Recently I have been reading folktales from around the world, mostly found through online repositories. These repositories are usually a horribly organized list of unsearchable links (sending you to some sort of HTML Hell). As it happens, I came upon a really horrible web page, born from the same family tree of terrible design, but full of awesome ‘Japanesey’ folktales, written by third graders.
Why are these faux Japanese folktales awesome? Well, for several reasons. For one, a lot of the kids named their characters after those from the Television series Pokemon. And for two, even though there was obviously some coaching from their teacher, you can tell some of the kids really got into it. Reading those stories it reminds me of the inhibition I exhibited at the same age. Here is one I really liked called Vapreon and Tangela -the Strawberry Twins written by Calin, age 8.
Once there was an old couple. They did have children but they grew up and moved away. One day, the old woman went to feed the chickens and right in the middle of a bush was an enormous strawberry! She licked her lips and brought the strawberry inside as quick as she could. When the old man saw the strawberry he almost fainted.
“You wash it and I’ll cut it,” he said.
But just as he was going to get a knife the strawberry split in half. Then the couple saw two babies, a boy and a girl. They named the boy Vapreon and the girl Tangela.
Three years later the twins were looking for something to do and when Tangela thought she saw something. On the ground was a flute. She picked it up and played a little song.
“Are you coming sis?” yelled Vapreon.
“Coming!” she yelled back. She dropped the flute and ran back home. When she got home she said, “Hello, ” to her turkey.
“Hello, he said back to her.”
“Oh, my gosh,” she said. “I can talk to animals!”
Vapreon heard her and was amazed but he didn’t tell her.
When the twins were fifteen they decided that Tengela would stay and take care of the old couple and Vapreon would fight the greedy Oni.
After three days, he returned with five baskets of gold and diamonds and after that nobody ever saw another Oni, but Tangela lost her powers.
I’ve long been a fan of Surrealist artists and Surrealism itself. I even consider myself a Surrealist (or at least part of the fam). Reading folktales as a child always seemed to stir up things underground; ideas I didn’t understand and things seen but noncomprehending. What disturbed me most of all, were stories about parents who consumed their children or that birthed monsters.
Above I’ve posted two clips. The first is from Jan Švankmajer’s feature film Little Otik or Otesánek (2000) which deals with a couple who desperately want a child but are barren. The other is a David Lynch short called Grandmother (1970), a student film he made while at the American Film Institute. Both films deal with conception and loneliness, the themes of many folktales. Much like the story written by Calin, Lynch’s boy creates a surrogate grandmother from a seed. In Otesánek the child originates from a stump (but unlike the others, Švankmajer’s child is crafted by a main character into the form of a child).
I used to worry that I was really adopted. I think children realize their position in society from an early age, at least on an unspoken level. This fuels their anxiety and irrationality (of course when you haven’t learned to be rational how can you not be irrational?). I know that it was true for me. I used to dream I was a doll and my father would rip the stuffing out of me as I pleaded for him to stop. I don’t think that there’s any deep meaning to be gained from things like that, but what it does provide, is a mine for symbols. Even if one is not a Surrealist, as an artist one needs to develop a personal language; no matter what medium they work in. Obviously these abstractions don’t need to be taken from the subconscious and dreams, but I find it a compelling place to start.
I think folktales intrigue me mostly because of their subversion of reality and rationality. People experience life first through their emotions. Folktales and Surrealism speak to your guts. It’s funny when one thinks of the connections between Surrealism, Freud, and propaganda. The Surrealists were largely influenced by Freud and his associate Carl Jung. What’s funny about that is Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernay, birthed the 20th century’s spin on propaganda, the U.S. public relations industry (using Freud as a kind of chocolate coating). Maybe that’s not weird, when we consider what each is after, and that what they have in common, is just the vehicle for those goals.