VERHOEK, SUSAN. Department of Biology, Lebanon Valley College, Annville, Pennsylvania 17003. - Botany in European fairy tales.
Ethnobotanists have found that information about uses of plants is
frequently passed through generations. In the Euro-American culture,
sets of oral traditions have been repeated and subsequently
transcribed, and are now categorized as "folk tales",
"fairy tales", "nursery tales", or
"Märchen". These tales were originally told for adults. As
stories for children, they are recognized by psychologists as
contributing to developmental understanding, and by other researchers
as being useful societal teaching tools. A survey was made of fairy
tales available in English to assess the extent of botanical knowledge
that could be taught by the tales to contemporary Americans. The
predominant botanical information transmitted is eco-geographical.
Fairy tales teach that Europe is a land of woods and forests and some
heathlands. They cite particular trees such as oak, ash, rowan, and
walnut. Certain specific foods and ornamentals are mentioned,
including oat, apple, orange, parsley, rose, and lily. There are
isolated references to medicinal cures and some information about
plants used for fibers and construction. Plants that are said to
attract or to protect from fairies are sometimes listed. However, the
botanical lore is secondary to the stories and is used only to further
the verisimilitude of the tale. Fewer than half of the stories mention
plants. European fairy tales, while giving a vegetational picture of
their homelands, rarely transmit much information concerning
instructions or detailed uses of botanical materials.
Key words: European fairy tales, fairy tale plants, folk tale plants