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Fairy Tale and Film
an opportunistic swindler. Rejecting the mountains of silver and gold
claimed by his brothers, he tricks honest men of magical objects and
seizes the power at his disposal to summon a vast army and claim a
kingdom. Far from finding ensuing happiness with his princess, he kills
her for betraying the source of his powers and finally reigns alone and
unopposed. In similar fashion, in ‘The Little Peasant’, the hero’s ruth-
lessness is matched only by the gullibility of those he takes advantage
of, resulting in a shockingly mercenary message in which the triumph
of the underdog is aligned with wholesale massacre. If there is a cau-
tionary note to such tales it simply warns against meeting equal treach-
ery in others. In ‘The Golden Bird’ the youngest son prospers through
following a fox’s advice, outwitting various kings to gain riches and a
beautiful maiden. Proving avarice can easily break family bonds, his
brothers try to kill their sibling, yet are discovered and put to death.
It seems cunning is easily a match for a kind heart in these tales of
unlikely heroes prospering – affirming a necessary degree of stealth to
triumph in an unfair world.
Far from siding with the downtrodden, we are invited to admire the
most determined and duplicitous individuals, even if their actions seem
heartless in the extreme, creating a distinct ambivalence in distinguish-
ing between right and wrong. Why labour honestly if cunning and luck
can provide a quick-fix solution to problems? And why bother to treat
others with consideration when apparent ‘heroes’ are shown to capi-
talise on perceived weaknesses such as a trusting nature? The appeal of
such tales lies partly in the fact that characters can defy prescribed rules
of behaviour and get away with it. After all, these stories were princi-
pally designed to entertain rather than instruct – even if this led to their
disapproval. An interesting discrepancy may consequently result in how
a character is presented and how we come to regard them. The hero of
‘Aladdin’ (ATU 561), for example, is harshly described by Andrew Lang
as ‘a careless idle boy who would do nothing but play all day long in
the streets with little idle boys like himself. This so grieved the father
that he died, yet in spite of his mother’s tears and prayers he would not
mend his ways’ (Lang, 1993: 295). Far from pitying Aladdin’s lack of a
father, he is directly blamed for the loss! Alongside other
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