Abstract
This article gives an account of a drama based around an adaptation of the English folk tale Yallery Brown which was used to explore drugs related issues. The account is framed by a consideration of the problems and possibilities presented by the darker images that so often characterise traditional tales. Particular attention is paid to the moral agendas within the work in an attempt to investigate if they are as contradictory as at first they might appear.
Notes
1. The earlier, English version of the Cinderella story, e.g., provided Shakespeare with the opening scene of King Lear – see Cap o' Rushes in Jacobs (Citation1993).
2. See, for example, the Jacobs versions of The Three Heads of the Well and The Black Bull of Norroway.
3. Yallery Brown is available in Jacobs (Citation1993). The version of the tale used in this article is available on request from the author or from the NJ Editor.
4. The employer could just as easily be Tom's aunt, of course.
5. This change was intended primarily to remove any possible racist reading into the colour of Yallery Brown's skin.
6. See Zipes (Citation1983), Chapter 5.
7. See, for example, the UK report by the Standing Conference on Drug Abuse or SCODA, (1998, p. 8).