Letters are a form of communication, of tales, adventures, stories, and advice sometimes passed down from generation to generation. Growing up the tales of big wolfs and evil monkeys were told to us, and we see the hero and heroine saving the day and being happy ever after. Parents reading to kids bedtime stories of a little girl in red running from a Big Bad wolf. They bound an individual across land and times revealing the depth of emotions and intimacy. However, before words could be put on paper and given to one another, pass-down stories and tales were the ancient oral form of communities called folklore. Through community meetings like the Native Americans and east Europe medieval period was passed down orally or in letters, tales, and adventures. Letters have a surreal impact on families, communities, and history, without a letter to fact-check times and events, there could be a loss of history that couldn’t be explored, and the lives of those that walk this earth of burial would be forgotten with their name. Being used as code or meaning to a higher understanding having impacted culture and family traditions being bequeathed to generations as a rite of passage, folktales literally can be equivalent to Epistolary Explorations components. Through community involvement and communication to generations to hold up tradition and cultural values connecting to the audience is the direct communication of the letter lore.
Instead of a direct letter-writing style, folklore brings a creative style of passionate letters to its writers and listeners. It kept those listening and reading it interested but thrived for deeper meaning. “In contrast to these very ancient written sources, most of the world’s myths and legends have been preserved in oral versions, passed on by word of mouth from one generation to the next.” (Carolyne Larrington)
The concept of folklore can be used to communicate to its readers in a more suitable way for readers to depict its meaning and connection to reality. It also has the same impact as letter writing, such as the generation passed down. “were the main method of dissemination for much of the medieval and early modern period: each time stories were told, small details would change, meaning they were constantly evolving and changing over centuries and in different regions”( Sarah Roller)
The oral tradition of folklore literature was shared centuries before French author and member of the Académie Français Charles Perrault sought to physically persevere the tales on the writing pages in 1695 when he was removed from the French court. He would collect folklore from German classic tales that have swamped the western hemispheres, like the tales of Cinderella the heroine daughter that put pride aside to keep incorrect from her evil stepmother and stepsisters after her father’s death. She had a caring heart the world around her was unbearable but she never once forsake her love for her mother and her family name.
“There she had to do hard work from morning until evening, get up before daybreak, carry water, make the fires, cook, and wash. Besides this, the sisters did everything imaginable to hurt her. They made fun of her, scattered peas and lentils into the ashes for her, so that she had to sit and pick them out again. In the evening when she had worked herself weary, there was no bed for her. Instead she had to sleep by the hearth in the ashes. And because she always looked dusty and dirty, they called her Cinderella.
One day it happened that the father was going to the fair, and he asked his two stepdaughters what he should bring back for them.
“Beautiful dresses,” said the one.
“Pearls and jewels,” said the other.
“And you, Cinderella,” he said, “what do you want?”
“Father, break off for me the first twig that brushes against your hat on your way home.”Cinderella
Or like Sleeping beauty, a princess who was cursed from birth to sleep and never see another day showed kindest to all creatures and living things capturing the world with her beauty. There or thousands of tales like those that were only spoken but then became words on paper for generations to come to read and enjoyed. These tales were Charles Perrault’s research and pulled into his most famous books of fairy tales, “Histoires ou Contes Du Temps Passé.” Communities and families would come together to learn and share these stories, their meaning of life and death, the cycles of life the oneness. For example during the Salon Era in like during the Salon Era.
When women in the 17 century were literary oppressed and weren’t allowed to read, high-class ladies such as french writers Madeleine de Scudéry and Madame de Lafayette, that could afford the privilege to read came together in the salon and their living rooms, to regularly gather and talk about letters, social issues and old magical fairy tales. Their meeting was highly famous even and the monumental of their meeting was written down in a collection called Le Cabinet de Fees, which translates to “The Cabinet of fairies”, an old Tale told during the meetings. There would be a passion to play games that would be based on folk tales and lore, and the ladies and sometimes lads would have to dramatic react an old tale or rewrite it. Using these tales to recite rebellious heroine tales like Rapunzel and The little mermaid, Ariel, according to John Price “ the tales by women often featured young (but clever) aristocratic girls whose lives were controlled by the arbitrary whims of fathers, kings, and elderly wicked fairies, as well as tales in which groups of wise fairies (i.e., intelligent, independent women) stepped in and put all to rights.” Communicating to others their desire to flow from underneath their father and lord’s title, building titles in their own name. The women of the salon used these tales not just for entertainment purposes but to encourage independence in women and children like in the Grimm Brothers lore. The Grimm Brothers were not the creation of famous tales like Hansels and Gretal and Snow white but rewrote the German lore into text. One of their famous stories is the tale of the twin sibinging being kidnapped by an evil witch in the forest.
“Hansel and Gretel felt very frightened, and let fall
what they had in their hands. The old woman, however, nodded
her head, and said, “Ah, my dear children, how come you here?
You must come indoors and stay with me, you will be no trouble.”
So she took them each by the hand, and led them into her little
House”- Hansel & Gretel (Grimm Brothers)
Hansel and Gretal were lower-class siblings who were led and abandoned into the woods by their father only ging them bread for survival. Leaving behind nothing but breadcrumbs while they slowly find their way to a home made of sweets in the middle of a forest. The pair made their way into the home for sweet tooths and began eating it. Later in the day, they hear footsteps come towards the home and see an old lady notice the missing candies from her house. She sees the two children and offers them a feast, only so she can fatten them up in a cage and cook them. This story results in the children not being eaten, escaping the old woman’s cages, and making their way back home.
Tales like this were written and read as bedtime stories, parents told this tale to their children to shine a light on the impoverished family face during the harsh harvest season. It symbolizes the innocence of children but their natural intention to find comfort and safety, which made the parents see no way out but to lose their kids. A message that was once oral is now written on paper but still converts the same message of sacrifice and evil that lurks around the corner, a warning to the youth of the monsters that hid in the false perception.
The stories where the villain falls off the cliff indoctrinate the youth with core morals to be the survivor like Hansel and Gretal, not the villain. To be a friend Sleepy beauty, not the foe like the evil witch, for the foe never wins, love trust not power like Cinderella, and be empowered over being corrupted, read as a story but written as a letter. It is a form of letter exploration to communicating to an audience in volumes of books filled with dozen and dozens of fairy tales, that are passed down from child to grandchild to great-grandchild and furthermore building a community that bonds over the struggles and honestly these tales hold. Folklore has been passed down, and fairy tales and written cultures have to try to save legends in writing.
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