Swabidu
Swabidu is the title of a fairy tale series by the team of authors Brigitte Meisenberger, Otto Meisenberger, Bettina Stangl and Heinz-Dieter Stangl and, in the early years, Reinhard Köhldorfer. The first volume was published in 1984 as a book and radio play, followed by nine more stories that were published as books, radio plays and puppet theater in Austria.
The word Swabidu
Swabidu is the Germanized form of the English word Swabedoo . The old Irish folk tale The Little People of Swabedoo tells the story of a happy people who made each other happy by giving away little furs, until a leprechaun appears and the fear of giving away a warm fur grows through the giving of cold stones get cold stone. Uncertainty spreads and the once so happy people plunged into a crisis of meaning. Based on this story, the team of authors from Graz created the fairy tale series: Stories from Swabidu.
The idea
Inspired by the old Irish folk tale, a fantasy village emerged: the village of Swabidu with different characters, broadly similar to the Smurfs . The houses in the village are brightly colored woolen hats, the residents also look like balls of wool. The illustrations of the fairytale forest and the village with the woolen hats emphasize the warmth and security in Swabidu. The individual characters are called swabidudaps and reflect different manifestations of human advantages and disadvantages. The stories were created as collective creations by the writing team. The language of the characters is lively and easy to understand for children, but some names of the characters have been deliberately chosen so that their pronunciation is a linguistic challenge for children (e.g. Kobold Klappatappa). There are also a number of allusions to the adult world, e.g. For example: interwoven expressions, some of them in Latin, which also address the adult reading the book.
The setting of the stories
The focus of all ten stories is the village of Swabidu and the surrounding fairy tale forest. Depending on the story, there are the following side scenes: the Getisee lake near the village, the flower meadow, the Schluckerlberg and further away the cave of the goblin Klappatappa, the house of the Gruselbusel witch in the witch forest, the Mühsalberg, the snow castle and the castle in the kingdom of the magician Bunterkunt at the other end of the rainbow.
The Swabidudaps
In Swabidu living Swabidudaps . They are friendly little beings. All Swabidudaps are open, cheerful and put the community above everything. The Swabidudap community is characterized by warmth, charity and mutual understanding. The main characters have additional characteristics of the following characteristics: Sniefdaps, the main male character, takes everything in the world to heart, Dapselinchen, the main female character, is more rational and practical. Other characters are: Wurlidaps, a lively boy, Glatzdaps, the wise village elder, Hicksdaps, who likes to drink fluffy juice, Fluffelina, a gentle girl, Schubidudaps who likes to sing, Klatschdaps and Gossipdaps, who know everything that is going on in the village , Ichhabsdaps with ingenious ideas and babydaps, the latest swabidudaps.
Depending on the story, additional characters come into play. The villains are represented by the goblin Klappatappa, which is made of stones, the witch Gruselbusel and the dragon Wörga. Further characters from individual stories are: the little Getigans, Sigi Saubermacher - the clever fox, Bunterkunt - the magician, Buzibauz - the snow goblin, Buddy-Boody - the Wuschelmaus, Mampfi - the worm, Bodo - the broomstick of the horror witch or Charly - die Crow.
The plot of the fairy tale
All ten stories each deal with a topic that is non-violent and instructive for children of preschool and primary school age: charity, social behavior in the group, self-confidence, helpfulness, altruism, friendship, but also topics such as waste separation, species and nature conservation, healthy eating and exercise. Each story tells an adventure and, woven into it, transports the instructive background without a raised index finger. Violence was deliberately avoided. The authors often found themselves faced with the challenge of telling a story in an exciting way without having to resort to violence. So one made do with metaphors such as B .: taming a witch by washing off her witch power with water. The exclusion of violence sometimes brought the accusation of pretending to be an ideal world, which the authors always rejected with the argument that challenges in real life are indeed taken up, but solved in a child-like, imaginative way.
The titles of the fairy tales
Volume 1 - The big fuzzy festival
Volume 2 - The Kobold Klappatappa
Volume 3 - The Little Getigans
Volume 4 - Where the Stars Grow
Volume 5 - The journey across the rainbow
Volume 6 - What a bummer in Swabidu
Volume 7 - Swabidu Children's Party
Volume 8 - The last moon rose
Volume 9 - Getigans in the witch forest
Volume 10 - The great apple basket distillery
Cooperations
Volume 6 - Such a crap in Swabidu was created in cooperation with the Saubermacher Dienstleistungs AG in Graz as a commissioned work to prepare the introduction of waste separation for private households for children of preschool and elementary school age, which was the first time in Austria on a broad basis. For several years from 1989 books were distributed to kindergartens and elementary schools and a large number of puppet theater performances were carried out, especially in Styria, but also in other federal states.
The books
All ten volumes are illustrated in color; the lavish, child-friendly illustrations are by Otto Meisenberger. The text of the books was adapted and graphically prepared in accordance with the rules of the spelling reform. With the exception of Volume 7, all volumes have already been published in paperback.
The radio plays
The radio plays were spoken by the team of authors. The songs are original compositions and were initially implemented by Reinhard Köhldorfer with a number of musicians, including Gary Lux and Franz Zettel, from volume 8 by Heinz-Dieter Stangl, partly. supported by Peter Hubmann. The radio plays are available on CD and as downloads.
The publishers
After the publisher Paul Mangold, the Stocker Verlag Graz, the publisher "Edition Strahalm", as well as the Union Multimedia Vertriebs GmbH Graz, from 1994 onwards all products were published by Swabidu Verlag.
The success of the Swabidu fairy tale
The fairy tales, perceived as educationally valuable, the complete absence of violence in all ten stories under the motto: "non-violent, exciting and yet true to life" were extremely successful between 1984 and 2007 in Austria, especially in Styria. The Swabidu Puppet Theater completed around 1,000 performances in front of around 200,000 children. The team of authors undertook a multitude of efforts towards comprehensive cooperation with the ORF and there was a two-year collaboration with contributions from star reporter Sniefdaps from Swabidu for the Sunday Ö3 children's alarm clock with the young presenter Robert Kratky . Nevertheless, Swabidu never had the big Austrian breakthrough or a similar success as Thomas Brezina with his children's novels. The puppet theater was therefore closed at the end of 2010. The books are still available with paperback covers. The radio plays are available in the unrevised original version both on CD and on the online platforms iTunes , Amazon and Google as downloads.