Well-Loved Tales
My interest in folk tales began, I think, with the Well-loved Tales series published by Ladybird in the late 1960s. A number of these pocket-sized books were to be found knocking around the house when I was growing up, bought for my elder sister, if not for me. I remember the covers. Neither iconic nor especially pleasing, in some cases, quite ugly.
The Troll beneath the Bridge
Some stories stick with you more than others and not always because of their accomplishments. For me, the Well-love tale that stuck more than any other was ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’. There’s not much to it. A simple scenario in which three goats outwit a troll who lurked beneath a bridge. But the threat of the troll captured my imagination. My family often went for walks in the woods and every bridge we came to evoked this threat, this thrilling possibility of destruction. I still feel it, every time I see a shadowy space beneath a bridge where I troll might lie in wait.
I also have a fond recollection of several of the less-celebrated stories. Comedies that must have been passed down for centuries among Germanic and Eastern European peasants. The careful-what-you-wish-for trope in ‘The Magic Porridge Pot’ may have resonated because we ate a lot of porridge in our house, while ‘The Enormous Turnip’ is nothing more than a silly chain tale about digging up an outsized root vegetable had no relevance at all to a boy who never had to work the land. But you don’t expect anything to grow so big!
Foodstuff supplied more comedy adventures in ‘The Gingerbread Boy.’ I identified with the cheeky, boy-shaped gingerbread biscuit, his quest for freedom and the taunts aimed at his pursuers: ‘I ran away from the old man and woman, I can run away from you too’ (subtext: chase me). To this day, I am disheartened the little fella—spoiler alert—gets eaten by the fox in the end.
The Brothers Grimm
The Well-loved Tales were my introduction to the Brothers Grimm, with ‘Rumpelstiltskin’ a favourite. It had the best cover and the most detestable villain. The series may also have been my first acquaintance with ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ and the English folk tales ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ and ‘The Three Little Pigs’ but all three of these were, and still are pervasive, retold time and again in books, at primary school, in the theatre, on television. Well-loved.
