Atticus_Finch

I was watching the movie "Shrek" last night and a question occurred to me: What "Fairy Tale" does the talking donkey come from. If you know the movie, the premise is that the evil Lord Farquot (sp?) has driven all the "Fairy Tale" creatures from his realm. One of the creature is a talking donkey.

It struck me for the first time last night that the movie may be referring to the biblical passage where an ass talks.

Can anyone actually confirm that it is a biblical reference? If not, does anyone know of a "Fairy Tail" with a talking donkey? We can all surmise but I'm looking for some hard evidence.

Atticus_Finch

Sorry, meant to put this in BC & H. Could the moderator move this please.

Mageth

I'm not sure which Fairy Tale the talking donkey came from, but there have been several such Fairy Tales (including the Bible). Here are a couple from Grimm's Fairy Tales:

The Donkey

The Bremen Town Musicians

spacedOut

I believing you are referring to Numbers, chapter 22.

Num 22:21-31

Balaam got up in the morning, saddled his donkey and went with the princes of Moab. But God was very angry when he went, and the angel of the LORD stood in the road to oppose him. Balaam was riding on his donkey, and his two servants were with him. When the donkey saw the angel of the LORD standing in the road with a drawn sword in his hand, she turned off the road into a field. Balaam beat her to get her back on the road.

Then the angel of the LORD stood in a narrow path between two vineyards, with walls on both sides. When the donkey saw the angel of the LORD, she pressed close to the wall, crushing Balaam's foot against it. So he beat her again.

Then the angel of the LORD moved on ahead and stood in a narrow place where there was no room to turn, either to the right or to the left. When the donkey saw the angel of the LORD, she lay down under Balaam, and he was angry and beat her with his staff. Then the LORD opened the donkey's mouth, and she said to Balaam, "What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times?"

Balaam answered the donkey, "You have made a fool of me! If I had a sword in my hand, I would kill you right now."

The donkey said to Balaam, "Am I not your own donkey, which you have always ridden, to this day? Have I been in the habit of doing this to you?"

"No," he said.

Then the LORD opened Balaam's eyes, and he saw the angel of the LORD standing in the road with his sword drawn. So he bowed low and fell facedown.

>Reading this passage while picturing such a conversation betweek Shrek and his donkey makes it much more believable...

Mageth

I think Atticus knew there was a biblical tale of a talking ass; he was, I believe, asking if anyone could confirm (or deny) that the Shrek talking donkey was derived from that particular "fairy tale".

Atticus_Finch

And Bingo was his name-O

Yes. I knew of the passage but was too lazy to look it up. I'm interested if anyone has ever seen anything which says the people who made Shrek were thinking of that.

Finch

lpetrich

The plotlines are, however, very different.

BioBeing

The movie is apparently (loosely) based on a children's book of the same name by William Steig, which included an ogre, a dragon, an ugly princess and a donkey. I haven't seen the book (although I may go look for it) but I get the impression that the whole fairy tale part was added for the movie.

http://www.williamsteig.com/article-riverbank2002.htm

Amos

Nice parable.

Dark Jedi

Yup. Like any good fairy tale, it has a message.