Fairy Tales and Folk Lore Blog #2

Folk lore and fairy tales are age old stories and traditions found in every corner of the world. Folk lore is mainly traditional stories found in cultures that are told orally and passed down through centuries. Fairy tales are stories told in a similar manner as folk lore, and are also present in countless cultures around the world. The main difference between folk lore and fairy tales is that fairy tales have to involve magic in some way because they are considered tales of wonder and magic. The German word for fairy tale is Zaubermarchen; zauber meaning magic, and marchen meaning fairy tale. Magic is literally in the name, which shows just how closely associated fairy tales are with magic in particular. Fairy tales and folk lore are extremely important in cultures and hold great importance in countless different ways, however, there are many more factors to them that are not always realized by most.
In her book The Interpretations of Fairy Tales, Marie-Louise von Franz claims that “fairy tales are the purest and simplest expression of collective unconscious psychic processes,” (1), which means that within every story there are certain archetypes featured and often teach people lessons as well. There are always much deeper meanings within the stories and most aspects of the stories are symbolic. There are always reoccurring themes with fairy tales and they’re important for knowing and understanding them on a deeper level. For example the forest or the witch in a story is often reoccurring in many and are also deeply symbolic.
In Bruno Bettelheim’s book, The Uses of Enchantment, he believes that fairy tales hold deeper psychological meanings that people, particularly children identify with unconsciously. This means that whatever is going on in a child or person’s life can be identified with certain stories on an unconscious level. For example one’s favorites fairy tale could potentially reveal certain aspects of one’s unconsciousness. This is also why fairy tales are important while being a child because during childhood the mind is still developing. Therefore, fairy tales are essential and important to a child’s life and it shows the importance of reading to a child.