As I browsed through the list of fairy tales, I was surprised by how many there are. I am aware of how few I know, only a handful Yet there are hundreds and thousands. I read that fairy tales were designed to entertain and to teach morals, and supposedly reflected the spiritual and cultural beliefs of the time.
As I read them, I am confounded by how gruesome, violent and murdersome they are. There seems to be a lot of cannibalism. Who would have predicted that!
But we can find a few that are more on the light-hearted side. I am particularly partial to numskull tales. I had to include the Catholic Painter, as this is an excellent example of cynicism about religion.
Unfinished Tales A boy finds a key and a mysterious casket. He opens it. A calf's tail lies the casket. 'If the tail had been longer, the tale had been longer too.'
Numskull Tales A manservant is sent to buy the best matches. To make quite sure he strikes all the matches in order to try them before he returns.
Numskulls carry timber down the hill. Then they understand that it would have been better to roll it down. They carry it back up and roll it down.
Religious Tales The Lazy Boy and the Industrious Girl The Lord and Peter come across a very lazy boy and a very clever, industrious girl. The Lord decides, to Peter's astonishment, that these two are to be married.
The Catholic Painter A Catholic painter washes his hands in the holy-water, but escapes corporal punishment when he paints an image of the Virgin Mary on his penis. The parson believes that a miracle has happened.
Our conclusion for the day comes from Albert Einstein:
“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” ― Albert Einstein
