Fairytales continue to inspire those who dabble in 'the imagination business'

Australia Broadcast Center

2 days ago

You may have been read fairytales as a child, but centuries ago the original stories were intended for adults.
As tales of warning about sexuality, violence and death, the stories were far from suitable for younger minds.
Jo Henwood, co-founder of the Australian Fairy Tale Society, gives the example of Charles Perrault's Little Red Riding Hood, written in 1697.
She said it was about wolves, or gadabouts, luring Versailles girls off the path, where there was no woodcutter to rescue them.
"The grandmother is killed and Red Riding Hood drinks her blood accidentally, thinking it's a bottle of wine.
"The wolf, as grandmother, is in bed saying, 'Take off your cloak, Riding Hood, you won't be needing that anymore; take off your dress, Riding Hood, you won't be needing that anymore' and he's just luring her into bed."
Henwood said the transition of fairytales to children's stories happened later, with the release of Grimms' Fairy Tales.
"The French salon stories are absolutely adult stories, and they're very subversive, but when you get to the Grimms, that's when they transform from adult stories to children's stories," she said.
The first edition of The Fairy Tales of The Brothers Grimm was published in 1812.
"They collected folklore and, realising a new market, turned them into moral tales for middle-class Lutheran children, but there's a lot of misogyny and punishment that goes on," Henwood said.
"At the beginning of the 19th century you get the invention of children, that they need to be tamed, and the Grimms are very much leading that change in society."
Fast forward to the 21st century and fairytales are still finding an adult audience.
The Australian Fairy Tale Society joins like-minded people in conversations about the stories and their meanings, with regular book clubs and an annual conference.
Henwood said the great thing about the society was that people pointed out differences in perspective and that was where creativity could spring from, coming up with something new, fresh and authentic.
Author Kate Forsyth, who has penned more than 40 books blending historical fiction with fairytales, writes for children and adults.
Her 2014 novel Bitter Greens, for adult readers, is an adaptation of Rapunzel and she said the fairytale's tower represented "a universal experience all of us share".
"Rapunzel is a story about liberation, about the human soul that is held in stasis, is tied back and must find strength in order to escape," Forsyth said.
"Our tower can be different things. It might be an unhappy marriage, it might be a job that is a toxic environment, it might be our own doubt and fear.
"The tower is different for every human; that we need to escape it, is universal."
However, Forsyth particularly enjoys writing for children.
"They haven't lost their sense of wonder and it's wonderful to give them the gift of enchantment that can change their lives," she said.
Forsyth said children in harm's way needed books that gave them hope to change their world.
Australian fantasy author Isobelle Carmody, who started writing at nine and also has more than 40 books to her name, said reading could be empowering.
"I was an unhappy teenager," she said.
"My dad was killed in a car accident, I lived in a rough neighbourhood, I didn't get along with my mum.
"So reading took me away to other places where people like me might make a difference in my world.
"I wanted to be in a world where animals could talk to you, where love would last forever, where fighting for justice mattered."
When retired English teacher Robyn De Mayo joined monthly meetings at the Illawarra Fairy Tale Ring, a branch of the national society, she brought her knowledge of history and storytelling with her.
"I have an extensive collection of books. Whereas others have beautiful versions, I have the critical responses," she laughed.
For De Mayo, fairytales are still relevant, with a modern spin.
"I'm interested in how stories resonate over thousands of years and how we deal with them today, particularly the feminist aspect of taking the female characters and empowering them, of activating sometimes quite passive characters like Rapunzel," she said.
Visual artist and children's author and illustrator Helen McCosker, from Thirroul, south of Sydney, started the Illawarra Fairy Tale Ring in 2022 to research stories for her art practice.
Once…, her latest, sold-out show, took six years to complete and consisted of assemblages in wooden boxes, inspired by her lifelong love of fairytales.
"Each assemblage has a potted story of the fairytale it was based on," McCosker said.
McCosker said fairytales presented people with age-old human values that appealed to the imagination.
She calls it the imagination business.
"It [reading fairytales] widens our knowledge of various tales, how old they are, how there are so many versions of them, so that's been really fantastic.