Cumulative fairy tales
Examples of repetitive cumulative fairy tales: The Great Enormous Turnip, Henny – Penny, The Gingerbread Man
|
Title |
Repeated actions |
Repeated language |
|
The Great Enormous Turnip |
calling another character to help pulling the turnip |
The man called his wife. The wife pulled the man, the man pulled the turnip. |
|
Henny -Penny |
meeting a new character
new character’s joining the group |
Henny- Penny and Cocky- Locky went along and they met Ducky- Daddles. So Henny-Penny, Cocky-L and Ducky-Daddles went to tell the king that the sky was falling. |
Also many other fairy tales employ cumulating of characters, e.g. the traditional English fairy tale How Jack Went to Seek his Fortune, where at the beginning the animals join Jack, one by one. However, the repeated action isn’t the central one.