With many literary genres We met at school. Many of them are so similar to each other that students begin to confuse them with each other. For example, many people do not know how a myth differs from a fairy tale.

Fairy tale and myth: similarities and differences

The reason for the confusion lies in their similarity in some basic characteristics. Thus, in both genres there is a certain amount of fiction; they also often tell about ancient times (if we take into account, for example, Russian folk tales). However, myth and fairy tale are different genres.

Myth is a story about ancient gods, spirits and heroes. The purpose of the myth is to tell about the origin and structure of the world. In myths, people conveyed knowledge and ideas about the world, nature, religion, and social life. Myths developed over a long period of time and were passed on from mouth to mouth. A striking example- myths Ancient Greece. You can read more about the myth in the article.

A fairy tale is narrative work with a clear focus on fiction. A fairy tale is a completely fictitious story. In myth they can be used real facts, for example, real-life personalities can act as heroes. A fairy tale does not tell about the world order; its purpose is not to convey accumulated knowledge. A fairy tale teaches something good, shows good and evil. The fairy tale is much younger than the myth in age; many fairy tales have their own authors. There are three main types of fairy tales:

• Tales about animals - the main characters are animals: “The Fox and the Hare”, “The Sheep, the Fox and the Wolf”, “The Fox and the Wolf”;
• Satirical tales are everyday tales that show the shortcomings and virtues of ordinary people: “Shemyakin Court”, “Smart Worker”;
• Fairy tales are tales about good and evil, often using magical objects, main character fights evil: “Ivan Tsarevich and the Gray Wolf”, “Koschei the Immortal”.

From Wikipedia: Myth, having lost its functions, became a fairy tale. Initially, the fairy tale, which emerged from the myth, opposed the myth as:

1. Profane - sacred . Myth is associated with ritual, so myth, at a certain time and in a certain place, reveals secret knowledge to the initiate;
2. Loose certainty - strict reliability . Fairy tales leaving ethnographic myth led to the fact that the artistic side of myth came to the fore in the fairy tale. The fairy tale became “interested” in the fascination of the plot.Historicity (quasi-historicity) of the myth became irrelevant for the fairy tale. The events of the fairy tale occur outside the geographical location within the framework of fairy tale geography.

The difference between a myth and a fairy tale:

1 Various functions.

The main function of myth is explanatory. The main function of a fairy tale is entertaining and moralizing.

2 People's attitude.

The myth is perceived by both the narrator and the listener as reality. The fairy tale is perceived (at least by the narrator) as fiction.

In general about fairy tales, it will also be useful in other tickets related to this genre():

Fairy tales arose in time immemorial. Moreover, fairy tales do not at all indicate primitiveness national consciousness(otherwise they could not have existed for many hundreds of years), but about the ingenious ability of the people to create a single harmonious image of the world, connecting everything that exists in it - heaven and earth, man and nature, life and death. Apparently, the fairy tale genre turned out to be so viable because it is perfect for expressing and preserving fundamental human truths, the foundations of human existence.

Telling fairy tales was a common hobby in Rus'; both children and adults loved them. Usually, the storyteller, when narrating events and characters, reacted vividly to the attitude of his audience and immediately made some amendments to his narrative. That's why fairy tales have become one of the most polished folklore genres. They best meet the needs of children, organically corresponding to child psychology. A craving for goodness and justice, a belief in miracles, a penchant for fantasy, for a magical transformation of the world around us - the child joyfully encounters all this in a fairy tale.

In a fairy tale, truth and goodness certainly triumph. A fairy tale is always on the side of the offended and oppressed, no matter what it tells. It clearly shows where the correct life paths a person, what is his happiness and misfortune, what is his retribution for mistakes and how a person differs from an animal and a bird. Every step of the hero leads him to his goal, to final success. You have to pay for mistakes, and having paid, the hero again gains the right to luck. This movement of fairy-tale fiction expresses an essential feature of the people's worldview - a firm belief in justice, in the fact that the good human principle will inevitably defeat everything that opposes it.

A fairy tale for children contains a special charm; some secrets of the ancient worldview are revealed. They find in the fairy tale story independently, without explanation, something very valuable for themselves, necessary for the growth of their consciousness.

Imaginary, fantasy world turns out to be a reflection of the real world in its main fundamentals. A fabulous, unusual picture of life gives the child the opportunity to compare it with reality, with the environment in which he, his family, and people close to him exist. This is necessary for developing thinking, since it is stimulated by the fact that a person compares and doubts, checks and is convinced. The fairy tale does not leave the child as an indifferent observer, but makes him an active participant in what is happening, experiencing every failure and every victory with the heroes. The fairy tale accustoms him to the idea that evil must be punished in any case.

Today the need for a fairy tale seems especially great. The child is literally overwhelmed by a constantly increasing flow of information. And although the mental receptivity of children is great, it still has its limits. The child becomes overtired, becomes nervous, and it is the fairy tale that frees his consciousness from everything unimportant and unnecessary, concentrating his attention on the simple actions of the characters and thoughts about why everything happens this way and not otherwise.

For children it doesn’t matter at all who hero fairy tales: man, animal or tree. Another thing is important: how he behaves, what he is like - handsome and kind or ugly and angry. The fairy tale tries to teach the child to evaluate the main qualities of the hero and never resorts to psychological complication. Most often, a character embodies one quality: the fox is cunning, the bear is strong, Ivan is successful in the role of a fool, and fearless in the role of a prince. The characters in the fairy tale are contrasting, which determines the plot: brother Ivanushka did not listen to his diligent, sensible sister Alyonushka, drank water from a goat’s hoof and became a goat - he had to be rescued; the evil stepmother plots against the good stepdaughter... This is how a chain of actions and amazing fairy-tale events arises.

The fairy tale is built on the principle chain composition , which usually includes threefold repetitions. Most likely, this technique was born in the process of storytelling, when the storyteller again and again provided listeners with the opportunity to experience a vivid episode. Such an episode is usually not just repeated - each time there is an increase in tension. Sometimes repetition takes the form of dialogue; then, if children play in a fairy tale, it is easier for them to transform into its heroes. Often a fairy tale contains songs and jokes, and children remember them first.

Fairy tale has its own language - laconic, expressive, rhythmic. Thanks to language, a special fantasy world is created, in which everything is presented large, prominently, and is remembered immediately and for a long time - heroes, their relationships, surrounding characters and objects, nature. There are no halftones - there are deep ones, bright colors. They attract a child to them, like everything colorful, devoid of monotony and everyday dullness.

“In childhood, fantasy,” wrote V. G. Belinsky, “is the predominant ability and strength of the soul, its main figure and the first intermediary between the spirit of the child and the world of reality located outside it.” Probably, this property of the child’s psyche - a craving for everything that miraculously helps to bridge the gap between the imaginary and the real - and explains this undying interest of children in fairy tales for centuries. Moreover, fairy-tale fantasies are in line with the real aspirations and dreams of people. Let's remember: the flying carpet and modern airliners; a magic mirror showing distant distances, and a TV.

And yet most of all attracts children fairy tale hero . Usually this is an ideal person: kind, fair, handsome, strong; he certainly achieves success, overcoming all sorts of obstacles not only with the help of wonderful assistants, but above all thanks to his personal qualities - intelligence, fortitude, dedication, ingenuity, ingenuity. Every child would like to be like this, and the ideal hero of fairy tales becomes the first role model.

Based on theme and style, fairy tales can be divided into several groups, but usually researchers distinguish three large groups: tales about animals, fairy tales, and everyday (satirical) tales.

Tales about animals. Young children, as a rule, are attracted to the animal world, so they really like fairy tales in which animals and birds act. In a fairy tale, animals acquire human traits - they think, speak, and act. Essentially, such images bring to the child knowledge about the world of people, not animals.

In this type of fairy tale, there is usually no clear division of characters into positive and negative. Each of them is endowed with one particular trait, an inherent character trait, which is played out in the plot. So, traditionally the main feature of a fox is cunning, therefore we're talking about usually about how she fools other animals. The wolf is greedy and stupid; in his relationship with the fox, he certainly gets into trouble. The bear does not have such an unambiguous image; the bear can be evil, but it can also be kind, but at the same time it always remains a klutz. If a person appears in such a fairy tale, then he invariably turns out to be smarter than the fox, the wolf, and the bear. Reason helps him defeat any opponent.

Animals in fairy tales observe the principle of hierarchy: everyone recognizes the strongest as the most important. It's a lion or a bear. They always find themselves at the top of the social ladder. This brings “tales about animals closer to fables, which is especially clearly seen by the presence in both of them of similar moral conclusions - social and universal. Children easily learn: the fact that a wolf is strong does not make him fair (for example, in the fairy tale about the seven kids). The sympathy of the listeners is always on the side of the just, not the strong.

Among the tales about animals, there are also quite scary ones. A bear eats an old man and an old woman because they cut off his paw. An angry beast with a wooden leg, of course, seems terrible to kids, but in essence it is the bearer of fair retribution. The narrative allows the child to figure out a difficult situation for himself.

An everyday (satirical) fairy tale is closest to everyday life and does not even necessarily include miracles. Approval or condemnation is always given openly, the assessment is clearly expressed: what is immoral, what is worthy of ridicule, etc. Even when it seems that the heroes are simply fooling around, amusing the listeners, their every word, every action is filled with significant meaning and is connected with important aspects of a person’s life.

The constant heroes of satirical fairy tales are “ordinary” poor people. However, they invariably prevail over a “difficult” person - a rich or noble person. Unlike the heroes of a fairy tale, here the poor achieve the triumph of justice without the help of miraculous helpers - only thanks to intelligence, dexterity, resourcefulness and even fortunate circumstances.

Household satirical tale for centuries it has absorbed the characteristic features of the life of the people and their relationship to those in power, in particular to judges and officials. All this, of course, was conveyed to the little listeners, who were imbued with the healthy folk humor of the storyteller. Fairy tales of this kind contain the “vitamin of laughter,” which helps the common man maintain his dignity in a world ruled by bribery officials, unrighteous judges, stingy rich people, and arrogant nobles.

Animal characters sometimes appear in everyday fairy tales, and perhaps the appearance of such abstract characters, like Truth and Falsehood, Woe and Misfortune. The main thing here is not the selection of characters, but the satirical condemnation of human vices and shortcomings.

Sometimes such a specific element of children's folklore as a shapeshifter is introduced into a fairy tale. In this case, a shift in real meaning occurs, encouraging the child to correctly arrange objects and phenomena. In a fairy tale, the shapeshifter becomes larger, grows into an episode, and already forms part of the content. Displacement and exaggeration, hyperbolization of phenomena give the child the opportunity to laugh and think.

Fairy tales. This is the most popular and most loved genre by children. Everything that happens in a fairy tale is fantastic and significant in its purpose: its hero, finding himself in one or another dangerous situation, saves friends, destroys enemies - fights for life and death. The danger seems especially strong and terrible because its main opponents are not ordinary people, but representatives of the supernatural. dark forces: Serpent Gorynych, Baba Yaga, Koschey the Immortal, etc. By winning victories over these evil spirits, the hero, as it were, confirms his high human beginning, his closeness to the bright forces of nature. In the struggle, he becomes even stronger and wiser, gains new friends and receives every right to happiness - to the great satisfaction of his little listeners.

In the plot of a fairy tale main episode- this is the beginning of the hero’s journey for the sake of one or another important task. On his long journey, he encounters treacherous opponents and magical helpers. He has very effective means at his disposal: a flying carpet, a wonderful ball or mirror, or even a talking animal or bird, a swift horse or a wolf. All of them, with some conditions or without them at all, in the blink of an eye fulfill the requests and orders of the hero. They do not have the slightest doubt about his moral right to give orders, since the task assigned to him is very important and since the hero himself is impeccable.

The dream of the participation of magical helpers in people’s lives has existed since ancient times - since the times of the deification of nature, belief in the Sun God, in the ability to summon light forces with a magic word, witchcraft and ward off dark evil.

Fairy tales represent the most genre-specific group of plots in oral folk prose. Many of them are built according to a single compositional scheme and have a limited set of characters with strictly defined functions. But among the plots of fairy tales there are many that do not fit into a given scheme and do not even have the traditional happy ending (“anti-fairy tales”). The main feature of the world of fairy tales is its division into “ours” and “not ours” (“ far away kingdom” Russian fairy tales). The hero goes to another world for a bride or wonderful objects. He comes into contact with the donor, receives a wonderful object or acquires a wonderful assistant, completes difficult tasks and returns safely to his world. The fairy tale takes place in the indefinite past tense. On the one hand, it indicates its longevity and complete uncertainty (“a long time ago”), on the other hand, the eternity of this endlessly lasting action (“they began to live and get along and make good things, and now they live and will outlive us” in Russian fairy tales) .

The hero of a fairy tale is usually subjected to two tests - preliminary (and for this he receives a magical gift) and main (victory over a dragon, snake, Koshchei or other wonderful enemy, miraculous escape with transformations and throwing magical objects). In the exhibition it can be presented as epic hero of miraculous or noble origin, unusual physical strength, or as a low hero, a “fool.” But both the prince and the fool achieve the desired goal. The happy ending characteristic of fairy tales expresses faith in the triumph of the ideals of goodness and justice, the dream that any person is worthy of happiness and can achieve it. Diversity and diversity fairy tale images, the variability of plot moves and compositional solutions of a fairy tale requires the creation of a complex, multi-component typology.

The simplest and most understandable solution to the problem is the classification of fairy tales according to the thematic principle, as a result of which heroic, miraculous and adventurous tales are distinguished.

• The subject of heroic tales is the theme of the hero protecting “his” world and the people living in it from enemies, expressed in the motif of the hero’s struggle with a terrible monster, the “snake” (the motif of snake fighting).
• Miraculous tales tell about a miracle and the unusual (“miraculous”) creatures associated with it - wonderful grooms and wives with supernatural abilities and living on the border of two worlds - human and natural, wonderful children and various kinds of magical objects (curiosities).
• Adventurous tales lie on the border between magical and social fairy tales, combining their main features: although they do not tell about a miracle or wonders, their plot is as entertaining and captivating as the plot of wonderful fairy tales; although their events seem incredible and unreal, they are always motivated in everyday and social terms, as in social fairy tales.

The thematic classification of fairy tales, for all its simplicity and transparency, does not cover the entire variety of material being systematized. It can be supplemented by a plot classification of fairy tales, developed by folklorists in parallel with the thematic one.

So, V.Ya. Propp identified fairy tales of six plot types3:

• tales about snake fighting (the hero’s struggle with a wonderful opponent);
• tales about the search for and release from captivity or witchcraft of a bride or groom;
• tales of a wonderful helper;
• tales about a wonderful object;
• tales of miraculous power or skill;
• other wonderful tales(fairy tales that do not fit into the first five groups).

The scientist also identified seven types of actors according to their functions:

• pest (antagonist),
• donor,
• wonderful helper
• kidnapped hero (requested item),
• sender,
• hero,
• false hero.

So, a fairy tale is one of the most developed and beloved genres of folklore by children. She's fuller and brighter than any other kind folk art, reproduces the world in all its integrity, complexity and beauty. A fairy tale provides rich food for children's imagination, develops imagination - this most important trait of a creator in any area of ​​life. And the precise, expressive language of the fairy tale is so close to the mind and heart of a child that it is remembered for a lifetime. It is not without reason that interest in this type of folk art does not dry out. From century to century, from year to year, classic recordings of fairy tales and their literary adaptations are published and republished. Fairy tales are heard on the radio, broadcast on television, staged in theaters, and filmed.

1. Myths and fairy tales

Jan de Vries published a small book about fairy tales (Jan de Vries. Reflections on fairy tales, primarily in their relationship with tales of heroes and myths. Helsinki, 1954), judging by the title, these reflections concern the relationship of folk tales with the heroic saga and myth. A very important, inexhaustible topic, and no one could handle it better than this outstanding Dutch Germanist and folklorist. One hundred and twenty-five pages of this book are not enough to exhaust all aspects of the problem. It is not a textbook in any way. The author aims to summarize a century of research, and most importantly, to point out new perspectives that have recently opened up for specialists studying folk tales. It is known that research in this area has been lately have gone far ahead. On the one hand, folklorists used the achievements of ethnography, the history of religions, and depth psychology. On the other hand, specialists in folk tales themselves began to turn to more rigorous methods in their works. Evidence of this can be found in the research of Andre Joll and Mac Luthi.

Before presenting his own views on the relationship between myth, saga and folk tale, Jan de Vries takes upon himself the task of giving general idea about this evolution. He begins naturally, with an analysis of the “Finnish school”. Its merits are quite well known, and we will not return to it. Scandinavian scientists did a lot of careful work: they selected and classified all versions of fairy tales, and tried to explore the ways of their spread. But these statistical studies concerning form have not solved any significant problem. Representatives of the Finnish school decided that through a careful analysis of variants they had discovered the “original form” (Urform) of the tale. Unfortunately, this turned out to be an illusion: in most cases, the Urform was only one of the many “proto-forms” that have come down to us. This idea of ​​the notorious “Primary Form”, which haunted an entire generation of scientists, turned out to be only a hypothesis (Jan de Vries, p. 20).

The author then turns his attention to the French folklorist Paul Sentiva and his theory of ritual. Sentiv's main book, Perrault's Tales and Parallel Tales (1923), is still read with interest and benefit, despite problems in information and methodological shortcomings. It must be admitted that the choice of object of analysis was unsuccessful. Perrault's fairy tales are a thankless subject for comparative study. The fairy tale "Puss in Boots", for example, did not exist either in Scandinavia or in Germany; in Germany it appears later and under the influence of Perrault. Nevertheless, Sentivo is credited with discovering in fairy tales those ritual motifs that still exist among primitive peoples today. But he was clearly mistaken in believing that he was able to discover in fairy tales the “text” accompanying the ritual (de Vries, p. 30).

In a book that, unfortunately, Jan de Vries did not pay attention to and which is called “Historical Roots of a Fairy Tale” (Leningrad, 1946), Soviet folklorist V.Ya. Propp continues and develops the hypothesis developed by Sentivo. Propp sees in folk tales a reminder of totemic initiation rituals. It is quite obvious that the structure of fairy tales has the character of initiation. But the whole problem is to find out whether the fairy tale describes a system of rituals relating to any particular stage of culture, or whether its initiation scenario turns out to be “imaginary”, in the sense that it is not associated with any historical and cultural context, but rather expresses the ahistorical archetypal behavior of the psyche. As an example, Propp refers to totemic initiations; this type of initiation was categorically inaccessible to women, but the main character of Slavic fairy tales turns out to be just a woman: the old witch, Baba Yaga. In other words, fairy tales do not provide an exact reminder of any specific stage of culture: here various historical cycles and cultural styles mix and collide with each other. Only patterns of behavior that could have existed in many cultural cycles and at different historical moments have been preserved here.

Hypothesis W.E. Peckert, with whom Jan de Vries brilliantly polemicized (pp. 30ff.), faces the same difficulties. This scientist believed that the birthplace of fairy tales was the eastern Mediterranean of the Neolithic era. They still retained the structure of a sociocultural complex, including matriarchy, initiation and wedding rituals, characteristic of agricultural tribes. Peckert brings together the trials that the hero of some fairy tales goes through, trying to marry the daughter of a demon, with those wedding and family customs, which are common among land-owning tribes: in order to get a wife, the seeker of her hand had to cultivate the field and harvest from it, build a house, etc. But, as Jan de Vries writes, similar tests are also attested in the texts of the epic ( for example, in the Ramayana) and in the heroic sagas. It is difficult to combine the aristocratic poetry of the sagas with the cultural level of farmers, the genetic connection with peasant tale doesn't fit here. On the other hand, Peckert seeks the "genesis" of fairy tales in the prehistoric Near East, due to economic wealth and the unprecedented flowering of sexual symbolism of fertility cults. However, Max Lüthi's analysis showed that eroticism does not play any role in fairy tales.

Jan de Vries dwells at length and in detail on the hypothesis of K.V. von Sydow regarding the Indo-European genesis of fairy tales (p. 48). The weaknesses and shortcomings of this hypothesis are so obvious that there is no need to insist on it, and von Sydow himself was forced to change his views. He is currently inclined to attribute the origin of fairy tales even deeper into the past, namely in the era of the Proto-Indo-European culture of the Megalithic times. In his recent work "Fairy Tales and Religion of the Megalithic Age" (Paideuma, V, 1950) Otto Huth drew attention to this point of view, and it is regrettable that Jan de Vries does not consider it necessary to consider it. According to Otto Huth, the two dominant motifs of the tales—a journey to the ends of the world and the marriage of a king's daughter—appear to belong to the "religion of the Megalithic age." It is generally agreed that Spain and the western part of North Africa are considered to be the center of origin of the megalithic culture. From here the megalithic civilization reached Indonesia and Polynesia. Such a spread across three continents may, according to Huth, explain the extremely wide circulation of fairy tales.

Unfortunately, this new hypothesis is unconvincing, especially since we know almost nothing about prehistoric “megalithic religion.”

Professor Fries dwells briefly on the explanations of psychologists, first of all drawing attention to the ideas of Jung (p. 34). He accepts the Jungian concept of the archetype as a structure of the collective unconscious, but rightly recalls that a fairy tale is not a direct and spontaneous creation of the unconscious (like, for example, a dream or a daydream): it is, first of all, “ literary form", like a novel or drama. The psychologist neglects history folklore motifs and the evolution of literary folk themes; he succumbs to the temptation to deal with abstract topics. These reproaches are quite justified. We must not forget that a representative of depth psychology works on the scale that he needs, and we know that “it is the scale that creates the phenomenon.” A folklorist can only object to a psychologist by saying that the latter’s results do not solve his, the psychologist’s, problems; they can only suggest new ways of research.

The second part of the book is devoted to Jan de Vries's own views. A number of successful analyzes (p. 38) show that the explanation of the saga (the saga of the Argonauts or the saga of Siegfried) is not found in fairy tales, but in myths. As for the poem about Siegfried, the problem is not to find out how this poem came out of the interweaving of folklore legends and “motifs”, but to find out how from a certain historical prototype it could be born legendary biography. The author very rightly reminds that the saga is not a conglomerate of “motives”: the hero’s life is a single whole from birth to tragic death (p. 125). The heroic epic does not belong to folk tradition, she is poetic genre created in an aristocratic environment. His Universe is ideal world, created during the Golden Age, reminiscent of the world of the gods. The saga is closer to a myth than a fairy tale. It is often difficult to decide whether the saga is about heroic life a historical character or, on the contrary, it turns out to be a secularized myth. Of course, the same archetypes, that is, the same exemplary personalities and situations, are found in myths, sagas and fairy tales. But while the hero of the saga dies tragically, the fairy tale always has a happy ending (p. 156).

The author also insists on another difference between a fairy tale and a saga; it seems to him very significant: the saga is still close to the world of myth, while the fairy tale moves away from it (p. 175). In the saga, the hero lives in a world ruled by gods and fate. The character in fairy tales, on the contrary, is free and independent of the Gods; he has enough friends and patrons to win. Freedom from the will of the Gods, reaching the point of irony towards them, is accompanied by a complete absence of any problems. In fairy tales, the world is simple and transparent. But real life, Jan de Vries notes, is neither simple nor transparent, and he asks the question: at what historical moment does human existence not yet feel like a catastrophe. The thought comes to him about the world of Homer, about the time when man began to move away from the usual Gods, but had not yet sought refuge in a mystical religion. It is in such a world (or in similar conditions, if we are talking about other civilizations) that Professor de Vries sees the presence of the most favorable conditions for the emergence of fairy tales (p. 174). A fairy tale is also an expression of aristocratic existence and in this sense comes close to a saga. But the directions of their development diverge: the fairy tale is separated from the mythological and divine world and “goes” to the people when the aristocracy discovers that existence is a problem and a tragedy (p. 178).

A detailed discussion of these issues would take us too far. Some of the results of Jan de Vries' research are undeniable: the common structures of myth, saga and fairy tale, the pessimism of sagas and the optimism of fairy tales, the consistent desacralization of the world of myths. As for the question of the “origin” of fairy tales, it is too complex to be touched upon here.

The main difficulty lies in the ambiguity of the terms “origin” and “birth” themselves. For a folklore specialist, the “birth” of a fairy tale coincides with the emergence of oral literary work. This is a historical fact and should be examined as such. Oral Research Specialists literary creativity are right, therefore, when they neglect “prehistory”. They have oral “texts” at their disposal, just as their colleagues, the literary historians, have written texts at their disposal. They study and compare these oral "texts", identifying their distribution and their mutual influences, in much the same way as literary historians do. The purpose of interpreting texts is to understand and present the spiritual world of fairy tales, without delving into the clarification of their mythical past.

For the ethnologist and historian of religions, the “birth” of a fairy tale as an independent literary text, on the contrary, represents a secondary problem. At the level of “primitive” cultures, the boundary separating myths and fairy tales is not as clear as in those cultures where there is a deep distinction between “cultural class” and “people” (as was the case in the ancient Near East, Greece, and European countries). Middle Ages). Often myths are mixed with fairy tales (ethnologists almost always present them to us in exactly this state). Often what is respected and accepted as a myth in one tribe turns out to be just a fairy tale in a neighboring tribe. But the ethnologist and historian of religions is interested in man’s relationship to the sacred, which has absorbed the entirety of oral texts. A fairy tale does not always mark the “desacralization” of the world of myths. We should rather talk about concealing mythical motives and characters; it is more legitimate to talk not about “desacralization”, but about “degradation of the sacred.” As Jan de Vries has proven, there is continuity between the scripts of myths, sagas and fairy tales. Moreover, if in fairy tales the gods no longer appear under their proper names, they can still be recognized in the characters of the patrons, they are deprived of rights (if you prefer this formulation), but continue to perform their functions.

At the same time, the coexistence of myths and fairy tales in traditional societies ah poses a difficult but solvable problem for researchers. In medieval Western Europe true mystics were lost in the mass of believers and superstitious inhabitants and sometimes coexisted with very passive Christians, and their attitude towards Christianity was purely external. Religion is always lived (or accepted and acknowledged) in multiple registers, but there is similarity and equivalence between these different planes of experience. This latter persists even after the “vulgarization” of religious experience, after the external desacralization of experience (to be convinced of this, it is enough to analyze the scientific and secular definitions and assessments of “Nature” after Rousseau and the Enlightenment philosophers). But at present, religious behavior and the structure of the sacred (characters of the gods, actions serving as examples) are found at the deep levels of the psyche, in the “subconscious”, at the level of the imaginary and dreams.

Here another problem arises, of no interest to the folklorist and ethnologist, but interesting to the historian of religions and in the future to the philosopher, and also, perhaps, to the literary critic, since it, although indirectly, relates to the “genesis of literature.” Having turned into entertaining literature in the West (for children and peasants), a fairy tale continues to retain the structure of a very important and responsible event, since it essentially boils down to an initiation scenario: here one encounters trials characteristic of initiation rituals (battles with monsters, insurmountable at first glance, obstacles, riddles offered to the hero, tasks that cannot be completed, etc.), descent into hell or ascension to heaven, death or resurrection (which, incidentally, is the same thing), marriage to the king’s daughter. As Jan de Vries rightly emphasized, a fairy tale always has a happy ending. But its content is terribly serious: it consists in passing through symbolic death and rebirth from ignorance and immaturity to spiritual maturity. The difficulty is to determine where the fairy tale turns into an ordinary fairy story, devoid of elements of initiation. It is possible, at least for some cultures, that this happened at a time when traditional ideology and rituals are falling out of use and when it becomes possible to “tell” with impunity what previously existed as great secret. It may very well be that this process was not universal. In many primitive cultures, where patterns of initiation are still alive, stories are also told that have the structure of initiation, and have been for a long time.

Perhaps we can say that the fairy tale repeats, on another level and by other means, the initiation scenario that serves as an example. The fairy tale continues the “initiation” at the level of the imaginary. It is perceived as entertainment only in the demythologized consciousness and, in particular, in the consciousness of modern man. In the deep psyche, the initiation script does not lose its seriousness and continues to transmit the corresponding commandments and cause changes. Without realizing it, believing that he is having fun and being distracted from reality, modern man still continues to use the imaginary initiation contained in fairy tales. One can ask oneself the question: whether the fairy tale, already at an early stage of its existence, did not become a kind of “light copy of the myth and ritual of initiation”, whether it did not contribute, at the level of imagination and dreams, to the revival of “initiation trials”. This point of view will surprise only those who consider initiation exclusively as belonging to a person in traditional societies. Currently, we are beginning to understand that “initiation” coexists with the life of humanity, that all life consists of an unbroken chain of “tests,” “deaths,” “resurrections,” regardless of what words are used to convey this (primarily religious) experience .