Joseph Jacobs

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"What Perrault began, the Grimms completed."

Joseph Jacobs was a nineteenth century writer who collected English and Celtic fairy tales because -- as the quote shows -- he objected to the monopoly of German and French fairy tales over English children. The best known of these tales is "Jack and the Beanstalk", his version being not the oldest known but certainly the oldest known of the most common form. He omitted the moralizing addition that Jack was told that the giant's treasures had been stolen from his own father both because it had not been in the version he had heard as a child, and because he thought children knew it was wrong without being told so in a Fairy Tale.

Works written by Joseph Jacobs include:

• English Fairy Tales, containing "Jack and the Beanstalk", "Childe Rowland" and "Molly Whuppie".
• More English Fairy Tales, containing "The Black Bull of Norroway" (a variant on "East of the Sun and West of the Moon") and three variants on "Cinderella", "Tattercoats", "Catskin", and "Rushen Coatie".
• Celtic Fairy Tales, containing "Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree", a variant on "Snow White".
• More Celtic Fairy Tales
• Indian Fairy Tales
• European Folk and Fairy Tales, containing many of the most familiar tales in slightly different forms than most people have heard of them.

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Joseph Jacobs provides examples of the following tropes:

• Baleful Polymorph: "The Greek Princess and the Young Gardener"
• Dances and Balls
• Death by Childbirth: Tattercoat's mother
• Due to the Dead: In "The Rose Tree" the stepmother fails, and her child succeeds.
• The Fair Folk: A rare phenomena: actual fairies in a fairy tale. But not nice ones.
• Forbidden Fruit: In "Gold-Tree And Silver-Tree" the second wife disobeys her husband's command not to go into a certain room. Fortunately, for once, because she revives Gold-Tree.
• Gender Flip:
  • "Molly Whuppie" features in the tale type known as "The Small Boy Defeats the Ogre"
  • "The Fish and the Ring" features a poor girl destined to marry a rich noble's son.
  • "Kate Crackernuts" features a flip of "The Twelve Dancing Princesses"
• Green-Eyed Monster: In "Kate Crackernuts". Kate is not the target of it; her mother targets her stepsister Ann.
• Love At First Sight: "The Greek Princess and the Young Gardener"
• Noble Fugitive: Catskin, Rashen-Coatie
• Old Retainer
• Person with the Clothing: "Tattercoats", "Rushen Coatie"
• Pinocchio Syndrome: "The Greek Princess and the Young Gardener"
• Prince Charming: Tattercoats gets a particularly charming one: he actually falls in love with her in her rags.
• The Quest: In "The Buried Moon"
• Scullery Maid: Catskin
• She Cleans Up Nicely: "Catskin", and "Rushen Coatie". Not, however "Tattercoats"
• Standard Hero Reward: Molly Whuppie and Kate Crackernuts (Told you they were a Gender Flip.)
• Rags to Royalty
• When the Clock Strikes Twelve
• Wicked Stepmother: In "The Rose Tree"