本篇文章共分 10 段，從童話故事《小紅帽》的故事大綱介紹開始，探討同一個故事在全球各地不同文化中為何都是差不多的內容，並以科學方式研究童話故事在代代相傳過程中，是什麼樣的性質，使其能夠維持久遠並永保吸引力。

本篇考題英文原文與對應之中文翻譯整理如下。練習作答解題時若有對語意不清楚之處，請仔細查閱對照，以提升閱讀理解能力。

Why fairy tales are really scary tales 為何童話故事實際上是恐怖故事

1. 《小紅帽》故事梗概

   Some people think that fairy tales are just stories to amuse children, but their universal and enduring appeal may be due to more serious reasons

   People of every culture tell each other fairy tales but the same story often takes a variety of forms in different parts of the world. In the story of Little Red Riding Hood that European children are familiar with, a young girl on the way to see her grandmother meets a wolf and tells him where she is going. The wolf runs on ahead and disposes of the grandmother, then gets into bed dressed in the grandmother’s clothes to wait for Little Red Riding Hood. You may think you know the story – but which version? In some versions, the wolf swallows up the grandmother, while in others it locks her in a cupboard. In some stories Red Riding Hood gets the better of the wolf on her own, while in others a hunter or a woodcutter hears her cries and comes to her rescue.

   有些人認為，童話故事只是為了逗孩子開心，但其普遍與持久的吸引力可能是由於更嚴肅的原因。

   每種文化的人們都會互相講述童話故事，但同一個故事在世界不同地區往往有不同的形式。在歐洲兒童熟悉的《小紅帽》的故事中，一個小女孩在去看她祖母的路上遇到了一隻狼，並告訴它她要去哪裡。狼跑在前面，殺掉了奶奶，然後穿上奶奶的衣服上了床，等待小紅帽的到來。你可能認為你知道這個故事—但是哪個版本呢？在一些版本中，狼吞掉了奶奶，而在另一些版本中，它把奶奶鎖在櫃子裡。在一些故事中，小紅帽靠自己的力量戰勝了狼，而在另一些故事中，獵人或樵夫聽到了她的哭聲並來拯救她。

2. 故事吸引力何在

   The universal appeal of these tales is frequently attributed to the idea that they contain cautionary messages: in the case of Little Red Riding Hood, to listen to your mother, and avoid talking to strangers. ‘It might be what we find interesting about this story is that it’s got this survival-relevant information in it,’ says anthropologist Jamie Tehrani at Durham University in the UK. But his research suggests otherwise. ‘We have this huge gap in our knowledge about the history and prehistory of storytelling, despite the fact that we know this genre is an incredibly ancient one,’ he says. That hasn’t stopped anthropologists, folklorists* and other academics devising theories to explain the importance of fairy tales in human society. Now Tehrani has found a way to test these ideas, borrowing a technique from evolutionary biologists.

   這些故事的普遍吸引力經常被歸因於它們含有警示資訊：就《小紅帽》而言，要聽媽媽的話，並避免與陌生人交談。英國杜倫大學的人類學家傑米．特拉尼說：「我們發現這個故事的有趣之處可能在於它有這種與生存有關的資訊。」但他的研究表明，情況並非如此。「我們對講故事的歷史和史前史地知識有巨大的差距，儘管我們知道這種類型的故事是歷史悠久，」他說。這並沒有阻止人類學家、民俗學家*和其他學者設計理論來解釋童話故事在人類社會中的重要性。現在，特拉尼借用了進化生物學家的一種技術，已經找到了一種方法來測試這些想法。

3. 系統發展分析法

   To work out the evolutionary history, development and relationships among groups of organisms, biologists compare the characteristics of living species in a process called ‘phylogenetic analysis’. Tehrani has used the same approach to compare related versions of fairy tales to discover how they have evolved and which elements have survived longest.

   為了弄清生物群體的進化歷史、發展和關係，生物學家在一個被稱為「系統發展分析」的程序中對現存物種的特徵進行比較。特拉尼用同樣的方法來比較相關版本的童話故事，以發現它們是如何演變的，以及哪些元素存活的時間最長。

4. 以小紅帽為對象

   Tehrani’s analysis focused on Little Red Riding Hood in its many forms, which include another Western fairy tale known as The Wolf and the Kids. Checking for variants of these two tales and similar stories from Africa, East Asia and other regions, he ended up with 58 stories recorded from oral traditions. Once his phylogenetic analysis had established that they were indeed related, he used the same methods to explore how they have developed and altered over time.

   特拉尼的分析集中在《小紅帽》的多種形式上，其中包括另一個被稱為《狼和孩子》的西方童話。他檢查了這兩個故事的變體以及非洲、東亞和其他地區的類似故事，最後從口述傳統中記錄了 58 個故事。一旦他的系統發展分析確定它們確實有關係，他就用同樣的方法來探討它們是如何隨著時間的推移而發展和改變的。

5. 情節比角色重要

   First he tested some assumptions about which aspects of the story alter least as it evolves, indicating their importance. Folklorists believe that what happens in a story is more central to the story than the characters in it – that visiting a relative, only to be met by a scary animal in disguise, is more fundamental than whether the visitor is a little girl or three siblings, or the animal is a tiger instead of a wolf.

   首先，他測試了一些假設，即故事的哪些方面在演變過程中改變最小，表明其重要性。民俗學家認為，故事中發生的事情比故事中的人物更具有核心意義—探訪親戚，卻碰到一隻偽裝的可怕動物，比探訪者是一位小女孩還是三位兄弟姐妹，或者那動物是隻老虎而不是狼，更具有根本意義。

6. 情節固定且變化穩定

   However, Tehrani found no significant difference in the rate of evolution of incidents compared with that of characters. ‘Certain episodes are very stable because they are crucial to the story, but there are lots of other details that can evolve quite freely,’ he says. Neither did his analysis support the theory that the central section of a story is the most conserved part. He found no significant difference in the flexibility of events there compared with the beginning or the end.

   然而，特拉尼發現事件的演變速度與人物的演變速度相比沒有明顯的區別。他說：「某些情節是非常穩定的，因為它們對故事至關重要，但是還有很多其他的細節可以很自由地演變。」他的分析也不支持故事的中間部分是最保守的部分的這一套理論。他發現，與開頭或結尾相比，中間事件在靈活性上沒有明顯區別。

7. 與生存威脅有關

   But the really big surprise came when he looked at the cautionary elements of the story. ‘Studies on hunter-gatherer folk tales suggest that these narratives include really important information about the environment and the possible dangers that may be faced there – stuff that’s relevant to survival,’ he says. Yet in his analysis such elements were just as flexible as seemingly trivial details. What, then, is important enough to be reproduced from generation to generation?

   但是，當他看到故事中的警示性元素時，真正的大驚喜出現了。他說：「對狩獵採集者民間故事的研究顯示，這些敘事包括關於環境和那裡可能面臨的危險的真正重要資訊—也就是與生存有關的東西。」然而，在他的分析中，這些元素與看似微不足道的細節一樣靈活。那麼，什麼是重要到可以代代相傳的？

8. 恐怖情節的重要性

   The answer, it would appear, is fear – blood-thirsty and gruesome aspects of the story, such as the eating of the grandmother by the wolf, turned out to be the best preserved of all. Why are these details retained by generations of storytellers, when other features are not? Tehrani has an idea: ‘In an oral context, a story won’t survive because of one great teller. It also needs to be interesting when it’s told by someone who’s not necessarily a great storyteller.’ Maybe being swallowed whole by a wolf, then cut out of its stomach alive is so gripping that it helps the story remain popular, no matter how badly it’s told.

   答案似乎是恐懼—故事中嗜血和令人毛骨悚然的部分，如狼吃掉祖母，竟然是所有內容中保存得最好的。為什麼這些細節被幾代講故事的人保留下來，而其他特徵卻沒有？特赫拉尼有一個想法：「在口述背景下，一個故事不會因為一名傑出的講述者而存活下來。當它被一位未必是傑出的說書人講述時，它也需要是有趣的。」也許被狼整個吞下，然後從它的肚子裡切出來時還是活生生的，是如此扣人心弦，以至於幫助這個故事繼續流行下去，無論它被講述得多麼糟糕。

9. 批評者意見

   Jack Zipes at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, is unconvinced by Tehrani’s views on fairy tales. ‘Even if they’re gruesome, they won’t stick unless they matter,’ he says. He believes the perennial theme of women as victims in stories like Little Red Riding Hood explains why they continue to feel relevant. But Tehrani points out that although this is often the case in Western versions, it is not always true elsewhere. In Chinese and Japanese versions, often known as The Tiger Grandmother, the villain is a woman, and in both Iran and Nigeria, the victim is a boy.

   明尼阿波利斯明尼蘇達大學的傑克．澤佩斯對特拉尼關於童話的觀點不以為然。他說：「即使它們很可怕，但除非它們很重要，否則它們也不會被堅持下來。」他認為，在《小紅帽》這樣的故事中，女性作為受害者的常年主題解釋了為什麼這些故事仍然感覺具有意義。但特拉尼指出，雖然西方版本的故事通常是這樣，但在其他地方卻並非總是如此。在中國和日本的版本中，通常被稱為《虎姑婆》，反派是一個女人，而在伊朗和奈及利亞，受害者是一個男孩。

10. 恐懼是永恆元素

    Mathias Clasen at Aarhus University in Denmark isn’t surprised by Tehrani’s findings. ‘Habits and morals change, but the things that scare us, and the fact that we seek out entertainment that’s designed to scare us – those are constant,’ he says. Clasen believes that scary stories teach us what it feels like to be afraid without having to experience real danger, and so build up resistance to negative emotions.

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    *Folklorists: those who study traditional stories

    丹麥奧爾胡斯大學的馬蒂亞斯．克拉森對特拉尼的發現並不感到驚訝。他說：「習慣和道德會發生變化，但讓我們感到害怕的事情，以及我們尋找旨在嚇唬我們的娛樂的這個事實—都是不會變的。」克拉森認為，可怕的故事讓我們瞭解到害怕的感覺，而不需要經歷真正的危險，因此建立了對負面情緒的抵抗力。

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    *民俗學家：研究傳統故事的人