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
9 - Hans Christian Andersen's Use of Folktales
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
Andersen published 156 ‘fairy tales and stories’ by his own count. Only seven of them are manifestly taken from Danish oral tradition. There are a couple of doubtful cases as well and he also used a few legends, but they are of minor importance. Apart from that, inspiration from folktales may be traced also in several other fairy tales by Andersen. To mention but one example: the famous tale of ‘The Little Mermaid’ is his own invention; nevertheless, it contains a number of elements which can be traced to various sources. The plot of the tale is undoubtedly inspired by de la Motte Fouqué’s Undine, and behind that can be glimpsed the doctrine of elementary spirits which goes back to Paracelsus. The notion of a population of sea people, the ‘merfolk’, stems from popular belief; besides, there is inspiration from the ballad of Agnete and the Mermaid, and in the scene where the mute mermaid lives in the king's palace, we are reminded of the folktale of ‘The Mute Queen’. Such reminiscences may be found in many of Andersen's tales.
The number of parallels at the typological level is, however, as low as seven, i.e., three or four per cent of the entire corpus. Three of these tales belong to the category the Germans call Zaubermärchen and the Danes trylleeventyr. In English, they are called wonder tales, mythical tales, fairy tales, tales of magic etc. I shall call them tales of magic so as not to confuse them with Andersen's own tales - the alternative, ‘fairy tale’, is often used about literary products; but I must confess that I am not happy with the term ‘magic’, since the phenomenon in question has very little to do with real magic. But whatever we call them, the three tales in question are: ‘The Travelling-Companion’, ‘The Tinder-Box’ and ‘The Wild Swans’. Those are the ones I shall comment upon. Before going on to do that, I ought to mention the titles of the other four tales: ‘Little Claus and Big Claus’, ‘The Swineherd’, ‘All that Father Does is Right’ and ‘Simple Simon’.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- A Companion to the Fairy Tale , pp. 149 - 158Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2002