultimate Fairy Tale: Oral Transmission in a Literate World
- 4 A Workshop of Editorial Practice: The Grimms’ Kinder- und Hausmarchen
- 5 Old Tales for New: Finding the First Fairy Tales
- 6 Helpers and Adversaries in Fairy Tales
- 7 ‘Catch if you can’: The Cumulative Tale
- 8 Unknown Cinderella: The Contribution of Marian Roalfe Cox to the Study of Fairy Tale
- 9 Hans Christian Andersen's Use of Folktales
- 10 The Collecting and Study of Tales in Scandinavia
- 11 The Wonder Tale in Ireland
- 12 Welsh Folk Narrative and the Fairy Tale
- 13 The Ossetic Oral Narrative Tradition: Fairy Tales in the Context of Other Forms of Traditional Literature
- 14 Russian Fairy Tales and Their Collectors
- 15 Fairy-Tale Motifs from the Caucasus
- 16 The Fairy Tale in South Asia: The Same Only Different
- 17 Rewriting the Core: Transformations of the Fairy Tale in Contemporary Writing
- General Index
- Index of main tales and tale-types
6 - Helpers and Adversaries in Fairy Tales
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 March 2023
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Abbreviations
- Dedication
- Introduction
- 1 The Interpretation of Fairy Tales
- 2 Creativity and Tradition in the Fairy Tale
- 3 The Ultimate Fairy Tale: Oral Transmission in a Literate World
- 4 A Workshop of Editorial Practice: The Grimms’ Kinder- und Hausmarchen
- 5 Old Tales for New: Finding the First Fairy Tales
- 6 Helpers and Adversaries in Fairy Tales
- 7 ‘Catch if you can’: The Cumulative Tale
- 8 Unknown Cinderella: The Contribution of Marian Roalfe Cox to the Study of Fairy Tale
- 9 Hans Christian Andersen's Use of Folktales
- 10 The Collecting and Study of Tales in Scandinavia
- 11 The Wonder Tale in Ireland
- 12 Welsh Folk Narrative and the Fairy Tale
- 13 The Ossetic Oral Narrative Tradition: Fairy Tales in the Context of Other Forms of Traditional Literature
- 14 Russian Fairy Tales and Their Collectors
- 15 Fairy-Tale Motifs from the Caucasus
- 16 The Fairy Tale in South Asia: The Same Only Different
- 17 Rewriting the Core: Transformations of the Fairy Tale in Contemporary Writing
- General Index
- Index of main tales and tale-types
Summary
One well-established pattern found in the fairy tale throughout Europe and beyond is that of various characters offering help to the hero or heroine, while others seek to destroy them. The helpers may be either animal or human, dolls or inanimate objects, the dead or supernatural beings, although deities and recognised supernatural powers, such as are found in myths and legends, do not normally appear in the fairy tale. The intervention of the helper is essential to the plot, since this is what usually ensures that the final outcome is a happy one - marriage, reunion with brothers or sisters, husband or wife, or the winning of a treasure or a kingdom - while the destroyers are finally exposed and punished. For all their importance, few attempts have been made to analyse helpers or adversaries in any detail, and it seems worthwhile to pursue the subject further, since the conflict between these opposing forces for the destiny of hero or heroine is clearly of primary importance for our understanding of the tales.
Helpers in animal form include birds, fishes and insects, and these have no obvious parallels in heroicliterature, myths or legends. In many cases the help is given in response to generosity on the part of the central character, who then achieves success against apparently insuperable odds (AT 534). In the Grimms’ tale of ‘The Queen Bee’ (1944: 317), a very simple story, this forms the basicplot. When three brothers set out to seek their fortunes, the two elder are going to destroy an ant-hill, thinking it would be amusing to see the ants scurrying about in terror. But the youngest, Simpleton, prevents them, insisting: ‘Leave the creatures in peace. I will not allow you to disturb them.’ He similarly stops them from killing two ducks on a pond, and breaking into a bee's nest for honey. To deliver a castle from enchantment, they have to find a thousand pearls scattered in the moss, recover a key from a lake, and declare which of three sleeping princesses has eaten honey. The two elder brothers fail, but the ants, the ducks and the queen bee solve the problems for the youngest son when his turn comes.
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- Information
- A Companion to the Fairy Tale , pp. 99 - 122Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2002