Tag Archives: fairy tale

The Princess and the Pea

Text:

BR: A young price is becoming of marrying age and his mother is eagerly trying to find a suitable princess for him to wed. She doesn’t think that anyone in the kingdom is a “true” princess, and tells him that he must wait for the right person to come along. One night, there is a terrible storm and a traveling girl seeks shelter in the castle. The prince immediately takes interest in her, but his mother judges her wet, ragged clothes and tells him that she is certainly not worthy. To prove it, the mother makes a bed of 10 mattresses and puts a single pea under the bottom mattress. She claims that only a real princess would be able to feel the pea through all of the mattresses. Much to her surprise, the princess tells her that the bed was too uncomfortable and she could hardly sleep. The girl was a true princess after all, and she and the prince lived happily ever after. The moral of the story is to never judge a book by its cover.

Context: 

BR: I first heard this story from my parents as a bedtime story. My sisters and I all listened together and learned that it is important to not judge people on their appearance. I think this message is important for people to know and this story is a good way to teach it to children.

Analysis:

When asked about myths and tales they know, shockingly few people think of bedtime stories they were told as children. This story in particular is a fairy tale from Hans Christian Anderson written in the 1800s. Anderson was a Danish storyteller, yet BR has no Danish roots, indicating the story has become more commonplace. Similarly to Aesop’s Fables, Anderson’s works often feature a concise moral. They differ however, in that all of the characters are human and behave as humans would.

The Little White Snake

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 03/30/2023
Primary Language: English

Text:

AX: “This is very common. If you ask any Chinese person, they could tell you about it. So there’s this little white snake. My tale is… a long time ago, there was a little white snake, and she wanted to become a human and go to school. For context, I was a little girl who did not want to go to school, by the way. As she was slithering down the mountain, a hunter caught her and was about to kill her, but then the hunter’s apprentice, this little boy, was like no, she’s innocent, let’s just let her go! So the hunter released her, and she never forgot about this. So centuries pass by, and this little white snake has been training and learning to be a human forever, and then when she does it, she runs into the reincarnation of that apprentice, and they fall in love… happy story. They have a child. But then the monks found out she was actually a snake, so they locked her up under a tower. This little boy grows up, went to school trying to save his mother. He ended up being smart enough and gained enough credibility to force the tower to come down, and that’s how he freed his mother. There’s a lot of variations of it. I think in other variations, there’s no child, it’s just the snake falling in love with her lover, and in others, it’s not even a lover: she grows up and has a child with someone we don’t name, and she frees herself from the monks.”

Context: AX is a freshman at USC studying English—she’s a fellow student in the folklore class and knows the material well. She grew up in Chino, a small suburb outside of Los Angeles. She’s of Asian descent.

AX: “Now that I’m saying it out loud, it’s so obvious that my mom was trying to get me to go to school! I was like oh my God, I want to learn how to go to school and learn how to free snakes!”


Analysis: The informant acknowledges the existence of other versions, enforcing the fact that it’s a folk narrative with variation. It reflects both the individual and community—the story is very uniquely AX’s, drawn from her community but affected by her mother’s telling. As for the category, it’s a tale, primarily aimed at AX as a child, updated to reflect her need to go to school. On a separate note, the coloration of the snake is loaded with symbolism. Going back to Vaz da Silva’s examination of the chromatic symbolism, the snake was white at first, representing purity. On top of that, the snake is described as little, which reflects its age. It’s childlike in size, adding onto the white coloration to create the image of purity. However, when she grows up and reaches maturity, she loses the form of a white snake and thereafter gives birth, a symbolic loss of purity with sex. In this particular variation, the snake appears to have agency until after giving birth, after which her son makes the major choices in the story. Her loss of agency may reflect the patriarchy of society, where a matriarch is only in control of herself until she bears an heir, after which he takes control.

The bee and the orange tree

–Informant Info–

Nationality: French

Age: 47

Occupation: Teacher

Residence: Los Angeles, California

Date of Performance/Collection: 2022

Primary Language: English

Other Language(s): French

(Notes-The informant will be referred to as DK and the interviewer as K)

Background info: DK is a mother of 1 who was born in the United States and moved to France when she was young, moving back to the US in 2017. She notes that she was told this story all the time but has not heard of it once in the US, and when she has brought it up to other people, they have never heard of it.

K: Ok so, what’s the name of the folklore, how do you know of it, and what’s the context of the performance? Like when is it told, under what circumstances?

DK: It’s called uh..The translation would be The bee and the orange tree. It was always told to me when I was little, in like school, or my parents and people like that. It’s kinda like Cinderella, you know? It was told like that.

K: Yeah that makes sense! Uh whenever…whenever you’re read you can tell the story.

DK: Ok. The story goes that there was this princess called uh Aimée who was lost after a ship wreck. She drifted to a little island in her crib, where a lot of uh…ogre’s lived. They only took her in because they wanted her to marry their son when she got older, normally they eat people who come ashore. When she was uh 15 I believe, she was told she would marry that ogre but the thought of that disgusted her. She went for a walk along the beach and found a man, who was actually her cousin, but neither of them knew that or could uh…say that. After a little while, the man, a prince, discovered who she was because she had a locket with her name on it. The little ogre said it was time for them to marry, and she fled but hurt herself on a thorn so she couldn’t walk. The prince went to find her when she didn’t show up and got captured. I don’t really remember the details here so I’m sorry

K: Thats alright! Just whatever you do remember tell me, even if its confusing

DK: Alright, uh so Aimee managed to trick some of the ogres into eating each other and found an uh magic wand somehow. Using it, she made herself speak the prince’s language and he told her everything. She used the wand again to distract the ogres and flee, but one of them followed them using his…magic boots. She would use the wand to disguise herself and the prince each time the ogre came close. She turned herself into a bee and the prince into an orange tree and stung the ogre, and in the chaos, the wand was stolen so they were stuck like that. Later, another princess fell in love with the orange tree, who was the prince. Aimee stung her out of jealousy, and the other princess ribbed a branch off the tree to defend herself, causing blood to flow out of the wound. Aimee left to fetch balm for the wound. A fairy came by while she was gone and detected the enchantment on the prince, turning him back. The prince explained the situation, and when Aimme returned the fairy uh turned her back also. They returned home to her parents and got married. The end *laughter*.

The king of ants

–Informant Info–

Nationality: Chinese American

Age: 27

Occupation: Student

Residence: Los Angeles, California

Date of Performance/Collection: 2022

Primary Language: English

Other Language(s): Mandarin

(Notes-The informant will GT be referred to as and the interviewer as K)

Background info: GT is a Chinese American student who was born and raised in California. Both his parents were born and raised in a small town in China, which is where he knows this story from. He told me this story in his home during the daylight.

K: Uh…so what’s the name of the story, the uh context of the performance and uh where-or how do you know if it? Like who told you or where did you hear it?

GT: *laughter* sorry I’m like super awkward. Uh, it’s called 蚂蚁之王, which means like uh “The king of ants” in English, I think. It’s told just like an uh like a bedtime story, like a fairytale and I always heard it from my mom or grandma. Oh! Also like everyone has a pretty different version, the only real similarity is like the ants help someone out, so this is only my, uh my family’s version of the story.

K: Cool! That’s perfect actually, start whenever you want. And if you only know a word in Mandarin or whatever that’s fine I can translate later.

GT: Yeah ok so uh… it’s really simple. So there was this guy, Ho Kwan of Kuang Nan, and he was like super kind. Like Buddhist level kind. He had this big jar of silver he had been saving for like his whole life when one day a bunch of ants came in and ate part of the silver. Oh! The ants were also white, which is important. Anyways uh, the guys’ family wanted to take revenge so they found where the ants were living, and there were MILLIONS, and said they would destroy them. Ho Kwan said no and argued until his family eventually left, leaving the ants unharmed. Uh…then he had like a dream uh that night, and it was like super weird. *laughter*. So a bunch of soldiers dressed in white (emphasized word white while winking) escorted him through this like huge, magnificent, rich city to the king who was also dressed in white. The king thanked uh…Ho Kwan for sparing him and his people, and said like sorry for the other ants stealing his silver. He directed Ho Kwan to a tree and said there’s a big jar of silver uh buried there for him. So Ho Kwan woke up and meditated and dug up the dirt and realized that like there was silver there! The end *laughter*

Interpretation:
This was the first bit of Chinese folklore I had really ever heard and it was so interesting! I like the fact that there are so many versions of this same story, which isn’t surprising due to how physically large China is. I did a little bit of further research on some of the other versions of the story, and most of them were a man helping the ants in some way and later getting rewarded. Most of them included someone else trying to attack the ants and the man protecting them. I thought that especially was important to note. A lot of these stories originate from around the rise of Buddhism in China, so it makes sense that so many of these stories would include being kind to living beings that normally you wouldn’t think twice about. The reward also makes sense. Although not very Buddhist in teaching, the reward system in this story appeals to more people than a purely Buddhist reward, which one won’t see until death.

The sorcerer of the white lotus lounge

–Informant Info–

Nationality: Chinese American

Age: 27

Occupation: Student

Residence: Los Angeles, California

Date of Performance/Collection: 2022

Primary Language: English

Other Language(s): Mandarin

(Notes-The informant will GT be referred to as and the interviewer as K)

Background info: GT is a Chinese American student who was born and raised in California. Both his parents were born and raised in a small town in China, which is where he knows this story from. He told me this story in his home during the daylight.

K: So uh same questions. Name of the story, context of the performance, and uh…where did you hear it?

GT: Yeah, I remember. Its called 白莲山庄的巫师 or like…sorcerer of the white lotus lounge if I make it make sense in English. Uh so its another like fairytale I heard from my mom or like books and stuff

K: Ok neat, whenever youre ready

GT: Yeah ok uh so like…Uh, it starts with there was a very powerful sorcerer, who could use dark magic. He had pupils as he like taught them dark magic I guess. Anyways, he asked them to watch a covered bowl and to not uncover it but of course, the students did, and all that was in it was a little straw boat in clear water. They like messed with the uh boat, and it tipped over. The sorcerer came back and said he knew what they had did, even if they denied it. The next night he left them with an uh..a candle and told them to watch it so it doesn’t go out. They all fell asleep and it went out, and again they denied it but the sorcerer knew, and that like…scared the students. Later uh, one of them insulted him, so he turned him into a pig and sold him to a butcher who killed him like a butcher does to an uh pig. Anyways, that student’s dad found out so the Emporer arrested him and his family. As they were going up an uh…a mountain all of them, the soldiers and such, saw this huge tree with a giant mouth and eyes. The sorcerer said his wife could handle it, and she got eaten. He said his son could handle it and then he got eaten, then he begged to handle it, and then HE got eaten. The thing is, it was all a trick and the three of them got away scot-free. The end

K: Is there like…a moral to this story

GT: *laughter* you’d think huh? No, just don’t fuck with sorcerers I guess.

Interpretation:
This was an odd one. The fact that there’s no real moral, in fact, the “bad guy” got away with his deeds, was super interesting. Most other folklore and/or fairytales at least have the good guy succeeding, if not rife with moral teachings. I later asked for further clarification from the informant, and he told me that the sorcerer was part of the lounge of white lotus, as seen in the title. This lounge was, at least according to my research, a revolutionary society in China, so it makes sense that they’d go against the grain in who “won” in a fairytale. I also thought it was interesting that the sorcerer was meant be scary. The story did not shy away from making him the very obvious bad guy, at least by today’s standards. He turns one of his students into a pig and sells him to a butcher!