One of the more recent television series to utilize folk tales as a vehicle for the plotline is the ABC series Once Upon a Time that first aired in 2011. It brings in a variety of fairytale and folktale characters in an interesting story where fantasy characters are somehow transported into the real world and how the interact with normal society. Its main characters are often from more recent fairy tales, such as the ones that the Disney corporation has remade, but there are some more obscure and odd characters of folk tales that do find their way into some episodes.

What I want to enter into the collection here is the character of King Midas, who appears in episode six of season 1 of the show. Portrayed by Alex Zahara, the character represents the figure of King Midas in Greek mythology, whose touch would turn objects—and people—into gold. There are various forms of the legend that claim Midas was from different areas all over Greece, but they all have common patterns. King Midas was a greedy king who loved gold, but was still kind and hospitable. When a sick and old satyr was taken to his palace for refuge, the satyr offered to grant King Midas one gift, which Midas quickly responded with the desire to have a touch that turned things to gold. As amazing as this was at first, it soon becomes a burden, as he cannot eat or embrace his loved ones. It is meant to be a cautionary tale about the negative effects of blind greed.

The television show gives greater depth to the character of Midas and reveals just how miserable life is after he is cursed. Not only can he not eat his favorite foods the way he used to or embrace his friends and family, he is constantly the target for kidnappers and robbers who want to exploit his curse for their own profit. Still he has to govern over his kingdom and so wears a massive glove so that he can touch things without turning them into gold. The episode has King Midas throwing an engagement party for his daughter, when the evil queen makes a surprise entrance. Once it is realized that his daughter has helped Snow White escape, the queen arrests King Midas’ daughter. Interestingly, Midas does little to stop the queen, which reflects on the image of the folk character as a weak-minded king. In fact, he even bows to the queen as his daughter is led out by the queen’s guards. His portrayal as a small, weak character that does not effectively govern over his palace reaffirms the image of King Midas as a flawed character. He is weakened by the curse, not enriched by it the way that he would think. The episode thus furthers the moral of the original folk tale by demonstrating greed as a weakness.

Source: “Snow Drifts.” Once Upon A Time. ABC. 2011.

One of the more recent television series to utilize folk tales as a vehicle for the plotline is the ABC series Once Upon a Time that first aired in 2011. It brings in a variety of fairytale and folktale characters in an interesting story where fantasy characters are somehow transported into the real world and how the interact with normal society. Its main characters are often from more recent fairy tales, such as the ones that the Disney corporation has remade, but there are some more obscure and odd characters of folk tales that do find their way into some episodes.

Here, the folktale reference is not from ancient Greek, as the last episode; but rather from German folk stories. It is the tale of the children Hansel and Gretel who end up in the candy house of a witch who tries to eat them. The original folktale is quite grim in that it demonstrates how children’s’ curiosity can be life threatening. The witch lures the children in with her cabin made of candy and then imprisons them. She almost pushes them into her oven, until Gretel pushes her in instead. In the series, Once Upon a Time, the characters of Hansel and Gretel are imprisoned by a blind witch after being lured in by the same candy trick as in the folk tales. The witch is blind in the series and the children go through a number of blunders before they can actually escape, which is not described in the folk tale. It is an interesting episode because Gretel is the one who takes control and helps free them both. This is the same as in the original tale but has strong messages about the ability of women in a patriarchal system.

The episode goes further to portray the children as being in a very poor situation. When they escape, they cannot find their father as he has been banished by the queen. Thus, there are clear pessimistic undertones that represent the children in a much more pathetic light. In the folk tale, the children have a mother and grandmother that care for them, and thus they return to more loving homes. It is interesting for the show to perform the folktale with a father figure instead who then cannot support them after their ordeal. Instead, the children’s father is seemingly abducted by the queen, who takes no pity on them. She tells Gretel, “two helpless children, lost and alone. A family torn asunder, such a sad and moving story,” but then has her guards try to capture them. I believe these changes are meant to use the innocent children as another strategy to show the evil nature of Queen Regina, thus furthering the plot for her storyline rather than being true to the actual folktale of Hansel and Gretel.

Source: “True North.” Once Upon A Time. ABC. 2011.

One of the more recent television series to utilize folk tales as a vehicle for the plotline is the ABC series Once Upon a Time that first aired in 2011. It brings in a variety of fairytale and folktale characters in an interesting story where fantasy characters are somehow transported into the real world and how the interact with normal society. Its main characters are often from more recent fairy tales, such as the ones that the Disney corporation has remade, but there are some more obscure and odd characters of folk tales that do find their way into some episodes.

Another interesting reference I wanted to touch on here was the character of Little Red Riding Hood as she appears in the series. In season 2 episode seven, the show exposes an interesting element of Red Riding Hood that is vastly different from the original folk tale. The original story presents Red Riding Hood as an innocent girl that is hunted by a malicious wolf. Yet, in the episode, Ruby, she has become the wolf. The series has the character actually a shape-shifting werewolf. In the episode, the townspeople find her in wolf form hiding from their wrath. She is almost killed for killing a man before she is saved by other townspeople and it is revealed that one of the town’s leaders killed the man and framed Ruby to try to make it look like a wolf.

Overall, this episode is interesting because it makes the character of the folk tale into the very creature that hunted her. It may be a signal that the wolf did eventually get Little Red Riding Hood at the end of the tale, even though he does not in most versions. It is an interesting interjection that combines innocence with power, making Red Riding Hood a more distinctive character than simply a little, innocent girl without any more depth to her character.

Source: “Child of the Moon.” Once Upon A Time. ABC. 2011.

For this collection, I wanted to also add in some of my own favorite folktales that were read to me as a child. The first is a story written by Rudyard Kipling in his Just So Stories, a collection of folktales meant to be read aloud by parents to their children. My favorite of these stories, “The Cat That Walked by Himself” is a folktale describing the reason cats have never been truly domesticated like other animals, including dogs and horses. The story opens describing the early age of man, before humanity had domesticated animals. It then describes the process of domesticating animals like the dog, cow, and horse. The man’s wife tried to domesticate the cat, but the cat refused, claiming “I am not a friend, and I am not a servant. I am the cat who walks by himself.” He wants the benefits of free food and shelter but refuses to live under the domination of the woman and the man. Instead, he attacks their young child and is driven out by the man and the other animals, who vow to hate him and chase him always. It is meant to explain the solitary nature of cats and how they often do not get along with other animals or their human masters.

As the author of major children’s stories like The Jungle Book, Kipling has a very animated style of writing that really is expressed when read aloud. He starts the story with “hear and attend and listen; for this befell and behappened and became and was, O best beloved.” The phrases were very nostalgic. In fact, my mother had adopted that as my childhood nickname—Best Beloved. I had my mother read a part of the story to me over the phone and it felt like I was transported back into my childhood. Although I could not see her facial expressions or hand gestures, she had read the story to me so many times I could still picture them vividly in my head. Moreover, her enunciations of the words were spot on with my memory, which helped me better with the visualization of the performance she was expressing on the other end of the phone line.

The second animal folklore I wanted to add to this collection comes from the classic Aesop’s Fables, once again as performed by my mother over a phone call when I had asked her to reread portions of some of my favorite animal folklore from when I was a child. Along with Kipling’s classic, I remember I loved when she would read stories from Aesop’s Fables to me as well. There are many versions of these fables, as they go back to Greek and Roman traditions. The story my mother chose from these collections is one of her own personal favorites, “The Ass in the Lion’s Skin.”

The story is essentially about a very vain donkey that dawns on the skin of a lion he finds that was left by a hunter. He puts the skin on and begins to terrify the local animals, who think he is really a lion. It is only the clever fox that eventually discovers that he is not a lion after the donkey, absolutely pleased with himself, neighs in his donkey voice. At that moment, the fox realizes he is not a lion, telling him “if you had kept your mouth shut you might have frightened me too! But you gave yourself away with that silly bray!” The underlying moral of this fable is that you may be able to deceive some with false looks created through one’s appearance and clothing, but it will always come out who you really are.

Since this is my mother’s favorite of the whole collection, she was very excited to read it. It was short, but her excitement made it even shorter. She was rushed to get to the part about the fox, because she really appreciates the fox character in all of Aesop’s Fables. He is sly, clever, and cunning—able to outsmart much more powerful opponents with his intelligence. However, in this story, my mother appreciates the fact that he serves as a bit of comic relief. The situational irony exposes the donkey’s secret to the reader earlier on, and it is nice to see the donkey’s farce revealed. My mother always gives a very sarcastic and cool tone to the dialogue of the fox, as she tries to impart these characteristics with the underlying nature of this character. I think this is why she really likes this tale above all else, because the reader can see the true sarcastic nature of the fox that does compliment is wittiness developed in the other fables.