June 2, 2025 • 41 mins
Can fairy tales really shape a child's moral compass? Join me as we navigate the enchanting realm of classic fairy tales, inspired by literary giants like Dr. Vigen Guroian and Bruno Bettelheim. We'll unravel the mysteries behind these timeless stories and their profound influence on nurturing a child's moral imagination, contrasting the enduring narratives of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen with their modern retellings. To ensure you're reading the most authentic versions, I'll share my top recommendations for fairy tale collections and translations. You'll find guidance on choosing rich, unaltered stories that resonate with both children and adults.
BOOKMARKS: Downloadable Bookmarks with Quotes: Download on cardstock and print double-sided.
REFERENCES:
Tending to the Heart of Virtue: by Vigen Guroian.
The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales by Bruno Bettelheim
The Literary Life Podcast with Angelina Stanford
RECOMMENDED FAIRY TALE ANTHOLOGIES:
The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm: The Complete First Edition: by Jacob & Wilhelm Grimm; translated by Jack Zipes
Brothers Grimm Selected Tales by Jacob & Wilhelm Grimm; translated by David Luke
Hans Christian Andersen: The complete Fairy Tales and Stories by Hans Christian Anderson; Erik Christian Haugaard (translator)
The Victorian Fairy Tale Book by Michael Patrick Hearn
The Classic Fairy Tales by Iona and Peter Opie
The Complete Children's Fairy Tales by George MacDonald
King of the Golden River: An Enchanting Tale of Greed, Magic, and Redemption by John Ruskin
SCHOOL TO HOMESCHOOL RESOURCES:
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Private Mentoring with Janae: Schedule a Free Discovery Call
School to Homeschool YouTube Channel
Etsy Store: Shop for Homeschooling Swag
*Please note that some of the links included in this article are Amazon affiliate links.
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Contact Janae: schooltohomeschool1@gmail.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Janae Daniels (00:00):
When was the last time you read a fairy
tale like a true fairy tale, not a garbage
Disney princess wannabe fake fairy tale,
but like the hardcore Hans Christian
Andersen, grimm's Brothers, george McDonald
type fairy tale?
(00:21):
When was the last time, do you remember?
Well, today we are going to be talking all
about fairy tales.
What are they?
Why it's essential that we need to read
them to our children to help their moral
imagination.
And then what the best ones are?
The best translations are.
So with that let's get started.
(00:41):
Hello and welcome to School, to Homeschool.
I am Janae Daniels.
I'm a wife, a mother of six and a former
middle school teacher turned homeschool mom.
I have kids in their 20s, all the way down
to elementary age and everything in between.
Are you thinking about pulling your kids
from the school system, like I did, but
you're scared to death and don't know what
(01:02):
to do next?
I did, but you're scared to death and don't
know what to do next.
My friends, I felt the same way and you
have come to the right place.
I want to help your family leave the system
so that you can take the hearts and minds
of your children back.
Now, before we jump into fairy tales, I
(01:23):
want to say that this will be the last new
episode of this season.
Our new season will begin in July and I'll
have all new episodes, but after this I'm
going to do a couple throwback episodes and
then we'll have two weeks where there won't
be any episodes.
So I don't want you to forget me.
I promise there will be new episodes coming
(01:44):
in July, but if you're like, uh-oh, is the
podcast over?
Nope, it's not over.
I'm just taking a little break because I've
got some things up my sleeve that I'm
working on all of June, which I will
announce later.
But I am excited for the upcoming season.
As you start to prepare to go back into
homeschooling or, for some of you, start
homeschooling for the first time.
(02:06):
We will be talking about all of that in
July and we've got some exciting guests
that we'll be interviewing as well.
So just know this is the last new episode
that you'll be seeing for a few weeks and
then we'll have new episodes.
But I do have some great throwback episodes
coming.
All right, so let's get into fairy tales
(02:26):
Now, y'all.
Lately I have been super obsessed with
fairy tales.
I've been reading the book Tending to the
Heart of Virtue by Dr Vegan Geroian.
I also have been reading Bruno Bettelheim's
the Uses of Enchantment the Meaning and
Importance of Fairy Tales, who and he was a
child psychologist, dr Groyan is actually a
(02:47):
theologian and a professor of literature
and religion as well both and then I've
also been listening to the Literary Life
podcast, which is fabulous.
It's all about literature with Angelina
Stanford, and she also is the co-founder of
the House of Humane Letters and she's a
(03:08):
literary teacher that teaches everything
from university level all the way down to
middle school, anyway.
So I've been studying all of these people's
works and have regained this fascination
with fairy tales, and so a couple weeks ago,
I was like you know what for this summer,
guys, we tend to do like a light
(03:31):
homeschooling during summer.
We don't do it as heavy as we do during the
school year and so there was a few things
that I wanted to do.
I'm like I wanted to do nature journaling
and go on hikes, spend a lot of time
outside.
I've got a couple projects that I want to
do with you kids that are really fun, cool
projects.
And then I want to read do read alouds but
(03:53):
most more specifically, I want to study and
read fairy tales, and this being inspired
by Tending the Heart of Virtue and the Uses
of Enchantment and Angelina Stanford's
podcast.
I've just been delighted Now.
As a child I loved fairy tales, like I
(04:17):
loved them.
I remember in the fourth grade we were
supposed to take a fairy tale and then turn
it into some sort of a theatrical form
which was right up my alley with my
personality, and I chose to do Jack and the
Beanstalk and I did a puppet show and I
have very vivid imagine very vivid memories
(04:37):
of of doing that in my class.
And yet now we see we don't most of us
don't read the original fairy tales anymore,
the the best translations and we have this.
We have this moral corruption that's
(05:00):
happened and I think that there is a
connection, somewhat of a connection,
between the lack of the true fairy tales
being told and some amount of moral
corruption in the imagination.
So I want to discuss that today, like why
do kids need fairy tales for their moral
development?
(05:21):
But I also and I want to discuss that like
into depth about post-modernism, what we've
gotten ourselves into with this mess that
we're in, and then I want to talk about
some of the best translations that we can
get, that are the truest, without a lot of
biases with politics.
(05:43):
So we'll get into that.
But first let's start is what is a fairy
tale?
Have you ever thought about that?
Which is funny because most fairy tales
don't actually have fairies in them, and so
we get this idea of fairy tales from the
Grimm's Brothers, and the actual
translation was wonder stories or wonder
(06:05):
tales, and I think that's probably a better
way to say.
A fairy tale is a wonder story.
Um, because the main thing is they.
They have to have a sense of wonder to them.
Sometimes they have magic, sometimes they
don't, but there needs to be a sense of
wonder.
Um, some of the traits of a fairy tale is
that they have to have a happy ending.
(06:26):
Now, I know some of you are thinking but
like, if you look at, like the true story
of the Little Mermaid, that doesn't have a
happy ending.
Well, technically that's not a fairy tale,
that is a cautionary tale and we're going
to talk about the difference here.
So with true fairy tales, they have to have
a happy ending.
So, with true fairy tales, they have to
(06:47):
have a happy ending.
The prince and the princess always get
married at the end and usually there's a
child.
In historic fairy tales, a child is
separated from their parents at some point
and they must overcome obstacles to get
home.
And so there's this reuniting, this
redemption.
There's a happy resolution.
(07:08):
Those are the traits of true wonder.
Stories is happy endings, resolution,
redemption versus cautionary tales, which
are equally as delightful and equally
should be read, which don't necessarily
have a happy ending.
So some examples of cautionary tales.
(07:30):
Again, you've got like the Little Mermaid.
I'm trying to think of some other
cautionary tales off the top of my head the
Charles Perrault French version of Real Red
Riding Hood.
She actually gets eaten by the wolf at the
end and no one saves her, which is
(07:54):
interesting because we see Charles Perrault
turning those into morality stories.
When we look at the fairy tales, what the
Grimm's brothers did is they would collect
folk tales and then write them down, and
there was universal truths that were taught.
Um, the Grimm's brothers were very, very
religious, uh, as far as, like they, they
knew the bible very well.
(08:14):
And so we see this transcendent,
transcendent truths in the Grimm's fairy
tales.
Sometimes they're not quite as didactic and
preachy as we might see in contemporary
translations of the fairy tales.
Charles Perrault, who was French, the
(08:35):
Grimms were, I believe, german, but Charles
Perrault, who lived I think he was in the
1700s, took the folk tales and then he
rewrote them as cautionary tales to warn
about immorality, which is what he did with
the Little Red Riding Hood is oh, if you
get in bed with a wolf then you'll be eaten,
(08:55):
right.
They became morality tales or cautionary
tales, so to teach moral lessons, because
he felt like that the society, the French
society, had become very morally corrupt.
And so he becomes very didactic in in his
retelling of the stories.
But if we go back to like the original
(09:16):
Grimm's brothers, the Hans Christian
Anderson, and again Hans Christian Anderson
had both cautionary tales but also had um
wonder tales or fairy tales that he would
tell um, we see this like this transcendent,
transcendent truths that are taught and
morality that's taught, and sometimes the
(09:38):
fairy, fairy tales are appropriately named,
very grim, but they're still transcendent
and universal truths, although they are not
right in our faces, which I think is
interesting, because I had not read the
(10:01):
whole Grimm's anthology before of their
full collected works until a couple of
weeks ago when we started, which I'm in the
middle of, and so our goal this summer is
to get through all of the Grimm's fairy
tales, the complete collection and Hans
Christian Andersen tales, and then get
(10:22):
through some of George MacDonald's works,
potentially John Ruskin I'm working on that.
He was a Victorian wonder story writer,
kind of a renaissance man.
He did lots of things.
He was also an art critic.
But my kids have been totally mesmerized by
the fairy tales.
(10:42):
We've been listening to them in the car.
We've had a lot of places that we've had to
go and so as soon as we get in, even my
teenagers are like can you turn on the
fairy tales?
And I forgot how delightful they are.
And at the same time some of them are like,
oh my gosh, they're so gruesome.
Some of them are so gruesome and many I had
(11:02):
never heard in my life gruesome and and
many I had never heard in my life ever.
But there's something magical and
delightful about them that my kids just
like any chance we get that we get a break,
they want to listen to the fairy tales.
And even I was cooking and my kids were
like is the speaker working?
And my, my speaker had died.
That connects to my phone in the kitchen.
(11:23):
And so I'm like no, the speaker's not
working.
And they're like oh, we want to listen to
some more fairy tales.
I'm like, wow, these, these tales are just
pulling my kids in um, which is pretty,
pretty cool, but why do we need to read
them to kids?
Um, I believe and this is something that Dr
(11:47):
Geryan argues in his book Tending to the
Heart of Virtue, which is all the books I'm
referring to are fabulous is that we've
lost moral imagination and this idea of
morality has become very, very corrupt.
And we know why Our society has embraced
(12:09):
the postmodern movement.
Now, if you're not familiar with what
postmodernism is, it is a rejection of of
universal truth.
It's a rejection of objective reality.
There is no good, there is no bad.
Everything is relative.
There's my truth versus your truth and
there is no the truth.
(12:31):
And we're not talking about perspective,
like my perspective versus your perspective.
We're talking about universal truth, right,
and we see this.
I mean, we see this politically.
I'm going to get a little bit political
right now.
I was just on Instagram this morning and
there was another controversy over a
biological boy taking over, winning all of
(12:53):
the medals for a girl's sport in California,
and there's all this argument that there's.
You know well, he feels like he's a girl,
so therefore he is a girl.
This idea of objective truth has been
thrown out the window, and we're seeing
this in schools and it is a dangerous to
(13:14):
have no objective truth becomes it's a
dangerous ideology, especially when you
start thinking about things like pedophilia.
And well, this is a minor.
Instead of that, it's a minor attracted
person, right, and you go no, that's a
person who is.
That's not good, there is no good.
And so it becomes the less objective truth.
(13:35):
The more we embrace the postmodern
ideologies, or these post-Christian
philosophies and ideologies, the more the
fuzzy lines of morality become obscure and
that's a really dangerous slippery slope to
go down.
And so and we see this postmodernism take
(13:59):
root in our storytelling, in our fairy
tales, in our movies.
I remember the first time I saw um Wicked
it had been out for a year or two and I was
in Chicago and I got to see the, the
touring company do it many, many years ago
(14:19):
and and I loved it right, I loved the music.
I still love the music, I still think it's
delightful and fun, but with the postmodern
ideologies it's there is no good, there is
no bad, except for what if the good guy is
bad?
And so I'm like well, there's a little bit
of a problem there, because you say there
is no good and there's no bad, but what if
(14:40):
the good guy is bad?
But you just said there's no good or no bad,
um, and so we see this, like with
Maleficent, the movie that came out, that
oh really, maleficent wasn't the bad guy,
right.
And so we get this blurring of what is good
and what is bad.
Yet Children need to see that there is good
and there there is, that there is bad, see
(15:05):
that there is good and there is, that there
is bad, that things are there is good and
there is evil.
I remember once hearing Elizabeth Smart,
who had been abducted and and now she's an
adult and I heard her once say in an
interview she said I used to think that
there were no bad people in this world,
that everyone had good and bad in them, and
she said I changed my perspective after
(15:26):
what happened to me.
Oh no, there's bad people in this world and
there's evil in this world, which I think
is interesting.
And so the original fairy tales are very,
very black and white, very, very good
versus evil, um, and it enables children to
see and to start to start forming moral, a
(15:49):
moral compass within themselves, um, which
I think is interesting because again, like
we, we saw the controversy over Snow White,
where suddenly it wasn't about the princess
being rescued but female empowerment and,
like I, it just, it just became a big mess
and disney's lost a pretty penny over that
one um.
(16:10):
What I think is interesting too is we do
see a lot of allegory to christianity
within the original fairy tales.
I it wasn't until I was listening to
Angelina Stanford talk about this.
But even with Snow White, um, we see, we
see some illusion to her partaking.
(16:31):
You know that.
Here's Snow White and she partakes of a
fruit.
Does that sound familiar?
We're looking at the creation of the fall,
um, and then she goes into this deep,
eternal sleep and it takes a prince, it
takes a bridegroom to come and save her
because she can't save herself.
Right, very um, christian, christian
(16:51):
imagery there, that that we need a, a
prince or a savior to come and say that she
needed someone to come and save, save her,
and then they're taken to the heavenly
realm.
Now I think the original disney, snow white
we see some of the allusions to that, but
the the more that we get in the disney
fairy tales, the more watered down they get,
(17:11):
and then they totally change.
Totally change them, like little mermaid,
beauty and the beast, like we see them
completely change the fairy tales to the
point that they're not recognizable and
even though a lot of them still keep that
good versus evil, they become really,
really watered down.
I even look at like descendants that
(17:33):
suddenly good is bad and bad is good and
we're seeing that postmodern moral
relativism which becomes confusing for kids
Like they.
Children need to see that there is black
and there is white, there is good, there is
evil.
Um, they, I think it's interesting.
(17:56):
Okay, I love this quote by GK Chesterton.
Um, since fairy tales do not tell children,
sorry, fairy tales do not tell children the
dragons exist.
Children already know that dragons exist.
Fairy tales tell children the dragons can
(18:16):
be killed.
When I read that quote, I was dumbfounded
because I'm like it's true, when we, these
kids, come into this world and they're
afraid and we're actually going, I'm going
to.
This is a perfect segue into what um Bruno
Bettelheim says about about this.
Um, okay, let me rewind.
(18:38):
Brutal Bettelheim was a child psychologist
and he started to.
He did a long-term study on the effects of
children and fairy tales and and one of the
one of the objections a lot of people have
about the fairy tales is that they are
violent and y'all, I read some fairy tales
this past week with my kids that I was like,
(19:00):
oh my gosh, and my and my 13 year old son
is like I am trying to figure out the the
lesson in this which I we don't have to
share the lessons with our kids, like we
don't have to get in their faces, like the
stories in and of themselves were shared,
the lessons and over time the children
absorb that they it seeps and steeps in
(19:20):
them.
Um, but he argues that when children, as
children, are growing up, they have these
innate fears that they have a fear of being
separated from their parents.
They have a fear of this big, huge, dark,
scary world.
And for children, the monsters already
exist, like the boogeyman already exists in
(19:42):
their hearts.
So it's not like the fairy tales are
introducing the boogeyman to children.
They already have innate fears.
Children are already innately afraid of
what's behind the closet.
You know what's in the closet.
Even my nine-year-old.
Every day she's like please shut the closet
door.
One day I said here, if anything comes out
of the closet door.
One day I said here, if anything comes out
(20:02):
of the closet, here is your sister's sword
that she earned, which is the same sword we
use to dub Joshua, uh, graduated, and I
said if anything comes out, go ahead and
slay it, baby.
And she's like got it.
You know I didn't say oh, oh, no, don't be
afraid of what's in the dark.
You know I'm like no, here you go.
If you're afraid of anything, go ahead and
(20:22):
right.
As children, they do have big imaginations,
but they do have these internal fears.
And what the fairy tales do is number one.
It confirms those fears, like, yeah, it's
scary to be separated from your parents,
it's scary to deal with scary things in the
world, but the dragons can be killed, but
(20:47):
there is resolution.
And, and so it validates their fears and
then gives them, um, something to chew on.
That there is an answer.
I love, um, I love this by CS Lewis,
because he reiterates this idea.
That it's, he says, quote since it's so
likely that children will meet cruel
(21:08):
enemies, let them at least have heard of
brave knights and heroic courage, otherwise
you're making their destiny not brighter
but darker.
Right With fairy tales, our kids get to see
that the dragons can be defeated, that the
witch doesn't win in the end, that there is
(21:30):
light at the end of the tunnel, that there
is resolution, that there can be happy
endings, because otherwise things get
really, really bleak.
And so he found um, and which is, by the
way, his book is called Uses of Enchantment,
and it's so good.
But he argues that the fairy tales actually
calm the fears of the children, although
(21:52):
the CS Lewis also said in lines with you
know, like the children already, like they
already know that there's evil there.
He says CS Lewis is okay, he's accredited
with saying this, but nobody knows if he
actually said it, but I still think it's a
(22:13):
good quote.
Don't ask me where the witch came from.
Children are born knowing the witch, and so
I think that's it's.
It's true.
Like children are born that feeling, that
sense of like there is scary out there
already.
And and fairy tales enable us to calm the
(22:35):
fears of the children and give them the
tools to slay the dragon.
Okay, so that question of of violence.
And you know, do we water down the fairy
tales?
Do we?
Do we not?
Um bruno betelheim says no, don't, don't
water them down, don't um?
(22:57):
Children have an innate need for a sense of
justice, and so even they're a little bit
different in that like a television show,
that's like horror and gory, which I don't
do.
Horror y'all, like my kids are not allowed
to watch horror.
I don't watch horror.
None of my kids want to watch horror anyway.
Um, I don't do gore.
Um, and some of the fairy tales are super
(23:18):
gory.
What I observed as we were driving the
other day and listen to this one that I had
never heard of before and it's so gruesome,
you know, someone's chopped up, and but
what I realized is when we watch it on
television or we watch these dark cartoons
or whatever, which I again I'm pretty
careful about what I put into my brain, um,
(23:40):
they show all of the blood and the guts and
the gore.
But I realized, as I'm listening to the
fairy tale and they talk this one
particular fairy tale, they chop off the
grandma's finger and in my, in my
imagination, I didn't imagine blood.
And so I asked my kids what they imagine.
They're like oh, that's really gruesome,
but but they also, they also they didn't
(24:01):
imagine blood.
But yet the story still was able to teach
them that evil could be overcome even with
really dark things.
I don't know if that makes any sense.
It makes sense in my brain.
Um, so it's best if we don't water them
(24:22):
down, which is what a lot of, if the
translations haven't completely retold or
rewritten the fairy tale altogether.
A lot of times they'll water down the fairy
tale.
So recently I'm working on a couple scripts
for a small school and I'm writing some
(24:46):
scripts for them to do a fairy tale play
and I brought up to the head of the school
let's discuss some of the fairy tales that
you want to include in our.
I think they want like a compilation of
mini plays and and I said which ones do you
want to include?
(25:06):
And I said would you want real, you know,
little Red Riding Hood?
And she said, yes, but we need to change
the ending so that the wolf and Red Riding
Hood becomes friends.
I'm like, okay, okay, so we're to have to
rewrite the whole story.
So how about we don't do Red Riding Hood?
And I found this really problematic because
(25:27):
she didn't want any bad things to happen to
any of the characters, even the bad
characters.
And so one of the things that Dr Bettelheim
argues is and actually I don't know if he,
I'm assuming he's a doctor because he was a
child psychologist but one of the things
that that Dr Bettelheim argues is and
actually I don't know if he, I'm assuming
(25:48):
he's a doctor because he was a child
psychologist.
But one of the things that he argues is
that children have this strong sense of
morality.
Right, they want to see justice.
They already, innately, are merciful, but
most kids want to have a sense of justice.
So I had that conversation with the head of
the school and, and then I want to have a
sense of justice.
So I had that conversation with the head of
the school and then I wanted to do a little
experiment.
So I went to my daughter and I said who's
(26:14):
nine?
I said you know, I'm going to write some
plays based on fairy tales.
And she said yep, and I said what would you
think if I changed the ending of the Little
Red, the little red riding hood to have the
(26:35):
wolf and red riding hood become friends?
And I just sat there and this was her
expression.
She went like this and she kind of she got
this very perplexed look on her face and
she sat there for a second and he said what
(26:56):
would you think about that?
She's like I don't, I don't know.
I'm like would it bother you?
And she's like I don't know.
And she looks bothered.
I mean the look on her face was really
concerned, like really, really, really
concerned.
And and I said, maybe, maybe I, maybe I
(27:17):
just go ahead and stick with the original
ending and the wolf, the wolf and the
original ending.
The actual ending y'all is that the the
woodcutter cuts open the wolf, grandma and
little red riding hood come out of the wolf
and it's actually little red riding cap,
but anyway, um, they come out of the wolf
alive and then the woodcutter.
(27:41):
The woodcutter puts rocks in the wolf's
belly, sews him up and then throws him in
the river and he drowns.
And so I said maybe I should just keep the
ending as is.
And she's like, she literally like let out
a sigh and she goes.
Good, because I don't think it's okay.
(28:02):
And I said, what's not okay?
She goes, he ate them, he ate the grandma
and Red Riding Hood.
That's not okay.
Something needed to happen.
And so I saw her visibly like get, I mean,
she was, she was upset.
And then there was that, that sigh of
relief in her little nine-year-old mind,
like oh, there is justice.
(28:25):
And she was bothered by the fact that I
wanted to change the ending so they'd be
friends, which I think.
I think it's.
I think, going back to the moral relativism,
like when we water down the fairy tales, we
get this sense of, or or we change the
ending so that there is no justice for the
evil.
You know, even even in Wicked, where we
(28:46):
have this moral ambiguity, and maybe good
is bad and bad is good, and as it causes,
it causes so much confusion that I even
look at in society.
So here in Colorado this happened a few
years ago, true story y'all.
It made the news.
This guy is running in the mountains, like
(29:07):
just on a regular running path, not too far
from his neighborhood, and a baby mountain
lion, a cougar, a baby cougar, which is
really big, like they're not little, like
they will kill an adult really fast attacks
him.
So what does the guy do?
Well, he defends himself with his bare
(29:29):
hands and he ends up like, like, putting
his foot on the cougar's jaw.
I mean, he is scratched like crazy and
bleeding his guts out.
And he puts his foot on the cougar's jaw,
ends up like the cougar finally suffocates.
(29:49):
And there he's left, just mangled.
He had nothing.
It wasn't like he brought weapons with him
to go running.
He had, like his you know, air pods in or
whatever, and that was it Like, and he's
just running as a runner would like he did
every day and he ends up killing this
cougar with his bare hands.
Y'all.
Some of the comments were like how dare
(30:13):
this guy kill a cougar?
Now, this is not a guy who took a shotgun
out looking to kill a cougar.
No, no, no.
This is a guy who a baby cougar attacked
him and he was trying to stay alive and he
barely came out alive, like he was mangled
pretty stinking bad, ended up in the
(30:33):
hospital, right.
And that is what we get with moral
relativism that there's no sense of.
Yeah, well, the right thing to do in that
situation is to protect yourself, okay, or
just be eaten by the cougar, and that's
fine, you know.
And so again, when we water down the fairy
(30:55):
tales, it doesn't do our children any
justice.
And when we try to make them soft and cushy
and sweet, the children don't see the
justice that they innately want and need to
see, that enables them to see that the
dragon can be killed.
(31:16):
If we don't kill the dragon, then we're
still left in a very scary world.
Do you see what I'm saying?
Am I making any sense?
And some of you totally might disagree with
me.
And that is fine.
Don't read your kids Grimm's fairy tales.
Anyway, the other thing that is brought up
in Tending to the Heart of Virtue and in
Uses of Enchantment is.
(31:36):
You, don't?
You and I, as parents, do not need to
explain the fairy tales.
We do not need to try to suck out what the
morality is with the fairy tales.
As I mentioned before, we just share them.
We read them with the kids and let them
come to conclusions on their own over time.
(31:58):
Um, they're not going to stop.
You know if, if a child is struggling to
lie which age eight is usually the time
that I see kids start to, they start to
like experiment with telling fibs, right.
Um, reading Pinocchio the first time may
not stop them from that.
That initial like practicing, trying, you
(32:20):
know, trying out lying.
But over time these stories accumulate as
our kids are put in, you know, in front of
knights in shining armor and they're put in
front of heroic characters.
They're put in front of wonderful literary
(32:40):
heroes and heroines.
They start to develop these ideological
holding to the Christian ideological,
pre-postmodern ideas.
Um, joshua brought up Atticus Finch.
(33:02):
Um, and reading to kill a mockingbird in
the first part of um, my interview with him.
Joshua, for those of you this is your first
podcast episode of mine, josh.
Uh, joshua is my myyear-old son who just
graduated.
He's my first homeschool child to graduate.
We pulled the kids five years ago and he
(33:27):
brought up that being face-to-face with
Atticus Finch and seeing the heroism and
the bravery affected him For our younger
children.
That's what fairy tales can do for them and
then for us y'all.
They're still so delightful and I was still
(33:47):
like, oh my gosh, what's gonna happen Again?
Some of these fairy tales I had never heard
in my entire life.
So let's talk about for just a second.
Yeah, so our kids need fairy tales.
They need fairy tales, um, to know they
already know the evil exists, but they they
need to know that the dragon can be slain.
(34:09):
It helps them gain courage.
It helps them learn virtue.
It's like a tea that seeps and over time,
that steeping, shapes who they are over the
years as we read with them.
(34:30):
So for fun, before I go into what to read
to the kids, which fairy tales you want to
read, because not all translations are
created equal I want to say I have a free
download with the quotes by CS Lewis about
the dragon.
I mean GK Chesterton about the dragon being
(34:51):
slain, and then CS Lewis' quote about the
need for knights in shining armor to know
that knights exist.
Um, I've got, I made some really cool
bookmarks.
They're in the show notes.
Um, for those of you who are signed up for
my newsletter, I'll be emailing those out
to you so you don't have to go in and find
them in the show notes and then download
them.
(35:12):
But it's a free pdf download so you can
print them out on cardstock and have your
own um, your own bookmarks to put in your
fairy tale books as you read.
So let's talk about which versions to get,
and I'm going to include these in the show
notes so that you can look them up.
Get them from your library.
You can purchase them however you want to
obtain them.
(35:32):
Get them off Amazon, it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter to me how you get them.
Okay, jack Zipes.
Now, jack Zipes is very Marxist, however,
when?
So I wouldn't read his personally.
Now, if you're a Marxist, that's one thing,
and you're probably listening to the wrong
(35:53):
podcast, but his commentary on the fairy
tales don't love those.
But his translations are actually really,
really good, and this is what Dr Garayan
suggested.
This is the one we've been listening to.
(36:15):
It's the Complete Tales of Brothers Grimm
by Bantam Books and it's the Jack Zipes
translation.
Okay, again, all of these are going to be
in the show notes, as well as the free PDF
download of the bookmarks with the quotes.
And then so Jack Zipes translation.
Again.
Don't read his commentary, don't pick up
any of his commentaries unless you ascribe
(36:37):
to the Marxist ideologies.
But which is why he didn't like the like as
he's translating, which is why I didn't
like him, because they're very, very
infused with Christianity all over the
place, like illusion and allegory, and
which the kids may not understand at the
(36:59):
beginning but as they get older again it
starts to merit marinate in their souls.
So jack zipes, complete tales of brothers
grim by bantam books.
Um, another really good one is david luke
penguin classics brothers grim is David
Luke Penguin Classics Brothers Grimm's
Selected Tales.
(37:19):
And just so you know, like the Jack Zipes
one, it's like on Audible, it's like 12
hours.
That's why we're reading fairy tales all
summer Like.
This is our read aloud is fairy tales.
We're going through all of them and we're
all real excited because it's oh, they're
so.
Some of them are really gruesome, but the
kids do well with them.
They don't imagine the blood.
Um, david luke penguin classics, brothers
(37:42):
grim, selected tales um eric christian
haugard.
For hans christian anderson.
Um, he has a collection of stories by hans
christian anderson.
I'm gonna look at that one.
If you want to go into Victorian fairy
tales, look at Michael Patrick Hearn's book,
the Victorian Fairy Tale Book, published by
(38:03):
Pantheon Books.
Again, that's Victorian fairy tales by
oxford university press.
(38:25):
Um, and so those are some fairy tales.
Also, if you've never read anything by
george mcdonald, y'all.
Before I started homeschooling I had never
even heard of George McDonald, but his
tales are delightful and fabulous.
And then you could also look at, actually,
(38:47):
john Ruskin, only one, I believe.
He only wrote one fairy tale and I'll
include that one in the show notes as well,
but I haven't read that one yet.
But I'm quickly falling in love with George
McDonald's fairy tales as well as his
novels.
We're reading the Princess and the Goblin
right now.
Oh, my goodness, so delightful.
(39:07):
So those are a few translations and
anthologies that you can pick up from the
library and y'all start reading fairy tales.
I just want to end one more time with.
Well, I want to end with this quote by CS
Lewis.
(39:28):
Actually, I'll end with two quotes.
Someday you will be old enough to start
reading fairy tales again.
Cs Lewis, that's you and me, that's you and
me, mamas and grandmas and some dads and
grandpas.
It's time for us to start reading fairy
tales again.
And finally, I do want to end with this
(39:48):
quote, because I do love this quote so much.
I've referred to it over and over and over
again.
Fairy tales do not tell children the
dragons exist.
Children already know that dragons exist.
Fairy tales tell children the dragons can
be killed.
Gk Chesterton.
Mamas and papas, grandmas and grandpas, we
(40:11):
will see you in July.
I am going to be putting up some little
YouTube videos here and there that are
shorter and not like podcast length, so you
can check out my YouTube channel.
I am working on that this week, as a matter
of fact.
But you are, go read some fairy tales with
your cherubs, enjoy them, delight in them.
(40:33):
You don't even have to explain them, you
just have to read them or listen to them.
With that being said, have a great summer.
We'll talk in July.
You got this.
You are doing so much better than you think
you are.
You got this.
We'll talk in July.
If you found this podcast helpful, sign up
for our newsletter at school to
(40:53):
homeschoolcom, where there's also lots of
other resources.
You can also subscribe to us on YouTube at
school to homeschool or join our private
Facebook page school to homeschool.
You've got this, my friends.
When was the last time you read a fairy
tale like a true fairy tale, not a garbage
Disney princess wannabe fake fairy tale,
but like the hardcore Hans Christian
Andersen, grimm's Brothers, george McDonald
type fairy tale?
(00:21):
When was the last time, do you remember?
Well, today we are going to be talking all
about fairy tales.
What are they?
Why it's essential that we need to read
them to our children to help their moral
imagination.
And then what the best ones are?
The best translations are.
So with that let's get started.
(00:41):
Hello and welcome to School, to Homeschool.
I am Janae Daniels.
I'm a wife, a mother of six and a former
middle school teacher turned homeschool mom.
I have kids in their 20s, all the way down
to elementary age and everything in between.
Are you thinking about pulling your kids
from the school system, like I did, but
you're scared to death and don't know what
(01:02):
to do next?
I did, but you're scared to death and don't
know what to do next.
My friends, I felt the same way and you
have come to the right place.
I want to help your family leave the system
so that you can take the hearts and minds
of your children back.
Now, before we jump into fairy tales, I
(01:23):
want to say that this will be the last new
episode of this season.
Our new season will begin in July and I'll
have all new episodes, but after this I'm
going to do a couple throwback episodes and
then we'll have two weeks where there won't
be any episodes.
So I don't want you to forget me.
I promise there will be new episodes coming
(01:44):
in July, but if you're like, uh-oh, is the
podcast over?
Nope, it's not over.
I'm just taking a little break because I've
got some things up my sleeve that I'm
working on all of June, which I will
announce later.
But I am excited for the upcoming season.
As you start to prepare to go back into
homeschooling or, for some of you, start
homeschooling for the first time.
(02:06):
We will be talking about all of that in
July and we've got some exciting guests
that we'll be interviewing as well.
So just know this is the last new episode
that you'll be seeing for a few weeks and
then we'll have new episodes.
But I do have some great throwback episodes
coming.
All right, so let's get into fairy tales
(02:26):
Now, y'all.
Lately I have been super obsessed with
fairy tales.
I've been reading the book Tending to the
Heart of Virtue by Dr Vegan Geroian.
I also have been reading Bruno Bettelheim's
the Uses of Enchantment the Meaning and
Importance of Fairy Tales, who and he was a
child psychologist, dr Groyan is actually a
(02:47):
theologian and a professor of literature
and religion as well both and then I've
also been listening to the Literary Life
podcast, which is fabulous.
It's all about literature with Angelina
Stanford, and she also is the co-founder of
the House of Humane Letters and she's a
(03:08):
literary teacher that teaches everything
from university level all the way down to
middle school, anyway.
So I've been studying all of these people's
works and have regained this fascination
with fairy tales, and so a couple weeks ago,
I was like you know what for this summer,
guys, we tend to do like a light
(03:31):
homeschooling during summer.
We don't do it as heavy as we do during the
school year and so there was a few things
that I wanted to do.
I'm like I wanted to do nature journaling
and go on hikes, spend a lot of time
outside.
I've got a couple projects that I want to
do with you kids that are really fun, cool
projects.
And then I want to read do read alouds but
(03:53):
most more specifically, I want to study and
read fairy tales, and this being inspired
by Tending the Heart of Virtue and the Uses
of Enchantment and Angelina Stanford's
podcast.
I've just been delighted Now.
As a child I loved fairy tales, like I
(04:17):
loved them.
I remember in the fourth grade we were
supposed to take a fairy tale and then turn
it into some sort of a theatrical form
which was right up my alley with my
personality, and I chose to do Jack and the
Beanstalk and I did a puppet show and I
have very vivid imagine very vivid memories
(04:37):
of of doing that in my class.
And yet now we see we don't most of us
don't read the original fairy tales anymore,
the the best translations and we have this.
We have this moral corruption that's
(05:00):
happened and I think that there is a
connection, somewhat of a connection,
between the lack of the true fairy tales
being told and some amount of moral
corruption in the imagination.
So I want to discuss that today, like why
do kids need fairy tales for their moral
development?
(05:21):
But I also and I want to discuss that like
into depth about post-modernism, what we've
gotten ourselves into with this mess that
we're in, and then I want to talk about
some of the best translations that we can
get, that are the truest, without a lot of
biases with politics.
(05:43):
So we'll get into that.
But first let's start is what is a fairy
tale?
Have you ever thought about that?
Which is funny because most fairy tales
don't actually have fairies in them, and so
we get this idea of fairy tales from the
Grimm's Brothers, and the actual
translation was wonder stories or wonder
(06:05):
tales, and I think that's probably a better
way to say.
A fairy tale is a wonder story.
Um, because the main thing is they.
They have to have a sense of wonder to them.
Sometimes they have magic, sometimes they
don't, but there needs to be a sense of
wonder.
Um, some of the traits of a fairy tale is
that they have to have a happy ending.
(06:26):
Now, I know some of you are thinking but
like, if you look at, like the true story
of the Little Mermaid, that doesn't have a
happy ending.
Well, technically that's not a fairy tale,
that is a cautionary tale and we're going
to talk about the difference here.
So with true fairy tales, they have to have
a happy ending.
So, with true fairy tales, they have to
(06:47):
have a happy ending.
The prince and the princess always get
married at the end and usually there's a
child.
In historic fairy tales, a child is
separated from their parents at some point
and they must overcome obstacles to get
home.
And so there's this reuniting, this
redemption.
There's a happy resolution.
(07:08):
Those are the traits of true wonder.
Stories is happy endings, resolution,
redemption versus cautionary tales, which
are equally as delightful and equally
should be read, which don't necessarily
have a happy ending.
So some examples of cautionary tales.
(07:30):
Again, you've got like the Little Mermaid.
I'm trying to think of some other
cautionary tales off the top of my head the
Charles Perrault French version of Real Red
Riding Hood.
She actually gets eaten by the wolf at the
end and no one saves her, which is
(07:54):
interesting because we see Charles Perrault
turning those into morality stories.
When we look at the fairy tales, what the
Grimm's brothers did is they would collect
folk tales and then write them down, and
there was universal truths that were taught.
Um, the Grimm's brothers were very, very
religious, uh, as far as, like they, they
knew the bible very well.
(08:14):
And so we see this transcendent,
transcendent truths in the Grimm's fairy
tales.
Sometimes they're not quite as didactic and
preachy as we might see in contemporary
translations of the fairy tales.
Charles Perrault, who was French, the
(08:35):
Grimms were, I believe, german, but Charles
Perrault, who lived I think he was in the
1700s, took the folk tales and then he
rewrote them as cautionary tales to warn
about immorality, which is what he did with
the Little Red Riding Hood is oh, if you
get in bed with a wolf then you'll be eaten,
(08:55):
right.
They became morality tales or cautionary
tales, so to teach moral lessons, because
he felt like that the society, the French
society, had become very morally corrupt.
And so he becomes very didactic in in his
retelling of the stories.
But if we go back to like the original
(09:16):
Grimm's brothers, the Hans Christian
Anderson, and again Hans Christian Anderson
had both cautionary tales but also had um
wonder tales or fairy tales that he would
tell um, we see this like this transcendent,
transcendent truths that are taught and
morality that's taught, and sometimes the
(09:38):
fairy, fairy tales are appropriately named,
very grim, but they're still transcendent
and universal truths, although they are not
right in our faces, which I think is
interesting, because I had not read the
(10:01):
whole Grimm's anthology before of their
full collected works until a couple of
weeks ago when we started, which I'm in the
middle of, and so our goal this summer is
to get through all of the Grimm's fairy
tales, the complete collection and Hans
Christian Andersen tales, and then get
(10:22):
through some of George MacDonald's works,
potentially John Ruskin I'm working on that.
He was a Victorian wonder story writer,
kind of a renaissance man.
He did lots of things.
He was also an art critic.
But my kids have been totally mesmerized by
the fairy tales.
(10:42):
We've been listening to them in the car.
We've had a lot of places that we've had to
go and so as soon as we get in, even my
teenagers are like can you turn on the
fairy tales?
And I forgot how delightful they are.
And at the same time some of them are like,
oh my gosh, they're so gruesome.
Some of them are so gruesome and many I had
(11:02):
never heard in my life gruesome and and
many I had never heard in my life ever.
But there's something magical and
delightful about them that my kids just
like any chance we get that we get a break,
they want to listen to the fairy tales.
And even I was cooking and my kids were
like is the speaker working?
And my, my speaker had died.
That connects to my phone in the kitchen.
(11:23):
And so I'm like no, the speaker's not
working.
And they're like oh, we want to listen to
some more fairy tales.
I'm like, wow, these, these tales are just
pulling my kids in um, which is pretty,
pretty cool, but why do we need to read
them to kids?
Um, I believe and this is something that Dr
(11:47):
Geryan argues in his book Tending to the
Heart of Virtue, which is all the books I'm
referring to are fabulous is that we've
lost moral imagination and this idea of
morality has become very, very corrupt.
And we know why Our society has embraced
(12:09):
the postmodern movement.
Now, if you're not familiar with what
postmodernism is, it is a rejection of of
universal truth.
It's a rejection of objective reality.
There is no good, there is no bad.
Everything is relative.
There's my truth versus your truth and
there is no the truth.
(12:31):
And we're not talking about perspective,
like my perspective versus your perspective.
We're talking about universal truth, right,
and we see this.
I mean, we see this politically.
I'm going to get a little bit political
right now.
I was just on Instagram this morning and
there was another controversy over a
biological boy taking over, winning all of
(12:53):
the medals for a girl's sport in California,
and there's all this argument that there's.
You know well, he feels like he's a girl,
so therefore he is a girl.
This idea of objective truth has been
thrown out the window, and we're seeing
this in schools and it is a dangerous to
(13:14):
have no objective truth becomes it's a
dangerous ideology, especially when you
start thinking about things like pedophilia.
And well, this is a minor.
Instead of that, it's a minor attracted
person, right, and you go no, that's a
person who is.
That's not good, there is no good.
And so it becomes the less objective truth.
(13:35):
The more we embrace the postmodern
ideologies, or these post-Christian
philosophies and ideologies, the more the
fuzzy lines of morality become obscure and
that's a really dangerous slippery slope to
go down.
And so and we see this postmodernism take
(13:59):
root in our storytelling, in our fairy
tales, in our movies.
I remember the first time I saw um Wicked
it had been out for a year or two and I was
in Chicago and I got to see the, the
touring company do it many, many years ago
(14:19):
and and I loved it right, I loved the music.
I still love the music, I still think it's
delightful and fun, but with the postmodern
ideologies it's there is no good, there is
no bad, except for what if the good guy is
bad?
And so I'm like well, there's a little bit
of a problem there, because you say there
is no good and there's no bad, but what if
(14:40):
the good guy is bad?
But you just said there's no good or no bad,
um, and so we see this, like with
Maleficent, the movie that came out, that
oh really, maleficent wasn't the bad guy,
right.
And so we get this blurring of what is good
and what is bad.
Yet Children need to see that there is good
and there there is, that there is bad, see
(15:05):
that there is good and there is, that there
is bad, that things are there is good and
there is evil.
I remember once hearing Elizabeth Smart,
who had been abducted and and now she's an
adult and I heard her once say in an
interview she said I used to think that
there were no bad people in this world,
that everyone had good and bad in them, and
she said I changed my perspective after
(15:26):
what happened to me.
Oh no, there's bad people in this world and
there's evil in this world, which I think
is interesting.
And so the original fairy tales are very,
very black and white, very, very good
versus evil, um, and it enables children to
see and to start to start forming moral, a
(15:49):
moral compass within themselves, um, which
I think is interesting because again, like
we, we saw the controversy over Snow White,
where suddenly it wasn't about the princess
being rescued but female empowerment and,
like I, it just, it just became a big mess
and disney's lost a pretty penny over that
one um.
(16:10):
What I think is interesting too is we do
see a lot of allegory to christianity
within the original fairy tales.
I it wasn't until I was listening to
Angelina Stanford talk about this.
But even with Snow White, um, we see, we
see some illusion to her partaking.
(16:31):
You know that.
Here's Snow White and she partakes of a
fruit.
Does that sound familiar?
We're looking at the creation of the fall,
um, and then she goes into this deep,
eternal sleep and it takes a prince, it
takes a bridegroom to come and save her
because she can't save herself.
Right, very um, christian, christian
(16:51):
imagery there, that that we need a, a
prince or a savior to come and say that she
needed someone to come and save, save her,
and then they're taken to the heavenly
realm.
Now I think the original disney, snow white
we see some of the allusions to that, but
the the more that we get in the disney
fairy tales, the more watered down they get,
(17:11):
and then they totally change.
Totally change them, like little mermaid,
beauty and the beast, like we see them
completely change the fairy tales to the
point that they're not recognizable and
even though a lot of them still keep that
good versus evil, they become really,
really watered down.
I even look at like descendants that
(17:33):
suddenly good is bad and bad is good and
we're seeing that postmodern moral
relativism which becomes confusing for kids
Like they.
Children need to see that there is black
and there is white, there is good, there is
evil.
Um, they, I think it's interesting.
(17:56):
Okay, I love this quote by GK Chesterton.
Um, since fairy tales do not tell children,
sorry, fairy tales do not tell children the
dragons exist.
Children already know that dragons exist.
Fairy tales tell children the dragons can
(18:16):
be killed.
When I read that quote, I was dumbfounded
because I'm like it's true, when we, these
kids, come into this world and they're
afraid and we're actually going, I'm going
to.
This is a perfect segue into what um Bruno
Bettelheim says about about this.
Um, okay, let me rewind.
(18:38):
Brutal Bettelheim was a child psychologist
and he started to.
He did a long-term study on the effects of
children and fairy tales and and one of the
one of the objections a lot of people have
about the fairy tales is that they are
violent and y'all, I read some fairy tales
this past week with my kids that I was like,
(19:00):
oh my gosh, and my and my 13 year old son
is like I am trying to figure out the the
lesson in this which I we don't have to
share the lessons with our kids, like we
don't have to get in their faces, like the
stories in and of themselves were shared,
the lessons and over time the children
absorb that they it seeps and steeps in
(19:20):
them.
Um, but he argues that when children, as
children, are growing up, they have these
innate fears that they have a fear of being
separated from their parents.
They have a fear of this big, huge, dark,
scary world.
And for children, the monsters already
exist, like the boogeyman already exists in
(19:42):
their hearts.
So it's not like the fairy tales are
introducing the boogeyman to children.
They already have innate fears.
Children are already innately afraid of
what's behind the closet.
You know what's in the closet.
Even my nine-year-old.
Every day she's like please shut the closet
door.
One day I said here, if anything comes out
of the closet door.
One day I said here, if anything comes out
(20:02):
of the closet, here is your sister's sword
that she earned, which is the same sword we
use to dub Joshua, uh, graduated, and I
said if anything comes out, go ahead and
slay it, baby.
And she's like got it.
You know I didn't say oh, oh, no, don't be
afraid of what's in the dark.
You know I'm like no, here you go.
If you're afraid of anything, go ahead and
(20:22):
right.
As children, they do have big imaginations,
but they do have these internal fears.
And what the fairy tales do is number one.
It confirms those fears, like, yeah, it's
scary to be separated from your parents,
it's scary to deal with scary things in the
world, but the dragons can be killed, but
(20:47):
there is resolution.
And, and so it validates their fears and
then gives them, um, something to chew on.
That there is an answer.
I love, um, I love this by CS Lewis,
because he reiterates this idea.
That it's, he says, quote since it's so
likely that children will meet cruel
(21:08):
enemies, let them at least have heard of
brave knights and heroic courage, otherwise
you're making their destiny not brighter
but darker.
Right With fairy tales, our kids get to see
that the dragons can be defeated, that the
witch doesn't win in the end, that there is
(21:30):
light at the end of the tunnel, that there
is resolution, that there can be happy
endings, because otherwise things get
really, really bleak.
And so he found um, and which is, by the
way, his book is called Uses of Enchantment,
and it's so good.
But he argues that the fairy tales actually
calm the fears of the children, although
(21:52):
the CS Lewis also said in lines with you
know, like the children already, like they
already know that there's evil there.
He says CS Lewis is okay, he's accredited
with saying this, but nobody knows if he
actually said it, but I still think it's a
(22:13):
good quote.
Don't ask me where the witch came from.
Children are born knowing the witch, and so
I think that's it's.
It's true.
Like children are born that feeling, that
sense of like there is scary out there
already.
And and fairy tales enable us to calm the
(22:35):
fears of the children and give them the
tools to slay the dragon.
Okay, so that question of of violence.
And you know, do we water down the fairy
tales?
Do we?
Do we not?
Um bruno betelheim says no, don't, don't
water them down, don't um?
(22:57):
Children have an innate need for a sense of
justice, and so even they're a little bit
different in that like a television show,
that's like horror and gory, which I don't
do.
Horror y'all, like my kids are not allowed
to watch horror.
I don't watch horror.
None of my kids want to watch horror anyway.
Um, I don't do gore.
Um, and some of the fairy tales are super
(23:18):
gory.
What I observed as we were driving the
other day and listen to this one that I had
never heard of before and it's so gruesome,
you know, someone's chopped up, and but
what I realized is when we watch it on
television or we watch these dark cartoons
or whatever, which I again I'm pretty
careful about what I put into my brain, um,
(23:40):
they show all of the blood and the guts and
the gore.
But I realized, as I'm listening to the
fairy tale and they talk this one
particular fairy tale, they chop off the
grandma's finger and in my, in my
imagination, I didn't imagine blood.
And so I asked my kids what they imagine.
They're like oh, that's really gruesome,
but but they also, they also they didn't
(24:01):
imagine blood.
But yet the story still was able to teach
them that evil could be overcome even with
really dark things.
I don't know if that makes any sense.
It makes sense in my brain.
Um, so it's best if we don't water them
(24:22):
down, which is what a lot of, if the
translations haven't completely retold or
rewritten the fairy tale altogether.
A lot of times they'll water down the fairy
tale.
So recently I'm working on a couple scripts
for a small school and I'm writing some
(24:46):
scripts for them to do a fairy tale play
and I brought up to the head of the school
let's discuss some of the fairy tales that
you want to include in our.
I think they want like a compilation of
mini plays and and I said which ones do you
want to include?
(25:06):
And I said would you want real, you know,
little Red Riding Hood?
And she said, yes, but we need to change
the ending so that the wolf and Red Riding
Hood becomes friends.
I'm like, okay, okay, so we're to have to
rewrite the whole story.
So how about we don't do Red Riding Hood?
And I found this really problematic because
(25:27):
she didn't want any bad things to happen to
any of the characters, even the bad
characters.
And so one of the things that Dr Bettelheim
argues is and actually I don't know if he,
I'm assuming he's a doctor because he was a
child psychologist but one of the things
that that Dr Bettelheim argues is and
actually I don't know if he, I'm assuming
(25:48):
he's a doctor because he was a child
psychologist.
But one of the things that he argues is
that children have this strong sense of
morality.
Right, they want to see justice.
They already, innately, are merciful, but
most kids want to have a sense of justice.
So I had that conversation with the head of
the school and, and then I want to have a
sense of justice.
So I had that conversation with the head of
the school and then I wanted to do a little
experiment.
So I went to my daughter and I said who's
(26:14):
nine?
I said you know, I'm going to write some
plays based on fairy tales.
And she said yep, and I said what would you
think if I changed the ending of the Little
Red, the little red riding hood to have the
(26:35):
wolf and red riding hood become friends?
And I just sat there and this was her
expression.
She went like this and she kind of she got
this very perplexed look on her face and
she sat there for a second and he said what
(26:56):
would you think about that?
She's like I don't, I don't know.
I'm like would it bother you?
And she's like I don't know.
And she looks bothered.
I mean the look on her face was really
concerned, like really, really, really
concerned.
And and I said, maybe, maybe I, maybe I
(27:17):
just go ahead and stick with the original
ending and the wolf, the wolf and the
original ending.
The actual ending y'all is that the the
woodcutter cuts open the wolf, grandma and
little red riding hood come out of the wolf
and it's actually little red riding cap,
but anyway, um, they come out of the wolf
alive and then the woodcutter.
(27:41):
The woodcutter puts rocks in the wolf's
belly, sews him up and then throws him in
the river and he drowns.
And so I said maybe I should just keep the
ending as is.
And she's like, she literally like let out
a sigh and she goes.
Good, because I don't think it's okay.
(28:02):
And I said, what's not okay?
She goes, he ate them, he ate the grandma
and Red Riding Hood.
That's not okay.
Something needed to happen.
And so I saw her visibly like get, I mean,
she was, she was upset.
And then there was that, that sigh of
relief in her little nine-year-old mind,
like oh, there is justice.
(28:25):
And she was bothered by the fact that I
wanted to change the ending so they'd be
friends, which I think.
I think it's.
I think, going back to the moral relativism,
like when we water down the fairy tales, we
get this sense of, or or we change the
ending so that there is no justice for the
evil.
You know, even even in Wicked, where we
(28:46):
have this moral ambiguity, and maybe good
is bad and bad is good, and as it causes,
it causes so much confusion that I even
look at in society.
So here in Colorado this happened a few
years ago, true story y'all.
It made the news.
This guy is running in the mountains, like
(29:07):
just on a regular running path, not too far
from his neighborhood, and a baby mountain
lion, a cougar, a baby cougar, which is
really big, like they're not little, like
they will kill an adult really fast attacks
him.
So what does the guy do?
Well, he defends himself with his bare
(29:29):
hands and he ends up like, like, putting
his foot on the cougar's jaw.
I mean, he is scratched like crazy and
bleeding his guts out.
And he puts his foot on the cougar's jaw,
ends up like the cougar finally suffocates.
(29:49):
And there he's left, just mangled.
He had nothing.
It wasn't like he brought weapons with him
to go running.
He had, like his you know, air pods in or
whatever, and that was it Like, and he's
just running as a runner would like he did
every day and he ends up killing this
cougar with his bare hands.
Y'all.
Some of the comments were like how dare
(30:13):
this guy kill a cougar?
Now, this is not a guy who took a shotgun
out looking to kill a cougar.
No, no, no.
This is a guy who a baby cougar attacked
him and he was trying to stay alive and he
barely came out alive, like he was mangled
pretty stinking bad, ended up in the
(30:33):
hospital, right.
And that is what we get with moral
relativism that there's no sense of.
Yeah, well, the right thing to do in that
situation is to protect yourself, okay, or
just be eaten by the cougar, and that's
fine, you know.
And so again, when we water down the fairy
(30:55):
tales, it doesn't do our children any
justice.
And when we try to make them soft and cushy
and sweet, the children don't see the
justice that they innately want and need to
see, that enables them to see that the
dragon can be killed.
(31:16):
If we don't kill the dragon, then we're
still left in a very scary world.
Do you see what I'm saying?
Am I making any sense?
And some of you totally might disagree with
me.
And that is fine.
Don't read your kids Grimm's fairy tales.
Anyway, the other thing that is brought up
in Tending to the Heart of Virtue and in
Uses of Enchantment is.
(31:36):
You, don't?
You and I, as parents, do not need to
explain the fairy tales.
We do not need to try to suck out what the
morality is with the fairy tales.
As I mentioned before, we just share them.
We read them with the kids and let them
come to conclusions on their own over time.
(31:58):
Um, they're not going to stop.
You know if, if a child is struggling to
lie which age eight is usually the time
that I see kids start to, they start to
like experiment with telling fibs, right.
Um, reading Pinocchio the first time may
not stop them from that.
That initial like practicing, trying, you
(32:20):
know, trying out lying.
But over time these stories accumulate as
our kids are put in, you know, in front of
knights in shining armor and they're put in
front of heroic characters.
They're put in front of wonderful literary
(32:40):
heroes and heroines.
They start to develop these ideological
holding to the Christian ideological,
pre-postmodern ideas.
Um, joshua brought up Atticus Finch.
(33:02):
Um, and reading to kill a mockingbird in
the first part of um, my interview with him.
Joshua, for those of you this is your first
podcast episode of mine, josh.
Uh, joshua is my myyear-old son who just
graduated.
He's my first homeschool child to graduate.
We pulled the kids five years ago and he
(33:27):
brought up that being face-to-face with
Atticus Finch and seeing the heroism and
the bravery affected him For our younger
children.
That's what fairy tales can do for them and
then for us y'all.
They're still so delightful and I was still
(33:47):
like, oh my gosh, what's gonna happen Again?
Some of these fairy tales I had never heard
in my entire life.
So let's talk about for just a second.
Yeah, so our kids need fairy tales.
They need fairy tales, um, to know they
already know the evil exists, but they they
need to know that the dragon can be slain.
(34:09):
It helps them gain courage.
It helps them learn virtue.
It's like a tea that seeps and over time,
that steeping, shapes who they are over the
years as we read with them.
(34:30):
So for fun, before I go into what to read
to the kids, which fairy tales you want to
read, because not all translations are
created equal I want to say I have a free
download with the quotes by CS Lewis about
the dragon.
I mean GK Chesterton about the dragon being
(34:51):
slain, and then CS Lewis' quote about the
need for knights in shining armor to know
that knights exist.
Um, I've got, I made some really cool
bookmarks.
They're in the show notes.
Um, for those of you who are signed up for
my newsletter, I'll be emailing those out
to you so you don't have to go in and find
them in the show notes and then download
them.
(35:12):
But it's a free pdf download so you can
print them out on cardstock and have your
own um, your own bookmarks to put in your
fairy tale books as you read.
So let's talk about which versions to get,
and I'm going to include these in the show
notes so that you can look them up.
Get them from your library.
You can purchase them however you want to
obtain them.
(35:32):
Get them off Amazon, it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter to me how you get them.
Okay, jack Zipes.
Now, jack Zipes is very Marxist, however,
when?
So I wouldn't read his personally.
Now, if you're a Marxist, that's one thing,
and you're probably listening to the wrong
(35:53):
podcast, but his commentary on the fairy
tales don't love those.
But his translations are actually really,
really good, and this is what Dr Garayan
suggested.
This is the one we've been listening to.
(36:15):
It's the Complete Tales of Brothers Grimm
by Bantam Books and it's the Jack Zipes
translation.
Okay, again, all of these are going to be
in the show notes, as well as the free PDF
download of the bookmarks with the quotes.
And then so Jack Zipes translation.
Again.
Don't read his commentary, don't pick up
any of his commentaries unless you ascribe
(36:37):
to the Marxist ideologies.
But which is why he didn't like the like as
he's translating, which is why I didn't
like him, because they're very, very
infused with Christianity all over the
place, like illusion and allegory, and
which the kids may not understand at the
(36:59):
beginning but as they get older again it
starts to merit marinate in their souls.
So jack zipes, complete tales of brothers
grim by bantam books.
Um, another really good one is david luke
penguin classics brothers grim is David
Luke Penguin Classics Brothers Grimm's
Selected Tales.
(37:19):
And just so you know, like the Jack Zipes
one, it's like on Audible, it's like 12
hours.
That's why we're reading fairy tales all
summer Like.
This is our read aloud is fairy tales.
We're going through all of them and we're
all real excited because it's oh, they're
so.
Some of them are really gruesome, but the
kids do well with them.
They don't imagine the blood.
Um, david luke penguin classics, brothers
(37:42):
grim, selected tales um eric christian
haugard.
For hans christian anderson.
Um, he has a collection of stories by hans
christian anderson.
I'm gonna look at that one.
If you want to go into Victorian fairy
tales, look at Michael Patrick Hearn's book,
the Victorian Fairy Tale Book, published by
(38:03):
Pantheon Books.
Again, that's Victorian fairy tales by
oxford university press.
(38:25):
Um, and so those are some fairy tales.
Also, if you've never read anything by
george mcdonald, y'all.
Before I started homeschooling I had never
even heard of George McDonald, but his
tales are delightful and fabulous.
And then you could also look at, actually,
(38:47):
john Ruskin, only one, I believe.
He only wrote one fairy tale and I'll
include that one in the show notes as well,
but I haven't read that one yet.
But I'm quickly falling in love with George
McDonald's fairy tales as well as his
novels.
We're reading the Princess and the Goblin
right now.
Oh, my goodness, so delightful.
(39:07):
So those are a few translations and
anthologies that you can pick up from the
library and y'all start reading fairy tales.
I just want to end one more time with.
Well, I want to end with this quote by CS
Lewis.
(39:28):
Actually, I'll end with two quotes.
Someday you will be old enough to start
reading fairy tales again.
Cs Lewis, that's you and me, that's you and
me, mamas and grandmas and some dads and
grandpas.
It's time for us to start reading fairy
tales again.
And finally, I do want to end with this
(39:48):
quote, because I do love this quote so much.
I've referred to it over and over and over
again.
Fairy tales do not tell children the
dragons exist.
Children already know that dragons exist.
Fairy tales tell children the dragons can
be killed.
Gk Chesterton.
Mamas and papas, grandmas and grandpas, we
(40:11):
will see you in July.
I am going to be putting up some little
YouTube videos here and there that are
shorter and not like podcast length, so you
can check out my YouTube channel.
I am working on that this week, as a matter
of fact.
But you are, go read some fairy tales with
your cherubs, enjoy them, delight in them.
(40:33):
You don't even have to explain them, you
just have to read them or listen to them.
With that being said, have a great summer.
We'll talk in July.
You got this.
You are doing so much better than you think
you are.
You got this.
We'll talk in July.
If you found this podcast helpful, sign up
for our newsletter at school to
(40:53):
homeschoolcom, where there's also lots of
other resources.
You can also subscribe to us on YouTube at
school to homeschool or join our private
Facebook page school to homeschool.
You've got this, my friends.
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