Cybergraphy

The Golden Bird: http://www.authorama.com/grimms-fairy-tales-1.html

Fairy tales have ancient origin: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/6142964/Fairy-tales-have-ancient-origin.html

The Moral or the Story: http://www.vision.org/visionmedia/society-and-culture/moral-of-the-story/153.aspx

The Disturbing Origins of 10 Famous Fairy Tales: http://flavorwire.com/344667/the-disturbing-origins-of-10-famous-fairy-tales

Mrs. Hall Fairy-Tale sructure: http://es.slideshare.net/mkbrillantes/mrs-hall-fairytale-structure

Story elements 2: http://es.slideshare.net/aelowans/story-elements-2?next_slideshow=1

How to write a fairy tale: http://es.slideshare.net/jaimelavie/how-to-write-a-fairy-tale?related=1

Malcom’s Round Table, When magic is shaken, no stirred: https://knightofswords.wordpress.com/2013/06/15/the-bare-bones-structure-of-a-fairy-tale/

Narrative, Traditional tales, Fairy tales: https://www.school-portal.co.uk/GroupDownloadFile.asp?GroupId=980598&ResourceId=3268604

Interpretation of the moral of the story

My own interpretation about the author’s life lesson

What represented each one of the characters?

In the real life kings could represent the authority: somebody who said to others what they had to do, no matter the intention, if it were “good” or “bad” they had to be obedient, and respectful to him. We can interpret the king as a father or a mother.

The princes, were showing the future: they were going to recieve the heritage, the wealth and the values. According to the tale, the eldest sons, who were very lax and lawless, could represent false friends who are not honest and can be interested only in their fortune, or taking advantage on a particular situation. The youngest son is the hero, he was the savior of the wealth, of the knowledge and of the respect to the lordliness. 

The princess remained the most precious thing, while the bird and the horse befriended her. And the other golden stuffs such as the cage, the saddle and the castel became complements to show the things we do not really need, superfluous things. The  princess represents the stability, loyalty, friendship, and goodwill.

The fox could be old wise people, these people who youngsters never want to hear, and who never abandon us. They stay there to guide our decisions.  In these kind of stories they usually are represented by our relatives. 

And what are the challenges and the warnings?

Since my own position and comprehension, the most important character was the fox.  The fox is an old, old relative who desires the youngest’s succes. It never was very far, and it was always watching closely to insure the princes’ victory, or our own’s. One of the main challenge is to listen carefully their recommentations. Another important fact is to drop down the shallow and insignificant details, we have to fix the goal and stay focused. His dead showed us the need to let go those old family stories to build a new one over new foundations. So the main challenge was to keep concentrated, following the fox’s coucils. We are used to thinking the senior’s councils are giving to annoy us. Remember the proverb: “If you wish good advise, consult an old man”.

As warnings, I catch, for exemple, to take care of false friends who without seeming to take advantage of your kindness or your ingenuity are planning how to knock you down. They could be friendly but in fact they are jealous of your good luck and your great succes. We have also be carefully with the appearences and the mirages, such as the golden cage, in the story. We have to stay humble and concentrated. We can’t have our cake and eat it too, we have to organise our live following an orden of priorities. We can have one, or two, but we always have to focus to reach the goal.

Evolution of the story

According to the structure,  show the evolution of the story in “The Golden Bird”

Setting

“A certain king had a beautiful garden”… in the garden stood a tree which bore golden apples… a bird was eating these apples and the king asked their sons to keep a close watch to the bird, but he discovered the bird was a golden one he wanted. So the king sent his sons to looking for the golden bird.

Characters

Here we have several kings, several princes, a princess and a fox as main characters. But we also have several secondary characters that help the protagonists to continue to develop the story: golden things (apples, bird, cage, horse, castel), the inns, the wooden cage, the river, the poor man. 

Conflict

The king sent first his two eldest sons, but they never came back. So “the youngest son too wished to set out into the wide world to seek for the golden bird”. “In the path to the wood, he met the fox, and heard the same good counsel” his brother had  heard from the fox. The fox bacame the youngest’s son counselor. It knew what was going to happen before it occurred, but the prince could not remember what the fox had said. So he always felt on the trap. According to the prediction of the fox, Prince would past in front of both hostels and would not entered in either; he had not to put the golden bird in the golden cage before carrying it away; he had not to put the gold saddle on the golden horseback; and he had not  allowed the princess to say goodbye to her parents. But despite that the young man was never followed his advices, the fox never would forsake him. Before returning to the palace with the princess, the golden horse and the golden bird, the Prince wanted to fetch his two lost brothers. Finally the fox had to leave him, but before doing so, he gave him one last tip : “I will at any rate give you good counsel: beware of two things; ransom no one from the gallows, and sit down by the side of no river.” Obviously, the prince overlook this last advice and his brothers pulled him down the river and stole the princess, the golden horse and the golden bird.

Solution and happy end

So the youngest son dressed himself as a poor man, and came secretly to the king’s court, and was scarcely within the doors when the horse began to eat, and the bird to sing, and princess left off weeping. Then she went to the king, and told him all about his eldest sons’s roguery; and they were seized and punished, and the youngest prince got the princess back again; and after the king’s death he was heir to his kingdom.

       

After a long time, he went to walk one day in the wood, and the old fox met him, and besought him with tears in his eyes to kill him, and cut off his head and feet. And at last he did so, and in a moment the fox was changed into a man, and turned out to be the brother of the princess, who had been lost a great many many years.

Definition, Origin, Structure and Characters

Definition

A fairy tale is a fictitious story that happens in indefinite places or times, it takes place “Once upon a time”. Usually, writers resorts to mythological creatures, fantastic animals and things that speak, and magic spells, but  the term gives responses to a kind of folklore fantasy  rather a literal “fairy” tale. 

Dwaves

Fairies

Elves

                               

  

Goblins

Witches

Nymphs

Origin

Nobody knows exactely the origins of fairy tales because they have not always been part of written language; the have existed for thousands of years as oral tradition. Besides, the folkloric undertones have allowed “many of today's fairy tales have evolved from centuries-old stories that have appeared, with variations, in multiple cultures around the world” (Wikipedia, 17/04/15).  Because of that, some folklorists prefer to make reference to “wonder tale”, but the term “fairy tale” was ascribe by Madame d’Aulnoy in the late 17th century, in French, as “Conte de Fée”. However, as I explained before, fairy tales began as tales for adults, and were not at all addressed to children.

Structure and characters

We can see the fairy tales as a tree, where the author’s message is the root (the life lesson the author is trying to teach us in the story), after that we have the trunk: the heart of the story; the plot. The branches are showed in the following order: 

•  First the characters (protagonist: character that is viewed as “good person”), very often, the main characters belong to the monarchy: kings, queens, princes or princesses. 
• Then the setting (place and time), often the hero or heroine is looking for something or someone: a home, love, acceptance, wealth, wisdom. Most of the time, it begins in a undefined place, time or person. In some cases we can find first the setting and them the characters, as in The Golden Bird. 
• After that, the problem or the conflict comes (the antagonist appears: character viewed as “bad person”), and the protagonist has to face a serie of conflicts on his or her journey toward reaching the goal (Story Elements 2). 
• In addition, to finish the story, the solution comes, and it usually has a happy end, where the villain has been punished and the hero has found or fulfilled his or her design or dreams.  

The Authors

The Grimm Brothers, Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm Grimm (1786–1859), were German academics, linguists, cultural researchers, lexicographers and authors who together specialized in collecting and publishing folklore during the 19th century (Wikipedia, 18/04/2015). They were very interested in safeguarding traditional stories that were only on the narrated form. They began to invite some other storytellers, friends and relatives, to their home to tell them traditional and “Stories from Past Time” tales. After that, they began to transcribe these traditional stories from northwest of Europe. 

At the beginning, the words employed were very crude, with sexual undertones and full of violence. After getting accusations from different sectors of society by the steadfastness and the cruelty described into the tales, Grimm brothers had to polish the language to make it more enticing to a bourgeois audience, sexual elements were eliminated and Christian elements were added. They finished to reducing, modifying or removing some sections of the tales, and after 1819 Wilhelm began writing for children, adding entirely new tales or adding new elements that were often strongly didactic than existing tales.

Introduction

Live lesson of The Golden Bird

In this moment, I am in an impasse, but I think that all situations in the live turn up to teach us something. One evening, I was so sad about my situation and I was to late on my english project because I had no ideas. I had to made empty my mind before to could get focus. That evening my daughter ask me to read her a fairy tale, so I took the Grimm Brothers’ Tales book and chosen the first one on the index: The Golden Bird. When I had finish to read I understood the moral lesson of this tale and I assumed it was addresed to me, as a mirror to help me to handle my personal problem and surpass it. 

I am going to explain to you my own reading about this fairy tale, but before I will show you the authors, the origins of this narative tale genre, its structure and the characters.