They are distinguished by special poetics, a fascinating plot and diversity. Each of them has its own purpose. We offer to find out what is the difference between a myth and a fairy tale. Examples will be given below. The material also covers issues related to the specifics of the myth as a genre.
Before considering the difference between a myth and a fairy tale, we suggest that you familiarize yourself with the definitions of key concepts - genres:
Both genres were of great importance in folklore. Let's figure out what myths and fairy tales are, the similarities and differences of which are presented below. This will help to understand why the people's consciousness used various texts to convey this or that information.
The difference between a myth and a fairy tale can be revealed already when analyzing the features of genres. Thus, the myth is a form of reflection of reality by ancient man. In myths, they found a reflection of a person's ideas about the world around them, woven into a single whole the cognitive, artistic and practical development of the world. With the help of these small texts, people passed on from generation to generation their knowledge about the world, about natural phenomena, about social order, about heroes and their great deeds.
The gods were not abstract in nature, which is inherent in most modern religions. Deification took place in relation to the forces of nature. So, many ancient peoples gradually developed their own pantheon of gods, each of whose representatives was responsible for some kind of power. There were gods of water, thunder and lightning, the mother goddess, gods of plants, animals and others.
Such features of the genre of myth allow us to note that the naive consciousness of ancient people believed in what was happening in these small texts. Despite the presence of a magical element, the events taking place in the works seemed plausible to a person. That is why the gods lived in such places, which fully explained why people had never seen them: in the sky, underground, in space.
Myths, of course, are primarily inherent in the ancient peoples, but they have not disappeared to this day. So, some people are quite seriously waiting for the Apocalypse, the zombie Apocalypse, and more recently, the minds of entire generations were owned by the insane ideologies of Nazism or communism. People really believe in these modern myths.
The tale invites you to plunge into a fictional world inhabited by fantastic creatures, often helping the hero, hindering him or somehow affecting his fate. At first glance, the genre has a lot in common with the myth: there are mysterious creatures endowed with mighty power, which, of their own free will, can either destroy a person or become his voluntary assistants.
The fairy tale strives to make its plot as interesting as possible, while the myth tried to reveal the “truth”, such as the collective consciousness saw it, without claiming interest.
Varieties of the genre will help to identify the difference between a fairy tale and a myth. The most ancient representatives of the genre are fairy tales about animals, in which the fox and the wolf, goats and piglets, geese and ducks acted. Each nation made such characters that were generally inherent in the place of its residence. So, in Rus', fairy tales described bears, wolves, foxes, but in the works of distant hot India, elephants, leopards, rhinos and lions acted. Each animal-hero was humanized, some specific qualities of people were attributed to him. Separate qualities became constant, for example, the fox is cunning, and the hare is cowardly in almost every text.
As you can see, apart from fiction, nothing unites these fairy tales with myths. They were composed solely for entertainment, and also to show what this or that act could lead to. Ancient people did not believe in the reality of what was happening in such fairy tales.
The next variety of the genre is magical, they are, as a rule, human heroes who fight the forces of evil. Often the latter acquire a very real embodiment: Koschei the Immortal, Baba Yaga, Serpent Gorynych. What are the similarities and differences between myth and fairy tale? Fantastic heroes act in both of them, but if in fairy tales they are perceived as fictional, then in myths they become quite reliable and exist (existed) in reality.
Everyday fairy tales appeared much later, in which the heroes are ordinary people and they play out, more often in a comic way, a situation that could well have happened in real life. For example, "Porridge from an ax" gives the listener of the tale the opportunity to laugh at the stingy old woman, punished for her greed, and admire the soldier's ingenuity.
Some researchers distinguish adventurous tales as a separate layer, the heroes of which fall into difficult situation and successfully get out of it thanks to ingenuity and insight. In Russian literature, these are, first of all, texts about Ivan the Fool, over whom at first everyone made fun, and then marveled at his hidden wisdom.
So, the main difference between a myth and a fairy tale is the appointment of genres. If the creators of the myth believed in what happened in this work, sought to explain incomprehensible phenomena with these texts, to pass on knowledge to descendants, then the authors of fairy tales did not take on faith what happened in them. Thus, the task of the fairy tale was to entertain the listener, to make him think about something, to teach him how to behave and how not to behave. But the storytellers never doubted that they were dealing with fiction.
It is very interesting that some researchers believe that the myth is the primary source of the tale. When consciousness became more complex, and people no longer needed to explain natural phenomena with the wrath or mercy of the gods, the layer of mythology was divided into individual elements, which became the sources of fairy tales. Let us briefly present the difference between a myth and a fairy tale in the form of a table.
So, the differences between a myth and a fairy tale in the table will help you figure out how not to confuse the texts of a particular genre. There is also something in common between them - an oral form of transmission was used, fantastic and semi-fantastic creatures acted in both works.
Consider the difference between a myth and fairy tales, legends, legends based on the purpose of the genres. It was already mentioned earlier that the fairy tale genre was created by a collective naive consciousness as an attempt to explain objects and phenomena incomprehensible to people. So, floods and volcanic eruptions, thunderstorms and lightning, successes or defeats in wars were attributed to the will of the gods. The story is - clean water fiction, people never believed in the reality of the events taking place in it, its genre task was to entertain listeners.
The purpose of the legend is a story about some event, an attempt to explain this or that phenomenon, as a rule, local, without global significance. For example, in order to tell a guest of the village why you should not visit the cemetery after sunset, the locals will willingly share with him the legend that many years ago a girl hanged herself there from unrequited love and to this day her restless spirit attacks travelers. And this story could have a very real basis, so the girl could take her own life, and strange, even terrible events could occur in the cemetery itself, which the popular consciousness explained by the influence of a ghost.
Consider the difference between myth and fairy tale and legend.
Legend is a genre that is as close as possible to myth. The storytellers perceived the events taking place in them as real, but there is an element of fantasy here. Often gods, spirits, heroes, and even entire nations became heroes. This genre differs from myth in the absence of a ritual nature. So, in order to appease the capricious deity, the ancient Egyptians or Hellenes made sacrifices up to human, but it was not possible to influence the legend in any way.
This genre has developed within the framework of non-fairytale folklore, the researchers believe that, despite the abundance of fiction, some of the events in them are quite reliable and can be perceived as historical source. Therefore, we can distinguish the second difference from the myth: if it is built on a completely fictional event, then there is a reliable element in the legend, although it is greatly rethought and distorted.
So, people did not believe in a fairy tale, they perceived legends and myths as a reliable presentation of events. But if the legend explained some event of a local scale, then the myth interpreted natural phenomena as a whole.
Consider the differences between myths and parables, fairy tales and legends. First of all, the purpose of the text is of key importance:
Another difference is the size of the pieces. If the myth and fairy tale could be impressive in volume, then the parable is always short.
So, we examined the differences between myth and fairy tale. Each genre is beautiful and interesting in its own way, so it’s impossible to say which one is better or more useful. They played a role in the development of the people's consciousness and are valuable material for studying the characteristics of life in those distant eras.
There are many peoples on Earth, and all of them are not alike: they have different skin colors, lifestyles, each has its own mythology. And although in myths different peoples there are their own, very special gods and heroes, they are united by the fact that these short or long, funny or cruel, but always poetic stories reflected the beliefs of ancient people, their initial knowledge about the world around them, about life, about man himself.
Thousands of years ago, people (and some tribes and nationalities still today) not only firmly believed in the events reflected in myths, but also lived and died, constantly communicating with gods, heroes and other mythical creatures.
Fairy tales are a completely different matter. They can also be funny and sad, heroic and everyday, but when reading or listening to them, we always know that this is not true, fiction, although no less beautiful and poetic than myths. Everyone loves fairy tales - both children and adults, because they make us kinder, more tolerant, wiser.
And my little sister still does not know how to distinguish a fairy tale from reality and believes that Baba Yaga, the little mermaids and Cheburashka really exist. Maybe fairy tales are a real myth for her today?
The folk art of the word - the heroic epic, fairy tales, myths, legends, songs, proverbs, riddles - is called folklore, which means wisdom, knowledge. Indeed, in all these literary genres, folk wisdom is contained in a simple, concise and clear form. The works of oral folk art that arose in ancient times accompany us even now, in Everyday life. Folk songs, fairy tales, riddles and proverbs are known to both children and adults.
Myths are a kind of folklore, old folk tales about gods, fantastic creatures, heroes, demigods, miracles, conveying the ideas of ancient peoples about the origin of the world and natural phenomena.
The legends of the ancient Greeks are distinguished by a special richness and variety of artistic fantasy - myths that also belong to folk art. In the imagination of the ancient Greeks, the gods inhabited not only the earth, but also air, water, and even underworld. Ancient Greek myths not only told about the life of gods and titans, but also glorified the names of the most worthy people who courageously fought for justice, freedom and honor. The gods are perfect people: with great physical strength, amazingly beautiful and immortal, able to perform miraculous and inexplicable actions from the point of view of ordinary people. Here is the man who brought fire to people - Prometheus. Here is a man of extraordinary strength, who has just accomplished another feat, defeating a terrible hydra - Hercules. But a handsome young man, bending over the mirror surface of the lake, admires his beauty - this is Narcissus. From the following myth, you can find out what led to Trojan War. Reading myths Ancient Greece, travel to distant countries and learn a lot of unusual things. But often the gods are no different from ordinary people: they also love, suffer, have fun, quarrel with each other, eat and drink, tell legends and stories.
If fairy tales are fictional, invented for a specific purpose, then myths are real, real ideas of people about the world around them. In everything that is said in the myths, our distant ancestors firmly believed, hence the deification of all living things, the worship of the gods. Myths are older than fairy tales. They combine the beliefs of people, their initial knowledge about the world around them, about life, as well as religion, science and art.
All of us in early childhood listened to fairy tales that our mothers and grandmothers told us. Fairy tales appeared a very long time ago and for many centuries played the same important role in human life as books now play. Fairy tales are a large section of ancient literature, folklore narrative works about fictitious persons and events, mainly involving magical, fantastic forces. Fairy tales often feature animals endowed with human characters. Fairy tales are full of life and humor, they ridicule the greed, cowardice and deceit of the rich and praise the industriousness, generosity and truthfulness of the common people.
Fairy tales are very diverse: these are stories about animals, and instructive short stories about lazy, stubborn or stupid people - social, and fairy tales - entertaining stories about the wonderful adventures of heroes. Each type of fairy tales has a special content, images, style.
Tales about animals originated in ancient times. Among many peoples, they are similar in character, content, they contain traces of primitive beliefs and ideas of man. Now fairy tales about animals are most often perceived as allegorical stories about people: people are hiding behind the images of animals. A cunning fox, a cowardly hare, a stupid and greedy wolf, a royal lion, a strong bear are constant heroes of fairy tales.
Fairy tales are also very ancient, they are, in my opinion, the most interesting. Their action can take place in a wonderful far away kingdom, a far away state, the heroes in them have magical qualities - they fly on flying carpets, walk in walking boots, hide under an invisibility cap and miraculously build extraordinary palaces and cities in one night.
The Russian people created a lot of satirical (social-everyday) tales about stupid, evil or stubborn people, about cruel rich people and greedy priests, making fun of them negative qualities. In all fairy tales, the people's dream of a better life is reflected, good always triumphs over evil in them, truth and justice triumph over lies.
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Symbolism of fairy tales and myths of the peoples of the world. Man is a myth, a fairy tale is you Benu Anna
Introduction
What are myths and fairy tales about?
Common to all fairy tales are the remains of the departing ancient times a belief that expresses itself through a figurative understanding of supersensible things. This mythical belief is like little pieces of a broken precious stone, which lie in bulk on the ground overgrown with grass and flowers and can only be detected by a keenly looking eye. Its meaning has long been lost, but it is still perceived and fills the tale with content, while at the same time satisfying the natural desire for miracles; fairy tales are never an empty play of colors, devoid of fantasy content.
Wilhelm Grimm
Create a myth, so to speak, dare for reality common sense seeking a higher reality is the clearest sign of greatness human soul and proof of its capacity for endless growth and development.
Louis-Auguste Sabatier, French theologian
Life is a myth, a fairy tale, with their positive and negative characters, magical mysteries leading to self-knowledge, ups and downs, struggle and liberation of one's soul from the captivity of illusions. Therefore, everything that meets on the way is a riddle given to us by fate in the form of a Gorgon Medusa or a dragon, a labyrinth or a flying carpet, on the solution of which the further mythological outline of our existence depends. In fairy tales, scenarios of our life beat with a pulsating rhythm, where wisdom is the Firebird, the king is the mind, Koschey is a veil of delusions, Vasilisa the Beautiful is the soul ...
Man is a myth. The story is you...
Anna Benu
Why are fairy tales and myths immortal? Civilizations die, peoples disappear, and their stories, the wisdom of myths and legends come to life again and again and excite us. What kind of attractive force is hidden in the depths of their story?
Why do myths and fairy tales not lose their relevance in our reality?
What is the most real thing in the world for you, reader?
For each person, the most real thing in the world is himself, his inner world, his hopes and discoveries, his pain, defeats, victories and achievements. Is there anything that worries us more than what is happening to us now, at this period of life?
In this book, I consider fairy tales and myths as scenarios for the life of each of us. This is about our firebirds of wisdom and Serpents Gorynychi illusions tell old stories. It is about our victory over the chaos of everyday obstacles that ancient myths tell. Therefore, fairy tales are immortal and dear to us, they take us on new journeys, encourage us to new discoveries of their secrets and ourselves.
This book examines one of the many facets of the interpretation of ancient myths and fairy tales of different peoples, fairy-tale mythological thinking and its symbolism.
Many researchers of fairy tales and myths reveal their different aspects, different ways of interpretation, mutually enriching each other. Vladimir Propp considers fairy tales from the point of view of folk beliefs, rites and rituals.
K.G. Jung and his followers - from the point of view of the archetypal experience of mankind. Jung argued that it is thanks to fairy tales that one can best study the comparative anatomy of the human psyche. "Myth is a natural and necessary step between unconscious and conscious thinking"(K.G. Jung).
American mythologist Joseph Campbell considers myths a source of development, information and inspiration for mankind: “Myth is a secret gate through which the inexhaustible energy of the cosmos pours into the cultural achievements of man. Religions, philosophies, art, social institutions of primitive and modern people, basic discoveries of science and technology, even dreams that fill our sleep - all these are drops from the magical boiling cup of myth.
The 20th-century Indian philosopher Ananda Kumaraswamy says of myth: "Myth embodies the closest approach to absolute truth that can be expressed in words."
John Francis Beerline, an American mythologist, writes in his book Parallel Mythology: "Myths– the oldest form of science, reflections on how the Universe came into being ... Myths, taken by themselves, show an amazing similarity between the cultures of different peoples separated by vast distances. And this commonality helps us to see behind all the differences the beauty of the unity of humanity ... Myth is a kind of unique language that describes the realities that lie beyond our five senses. It fills the gap between the images of the subconscious and the language of conscious logic.
A.N. Afanasiev with amazing constancy sees natural phenomena in all myths and fairy tales: the sun, clouds, thunder and lightning. Prometheus is a lightning fire chained to a rock-cloud; the evil Loki of Germanic mythology - clouds and thunder; the god Agni of Indian mythology - "winged lightning"; “the poker is the emblem of the lightning club of the god Agni, the pomelo is the whirlwind fanning the thunderstorm flame”; winged horse - a whirlwind; Baba Yaga, flying on a whirlwind broom, is a cloud; crystal and golden mountain - the sky; Buyan Island - spring sky; the mighty oak of the island of Buyana, just like the wonderful tree of Valhalla, is a cloud; all the dragons and snakes that the heroes fight against are also clouds; the beauty maiden is the red sun, abducted by the snake - a symbol of winter fogs, lead clouds, and the maiden's liberator is the lightning hero breaking the clouds; miraculous yudo whale fish, goldfish and pike Emelya, wish-fulfilling - a cloud filled with the fruitful moisture of life-giving rain, etc. etc.
Afanasiev in his book "The Poetic Views of the Slavs on Nature" examines in great detail, in volume, one of the facets of the interpretation of a fairy tale and myth.
Of course, a person who lives surrounded by nature and its elements cannot but reflect it in his poetic comparisons. But as a microcosm, a person carries in himself a reflection of the macrocosm - the entire surrounding world, therefore, one can consider the fabulous and mythological thinking of mankind as a reflection on the meaning and purpose of one's being in this vast, full of hints and clues amazing world.
“A myth is a symbolic story that reveals the inner meaning of the universe and human life”(Alan Watts, English writer and Western commentator on Zen Buddhist texts).
The most objective study of the fabulous-mythological thinking of ancient peoples can be done by synthesizing the experience of many authors.
Mircea Eliade calls for the study of symbolic systems, which constitute one of the areas of human self-knowledge, combining the diverse experience of professionals: “... such a study will be truly useful only if there is cooperation between scientists of different specialties. Literary criticism, psychology and philosophical anthropology should take into account the results of work carried out in the field of the history of religion, ethnography and folklore.”
This study does not claim to be completely objective. And who can apply for it, although you want to? Truth, hidden by many veils, suddenly lifts one of its veils for a moment to those who carefully peer into its elusive face, gives the joy of meeting to those who love it, and again slips away under the ghostly veils of endless secrets. But we still have the joy of meeting and its aroma, its breath ...
So once, starting to think about the meaning of myth and fairy tale, trying to penetrate into their essence, I experienced the joy of discoveries, analyzing them first in the classroom with children, then with students. I thought it was eureka! I opened! And a few years later, when I was getting my diploma at the Waldorf School, I read a book by a German European researcher folk tale Friedel Lenz, having discovered many of his discoveries, but made much earlier. Well, at least it speaks of the greater objectivity of these discoveries. And the joy of meeting with a fairy tale in your life, the myth-making of your being is always with us.
Let's start with an excursion into history.
“The word “myth” comes from the Greek mythos, which in ancient times meant “word”, “saying”, “history” ... Myth usually explains customs, traditions, faith, social institution, various phenomena of culture or natural phenomena, based on supposedly actual events. Myths tell, for example, about the beginning of the world, how people and animals were created, where and how some customs, gestures, norms, etc. originated.
Myths are often classified according to their subject matter. The most common are cosmogonic myths, myths about cultural heroes, myths about birth and resurrection, myths about the founding of cities.
Myth-making is a property of human consciousness in general. The myth is formed in its original forms in the subconscious and consciousness of a person, it is close to its biological nature. (Laletin D.A., Parkhomenko I.T.)
Fairy tales and myths created in different parts of the world are equally interesting, understandable and attractive to people of all nationalities, ages and professions. Consequently, the symbols and images embedded in them are universal, characteristic of all mankind.
The purpose of this study is not to argue about the differences between myth and fairy tale, but to analyze similar symbols and phenomena that exist in them. To do this, let's think about what symbolic thinking is.
Symbolic thinking has been inherent in man since the beginning of time. Let's look around: the letters of the alphabet are symbols; books are a set of symbols we understand; words are a set of sounds that we conditionally took as a standard and therefore understand each other. When mentioning only these two concepts - words and letters, it becomes clear that without symbols and symbolic thinking, human development is impossible. You can list further: symbols of religions, medical designations, monetary units, road signs, ornamental symbols in art, designations chemical elements, designations and symbols used in the computer world, etc. And the further civilization develops, the more it needs conventional signs, symbols to designate certain phenomena that open before it.
“…thanks to the symbols, the World becomes “transparent”, able to show the Almighty”(Mircea Eliade).
How did the ancient peoples understand the world? What does a fairy tale and myth carry in its essence, besides what lies on the “surface” of the text?
“The symbolic way of thinking is inherent not only to children, poets and madmen,” writes the historian of religions Mircea Eliade, “it is integral to the nature of the human being, it precedes language and descriptive thinking. The symbol reflects some - the most profound - aspects of reality that are not amenable to other ways of understanding. Images, symbols, myths cannot be considered arbitrary inventions psyche-souls, their role is to reveal the most hidden modalities of the human being. Their study will allow us to better understand a person in the future ... "(Mircea Eliade. "The myth of the eternal return").
A symbolic analysis of the fabulous mythological representations of ancient civilizations can reveal a lot to us. The study of symbols is an endless and compelling journey through time and space, leading to the timeless, to understanding ourselves.
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From the author's bookWhat are the myths about the creation of the world?
From the author's bookRussian folk tales “How can I, the old man, not cry. How can I, old, not cry: I lost the golden book In the dark forest, I dropped the key to the church In the blue sea. The Lord God answers the old man: “Don’t cry, old man, don’t sigh, I’m weaving a new book with stars, Golden
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Photos by Lilia Babayan, Alexei Chernikov and Anna Benu Costumes by Ekaterina and Svetlana Miroshnichenko, Anna Benu and Valentina Meshcheryakova
Makeup Anastasia Dudina
Cover design by Alexander Smolovoy and Anna Benu
Common to all fairy tales are the remains of a belief that goes back to ancient times, which expresses itself through a figurative understanding of supersensible things. This mythical belief is like small pieces of a cracked precious stone, which lie loosely on the earth overgrown with grass and flowers and can only be detected by a keenly looking eye. Its meaning has long been lost, but it is still perceived and fills the tale with content, while at the same time satisfying the natural desire for miracles; fairy tales are never an empty play of colors, devoid of fantasy content.
Wilhelm Grimm
To create a myth, so to speak, to dare to seek a higher reality beyond the reality of common sense, is the most obvious sign of the greatness of the human soul and proof of its capacity for endless growth and development.
Louis-Auguste Sabatier, French theologian
Life is a myth, a fairy tale, with their positive and negative heroes, magical mysteries leading to self-knowledge, ups and downs, struggle and liberation of one's soul from the captivity of illusions. Therefore, everything that meets on the way is a riddle given to us by fate in the form of a Gorgon Medusa or a dragon, a labyrinth or a flying carpet, on the solution of which the further mythological outline of our existence depends. In fairy tales, scenarios of our life beat with a pulsating rhythm, where wisdom is the Firebird, the king is the mind, Koschey is a veil of delusions, Vasilisa the Beautiful is the soul ...
Man is a myth. The story is you...
Why are fairy tales and myths immortal? Civilizations die, peoples disappear, and their stories, the wisdom of myths and legends come to life again and again and excite us. What kind of attractive force is hidden in the depths of their story?
Why do myths and fairy tales not lose their relevance in our reality?
What is the most real thing in the world for you, reader?
For each person, the most real thing in the world is himself, his inner world, his hopes and discoveries, his pain, defeats, victories and achievements. Is there anything that worries us more than what is happening to us now, at this period of life?
In this book, I consider fairy tales and myths as scenarios for the life of each of us. This is about our firebirds of wisdom and Serpents Gorynychi illusions tell old stories. It is about our victory over the chaos of everyday obstacles that ancient myths tell. Therefore, fairy tales are immortal and dear to us, they take us on new journeys, encourage us to new discoveries of their secrets and ourselves.
This book examines one of the many facets of the interpretation of ancient myths and fairy tales of different peoples, fairy-tale mythological thinking and its symbolism.
Many researchers of fairy tales and myths reveal their different aspects, different ways of interpretation, mutually enriching each other. Vladimir Propp considers fairy tales from the point of view of folk beliefs, rites and rituals.
K.G. Jung and his followers - from the point of view of the archetypal experience of mankind. Jung argued that it is thanks to fairy tales that one can best study the comparative anatomy of the human psyche. "Myth is a natural and necessary step between unconscious and conscious thinking"(K.G. Jung).
American mythologist Joseph Campbell considers myths a source of development, information and inspiration for mankind: “Myth is a secret gate through which the inexhaustible energy of the cosmos pours into the cultural achievements of man. Religions, philosophies, art, the social institutions of primitive and modern people, the basic discoveries of science and technology, even the dreams that fill our sleep, are all drops from the magical boiling bowl of myth.
The 20th-century Indian philosopher Ananda Kumaraswamy says of myth: "Myth embodies the closest approach to absolute truth that can be expressed in words."
John Francis Beerline, an American mythologist, writes in his book Parallel Mythology: "Myths– the oldest form of science, reflections on how the Universe came into being ... Myths, taken by themselves, show an amazing similarity between the cultures of different peoples separated by vast distances. And this commonality helps us to see behind all the differences the beauty of the unity of humanity ... Myth is a kind of unique language that describes the realities that lie beyond our five senses. It fills the gap between the images of the subconscious and the language of conscious logic.
A.N. Afanasiev with amazing constancy sees natural phenomena in all myths and fairy tales: the sun, clouds, thunder and lightning. Prometheus is a lightning fire chained to a rock-cloud; the evil Loki of Germanic mythology - clouds and thunder; the god Agni of Indian mythology - "winged lightning"; “the poker is the emblem of the lightning club of the god Agni, the pomelo is the whirlwind fanning the thunderstorm flame”; winged horse - a whirlwind; Baba Yaga, flying on a whirlwind broom, is a cloud; crystal and golden mountain - the sky; Buyan Island - spring sky; the mighty oak of the island of Buyana, just like the wonderful tree of Valhalla, is a cloud; all the dragons and snakes that the heroes fight against are also clouds; the beauty maiden is the red sun, abducted by the snake - a symbol of winter fogs, lead clouds, and the maiden's liberator is the lightning hero breaking the clouds; miraculous yudo whale fish, goldfish and pike Emelya, wish-fulfilling - a cloud filled with the fruitful moisture of life-giving rain, etc. etc.
Afanasiev in his book "The Poetic Views of the Slavs on Nature" examines in great detail, in volume, one of the facets of the interpretation of a fairy tale and myth.
Of course, a person who lives surrounded by nature and its elements cannot but reflect it in his poetic comparisons. But as a microcosm, a person carries in himself a reflection of the macrocosm - the entire surrounding world, therefore, one can consider the fabulous and mythological thinking of mankind as a reflection on the meaning and purpose of one's being in this vast, full of hints and clues amazing world.
“A myth is a symbolic story that reveals the inner meaning of the universe and human life”(Alan Watts, English writer and Western commentator on Zen Buddhist texts).
The most objective study of the fabulous-mythological thinking of ancient peoples can be done by synthesizing the experience of many authors.
Mircea Eliade calls for the study of symbolic systems, which constitute one of the areas of human self-knowledge, combining the diverse experience of professionals: “... such a study will be truly useful only if there is cooperation between scientists of different specialties. Literary criticism, psychology and philosophical anthropology should take into account the results of work carried out in the field of the history of religion, ethnography and folklore.”
This study does not claim to be completely objective. And who can apply for it, although you want to? Truth, hidden by many veils, suddenly lifts one of its veils for a moment to those who carefully peer into its elusive face, gives the joy of meeting to those who love it, and again slips away under the ghostly veils of endless secrets. But we still have the joy of meeting and its aroma, its breath ...
So once, starting to think about the meaning of myth and fairy tale, trying to penetrate into their essence, I experienced the joy of discoveries, analyzing them first in the classroom with children, then with students. I thought it was eureka! I opened! A few years later, when I was graduating from the Waldorf School, I read a book by the German researcher of European folk tales Friedel Lenz, discovering many of my discoveries, but made much earlier. Well, at least it speaks of the greater objectivity of these discoveries. And the joy of meeting with a fairy tale in your life, the myth-making of your being is always with us.
Let's start with an excursion into history.
“The word “myth” comes from the Greek mythos, which in ancient times meant “word”, “saying”, “history” ... Myth usually explains customs, traditions, faith, social institution, various cultural phenomena or natural phenomena, based on supposedly factual events. Myths tell, for example, about the beginning of the world, how people and animals were created, where and how some customs, gestures, norms, etc. originated.
Myths are often classified according to their subject matter. The most common are cosmogonic myths, myths about cultural heroes, myths about birth and resurrection, myths about the founding of cities.
Myth-making is a property of human consciousness in general. The myth is formed in its original forms in the subconscious and consciousness of a person, it is close to its biological nature. (Laletin D.A., Parkhomenko I.T.)
Fairy tales and myths created in different parts of the world are equally interesting, understandable and attractive to people of all nationalities, ages and professions. Consequently, the symbols and images embedded in them are universal, characteristic of all mankind.
The purpose of this study is not to argue about the differences between myth and fairy tale, but to analyze similar symbols and phenomena that exist in them. To do this, let's think about what symbolic thinking is.
Symbolic thinking has been inherent in man since the beginning of time. Let's look around: the letters of the alphabet are symbols; books are a set of symbols we understand; words are a set of sounds that we conditionally took as a standard and therefore understand each other. When mentioning only these two concepts - words and letters, it becomes clear that without symbols and symbolic thinking, human development is impossible. You can list further: symbols of religions, medical designations, monetary units, road signs, ornamental symbols in art, designations of chemical elements, designations and symbols used in the computer world, etc. And the further civilization develops, the more it needs conventional signs, symbols to designate certain phenomena that open before it.
“…thanks to the symbols, the World becomes “transparent”, able to show the Almighty”(Mircea Eliade).
How did the ancient peoples understand the world? What does a fairy tale and myth carry in its essence, besides what lies on the “surface” of the text?
“The symbolic way of thinking is inherent not only to children, poets and madmen,” writes the historian of religions Mircea Eliade, “it is integral to the nature of the human being, it precedes language and descriptive thinking. The symbol reflects some - the most profound - aspects of reality that are not amenable to other ways of understanding. Images, symbols, myths cannot be considered arbitrary inventions psyche-souls, their role is to reveal the most hidden modalities of the human being. Their study will allow us to better understand a person in the future ... "(Mircea Eliade. "The myth of the eternal return").
A symbolic analysis of the fabulous mythological representations of ancient civilizations can reveal a lot to us. The study of symbols is an endless and compelling journey through time and space, leading to the timeless, to understanding ourselves.
The well-known researcher of the fairy tale V.Ya. Propp, who studied the historical roots of a fairy tale, draws the relationship between a fairy tale and the social system, rite, and ritual.
V.Ya. Propp gives an example of how the hero is looking for a bride to distant lands, in the thirtieth kingdom, and not in his kingdom, believing that the phenomena of exogamy could be reflected here: for some reason, a bride cannot be taken from one's own environment. This phenomenon can be seen not only historical point vision, but also symbolically. To do this, you need to turn to the symbolism of numbers. Far Far Away is three times nine. We see here the triple - a mystical number, distinguished in all ancient cultures (see "Symbolism of numbers in fairy tales"). The ancients represented the world as a kind of triune beginning, as we will see later, analyzing cosmogonic myths. Trinity of idea, energy and matter; worlds - heavenly, earthly and underground, beyond the grave. Nine is the last number from one to ten - then the numbers are repeated in interaction. When nine is multiplied by any number, as a result of adding the digits of the resulting sum, there will always be nine. For example, 2x9 = 18, 1+8 = 9, 3x9 = 27, 2+7 = 9, 9x9= 81, 8+1 = 9, etc. Thus, 9 embodies the fullness of all numbers and is the symbol of infinity. It can be assumed that the faraway kingdom is a symbol of the fullness of the trinity of the world, which the main character is looking for, wants to find and conclude an alliance with him, having married a beautiful maiden and often reigning in it without returning back. Mircea Eliade believes that a tree growing far away is actually in another world - not a physical reality, but a transcendental one.
In a German fairy tale (Afanasiev, volume 2), a shepherd boy climbs huge tree three times for nine days. After passing the first nine days, he enters the copper kingdom with a copper source, after passing the next nine days, he enters the silver kingdom with a silver source. Rising for another nine days, he enters the golden realm with a fountain gushing out with gold. Here we see the evolution of consciousness, a vertical movement from copper - less precious to gold. Gold is also a symbol of the sun, its rays and truth. Those. here we observe the journey of consciousness to the truth hidden at the top of the world tree - the top of the cosmos. Nine days is a complete cycle. (It is no coincidence that pregnancy lasts exactly nine months.) Ie. the boy cognizes the world according to the levels of knowledge from one - initial, elementary knowledge, to nine - the completeness of a certain area of being, because. then the numbers just repeat. This can be compared with the school from the first to the ninth grade - the knowledge of the copper kingdom - the collection of the necessary initial knowledge. The next nine stages of ascent to the silver realm are studying at a university, gaining more in-depth, more precious experience and knowledge. This is followed by an ascent of nine steps into the golden realm - the realm of the maturity of the golden true fruitful experience accumulated over the years of ascent.
A visit to the copper, silver and gold kingdoms and immersion in their sources speaks of the path of knowledge from earthly knowledge to the heights of heavenly knowledge to the gold of truth, to transcendental experience and transformation in it.
Ten is one and zero. The unit is the starting point. Pythagoras said: “The unit is the father of everything”, meaning by this figure the Logos, the original idea that creates the world, that from which everything is born. Zero precedes unity, this is that non-existence, the primordial ocean from which the Logos is born - unity and where everything, having passed its path of development, returns. Zero is a kind of infinite timeless state. One and zero are the idea and its full implementation and completion, up to the return to its original source, the full implementation of this idea.
The thirtieth kingdom is three times ten. This is a complete realization of three worlds: the world of ideas - heavenly, spiritual, the world of emotions - the sphere of earthly existence and the world of actions or the experience of ancestors - the area of the afterlife (in one of the contexts).
Another example of Propp. He draws analogies between the custom of sewing into the skin of a dead person and a fairy tale motif, where the hero himself sews himself up, for example, into the skin of a cow, then a bird picks him up and takes him to a mountain or to a distant kingdom. Here you can also apply not only a historical, but also a symbolic approach based on historical roots. So, in many archaic cultures there was a cult of the mother, and in agricultural cultures the cow carried the maternal life-giving principle, was a symbol of fertility. To sew oneself into the skin of a cow means symbolically to be reborn in the womb. Next, the bird takes out the hero. The bird is an inhabitant of the heavenly sphere, which among most peoples was a symbol of the spiritual sphere, the sky was the abode of higher beings, gods. The bird takes the hero to the distant tenth kingdom, i.e. reborn in the skin of a cow, the hero acquires with the help of a bird - his striving for knowledge - the fullness of being.
Propp also believes that some plots of fairy tales arose as a result of a rethinking of the rite and disagreement with it. So, “there was a custom to sacrifice a girl to the river, on which fertility depended. This was done at the beginning of sowing and was supposed to promote the growth of plants. But in a fairy tale, a hero appears and frees the girl from the monster, to whom she was brought to be devoured. In reality, in the era of the existence of the rite, such a “liberator” would have been torn to pieces as the greatest impious, endangering the well-being of the people, endangering the harvest. These facts show that the plot sometimes arises from a negative attitude towards the once former historical reality.
And this plot is subjected to symbolic analysis. The motif of "beauty and the beast" is first encountered by the ancient Roman philosopher and writer Apuleius in his novel "The Golden Ass", where he included a fairy tale called "Cupid and Psyche". The name of the main character suggests that the action takes place in the sphere of the anima - the soul, the emotional sphere of a person. Analyzing fairy tales further, we will see that the feminine is the sphere of emotions, the soul, and the masculine is the sphere of the logos, the mind. A monster, a serpent, a dragon is a symbol of chaos, unconscious aggression, instincts that seek to devour the unreasonable maiden - emotions, soul, but the sphere of reason overcomes this negative principle and is freed from it. If we use Freud's terminology, then the Hero is the Self of a person, the conscious rational core of the personality. Knowledge about how to defeat chaos and by what means, how to defeat the monster and free the maiden - the psycho-emotional sphere - is given to the hero by the Super-I. The monster itself - It - is a "boiling cauldron of instincts."
Thus, in fairy tales there are historical roots that turn into an objective symbol, accessible to the understanding of every person. In Rus', there was a ritual of baking a baby if he was born prematurely or sickly. The child was smeared with dough - symbolizing Sun rays, laid on a fork and placed in a warm oven, and when it was taken out, it was believed that he was born again. Here one can draw analogies with the plot where Baba Yaga, taking away the children, seeks to burn them in the furnace, i.e. symbolically reborn.
Propp also comes to the conclusion that not everything in fairy tales can be explained by historical reality, tradition and ritual. So, “if Baba Yaga threatens to eat the hero, this does not mean at all that here we certainly have a remnant of cannibalism. The image of a cannibal yaga could have arisen in another way, as a reflection of some mental, rather than real-everyday images ... There are images and situations in a fairy tale that obviously do not go back to any reality. Such images include, for example, a winged serpent and a winged horse, a hut on chicken legs, Koshchei, etc.”
Propp attributed these symbols to mental reality.
Mircea Eliade considers the heroes of fairy-tale mythological worlds to be born in the sphere of the subconscious. “The subconscious, as it is called, is much more poetic and philosophical, more mystical than conscious life ... The subconscious is inhabited not only by monsters: gods, goddesses, heroes and fairies also hide there; and the monsters of the subconscious are also mythological, they continue to perform the same functions that are assigned to them in all myths: in the end, they help a person to completely free himself, complete his initiation.
If fairy tales belonged only to historical reality, and the history, traditions and rituals of all peoples are different, then they would not become universal.
The Swiss psychoanalyst, a student of Jung, Marie-Louise von Franz argues that fairy tales are beyond culture, beyond racial differences, they are an international language for all mankind, for people of all ages and all nationalities. Marie-Louise von Franz rejects the theory of the origin of a fairy tale from a ritual, ritual, considering the archetypal experience of mankind to be the basis of a fairy tale. She considers the origin of both the tale and the ritual to be from archetypal experience. (Example: "The Autobiography of Black Deer, Oglala Sioux American Indian Shaman"). She compares the bewitchment of the characters with a mental illness and liberation from witchcraft - getting rid of the disease. "From a psychological point of view bewitched hero a fairy tale could be compared with a person whose unified structural organization of the psyche has been damaged and therefore is not able to function normally ... If, for example, the anima of a man is characterized by neurotic properties, then even if this man himself is not a neurotic, he will still feel bewitched to some extent ... to be bewitched means that some separate structure of the mental complex is damaged or has become unusable for functioning, and the whole psyche suffers from this, since the complexes live, so to speak, within a certain social order given by the integrity of the psychic, and this is the reason why we are interested in the motive of enchantment and the means to cure it.
M. Eliade speaks of the imagination, which gives birth to myths and fairy tales, as an integral part of the mental health of a person and the nation as a whole. “That essential integral part of the human soul, which is called imagination, is washed by the waters of symbolism and continues to live in archaic myths and theological systems ... Popular wisdom invariably insists on the importance of imagination for the spiritual health of the individual, for the balance and richness of his inner life ... Psychologists, and first of all K.-G. Jung, showed to what extent all the dramas of the modern world depend on the deep discord of the soul-psyche, both individual and collective, - a discord caused primarily by the ever-increasing futility of the imagination. To have imagination means to use all one's inner richness, the uninterrupted and spontaneous boiling of images.
M. Eliade considers the ability to create myths, dreams, daydreams as forces that elevate a conditioned human being to the spiritual world, much richer than his closed little world. "historical moment".
Unlike Marie-Louise von Franz and V.Ya. Proppa, German researcher and psychoanalyst Friedel Lenz considers a fairy tale as an inner story of the life of each of us, where all the characters are different qualities and beginnings of a person. “Fairy tales are the inner destinies and ways of development of an individual person expressed in images.” Friedel Lenz, having analyzed many European fairy tales, gives an interpretation of the symbols found in them. It gives the symbolism of landscapes, services and professions, clothing, jewelry, weapons, plants, fabulous mythological creatures, etc. Friedel Lenz argues that a fairy tale is like a little drama that plays out on our inner stage, where the characters in the form of a person are soul-spiritual forces, the characters in the form of animals are drives and instincts, and landscapes are the inner scene of action. It also considers man in terms of a three-part division into body, soul and spirit, the so-called trichotomy, which was valid in Europe until the ninth century. The creators of fairy tales based them on the doctrine of the three-membered man, conceptually formulated already by Aristotle. "Spirit man, his eternal entelechy, his "I" appear in a male image, and all forces subordinate to him are presented as male. Soul opens in the figurative language of all peoples as a female being, and all spiritual qualities appear in female images. Body, like a protective shell, it manifests itself in the form of a house, a castle, a hut, a tower.
Thus, being able to interpret fairy tales and myths, we receive the keys to solving mental problems. In addition to liberation from the "spell of the disease", fairy tales carry the right pattern, an archetypal model of behavior. They also contain the meaning of being, as in the global understanding - the goal of the life of an individual, the same chain of meanings of each current moment. At every moment of our lives, we make a choice that determines whether we will be bewitched by his mistake - and then we will need to look for magical means of thought, willpower, patience and perseverance on the path to liberation. Or, by doing initially right choice, we reap the joy of discovery, creativity, happiness. But in any case, you should not be upset about the mistake - let's look at myths and fairy tales: the heroes, before committing feats, go "to the left", and then, correcting their deeds, become winners. And on the way to victory, we, like the heroes of a fairy tale, receive magical items - magical experience, precious knowledge of our path, our life and ourselves.
