Fairy stories occupy an important place in storytelling. Anne Pellowski's 1977 survey revealed the existence of the activity in every part of the inhabited world. In the past, storytelling required an apprenticeship in some places, and in others it was passed down by families of storytellers from one generation to the next. Storytelling encompasses oral history, religion, mythology, legends, fables, folk tales, and fairy stories. Distinctions between the last three are blurred. Elizabeth Cook acknowledged that critics have spent much time trying to identify the differences between them. She claimed that, in fact, all three were about human behaviour in a world of magic. If this definition is accepted, then it becomes obvious that Anne Pellowski found that fairy tales were being told in countries as diverse as Russia, Ireland, China, Australia, India, and Morocco, as well as many others.
Storytelling can be defined in a number of ways. It might be regarded as telling a tale to an audience without depending on the written word, or it might be seen as taking the printed words from a book and giving them life by reading them orally to one or more listeners.
In pre‐literate societies, fairy tales would be told and passed down from one generation to the next. As a consequence, the content of the stories would gradually change. Once books became more common and people more literate, fairy stories were collected in printed form. Thereafter, storytelling began to incorporate story reading, and it is likely that most fairy stories are now told in this way. That is not to say that this newer approach meets with universal approval. Some folklorists claim that a fairy story loses its power and authority once it is recorded in print, and there are still storytellers who believe that a story should be the property of its creator. Although these are minority opinions and reading aloud must now be acknowledged to be the mode, there are still powerful arguments for fairy stories being told rather than read.
One of the most convincing cases for telling rather than reading fairy stories comes from Bruno Bettelheim in his classic book on fairy tales, The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales (1976). Bettelheim claimed that fairy tales should be told rather than read because their meanings are interpersonal. This applies particularly to older fairy tales as opposed to newly created ones. The ancient fairy tales have been shaped and reshaped through millions of tellings, whereas newer versions, being committed to print, are more static. Telling, claimed Bettelheim, is preferable to reading because it allows for greater flexibility.
It is clear that Bettelheim is mainly concerned with family storytelling in this respect, preferably on a one‐to‐one basis. This allows both teller and listener to empathize with the story and make subtle changes to it. That is not to say that the story should be used in a didactic way; the child will be able to derive meanings which are individually related. There is no need for the teller to explain the story. Although Bettelheim advocates telling rather than reading fairy stories mainly in a family setting, Eileen Colwell—herself a distinguished storyteller—also recommends this approach with larger audiences. She regards the use of a book as a barrier to the intimate relationship with the audience which the storyteller should have.
Audiences who listen to the telling of fairy stories vary from culture to culture, as do the venues for the activity. Anne Pellowski (1977) found that in some societies storytelling occurred in the workplace, at festivals, and in the street and market‐place. Examples of the last named can still be found in Morocco, notably in the city of Marrakesh. Audiences in these places will at times be mainly adult, at other times mixed. In Western society the telling of fairy tales is much more likely to take place in the home or school and, to a much lesser extent, in parks, around camp fires, and in libraries. The main reason for this is probably that once fairy stories were recorded in writing they lost some of their vigour, became less frightening and more genteel, and were consequently regarded as being mainly for a juvenile audience.
Fairy stories are often thought to be mainly for young children, but in 1971 Elizabeth Cook claimed that pupils aged between 8 and 14 also enjoyed them. She mentions many of the stories from the collections by the Brothers Grimm, Andersen, and Perrault in this respect, but also the more recent works of Oscar Wilde, George MacDonald, C. S. Lewis, and J. R. R. Tolkien. Certainly Tolkien's books The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1954–5) have been very popular in recent years. The length of both Tolkien's and Lewis's books results in most of the associated storytelling being confined mainly to reading from the books.
Many children demonstrate the ability to retell fairy stories from an early age. Arthur Applebee's study in 1973 revealed that even at the age of 2 a considerable number could make use of a formal beginning and the past tense consistently. It is, in all probability, the established pattern of fairy stories which helps children to retell them with some competence. Standardized beginnings and endings, the rapid identification of principal characters, a crisis or challenge followed by a rapid chain of events followed by a successful resolution all assist in this process, as does the frequent repetition of words and phrases.
Applebee also found that at the ages of both 6 and 9 fairy tales were the most frequently chosen stories for retelling. Among the most popular with 6‐year‐olds were ‘Cinderella’ and ‘Goldilocks’. At nine the most popular choices were ‘The Three Little Pigs’, Bedknobs and Broomsticks', ‘The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe’, ‘Sleeping Beauty’, ‘The Princess and the Pea’, and ‘Snow White’. A significant difference between the 6‐ and 9‐year‐olds was that the former were far less likely to be able to distinguish between fantasy and reality. They were far more likely to think that Cinderella was real or to be certain that they had personally encountered a real giant.
Some of Applebee's findings have been confirmed by Goeff Fenwick. He found young children to be enthusiastic about the retelling of fairy tales, although before the age of 5 they encountered some trouble with providing a satisfactory ending. They found fairy tales much more easy to retell than other kinds of stories, and improved with practice. Although their retellings were in the main accurate, they added their own individual touches in much the same way as adult storytellers do. For example, there might be four rather than three little pigs, the wise pig might trick the wolf by going to pick apples at ‘40 o'clock’ in the morning, one of the pigs might be rescued from the same cauldron in which the wolf is being boiled, Cinderella's coach can be motorized, and Goldilocks might steal the little bear's teddy bear. Many children retell their stories dramatically, adopting the appropriate mode. Their growing competence often seems to influence their ability to record the same material in writing.
Jack Zipes in Creative Storytelling suggests that children might recognize the dynamic nature of fairy stories by being asked to provide their own endings. In addition, characters and plots from different fairy stories might be mixed up to illustrate the same point. For example, Little Red Riding Hood and Snow White might be included in the same story. Alternatively, different versions of the same story might be considered. By these means, children are likely to understand the personal nature of fairy stories and how they can change from one telling to the next. Teresa Grainger also underlines the creative element in children's storytelling. By retelling fairy tales, they are not only demonstrating their powers of recall and comprehension, they are developing the power of their own language. Grainger recommends the use of fairy tales from different parts of the world and suggests that children should share the telling of a fairy story or dramatize it. Nor should the audience be confined to the classroom. Children might tell fairy tales to pupils younger or older than themselves or to selected groups of adults.
The media's contribution to storytelling in Great Britain has been considerable. From 1922 until 1966 Children's Hour, aired each day in the early evening on British radio, told many types of stories, including fairy tales. The best‐known was probably the long‐running series ‘Toy Town’. Children's Hour was particularly important during World War II when books and other forms of entertainment were in short supply. Another well‐known radio programme, also broadcast by the BBC, was Listen with Mother, which was on the air weekday afternoons. Fairy tales were also a part of its corpus of stories. The programme lasted from 1950 until 1982.
For large audiences to be captured by unseen readers is an indication of the power of story. A medium even more unlikely than radio for communicating stories is television, unless those stories are dramatized. Yet from 1964 until the early 1980s, a British programme specializing in storytelling, Jackanory, had a weekday slot in the late afternoon. Often the readers were accomplished actors, such as the late Kenneth Williams. On one occasion Prince Charles read his own folk tale, ‘The Old Man of Lochnagar’. Jackanory lasted for 15 minutes, an ideal time for a storytelling programme.
Storytelling associations exist in many countries. Their aims are to preserve, promote, and develop this ancient art. There has been a resurgence of interest in storytelling on both sides of the Atlantic since the early 1980s. Many groups have been formed in North America, one of the best‐known being the Canadian‐based Storytelling School of Toronto. The interest has been so great that National Festivals of Storytelling have been held from time to time in the United States.
In Great Britain there are a number of influential societies. One of them, the Company of Storytellers, comprises some 200 professionals who make some part of their living by giving public performances of their art. Other associations include Common Lore, the Crick‐Crack Club, the National Association for Storytelling, and the Society for Storytelling. All of these groups make use of well‐known fairy and folk tales, and extend the range of their expertise to material from many ethnic groups. Storytellers who have helped to extend the range of storytelling in Great Britain include Ben Haggerty, Beula Candappa, Grace Hallworth, and Duncan Williamson. The revival of storytelling might be due to some extent to a reaction against the passive nature of much modern entertainment. Although all of the associations mentioned regard work with children as being important, their involvement with teenagers and adults has demonstrated that fairy tales are by no means exclusively for the very young.
The public library service has been influential in the development of storytelling in both the United States and Great Britain. The activity can be traced as far back as 1896 in the Free Library in Brooklyn, New York, but it was probably a visit by Marie Shedlock in 1900 which gave it the impetus which resulted in it becoming established in public libraries across the nation.
Marie Shedlock (1854–1935) spent most of her life in England, becoming a professional storyteller in 1885. A versatile practitioner, she specialized in telling the stories of Hans Christian Andersen such as ‘The Swineherd’, ‘The Steadfast Tin Soldier’, and ‘The Princess and the Pea’. Her warm, natural style was a departure from the stilted dramatics of the day. She demonstrated this cleverly by telling Andersen's story ‘The Nightingale’, in which the song of the live bird is contrasted with that of its clockwork rival. She claimed that, to tell a story effectively, you had to convey the impression that you were part of it. Marie Shedlock made further visits to the United States, including an extended one between 1915 and 1920. Her book The Art of the Story‐Teller, first published in 1913, is regarded as a classic of its kind.
Others noted for their work in promoting storytelling include Ann Carroll Moore and Ann Cogswell Tyler. Mainly through their efforts, storytelling became a popular feature in the public libraries of New York. In 1909, for example, stories were told to over 28, 000 children in the city's libraries. Ruth Sawyer (1886–1970) also collaborated on this work. Her source was mainly Celtic and her version of ‘The Voyage of the Wee Red Cap’ was a much‐loved feature at Christmas in the libraries of New York. Her book The Way of the Storyteller (1942) is regarded, like Shedlock's, as a classic.
In Great Britain, Eileen Colwell and Grace Hallworth made outstanding contributions to the development of storytelling in libraries. Eileen Colwell became a librarian in 1920, and in 1926 assumed responsibility for children's libraries in Hendon, North London, making them well known for their pioneering work. She became a friend of John Masefield, the then Poet Laureate, who helped to establish an annual festival of the spoken word at Oxford. Eileen Colwell's style of storytelling is quiet and undemonstrative, with no use of visual aids. She published several collections of stories for telling, including A Storyteller's Choice (1961) and A Second Storyteller's Choice (1963). Her range of stories includes modern tales such as Ursula Moray Williams's ‘The Clever Little Christmas Tree’, and the Celtic Tales of Joseph Jacobs. Colwell eventually became a lecturer at the Loughborough School of Librarianship. Grace Hallworth came from Trinidad in 1957 to work in a library in Hertfordshire, where she developed storytelling, specializing in West Indian folk tales. Her book Stories to Read and to Tell, written in collaboration with J. Marriage, was published in 1970. Another librarian notable for her work was Janet Hill, who encouraged outdoor storytelling in the London parks in the 1970s.
Storytelling in schools in Great Britain takes place mainly in the early years. Many of the stories which teachers tell are traditional fairy tales. Beyond the first two years of schooling, the incidence of both fairy tales and storytelling decreases markedly. Thereafter, if fairy tales are employed in the classroom, they are likely to be read rather than told. Fairy tales in general are thought to be for young children.
Fairy tales play an important part in the teaching of reading. Their structure, especially the frequent repetition of words and phrases and the use of rhyme, make them ideal subjects for books within reading schemes. These books are read aloud when children are learning to read. A fairly recent innovation in the teaching of reading has been the use of Big Books. These are outsize with attractive pictures and a small amount of very large print. Many of them consist of simple fairy tales with a great deal of repetition, often with only one new word on each successive page. Several children can read a Big Book at once. They can learn the content so quickly that they can tell the stories with ease.
Teachers have not developed storytelling to the same extent as librarians, probably because they face a wider, less voluntary audience. Influenced by a statutory National Curriculum which includes both storytelling and fairy tales, there are indications that teachers are now developing considerable expertise. They have been assisted in this respect by the National Oracy Project, which was established in 1987 and which placed considerable emphasis on storytelling, including work with older pupils. Children as old as 16 were encouraged to tell local folk tales.
Both audiotape and videotape also play a part in storytelling in schools. Videotapes usually present dramatized versions of stories, whereas audiotapes use narration, often by accomplished actors, and can be used by either groups or single listeners.
Bibliography
- Applebee, Arthur, The Child's Concept of Story: Ages Two to Seventeen (1973).
- Bettelheim, Bruno, The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales (1976).
- Colwell, Eileen, A Storyteller's Choice (1961).
- ——A Second Storyteller's Choice (1963).
- ——Storytelling (1980).
- Cook, Elizabeth, The Ordinary and the Fabulous: An Introduction to Myths, Legends and Fairy Tales for Teachers and Storytellers (1969).
- Fenwick, Geoff, Teaching Children's Literature in the Primary School (1990).
- Grainger, Teresa, Traditional Storytelling in the Primary Classroom (1997).
- Hallworth, Grace, and Marriage, J., Stories to Read and to Share (1970).
- Howe, Alan, and Johnson, John, Common Bonds. Storytelling in the Classroom: The National Oracy Project (1992).
- Pellowski, Anne, The World of Storytelling (1977).
- Sawyer, Ruth, The Way of the Storyteller (1942).
- Shedlock, Marie, The Art of the Story‐Teller (1913).
- Zipes, Jack, Creative Storytelling: Building Community, Changing Lives (1995).
— Geoffrey Fenwick
