Forbidden Fruit

on Jan 16 in Uncategorized by
Forbidden Fruit

Way back in 1910, Antti Aarne went out into the world with a mission, to codify the world’s folktales. He gathered as many stories and bits of folklore as he could from as many cultures, classifying and indexing them. In 1928, or thereabouts, an American, Stith Thompson, took Aarne’s work, translated it into English, and beefed it up considerably, expanding the scope, the number of bits of folklore.

The Aarne-Stith Tale Type index was born.

This became an essential tool for the folklorist. For the layman, it was like a roadmap to archetypal images and story forms – indeed, Aarne’s original classification system was published under the mellifluous title, Verzeichnis der Märchentypen. 

Tale types included, “The Dragon Slayer” and “The Giant Without A Heart” and “Twin Brothers” and “The Clever Fox.” The list is exhaustive and very entertaining. You can learn more of that here or at the Wikipedia entry.

So, yesterday, Lavie Tidhar - a fantastic writer and novelist – tweeted this -

This made me laugh and got me to thinking. Tidhar really was just pointing out the Forbidden Fruit – or in Aarne-Stith terms – the Bluebeard story type.

I began wondering if I could come up with comparable Bluebeard storyforms for more genres. Here’s what I came up with.


HORROR: there’s a door. Do not open it.

CRIME: there’s a million bucks. Do not take it.

TECHNO-THRILLER: there’s a weapon. Do not use it.

ROMANCE: there’s a bad boy. Do not fuck him.

PARANORMAL ROMANCE: there’s a half-demon/half-vampire/half-something. Do not fuck him.

WESTERN: there’s a horse. Do not fuck it. (Kidding!)

Anyway, it was a fun exercise, though I realize my poor additions to the list aren’t as clever by half as Lavie’s original tweet.

Care to add any? Feel free to add some in the comment box.


Click to embiggen

Just a few more thoughts about Bluebeard. When I found this image on Wikipedia, I was struck by the phallic imagery. Some intrepid college student needs to write a paper with a feminist slant on the phallocentric, patriarchal imagery in the Aarne-Stith tale type catalogue.

Ready, set, go!

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