"Whatever their experience everybody returns from the forest knowing more about themselves than when they set out. Tales and trails intertwine and every one of them is a magic mirror. Like the teller, we can look into this mirror to see the world - in its splendor and madness and brutality - and if we look carefully enough, we see ourselves peering back."


This is definitely one of the more unique nonfiction books I've read. I've seen research on fairy tales and their origins but never such an in-depth analysis into the livelihoods of those who wrote or popularised them. Nicholas Jubber, in his extensively descriptive writing, brings to life the very streets and woods and deserts these people would have walked on while their heads were way up in the clouds in fairyland. Despite being a little over 300 pages this took me a while to get through because the writing is a bit complex but once you get past that, the eccentricities, as well as the tumultuous lives of these raconteurs, will keep you well entertained.

So many of these fairytales had tragic lives, some were naive enough to be manipulated and their contributions forgotten. Some of them lived ordinary lives, their names lost to the times and replaced by corporations like Disney. People remember the Grimm brothers but rarely recognize the name Dortchen Wild who was the pioneer responsible for so many of their tales.
It makes sense that a lot of these popular tales originally don't have happy endings reflecting the bleakness of the olden times both morally and economically and yet they are imbued with a sense of hope and perseverance felt by the tellers themselves. I remember reading my copy of the little mermaid where she finds out her prince loves another and falls into the sea and dies in order to break the sea witch's curse but in the process gains a soul. I was very confused when I then saw the Disney version.

"The reason these stories still speak to us is because they were set down by people who knew poverty and wealth, love and hate, fear and excitement, just as we do today; people who shared in the humus of human life."

Jubber also importantly points out the misogyny of the era that stains some of these tales even as these chroniclers include the poverty and politics in their tales. Despite that, Jubber doesn't fail to bring to attention the ingenuity and resilience of women of those times even if they don't get the hero's treatment.

(regarding women in the stories of Hanna Dyab)
"They [women] are often subjected to brutal punishments or forgotten as soon as their narrative function has been fulfilled"

My only gripe though is that this is heavily eurocentric with a sprinkle of the Indian Subcontinent and middle east. what about the Native American storytellers, the Asian and African. If the argument is that these would be seen as religious mythology and not fairytales then the inclusion of the Indian section is an example of fairytales inspired by religious motifs. The argument also that their lives would have been too uninteresting seems weak

Nevertheless, this is still a heavily well-researched book with a good collection of characters whose lives' multifaceted and nuanced examination makes for a fascinating and enlightening read.