The social role of fairy tales in Greece remains largely unexplored. Despite the abundance and richness of fairy tale collections, folk storytellers remain unknown in our country.
This study attempts to approach the fairy tale as a historical object, in its evolution, and to relate it to a cultural present, through the study of certain fairy tales and storytellers in local communities where storytelling is a living tradition. It is based on fairy tales collected through extensive on-site research material collection from storytellers living in the Aegean islands on the one hand, and in the refugee communities of the Greeks of Asia Minor on the other.
The aim is not to cover the narratives of these contemporary folk storytellers in their entirety and richness, but through the study of specific cases, to highlight the way in which oral tradition is interwoven with the people who create it.
In this context, information is provided on the opportunities and conditions of storytelling, the storytellers and the audiences, the art of storytelling and the transformations of fairy tales. Reference is also made to the narrative art of specific individuals by presenting some of their best told fairy tales.
The book also includes chapters on the main international scientific theories of fairy tales, the first steps of fairy tale research in Greece, as well as the exploitation of fairy tales in our days, through their multiple uses and recontextualizations in written or printed language, in the language of images, in theater, in cinema, in other forms of art or in the world of new technologies and the entertainment industry. At the end of the book, a useful dictionary of fairy tale concepts and objects is provided.
This study emerged from the need to explore Greek fairy tales at a local level today, with respect to the words of folk storytellers, as well as to the monumental work that the great Greek folklorists have accomplished in the field of fairy tale research.