Do Fairy Tales Go Back to 600 BC?

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goblered

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/scien…

The Telegraph reports that Jamie Tehrani, a cultural anthropologist at Durham University, claims that versions of “Little Red Riding Hood” have a “common ancestor dating back more than 2,600 years.” Tehrani will present his work on Tuesday at the British Science Festival.

The original ancestor is thought to be similar to another tale, The Wolf and the Kids, in which a wolf pretends to be a nanny goat to gain entry to a house full of young goats.

Stories in Africa are closely related to this original tale, whilst stories from Japan, Korea, China and Burma form a sister group. Tales told in Iran and Nigeria were the closest relations of the modern European version.

Perrault’s French version was retold by the Brothers Grimm in the 19th century. Dr Tehrani said: “We don’t know very much about the processes of transmission of these stories from culture to culture, but it is possible that they may being passed along trade routes or with the movement of people.”

Yes, it is a challenge to identify exactly how the tales were transmitted, but I can’t help wondering if Tehrani has read Alan Dundes on “Little Red Riding Hood” and whether he has consulted the work of folklorists, most of whom never embraced the view that Perrault “invented” the figure of Little Red Riding Hood. Here’s hoping that the lecture will appear in print soon.

Below is a link to Jamie Tehrani’s home page at Durham University.

 http://www.dur.ac.uk/anthropology/staff/…


3 thoughts on “Do Fairy Tales Go Back to 600 BC?”

  1. Having only read the Telegraph’s account of Tehrani’s research, my guess is that he has in fact read Dundes on “Little Red Riding Hood.” I base that guess on the connection he appears to make between LLRH and “The Wolf and the Kids,” precisely the link Dundes makes in “Interpreting ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ Psychoanalytically.” In any case, it will be interesting to see whether he builds on that link between these two tale types and whether he can make a compelling case for this ancient ancestry.

  2. Precisely! I thought it odd that Dundes was not credited for making that connection, although I realize that the reporter had a word limit and could not go into great detail.

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