A Children's Guide to Folklore and Wonder Tales

Dr. Harvey reviews the fundamentals of storytelling and expands on common themes that can be found across tales that span time and location, such as protection of family, being resourceful, demonstrating bravery, overcoming entrapment, and more.

Dr. Harvey jumps into the 20th century to demonstrate how Tall Tales reinforce the ideals of the cultures where they were born.

Continuing with the triad theme, Dr. Harvey uses this lecture to explore the role of the masculine hero, comparing the actions, motifs, and quests of King Arthur and Winnie the Pooh as she shares "Merlin, Arthur, and the Two Swords" and "Christopher Robin Leads an Expotition to the North Pole.

Femininity is once again examined, this time with a focus on the roles women play in stories. Dr. Harvey shares a combined version of "Rapunzel," pulling from Grimm's German version and Basile's Italian version. Looking at the triad of Maiden/Mother/Crone and Warrior/Father/Sage, Dr. Harvey shows how stories reduce and distill all our life experiences into simple symbols.

Learn why beauty matters, how beauty is akin to as power in many stories, and how, as these stories got retold and rewritten (by men), the roles men played became more heroic while the roles women played became designated to looking lovely. Using Grimm's "Snow White" as a lens to examine instruments of femininity, Dr.

Aesop has made a name for himself. Dr. Harvey presents several of his tales, including "The Tortoise and the Hare," "Androcles and the Lion," "The Stone in the Road," "The Fox and the Wolf," and "Belling the Cat." She also shares Kipling's "Camel Poem" and "How the Hamster Got his Tail," a Kenyan story about why hamsters have small tails.

Many fictional stories are an attempt to explain why things in the world are the way they are. Dr. Harvey shares several pourquoi tales from around the world, including Kipling's "How the Camel Got His Hump" from his "Just So Stories" published in India. She also shares an African-American tale "Why the Rabbit has Long Ears and a Short Tail" and the 1929 Norse story "Why the Sea is Salty."

Repetition and patterned verse are often the backbone to some of our most beloved tales. Dr. Harvey presents a wide-range of formula tales including, "The Three Billy Goats Gruff" from Norway, Joseph Jacob's "Henny Penny" from Australia, "The Gingerbread Man," and "The Three Bears" which was written by English poet laureate Robert Southey and therefore lends itself to being a cante tale.

Dr. Harvey looks at the power of numbers in folktales, specifically the magic of three and seven. She notes how even the story formats are broken into threes: Beginning, Middle, and End. She shares the stories of "The Three Little Goslings" (the Italian version of the German "Three Little Pigs") and "The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs," which is also a Grimm story from Germany.

Well before his debut in Shrek, "Puss in Boots" was making a name for himself in the Panchatantra. Considered one of the most influential written records of oral folklore, this Indian collection of more than 700 animal fables and folk stories dates back more than 1700 years ago.

Hear the story of "The Town Musicians of Bremen" - a tale that has been so prolific and retold through so many forms of art that in Bremen you can find a statue to the storied animals. Dr.

Just like the lessons learned in the stories Dr. Harvey covers in this lecture, the stories themselves can be deceiving, too.

"Tom Thumb" is grounded in oral folklore, meaning it was passed through the ages verbally as the storytellers could not read or write. Dr.

Dr. Harvey presents several stories, each of which explore the power of naming. Starting with classic story "Rumpelstiltskin" from Germany, collected by the Grimm brothers in 1857, you'll also hear an Egyptian creation myth, a Judeo-Christian creation myth, the Egyptian story of Ra and Isis, and "Peerie Fool" from the Orkney Islands, which pulls elements from Norse and Scottish folklore.

Folklorists believe that stories like Hansel and Gretel may have begun during the Great Famine in Europe, during the late Medieval age, about 700 years ago. Dr.

Many scholars believe that the beanstalk in "Jack and the Beanstalk" is a reference to the Tree of Life, which is one of our most iconic global images. Dr.

Why do we love toppling giants? Stories such as David and Goliath resonate, giving us hope that we can overcome seemingly insurmountable odds.

"Cinderella" stories go back 7000 years, and Mah Pishani is possibly one of the oldest. This Iranian story provides a very different take on the same themes you've become familiar with.

With the French and Italian versions of "Cinderella," Dr. Harvey presented a classic "rise" tale, but "Cinderella" is the one of the world's oldest "magic tales" with many versions, interpretations, and morals.

There are many versions of "Cinderella," and Dr. Harvey takes you through the Italian tale by Basile called "The Cat Cinderella" and Perrault's 1690's French version.

Continuing with the theme of transformation, Dr. Harvey introduces you to a variety of interpretations of the classic story "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," starting with a composition known as a "symphonic poem" by Paul Dukas and notes Goethe's poem.

Dive deeper into the use of transformation in stories as Dr. Harvey presents a version of "Beauty and the Beast.

Dr. Harvey introduces you to a Norse tale called "East of the Sun, West of the Moon." This story introduces us to the theme of transformation - a theme that is both scary and exciting, and is a common in folktales to help us understand how we grow and change, and to teach the lesson that looks can be deceiving.

Get introduced to folktales and the various classifications as Dr. Harvey introduces you to the wide world of folklore.