Folk tales in the modern world

Abstract

Folk tales – this is what comes to my mind first when I am thinking of favorite fairy stories of my childhood. Although often creepy and full of questionable situations, they evoke warm memories. Folk stories are usually nature in a no small way. There are always talking animals and magical powers spread out throughout the natural world. Characters of these stories usually live in forests or somehow appear to retain a connection to it. Folk tales are usually instructive in the way they show solutions to life situations or dictate what is good and what is bad. They also usually depict a strong contrast between good and evil, beauty and ugliness, kindness and meanness. I would like to research the topic of folk tales as an element of the upbringing of children to put forward the question of the importance and role of the folk tale in children’s education in modern times. Many tales include unrealistic situations, such as how the wolf can eat six goats without killing them or transformation from a human into the beast. Tales talk about situations which often can be questionable in terms of morals, like eating children or captivating them ("Hansel and Gretel", "The Snow Queen"). But still, many children have been taught basic morals by the school of fairy tales, probably that is why I remember them so vividly. I would like to discuss where the morals of stories come from and what shapes them using the example of three different folklore traditions – Scandinavian, Filipino, and Ukrainian.