Once Upon a Time...Reading, listening to or watching a performance of a folk or fairy tale is like swallowing a capsule containing information about the past, present and future for every group in society. These stories we know as folk or fairy tales may sometimes look strange or nonsensical, but they are key components of our cultural heritage, and though they have their origins in preliterate times, they help us to understand the world we inhabit. Rapid change as people have multiplied, migrated, industrialised and urbanised has sometimes left both people and nature reeling. We may feel rootless in terms of how we deal with new family patterns, changes in life styles, and the problems that make up living in the modern world. But the basic structures and emotions that make survival possible, bearable and meaningful have changed little over the centuries, and these ancient tales tell us almost everything we need to know about how to survive and thrive. Their messages are very specific: they convey information useful to mothers, fathers, and children; to males, females and those who don't obviously belong to a sexual group; to rulers and those who have no power; to those who are entering this world and to those who are leaving it. They tell us what we may and may not do, whom we may and may not love, what is safe and what threatens us. Significantly, though populated by royal figures, folk and fairy tales tend to celebrate the lives of ordinary people. They don't provide information about great battles, famous personages, or specific historical moments, but deal in archetypal figures from no particular period, as summed up in the phrase, 'Once upon a time'. Director Melly Still talks about how she went about the difficult task of choosing the stories in Beasts & Beauties. Given that the history of females is marked by suppression and silencing, it is interesting that so many tellers of tales have been women, and that they convey knowledge about to survive as a female in a male-dominated world. Although many of the 'best-loved tales' were collected and anthologised by men, that tend to celebrate the virtues of passive princesses who want no more than to find their prince and marry, the tales in Beasts and Beauties, such as 'Beauty and the Beast', and 'The Juniper Tree' (see Part One and Part Two) remind us there is more to the story than that! |  | |