Is it possible to write new fairytales? Or can we just rewrite old ones? I’m thinking here about Vladimir Propp’s Morphology of the Folktale where he breaks down a group of Russian folk tales into a classification system of thirty one narrative functions.

For Little Red Riding Hood, it breaks down like this:

1. One of the [...]]]>

Is it possible to write new fairytales? Or can we just rewrite old ones? I’m thinking here about Vladimir Propp’s Morphology of the Folktale where he breaks down a group of Russian folk tales into a classification system of thirty one narrative functions.

For Little Red Riding Hood, it breaks down like this:

1. One of the members of a family absents himself/herself from home.
2. An interdiction [prohibition] is addressed to the hero.
3. The interdiction is violated.
4. The villain makes an attempt at reconnaissance.
5. The villain receives information about the victim.
6. The villain attempts to deceive the victim in order to take possession of the victim or their belongings.
7. The victim submits to deception and thereby unwittingly helps the villain.
8. The villain causes harm or injury to a member of the family.

The structure is incredibly familiar to us- we can recognise it from an indefinite number of stories – oral, written, enacted or filmed. Its so familiar that we can even follow it when all the nouns and verbs have been replaced with the corresponding word 23 places below the original in the dictionary.

When I was on tour in Germany in 2006, I participated in a lot of Poetry Slams. Slams are huge throughout Germany- almost every poetry reading is Slammed. Even though I was guest of honour, I was still expected to earn my set time by fighting off the local talent. Sometimes I did, sometimes I didn’t, but I was always enthralled by having to compete in a battle of words across a incomprehensible language divide. I had no idea what the other poets were talking about, yet I could still recognise the different classifications of poem, the poetic techniques being deployed, etc, etc. The rhythm and the structure were so familiar, that I found myself laughing at jokes in language I couldn’t speak. It made me attune to body language and rhythm in a way I had never experienced before. I guess I wanted to try to recreate that feeling in this piece.

The technique was developed by the writing movement OULIPO. I write more about them here.

The footage is taken from an old stop-motion animation from the 70s, and the song is ‘The Nursery’, by the awesome Clint Mansell. It’s from the Moon OST.