Fairy Tale and Film

3
Wealth through Stealth: Evening the Odds, 
or Flirting with Disaster?
1. Ruth Bottigheimer summarises the most common wish-fulfilment fantasies 
evident in the 
Grimm Tales
as ‘sudden riches, an advantageous marriage for 
an impoverished heroine or hero, or unlimited food’ (1987: 9).
2. Tatar provides another salient reason for the seemingly arbitrary distribution 
of good fortune in fairy tales, and their equally uneven approach to moral 
conduct, asserting that because tales frequently invert one another this leads 
to resulting contrariness in what is approved and reproved. As she concludes, 
‘the fairy tale, in sum, knows no stable middle ground. Inversion of charac-
ter traits, violation of narrative norms, and reversal of initial conditions are 
just a few ways in which it overturns notions of immutability and creates a 
fictional world in which the one constant value is change’ (2003: 102). 
3. In ‘The Golden Goose’, ‘How Six Made their Way in the World’ and ‘The 
Devil’s Three Golden Hairs’ a duplicitous king defies a lowly hero’s attempt 
to win his daughter’s hand, setting a series of seemingly impossible tasks. 
4. Zipes especially commends tales celebrating collective enterprise. ‘The 
Musicians of Bremen’ features outcast animals working together to secure a 
home, while ‘How Six Made their Way in the World’ unites a group of men 
to outwit a king, a tale Zipes observes is comparable to 
The X-Men
as figures 
with extraordinary skills such as strength and superhuman vision combine 
to defeat a tyrant. Whether it be inadvertently scaring robbers to set up resi-
dence in their home, or an unlikely union forged to win a wager, combined 
efforts, and a degree of stealth, help disenfranchised figures get ahead. 
5. Disney’s film version enhances Aladdin’s character considerably, eventually 
setting the genie free. Limiting him to three wishes means he cannot exploit 
the genie indefinitely, yet the gesture is also intended to affirm his good 
nature, just as being forced to woo his princess – rather than winning her 
through magical feats – redeems the roguish elements some have associated 
him with. 
6. Sibling rivalry is often exacerbated by material success, resulting in murder-
ous deceit, found in tales from various cultures, and between siblings of 
either gender. Sisterly enmity in ‘The Porter and the Ladies’ and ‘The Jealous 
Sisters’ has corresponding tales about treacherous brothers in the 
Arabian
Nights
, while the 
Grimm Tales
include stories of sisters killed through envy 
(eventually gaining revenge as spirits) as well as fraternal counterparts like 
‘The Singing Bone’, in which a callow youth slays his brother to prosper 
from his achievement yet is also undone when the discovered remains tell 
their story.
7. Zipes elaborates the context for this theme, describing the misery faced 
by common soldiers, forcibly conscripted to serve, treated poorly, and 
discharged with little pay, as well as noting the Grimms’ anti-monarchist 
sentiments as each having a bearing on the kind of stories and sympathies 
favoured. See Zipes (2002b: 82).
8. Godwin’s apparent intent was a politically motivated rewrite of a traditional 
folk tale and it is interesting to note socialist leanings in a version told a cen-
tury later by Amabel Williams-Ellis, suggesting that the father was punished 
for being altruistic. As the woman selling the life-changing beans informs 

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182 
Notes to Chapter 3
Jack, his father was ‘a good man and had shared his money with those who 
had nothing’, conduct that sufficiently enraged the giant to kill and steal 
from him, and stirring his son, a notorious idler, into action (1976a: 160). 
9. The