Folklore, myth, and legend, and fairy tale vocabulary

Fairy tale stories are the fantasy of every child. In this course, I got the opportunities to explore my knowledge about the importance of myth, legend, folklore and fairy tale vocabulary. In this paper, I will synthesize and evaluate all these components by relating them to two different stories. The two stories include the Hansel and Gretel, and another is Anansi and the Pot of Beans.

I learned that the Folklore is the cultural ways in which group maintains and passes the shared ways of life. It is the expression culture shared with the group of people which includes the oral and written traditions of tales, jokes and the proverbs. It also includes the rituals of celebrations, folk dances in the fairly tail. Folklore is used for the celebration, investigation, record for the listening or reading people who involve the conflict and crisis related to the character with which we deal in everyday life (Schleder).

According to me, the folklore in the fairy tale “The Annotated Hansel and Gretel” in the phrase “once there lived” indicate that there is not exact place or time for the fairy tale story.  The ending of the story with phase “and they live happily together” which is a typical ending of a story because of the good characters of the story i.e. the children named Hansel and Gretel defeated the evil character of the story i.e. their stepmother and the witch old women and then they live happily (Grimm). I learned from the story that Hansel and Gretel are the magical elements who wicked the witch. Another folklore that I find in the story is finding the way to home by the children and dispatch themselves from the witch. We see that most of the stories are associated with the similar folklore. I have listened to many stories where the end is happiness and good wins over evil.

From my point of point, the folklore in the story “Anansi and the Pot of Beans” are the characters that are from West Africa and the Caribbean folklore. In this story, the Anansi is an African folktale character who is very lazy which takes the shape of the spider, and he is considered as the spirit in many of the stories (August House/Story Cove).

I learned about the Myths is that they are the ancient stories that deals with the supernatural beings, heroes, ancestors which serve the people living in the world with the fundamental type of the story. The objective of the myths is to consider the origins of something, customs, ideals of the society, and the aspects of the natural world including delineating the psychology. In the myths, the main characters are Gods, and the story has the religious background or meaning.

According to me, in the story “The Annotated Hansel and Gretel” the myth is the cottage which the Hansel and Gretel saw in the forest which was made of bread, the roof of the cottage made with the cake, and the window which was made of the transparent sugar (Grimm). It indicates or represents the supernatural event in the fairy tale. All these things are myths dictated in the fairy tale stories. We have no prove that whether such things really exist or not. All children have several myths about the fairytale world. Thus the story “The Annotated Hansel and Gretel” is also an example of demonstration of myth.

The Ansari stories such as “Anansi and the Pot of Beans” are very entertaining for all the children who give them a lesson from children can learn something interesting from them which is very useful for them. The story is entertaining as the spider trickster keeps landing odd adventure. The Anansi troubles are for his greed and hunger or his impulsive decisions which he takes. The story Anansi and the Pot of Beans is a great and best story for the children which contains the vivid imagination. It also includes the great sense of humor. This story is a good example as a teaching point of view which gives a better lesson to the children. From the education point of view, this story presents the themes that include responsibility, respect, listening, truth worthiness.

I found that legend is a traditional tale or historical story that are handed down from the earlier times, but they are based on the factual elements. They are believed on the basis of history. In the urban legends, there are incidents of the fantastic contemporary which contain the folkloric elements and spread with the help of mass media.

From my point of view, the legends in the fairy tale “The Annotated Hansel and Gretel” are Hansel and Gretel who are the famous and intelligent children who have been left in the forest of woodland by their parents. But with using their mind, they found the way to come back to their home and also prevent themselves from the old witch who wants to eat them. Thy are the legends of the story because of their mind of presence when they make the plan to use the white pebbles which shine at the moon night which helps in to retrace the path and at the second time they use breadcrumbs for retrace the path of their home. And secondly, when they dramatic shoving the witch into her own oven and prevents themselves from making the food of the old witch.

According to me, the cultural significance is the historical, aesthetic, scientific, spiritual, social values for the generations of the past, present, and the future.

I learned from the story “The Annotated Hansel and Gretel” that the cultural significance which inspired the people and children is the breadcrumbs and white pebbles that the children Hansel and Gretel used to retrace the path of their house or the locations where they live. Hansel and Gretel are one of the most renowned operas of the fairy tale which is considered as the most important German operas.

Some of the fairy tale vocabulary used in the story “The Annotated Hansel and Gretel” are father, step-mother, white pebble, old women, magic, cottage, wicked, sugar, cake, sweets, door, window, bed, oven, crumbs on the ground, breadcrumbs, stones, squirrel and many more. The fairy tales helps the children in providing the wealth of possibilities for teaching the topics of English. A fairy tale consists the fanciful tale of the creatures and the deeds of the legendary that are intended for the children. Each of the fairy tales is divided into several scenes which have its own some magical setting that contains some sets of the vocabulary that exploits among the children from which they learn quickly and easily.

According to my point of view the story “The Annotated Hansel and Gretel” has many critical terminologies in which the two children Hansel and Gretel abandoned in the woods, left in the forest by their parents, befriended by the old women witch who tries to cook and eat them but because of their intelligence Gretel shoves the witch into her oven instead of her.

In conclusion, I can say that all folklore, myth, legend and fairy tale vocabulary are all the crucial components that make the story interesting and successful. It is highly necessary to focus on all these components while developing a story. The story will remain incomplete if any of the components mentioned above is missing.