Definition of traditional tale – What it is, Meaning and Concept

A story is a fictional story whose extension is reduced. Traditional, for its part, is what is linked to tradition (the custom or habit).

The notion of traditional tale refers to the narrative whose authorship is generally unknown, which passed from generation to generation orally. These anonymous accounts usually have several versions.

Traditional tales, originally, were spread by word of mouth. Over time, the stories ended up being collected in books, adapting to the printed format. This allowed the tales to remain current throughout the history.

A example traditional story is “The cat with boots”. This account first appeared in a book in the century XVI, compiled by Giovanni Francesco Straparola. Over the years it had very popular versions written by authors such as Giambattista basile Y Charles perrault.

This traditional tale tells how a cunning cat helps a miller’s son become a millionaire. The young man had inherited the animal From his father: just when he was thinking of eating it, the cat asked him for a pair of boots and a bag to show him that he could make him rich. Thus, after a series of deceptions, the feline transforms the poor boy into the Marquis of Carabás and gets him to marry the king’s daughter.

Each region has its own traditional tales. Also called folk tales or folk talesThey are usually child-oriented and often include a moral. The values ​​of a community, on the other hand, are spread through these types of stories.

In recent times, many of the traditional tales that had accompanied dozens of generations they have undergone major changes in their plots, especially in their endings, with the aim of making them “less tragic.” In other words, most stories of this type have – today – a happy ending although in its origins it was very different.

Take the case of red Riding Hood, a traditional tale known to millions of people around the world, which has had versions in cartoons and movies, in addition to the required books printed, both with full-color illustrations and plain text. How does this story end? Well, the answer changes according to the generation of the person who answers.

Until a few decades ago, the big bad wolf ate the grandmother as soon as she entered her house by force, put on her clothes and waited for Little Red Riding Hood to arrive, whom she also gobbled after the mythical dialogue:

“Grandma, what big teeth you have!”

-To eat you better…

On the other hand, there is a version in which the wolf locks the old woman in a closet and fails to eat Little Red Riding Hood, since she manages to escape in time and meets a hunter, who kills the wolf and saves his two victims. . Over the years, these and other elements have been combined to adapt this traditional tale to the “needs” of the different regions, and little by little he masked the violence until he managed to avoid all the deaths: Today, the wolf does not even die.

This tendency to “soften” the endings of traditional tales does nothing more than deprive new generations of valuable lessons that their elders did in their time. A final Happy teaches us that everything is possible, that no matter how much we make mistakes, we will always achieve our goals, and it goes without saying that life is not like that. Fortunately, many people in the world of literature are working to recover the original versions, with everything and their tragic endings.