Fairy Tales: Unspoken versus Spoken Morals

In my perusal of fairy tales, I encounter all kinds of collections: revised collections, retold collections, and updated "collections."

From a historian's point of view, I become exceedingly skeptical when an updated "collected" story is missing many of the elements that usually exist in verbally transmitted tales. 

For example, I recently picked up a "collection" of Chinese tales. I opened the book, read, "And then the young sister ran after her brother on her poor bound feet..." and put the book down. 

It isn't that contemporary tales don't comment on current events. Even Jane Austen, who deliberately sidestepped political discussions in her novel, spent time in Persuasion lambasting Sir Walter's criticism of sailors, who had just helped to end the Napoleonic Wars. 

And it isn't that people don't object to certain behaviors--such as bound feet--at the time that those behaviors occur. 

But urban legends, fairy tales, and lore often reflect cultural "norms." And objections are often couched in ways that seem bizarre to moderns. Puritan ministers objected to witch trials because a devil could be working for a witch or harassing the same (good) person--not because devils and demons didn't exist.

Generally speaking, even the most forward, progressive--or shamed and reactionary--offended thinker in the world doesn't know what they don't know: namely, what they are supposed to be offended by in the future. 

After all, isn't it entirely likely that future generations will view young teenage girls cutting off their breasts as the equivalent of bound feet? And don't current noisy arguments often devolve into "culture wars" rather than medical concerns?

Fairy tales often get attached to morals. However, their original versions are usually far less concerned with morals and far more concerned with "what happened next." Evil stepsisters get rolled down hills in barrels. But hey, innocent brothers get cut up and baked into pies! 

Something like Cinder Edna--an updated version of an old tale--works, in my mind, because it allows the events to speak for themselves. The reader isn't told what to think. And the picture book doesn't pretend that it isn't doing what it is doing.

"Poor bound," on the other hand, sounds like a contemporary opinion pushed back onto people who may have felt entirely differently. Or felt the same but expressed themselves differently. Or not noticed. 

Tales can change, of course, but when a writer claims, "I collected this tale," the writer implies that the tale contains some historical feel or context. 

Maybe the trick is to wait another 100 years. Then, the collected tale becomes the historical version of...us.