Fairy Tale Fridays

What's that you say? You've never heard of Fairy Tale Fridays? If you're new to the neighborhood in the past five years, you probably haven't. But I used to post something about fairy tales at least twice a month on Fridays. And then it started to feel like a job, like extra homework I was being required to do on top of my regular reading. I decided it was time for a break. And now it's been over four years since I last posted. Will this be the start of the return of regular Fairy Tale Fridays? Probably not. But maybe often enough it won't be a complete surprise. 

Recently I read and reviewed Eowyn Ivey's The Snow Child, the story of a couple desperate for a child who one day build a snow child who comes to life. The story is based on the Russian fairy tale of Snegurochka in which the child built by the couple returns every winter. Ivey's story most closely resembles Arthur Ransome's version of the tale, which he called The Little Daughter of the Snow. In Ransome's version, the little girl attaches herself to a red fox, as she does in Ivey's adaptation, and is very much attuned to the forest. In Andrew Lang's version, Snowflake (from The Pink Fairy Book), the little girl becomes friends with the village children and melts suddenly when one spring while playing with the children around a bonfire. 

If you search for fairy tales about a snow child, however, you'll also find another iteration of the story which has many variations as well and seems to have been told in many countries. In it, a merchant (or sailor, or farmer) is often away on travels for months on end. One day he arrives home after a year (or years) to find a young child his wife claims is hers. Clearly the child cannot be his but the wife explains that away by saying that some time back she had fallen on ice (or played with snowballs or she swallowed a snowflake) and she became pregnant. In most of those stories, when the husband again heads off on his travels, he says he will take the boy along to teach him his ways. When he returns, the boy is not with him. When the mother asks what has become of her son, the husband answers, "he melted." Which we can be pretty sure, in this version of the story, he did not. 

One of the things that has always interested me is how fairy tales seem so universal, how the same stories appear in many different countries in their own interpretations. But this one seems unique to me in that it seems to have developed from one idea into two entirely different stories and then morphed into each countries own version. The wonder of oral story telling!

Fairy Tale Fridays: Horse, Flower, Bird by Kate Bernheimer

Horse, Flower, Bird by Kate Bernheimer
Published September 2010 by Coffee House Press
Source: bought this one three years ago when I was deep into reading fairy tales

Publisher's Summary:
In Kate Bernheimer's familiar and spare—yet wondrous—world, an exotic dancer builds her own cage, a wife tends a secret basement menagerie, a fishmonger's daughter befriends a tulip bulb, and sisters explore cycles of love and violence by reenacting scenes from Star Wars.


My Thoughts:
Ti, of Book Chatter, starts her book reviews with "The Short of It." If I were to do that, this review would open like this:

The Short of It:
Dark, modern fairy tales that made me think.

This tiny book (just 6" x 7 1/2") is just 185 pages. Many of them look like this:

Which makes writing the second piece of Ti's usual reviews, The Long Of It, tough. There's not a lot here, word count-wise. On the other hand, I really liked the way the stories were printed. It lent a break in the reading that enhanced the stories.

The eight tales in the book are odd, to say the least. All are about girls or young women and some have a Jewish element which makes them unique among fairy tales. But, like traditional fairy tales, the men in these tales tend to be the oppressors and there are no lessons to be learned. Unless the lesson you take from A Cageling Tale is to make sure that you never let your daughter have a parakeet lest she one day become an exotic dancer in a cage and eventually builds a cage for herself in a spare room.

I told you they were odd. But also utterly unique and original and the perfect way to break up my other reading and to spark my fairy tale reading again.

Fairy Tale Fridays: NRA Rewrites Fairy Tales With More Firearms, Less Bloodshed

Well here's something I didn't see coming - the NRA has begun rewriting fairy tales, according to a story from NPR. In their versions, of course, the victims in the original tales are now armed to protect themselves.

"Adding guns to the world of the Brothers Grimm drastically reduces death rates, according to a study — well, OK, according to a couple of stories published by the NRA.

So far, there are only two data points. And they're imaginary. But the trendline is clear: In the NRA's reimagined fairy tales, putting rifles in the hands of children creates a safer world.

The NRA Family site published its first reimagined fairy tale — "Little Red Riding Hood (Has A Gun)" in January, and followed up with "Hansel and Gretel (Have Guns)" last week.

On Twitter, inspired by the series, a few people have been inventing their own #NRAfairytales, imagining tales that begin with "once upon a time" and end with a bang.

Maybe they'll inspire some other advocacy and lobbying groups to defang disturbing fairy tales.

Will the pharmaceutical industry take the bite out of Snow White's poisoned apple? Will PETA soothe the angst of the Boy Who Cried Wolf, when the townspeople realize the joys of an animal-free life and set loose their sheep? Will agribusiness harness Jack's beanstalk?

The NRA series has inspired some criticism, as The Washington Post has noted: Gun control advocacy groups have decried it for advancing gun culture. Gun rights advocates, meanwhile, have mocked liberal objections to the stories, pointing to the sheer horror of the original tales.

But the NRA is pretty clear about its own intent: The stories are tagged "Fun Friday" and "Just for fun" on the site."

Hmmm - not sure this is quite the retelling I'm interested in reading.

Fairy Tale Fridays - Coloring Books

Have you taken up coloring yet? It's certainly "the" thing for adults these days and there's a full range of prices and subject matter of books and you can spend up to $100 for a good set of colored pencils. Furthermore, I read recently that coloring is good for you - it helps relieve stress and engages your mind in ways that other activities don't. Miss H has never stopped enjoying coloring so she's very excited about the grown up options available these days.

I haven't taken it up yet - there seems to be little enough time to do the things I'd like to do as it is. Still, I used to enjoy coloring quite a lot and I enjoy doing things that allow me to be creative.  I may have actually been the one to color in a lot of those maps the kids used to have to do for school. Don't tell the teacher!

And now? Fairy tale coloring books! They might be just the thing to convince me to take up the colored pencils. After all, I'd be getting to combine two things I enjoy.

Have you joined the coloring book crowd?

Fairy Tale Fridays: Russian Fairy Tales

Because of my utter focus on the Olympics, in honor of them being held in Sochi Russia, today I bring you a Russian fairy tale, The Fool Of The World And The Flying Ship. I got the edition pictured (retold by Arthur Ransome and illustrated by Uri Shulevitz) for my children when they were young and it was one of their favorite stories.

Russian fairy tales vary greatly because of the size of the country - from tales with a very European feel, to those, like this one, with a Slavic sensibility, to much more Asian tales. Baba Yaga and Firebird tales are probably the best known. But this is one of my favorites - perhaps because the fool is not such a fool after all. He's a kind person who surrounds himself with the right people who bring him up in the world.

There were once upon a time an old peasant and his wife, and they had three sons. Two of them were clever young men who could borrow money without being cheated, but the third was the Fool of the World. He was as simple as a child, simpler than some children, and he never did any one a harm in his life.

Well, it always happens like that. The father and mother thought a lot of the two smart young men; but the Fool of the World was lucky if he got enough to eat, because they always forgot him unless they happened to be looking at him, and sometimes even then.

But however it was with his father and mother, this is a story that shows that God loves simple folk, and turns things to their advantage in the end.

For it happened that the Tzar of that country sent out messengers along the highroads and the rivers, even to huts in the forest like ours, to say that he would give his daughter, the Princess, in marriage to any one who could bring him a flying ship--ay, a ship with wings, that should sail this way and that through the blue sky, like a ship sailing on the sea.

"This is a chance for us," said the two clever brothers; and that same day they set off together, to see if one of them could not build the flying ship and marry the Tzar's daughter, and so be a great man indeed.

And their father blessed them, and gave them finer clothes than ever he wore himself. And their mother made them up hampers of food for the road, soft white rolls, and several kinds of cooked meats, and bottles of corn brandy. She went with them as far as the highroad, and waved her hand to them till they were out of sight. And so the two clever brothers set merrily off on their adventure, to see what could be done with their cleverness. And what happened to them I do not know, for they were never heard of again.

The Fool of the World saw them set off, with their fine parcels of food, and their fine clothes, and their bottles of corn brandy.

"I'd like to go too," says he, "and eat good meat, with soft white rolls, and drink corn brandy, and marry the Tzar's daughter."

"Stupid fellow," says his mother, "what's the good of your going? Why, if you were to stir from the house you would walk into the arms of a bear; and if not that, then the wolves would eat you before you had finished staring at them."

But the Fool of the World would not be held back by words.

"I am going," says he. "I am going. I am going. I am going."

He went on saying this over and over again, till the old woman his mother saw there was nothing to be done, and was glad to get him out of the house so as to be quit of the sound of his voice. So she put some food in a bag for him to eat by the way. She put in the bag some crusts of dry black bread and a flask of water. She did not even bother to go as far as the footpath to see him on his way. She saw the last of him at the door of the hut, and he had not taken two steps before she had gone back into the hut to see to more important business.

No matter. The Fool of the World set off with his bag over his shoulder, singing as he went, for he was off to seek his fortune and marry the Tzar's daughter. He was sorry his mother had not given him any corn brandy; but he sang merrily for all that. He would have liked white rolls instead of the dry black crusts; but, after all, the main thing on a journey is to have something to eat. So he trudged merrily along the road, and sang because the trees were green and there was a blue sky overhead.

He had not gone very far when he met an ancient old man with a bent back, and a long beard, and eyes hidden under his bushy eyebrows.

"Good-day, young fellow," says the ancient old man.

"Good-day, grandfather," says the Fool of the World.

"And where are you off to?" says the ancient old man.

"What!" says the Fool; "haven't you heard? The Tzar is going to give his daughter to any one who can bring him a flying ship."

"And you can really make a flying ship?" says the ancient old man.

"No, I do not know how."

"Then what are you going to do?"

"God knows," says the Fool of the World.

"Well," says the ancient, "if things are like that, sit you down here. We will rest together and have a bite of food. Bring out what you have in your bag."

"I am ashamed to offer you what I have here. It is good enough for me, but it is not the sort of meal to which one can ask guests."

"Never mind that. Out with it. Let us eat what God has given."

The Fool of the World opened his bag, and could hardly believe his eyes. Instead of black crusts he saw fresh white rolls and cooked meats. He handed them out to the ancient, who said, "You see how God loves simple folk. Although your own mother does not love you, you have not been done out of your share of the good things. Let's have a sip at the corn brandy...."

The Fool of the World opened his flask, and instead of water there came out corn brandy, and that of the best. So the Fool and the ancient made merry, eating and drinking; and when they had done, and sung a song or two together, the ancient says to the Fool,--

"Listen to me. Off with you into the forest. Go up to the first big tree you see. Make the sacred sign of the cross three times before it. Strike it a blow with your little hatchet. Fall backwards on the ground, and lie there, full length on your back, until somebody wakes you up. Then you will find the ship made, all ready to fly. Sit you down in it, and fly off whither you want to go. But be sure on the way to give a lift to everyone you meet."

The Fool of the World thanked the ancient old man, said good-bye to him, and went off to the forest. He walked up to a tree, the first big tree he saw, made the sign of the cross three times before it, swung his hatchet round his head, struck a mighty blow on the trunk of the tree, instantly fell backwards flat on the ground, closed his eyes, and went to sleep.

A little time went by, and it seemed to the Fool as he slept that somebody was jogging his elbow. He woke up and opened his eyes. His hatchet, worn out, lay beside him. The big tree was gone, and in its place there stood a little ship, ready and finished. The Fool did not stop to think. He jumped into the ship, seized the tiller, and sat down. Instantly the ship leapt up into the air, and sailed away over the tops of the trees.

The little ship answered the tiller as readily as if she were sailing in water, and the Fool steered for the highroad, and sailed along above it, for he was afraid of losing his way if he tried to steer a course across the open country. He flew on and on, and looked down, and saw a man lying in the road below him with his ear on the damp ground.

"Good-day to you, uncle," cried the Fool.

"Good-day to you, Sky-fellow," cried the man.

"What are you doing down there?" says the Fool.

"I am listening to all that is being done in the world."

"Take your place in the ship with me."

The man was willing enough, and sat down in the ship with the Fool, and they flew on together singing songs. They flew on and on, and looked down, and there was a man on one leg, with the other tied up to his head.

"Good-day, uncle," says the Fool, bringing the ship to the ground. "Why are you hopping along on one foot?"

"If I were to untie the other I should move too fast. I should be stepping across the world in a single stride."

"Sit down with us," says the Fool.

The man sat down with them in the ship, and they flew on together singing songs. They flew on and on, and looked down, and there was a man with a gun, and he was taking aim, but what he was aiming at they could not see.

"Good health to you, uncle," says the Fool. "But what are you shooting at? There isn't a bird to be seen."

"What!" says the man. "If there were a bird that you could see, I should not shoot at it. A bird or a beast a thousand versts away, that's the sort of mark for me."

"Take your seat with us," says the Fool.

The man sat down with them in the ship, and they flew on together. Louder and louder rose their songs. They flew on and on, and looked down, and there was a man carrying a sack full of bread on his back.

"Good health to you, uncle," says the Fool, sailing down. "And where are you off to?"

"I am going to get bread for my dinner."

"But you've got a full sack on your back."

"That--that little scrap! Why, that's not enough for a single mouthful."

"Take your seat with us," says the Fool.

The Eater sat down with them in the ship, and they flew on together, singing louder than ever. They flew on and on, and looked down, and there was a man walking round and round a lake.

"Good health to you, uncle," says the Fool. "What are you looking for?"

"I want a drink, and I can't find any water."

"But there's a whole lake in front of your eyes. Why can't you take a drink from that?"

"That little drop!" says the man. "Why, there's not enough water there to wet the back of my throat if I were to drink it at one gulp."

"Take your seat with us," says the Fool.

The Drinker sat down with them, and again they flew on, singing in chorus. They flew on and on, and looked down, and there was a man walking towards the forest, with a fagot of wood on his shoulders.

"Good-day to you, uncle," says the Fool. "Why are you taking wood to the forest?"

"This isn't simple wood," says the man.

"What is it, then?" says the Fool.

"If it is scattered about, a whole army of soldiers leaps up out of the ground."

"There's a place for you with us," says the Fool.

The man sat down with them, and the ship rose up into the air, and flew on, carrying its singing crew. They flew on and on, and looked down, and there was a man carrying a sack of straw.

"Good health to you, uncle," says the Fool; "and where are you taking your straw?"

"To the village."

"Why, are they short of straw in your village?"

"No; but this is such straw that if you scatter it abroad in the very hottest of the summer, instantly the weather turns cold, and there is snow and frost."

"There's a place here for you too," says the Fool.

"Very kind of you," says the man, and steps in and sits down, and away they all sail together, singing like to burst their lungs.

They did not meet any one else, and presently came flying up to the palace of the Tzar. They flew down and cast anchor in the courtyard.

Just then the Tzar was eating his dinner. He heard their loud singing, and looked out of the window and saw the ship come sailing down into his courtyard. He sent his servant out to ask who was the great prince who had brought him the flying ship, and had come sailing down with such a merry noise of singing.

The servant came up to the ship, and saw the Fool of the World and his companions sitting there cracking jokes. He saw they were all moujiks, simple peasants, sitting in the ship; so he did not stop to ask questions, but came back quietly and told the Tzar that there were no gentlemen in the ship at all, but only a lot of dirty peasants.

Now the Tzar was not at all pleased with the idea of giving his only daughter in marriage to a simple peasant, and he began to think how he could get out of his bargain. Thinks he to himself, "I'll set them such tasks that they will not be able to perform, and they'll be glad to get off with their lives, and I shall get the ship for nothing."

So he told his servant to go to the Fool and tell him that before the Tzar had finished his dinner the Fool was to bring him some of the magical water of life.

Now, while the Tzar was giving this order to his servant, the Listener, the first of the Fool's companions, was listening, and heard the words of the Tzar and repeated them to the Fool.

"What am I to do now?" says the Fool, stopping short in his jokes. "In a year, in a whole century, I never could find that water. And he wants it before he has finished his dinner."

"Don't you worry about that," says the Swift-goer, "I'll deal with that for you."

The servant came and announced the Tzar's command.

"Tell him he shall have it," says the Fool.

His companion, the Swift-goer, untied his foot from beside his head, put it to the ground, wriggled it a little to get the stiffness out of it, ran off, and was out of sight almost before he had stepped from the ship. Quicker than I can tell it you in words he had come to the water of life, and put some of it in a bottle.

"I shall have plenty of time to get back," thinks he, and down he sits under a windmill and goes off to sleep.

The royal dinner was coming to an end, and there wasn't a sign of him. There were no songs and no jokes in the flying ship. Everybody was watching for the Swift-goer, and thinking he would not be in time.

The Listener jumped out and laid his right ear to the damp ground, listened a moment, and said, "What a fellow! He has gone to sleep under the windmill. I can hear him snoring. And there is a fly buzzing with its wings, perched on the windmill close above his head."

"This is my affair," says the Far-shooter, and he picked up his gun from between his knees, aimed at the fly on the windmill, and woke the Swift-goer with the thud of the bullet on the wood of the mill close by his head. The Swift-goer leapt up and ran, and in less than a second had brought the magic water of life and given it to the Fool. The Fool gave it to the servant, who took it to the Tzar. The Tzar had not yet left the table, so that his command had been fulfilled as exactly as ever could be.

"What fellows these peasants are," thought the Tzar. "There is nothing for it but to set them another task." So the Tzar said to his servant, "Go to the captain of the flying ship and give him this message: 'If you are such a cunning fellow, you must have a good appetite. Let you and your companions eat at a single meal twelve oxen roasted whole, and as much bread as can be baked in forty ovens!'"

The Listener heard the message, and told the Fool what was coming. The Fool was terrified, and said, "I can't get through even a single loaf at a sitting."

"Don't worry about that," said the Eater. "It won't be more than a mouthful for me, and I shall be glad to have a little snack in place of my dinner."

The servant came, and announced the Tzar's command.

"Good," says the Fool. "Send the food along, and we'll know what to do with it."

So they brought twelve oxen roasted whole, and as much bread as could be baked in forty ovens, and the companions had scarcely sat down to the meal before the Eater had finished the lot.

"Why," said the Eater, "what a little! They might have given us a decent meal while they were about it."

The Tzar told his servant to tell the Fool that he and his companions were to drink forty barrels of wine, with forty bucketfuls in every barrel.

The Listener told the Fool what message was coming.

"Why," says the Fool, "I never in my life drank more than one bucket at a time."

"Don't worry," says the Drinker. "You forget that I am thirsty. It'll be nothing of a drink for me."

They brought the forty barrels of wine, and tapped them, and the Drinker tossed them down one after another, one gulp for each barrel. "Little enough," says he, "Why, I am thirsty still."

"Very good," says the Tzar to his servant, when he heard that they had eaten all the food and drunk all the wine. "Tell the fellow to get ready for the wedding, and let him go and bathe himself in the bath-house. But let the bathhouse be made so hot that the man will stifle and frizzle as soon as he sets foot inside. It is an iron bath-house. Let it be made red hot."

The Listener heard all this and told the Fool, who stopped short with his mouth open in the middle of a joke.

"Don't you worry," says the moujik with the straw.

Well, they made the bath-house red hot, and called the Fool, and the Fool went along to the bath-house to wash himself, and with him went the moujik with the straw.

They shut them both into the bath-house, and thought that that was the end of them. But the moujik scattered his straw before them as they went in, and it became so cold in there that the Fool of the World had scarcely time to wash himself before the water in the cauldrons froze to solid ice. They lay down on the very stove itself, and spent the night there, shivering.

In the morning the servants opened the bathhouse, and there were the Fool of the World and the moujik, alive and well, lying on the stove and singing songs.

They told the Tzar, and the Tzar raged with anger. "There is no getting rid of this fellow," says he. "But go and tell him that I send him this message: 'If you are to marry my daughter, you must show that you are able to defend her. Let me see that you have at least a regiment of soldiers,'" Thinks he to himself, "How can a simple peasant raise a troop? He will find it hard enough to raise a single soldier."

The Listener told the Fool of the World, and the Fool began to lament. "This time," says he, "I am done indeed. You, my brothers, have saved me from misfortune more than once, but this time, alas, there is nothing to be done."

"Oh, what a fellow you are!" says the peasant with the fagot of wood. "I suppose you've forgotten about me. Remember that I am the man for this little affair, and don't you worry about it at all."

The Tzar's servant came along and gave his message.

"Very good," says the Fool; "but tell the Tzar that if after this he puts me off again, I'll make war on his country, and take the Princess by force."

And then, as the servant went back with the message, the whole crew on the flying ship set to their singing again, and sang and laughed and made jokes as if they had not a care in the world.

During the night, while the others slept, the peasant with the fagot of wood went hither and thither, scattering his sticks. Instantly where they fell there appeared a gigantic army. Nobody could count the number of soldiers in it--cavalry, foot soldiers, yes, and guns, and all the guns new and bright, and the men in the finest uniforms that ever were seen.

In the morning, as the Tzar woke and looked from the windows of the palace, he found himself surrounded by troops upon troops of soldiers, and generals in cocked hats bowing in the courtyard and taking orders from the Fool of the World, who sat there joking with his companions in the flying ship. Now it was the Tzar's turn to be afraid. As quickly as he could he sent his servants to the Fool with presents of rich jewels and fine clothes, invited him to come to the palace, and begged him to marry the Princess.

The Fool of the World put on the fine clothes, and stood there as handsome a young man as a princess could wish for a husband. He presented himself before the Tzar, fell in love with the Princess and she with him, married her the same day, received with her a rich dowry, and became so clever that all the court repeated everything he said. The Tzar and the Tzaritza liked him very much, and as for the Princess, she loved him to distraction.

Fairy Tale Friday - Snow White - The Brothers Grimm Illustrastions by Camille Rose Garcia

Snow White - The Brothers Grimm, illustration by Camille Rose Garcia
Published February 2012 by HarperCollins Publishers
Source: fairy tale book on clearance? You know I bought this one!

"Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the fairest one of all?"

You all know at least the story - wicked stepmother, beautiful girl seeking asylum with a group of dwarfs, wicked stepmother tries to kill girl, handsome prince saves girl. What sets this one apart are the illustrations by Camille Rose Garcia, he fantastic colors and the simply superb text. It is a visual masterpiece. The publishers have combined a variety of sizes, fonts and backgrounds so that even the pages without illustrations are beautiful.

Camille Rose Garcia

Garcia's characters are a little creepy, with their oversized, triangular heads and sharp features - it's one of her trademarks. I must admit that it was a little difficult to imagine the mirror finding either the wicked stepmother or this version of Snow White as the fairest of them all!

According to her website, Garcia's "cartoon characters in wasteland fairy tales are critical commentaries on the failures of capitalist utopias, blending nostalgic pop culture references with a satirical slant on modern society." She sites as her inspiration early works by Disney and Max Fleisher. Garcia has also illustrated Alice's Adventures In Wonderland for HarperCollins Publishers.

Camille Rose Garcia

Fairy Tale Fridays - A Fresh Take

My friend Teri and I have a lot in common.

Not really. She's an East Coast city chick; I'm a Midwest suburban gal. I'd like to be creative; Teri really is creative, very creative. Two things we do have in common: we both love books and we both love fairy tales.

Teri, who blogs at Quinceberry: My Artful Life, creates the most marvelous books out of papers, fabric, lace, all manner of media and all kinds of interesting embellishments. Her latest creation is this fairy tale book. All of the artwork is Teri's creation and she's also given her own spin to some classic tales. How fun is this version of Rapunzel?! I just had to share this with you.

To learn more about the inspiration behind this book, and to see more of the pages, check out Quinceberry: My Artful Life. 

Fairy Tale Fridays - Snow White And The Fear of Aging

Way laid once again by an inability to stay on track, my fairy tale reading turned into fairy tale research this week. It all started with this great article in The New Yorker, which is both a review of "Snow White and the Huntsman" and an exploration of a theme I've overlooked - the fear of aging. I like to think that I'm a fairly smart person and that I'm pretty good at picking up on the themes in books and stories but, boy, did I miss this one. You may remember me talking about how many fairy tales include wicked stepmothers. I've long wondered why and I'm sure there are a number of reasons, including a need to sanitize the stories even hundreds of years ago, replacing mothers in the story with stepmothers.

The New Yorker article points to one theory - Snow White's evil stepmother is clearly a woman terrified of aging. She is obsessed with the idea of being the fairest of them all, constantly turning to her magic mirror to reassure her that she is still beautiful and desirable. When Snow White grows into a beauty in her own right, the wicked Queen must kill the younger, more beautiful girl. After all, what power is left to an aging woman when she loses her beauty?

Clearly the Queen is right to be concerned. After all, Snow White's looks are exactly what save her when she comes to the home of the seven dwarfs. To scare the reader even further, the Queen is at her most evil when she disguises herself as an ugly old woman.

Hundreds of years after the tale of Snow White was first recorded by the Brothers Grimm (and even longer since the first versions of the story were told) it seems we haven't learned much. We are, if anything, more obsessed with youth and beauty than ever - the cosmetic surgery business alone is a billion dollar industry and whole stores are devoted to cosmetic sales. Entertainment Weekly devotes an issue every year to the up-and-coming actors and actresses but I've never seen them do an issue on the actors and actresses who are making bank in their golden years.

Why do you suppose we haven't learned anything about appreciating people as they age? Perhaps Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm are to blame. After all, didn't we grow up watching the beautiful Snow White triumph over her older rival?

Fairy Tale Friday - Perhaps You Grew Up With The Fractured Version?

I have the draft of a very serious post about the marketing of fairy tale princesses that I was going to polish for this week's post. But when I decided to search Pinterest to see what kind of fairy tale images I could find there, I came across this:

I was completely sidetracked. While I may have grown up reading Andersen, Grimm Brothers and Perrault fairy tales, I also grew up with The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. One of my favorite things about the show was Fractured Fairy Tales. All of the episodes was written by A.J. Jacobs and narrated by Edward Everett Horton. Jacobs took classic fairy tales and turned them into parables with a satirical twist. You can watch several of the episodes on YouTube, buy DVD's of them, and, I have just discovered, you can even buy a book of the stories with illustrations of the animation from Random House. Ssshhh - don't tell The Big Guy but I think I just found one of his Christmas presents! If you never watched the show, or if you'd like to take a trip down memory lane, here's a little treat for you.

Fairy Tale Fridays -

“O, to be sure, we laugh less and play less and wear uncomfortable disguises like adults, but beneath the costume is the child we always are, whose needs are simple, whose daily life is still best described by fairy tales.” – Leo Rosten

Last week, Care of Care's Online Book Club sent me this quote which was the quote of the day on Goodreads. First of all, can I just say how happy it made me that she saw it and immediately thought of me and Fairy Tale Fridays? Then I wondered, "who is Leo Rosten and why does anyone care what he says?"

Leo Rosten had nothing to do with fairy tales. He was an immigrant to this country in 1911 from what is now Poland and a successful author, screenwriter and humorist. It was Rosten who said of W.C. Fields "any man who hates dogs and babies can't be all bad." But he never wrote fairy tales. Which made me wonder (of course it did), what other people felt the pull and importance of fairy tales long after they had, theoretically, outgrown them.

Marie Curie, the first person to be awarded two Nobel Prizes, had this to say about fairy tales:

"I am among those who think that science has great beauty. A scientist in his laboratory is not only a technician: he is also a child placed before natural phenomena which impress him like a fairy tale."

The brilliant Albert Einstein said this:

 "If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales."

Marie Curie

If you search for quotes about fairy tales, you will find authors from every generation have had something to say, from Dickens to Danielle Steele. They have clearly had a deep and profound effect on people who write. But to find that scientists also fall back to fairy tales as a basis for intelligence and the desire to learn speaks volumes to me. Perhaps it's time we quite worrying quite so much about sanitizing the things we read to our children and go back to fairy tales the way they were meant to be read; they have so much to teach us. Alfred Hitchcock said this about what we can learn from fairy tales:

  "Fear isn't so difficult to understand. After all, weren't we all frightened as children? Nothing has changed since Little Red Riding Hood faced the big bad wolf. What frightens us today is exactly the same thing that frightened us yesterday. It's just a different wolf. This fright complex is rooted in every individual."

Jack Zipes, retired professor of German from the University of Minnesota who has published and lectured on the topic of fairy tales, said this:

"Fairy tales since the beginning of recorded time, and perhaps earlier, have been "a means to conquer the terrors of mankind through metaphor."

If, by reading fairy tales, we teach our children how to deal with fear, isn't that one of the greatest gifts we can give them? And if, by immersing them in fairy tales, they find a way to turn their creative minds into a living, what could be better?

"at the center of every fairy tale lay a truth that gave the story its power." Susan Wiggs, The You I Never Knew

"Mother didn't understand that children aren't frightened by stories; that their lives are full of far more frightening things than those contained in fairy tales." Kate Morton, The Forgotten Garden

"In a utilitarian age, of all other times, it is a matter of grave importance that fiary tales should be respected." Charles Dickens

Fairy Tale Friday - The Love Edition

When I was growing up there seemed to be two kinds of fairy tales: those that dealt with living happily-ever-after and those that didn't. Now I enjoyed those that didn't, to be sure, but it was those happily-ever-after ones that grabbed a young girl's heart as she grew. Cinderella and Prince Charming, Sleeping Beauty and Prince Phillip, Snow White and her prince...what young girl wouldn't be dreaming of finding her own Prince Charming. Even the idea of having to kiss a frog to get there wasn't so bad if it meant you'd find the man of your dreams.

I have long since learned that just because a girl may find a man she loves and wants to spend the rest of her life with, happily-ever-after is a myth. As it turns out, it never really happened in the fairy tales most of the time either, not as they were originally told. Over the past year, I've looked at the reality of Cinderella and the like and discovered that there really isn't much to be learned about love in them at all.

At Folk Tales Corner, I found an interesting and amusing article on this very subject.  They say that a young man will need three or more of these characteristics to find romance in a fairy tale:

1/ Be a 7th son or at least youngest of three
2/ Be poor
3/ Have a magical weapon
4/ Have a wicked step parent
5/ Be friends with a talking animal

For the young ladies, you'll only need one of these characteristics, preferably #3, although #4 is almost always a given:

1/ Be a princess
2/ Be pretty
3/ Be kind and smile through all hardship
4/ Have a wicked step parent
5/ Be friends with a talking animal

If you're really looking for fairy tales that give them impression that the happy couple may truly find lifelong happiness after the story ends, you're bound to find that the pair have had to suffer to get to that point.

In the Rapunzel tale, that prince was thrown from a tower, blinded by thorns and left to wander for a couple of years before Rapunzel found him and restored his eye sight with her tears. He wasn't alone in his suffering - poor Rapunzel had to give birth to twins all alone in the wilderness.

The Beauty and the Beast tale may give the reader the most hope for finding true love if you're a good enough person. In it, a young prince was turned into a beast for being such a terrible person. Not until he could make someone love him despite his appearance would he be changed back. He had to learn be kind and generous in order to do that. The Beauty was willing to give up her freedom to save her beloved father. Both found love because of what was inside of them, not their outside appearance, and truly did get the happily ever after. I've never tried to sell my daughter on the idea of happily-ever-after but I like that I have this story to use as an example of looking deep inside to find the person you should be with for the rest of your life.

Fairy Tale Fridays - The Little Match Girl

One of the fairy tales I loved best when I was young was Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Match Girl." Perhaps it's because I'm especially fond of Andersen on the whole, being of Danish descent. But I'm more inclined to believe that it's because the story is so sad and yet so filled with hope. Unlike so many fairy tales, while this one pulls no punches, there is nothing in the story that has to be sanitized for children. In fact, in reading our copy of The Little Match Girl, illustrated by Rachel Isadora and published in 1987, I found that I was reading exactly the same story as the one I had just read in my "grownup" collection of Andersen's tales. The story of "The Little Match Girl" was first published in 1845 and was intended by Andersen to be a moral lesson about the plight of Europe's poor.

On New Year's Eve, a poor girl is on the streets, barefooted, cold and hungry. No one is buying her matchsticks and she can't go home until she sells some or her father will beat her. Finally, she seeks solace in a sheltered corner and lights one of the match sticks to keep warm. Suddenly she is seeing visions of a roasted goose. When that match stick burns out, she quickly lights another and can feel the warmth of the fire she sees before her. In one vision she sees a shooting star. Her grandmother had told her that shooting stars mean a soul is going to heaven, and when she lights her next matchstick, she sees her grandmother. Quickly the girl lights the rest of her matchsticks because she so wanted her grandmother to remain with her. The grandmother grabbed the girl up in her arms and together the two ascended to heaven. In the morning, the body of the little girl was found in the corner, a smile on her face.

Lovely and touching, yes? I think so. Which is why I can't, for the life of me, explain how Rikki Ducornet took that story as inspiration for her story "Green Air" which appears in My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me. In her story, an unnamed woman (I assume it's a woman, she is locked in a drawer in a cedar chest the entire story so can it be a human), is married to a brute of a man who dreams of nothing but violent sex and abuses the woman. The only correlation I can see between this story and Andersen's tale is a note that the woman has a matchbox tucked in her pocket which she begins lighting, that and the idea of an abused person looking for an escape from an untenable life. At the end of this story, I had no idea what the heck had happened. Usually if I'm stumped with these stories, the author's notes at the end did nothing to enlighten me. It was the first tale I've read in the book that I didn't enjoy.

That wasn't the strangest thing I discovered as I researched the story of "The Little Mermaid." I had no idea that it had ever been made into a musical. I love musicals and I love this story but even I couldn't possibly see how you could take such a short story and stretch it that far (although I guess if you can turn Where The Wild Things Are into a feature film, anything is possible). Still, when I found this 1987 television adaptation of the movie on YouTube, I found myself irresistibly drawn to what I was certain would be nothing short of a train wreck of a movie. In that I was not disappointed. The music is awful, the story preposterous. Let's face it, if you're a movie starring Roger Daltry and Twiggy, there's not much hope for you. I'll give the little girl playing the match girl props - she did have a terrific voice. I wonder if she was ever able to recover from starring in this bomb?

Next, in honor of Valentine's Day, my focus will be on love in fairy tales.

Fairy Tale Fridays - The Mermaids

It's been years since I read Hans Christian Andersen's original tale of The Mermaid (who, by the way, in my copy at least, wasn't little). The closest I've come to it in the past twenty years is repeated viewings of the Disney adaptation. Just after Christmas, though, I picked up a copy of Andersen's Fairy Tales and The Mermaid was the first tale in the book, making it the perfect place to start.

On her fifteenth birthday, the youngest daughter of the king of the mermen is at long last allowed to travel to the surface of the ocean. There she sees a ship with a handsome prince traveling on it and she is immediately smitten. As she watches him, a storm comes up and the prince is thrown into the sea. The mermaid saves the prince, depositing him on the beach where a young woman finds him. The prince, who had been unconscious for some time, awoke, believing this young woman had saved him.

The mermaid continued to travel to the surface to watch the prince from the distance. As her love for him grew, she became determined that she must be with him. She has also been told that humans, unlike merpeople, have souls, making them immortal. The mermaid had long yearned to have a soul and decided to visit a witch to see if her dreams might be made to come true. The witch assures the mermaid that she can be made human but she warns the mermaid that the pain of her tail separating intolegs will be excruciating and that the price of becoming human is the mermaid's voice. Furthermore, if the mermaid is unable to win the prince's heart and he marries another, then the mermaid will die and return to the sea as foam. Despite all of that, the mermaid agrees and the witch cuts out her tongue.

The mermaid swims to shore, drinks the potion and is found sometime later by the prince. He is enchanted by her beauty, as is the kingdom. But the prince cannot stop thinking of the young woman he believes saved his life. When she turns out to be the daughter of another king, and not a religious woman as he believed, he marries her. The mermaid is devastated and prepares to die. Just as that begins to happen, she is visited by the daughters of the air, who tell the mermaid that if she joins them and does good deeds for three hundred years then she will earn a soul. It's a price she is more than willing to pay.

Reading the original tale gave me a much greater appreciation for what Carolyn Turgeon has written in Mermaid. In it, she retained much of the original story, playing up the darkness that Andersen only hinted at. What struck me most about Andersen's tale was not the love story between the prince and the mermaid but the story about the mermaid's desire for an eternal soul, something that makes the story even more universal.

In My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me (edited by Kate Bernheimer), Katherine Vaz has used the tale of the mermaid as the inspiration for her story "What the Conch Shell Sings, When The Body Is Gone." She was also influenced by the story of the real life Million-Dollar Mermaid, Annette Kellerman, a woman who performed self-styled ballet inside water-filled tanks.

Vaz tells the story of Meredith and Ray, a couple who started as friends and eventually married. By the time we meet them, however, Meredith and Ray are hardly talking. Meredith suspects, rightly, that Ray is having an affair. When she confronts him, she warns him that the other woman is only using Ray to promote her own career. The two divorce and Ray marries the other woman, only to find out that Meredith was right. Years later, when Ray is again divorced and Meredith finds herself battling breast cancer, the two find themselves together again, more in love than ever.

As I was reading this story,  I didn't initially understand where the story of The Mermaid had played a part, beyond obvious references to the ocean plants and tank that Ray and Meredith had installed in their house to practice holding their breath under water. But as I read, I was able to see the influence. Ray allowed himself to be drawn from the woman he truly loved to marry the woman he thought was 'saving" him. As with the tale of The Mermaid, What The Conch Shell Sings is the story of a love triangle but also the story of eternal love.

As with all of the stories in My Mother She Killed Me, I very much enjoyed Vaz's explanation at the end of the story of how she came to write it. She had long been interested in the life of Annette Kellerman and even a walk through a perfume department in a store played a part in her story.

Next week, I'll be reading stories about The Little Match Girl, including the original tale and an adaptation from My Mother She Killed Me. I'll also be looking at how that one has been sanitized for children.

Fairy Tale Fridays - 2012 Fairy Tale Movies

The number of websites devoted to fairy tales that I've found since starting Fairy Tale Fridays proves that I'm not alone in being fascinated with this particular form of story telling. The number of new books being published further confirms this. But, perhaps, the most telling indication that fairy tales are big right now are the movies based on fairy tales that have been released in the past couple of years with four new movies scheduled for release in 2012.

In June, JACK THE GIANT KILLER is scheduled for release. This take on the classic tale of the boy who climbed the beanstalk turns the tale into an action movie. There is not just one giant who must be confronted but an entire race of them who want to reclaim that land they claim was taken from them. Can't say that I'm looking forward to this one; it will likely appeal much more to young men than any other audience.

SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN, also scheduled for release in June, sticks more closely to the original tale for much of the story but it, too, veers off into an action movie. When the huntsman sent to kill Snow White and bring her heart back to the wicked stepmother takes pity on her and spares her, in the movie version he then trains her to fight back against her stepmother with an army that includes eight dwarfs. Again, definitely a movie aimed more toward a younger audience, particularly those who have grown attached to actress Kristin Stewart (she of Twilight fame).

Hansel and Gretel will also come to the silver screen in 2012, this time fifteen years after their encounter with the crone in the candy house. In HANSEL AND GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS, Hansel and Gretel are now bounty hunters charged with killing witches who may have met their match when they are hired to kill an evil sorceress who's planning on killing all the children in a village. Sadly, this is another one I won't pay to see but I do appreciate that they have, at least, not messed with the original tale here.

THE BROTHERS GRIMM: SNOW WHITE will also be a new take on an old story, but one that I may just have to see. This one promises to include comedy (Nathan Lane is in the cast if that's any clue) and the costumes and settings look spectacular.

On the animated scene, look for BRAVE from Disney-Pixar (which draws from Scottish mythology more than fairy tales) and DOROTHY OF OZ. Although the Wizard of Oz stories aren't centuries-old tales, they are every bit fairy tales in their construction and this version may be just the thing to introduce younger audiences to the stories without being quite a scary as the Judy Garland movie version.

Grown up (and by this I mean very grown up) takes on fairy tales coming out in 2012 include Jane Campion's SLEEPING BEAUTY (only very loosely based on the fairy tale with the sleeping beauty being a prostitute) and PAN, a modern telling of the basic idea of J.M. Barrie's story where Hook is a detective in search of a serial killer who preys on children.

On the whole, I'm thrilled that these old stories continue to capture the imagination of the general public even if it means turning them into action films and I look forward to seeing what new ways fairy tales will be used in the coming year.

Fairy Tale Fridays - The Food Edition!

There are almost as many fairy tales centered around food as there are fairy tales centered around magical creatures or horrible stepmothers. I recently read several tales related to food - just as with all other fairy tales, they run the gamut from obscure to beloved, very short to long, obvious moral to "what the heck was the point of that story?"

In The Sweet Porridge, once again a child is proven to be smarter than all of the adults around. A little girl and her mother are poor and hungry until a crone in the forest gives the girl a pot that will make sweet porridge just for asking. The girl and her mother never have to go hungry again. Then one day, when the girl is gone, the mother asks the pot to make porridge. Unfortunately, she doesn't know how to "turn it off." It keeps making porridge until all of the village is swimming in the stuff. Only one house remains. Thanks heavens there's a child in it that thinks to say "stop pot." Really, this didn't occur to any of the adults?!

A number of the tales had obvious religious overtones. In The Ear of Corn, there was once a time, when "God himself still walked the earth," where corn stalks bore ten times the number of ears of corn and the ears grew the full length of the stalk. Then one day, as a mother and daughter walked through a field, the daughter fell in the mud. The mother used a handful of the corn to clean the dress. God, seeing the woman using his gift in such an ungrateful way, vowed to allow no more corn to grow. Giving into prayers, though, he allowed enough corn to grow on the stalks to feed the birds.

Perhaps the most famous of all foody fairy tales is Hansel and Gretel, the story of two hungry children lured deep into the forest in search of food. Finding a house entirely made of candies. Lured in by the woman who lived there, the children soon found themselves held by the woman who planned to fatten them up to eat. Once again, the children outsmarted the adult, throwing her into her own oven. No mean stepmother in this one, though. This time it's the children's own mother who tries to rid herself of them. Sadly, Hansel and Gretel weren't able to push her in the oven as well. But at least they were able to return home with their arms filled with jewels and the family never went hungry again.

I'm wondering if my family would like me to read them a foody fairy tale as a Thanksgiving entertainment? Maybe after a few glasses of wine, we'll enjoy them as high comedy!

Fairy Tale Fridays - The Dessert Version

Once again, my plans for Fairy Tale Fridays were changed this week. I've been doing some reading of The Power of Myth but I was completely distracted when I was changing channels the other night and came across Bravo-TV's Top Chef: Just Desserts. And just what was the theme this week, my little pretties? You've got it--fairy tales!  There are some great pictures on their site, which sadly would not allow me to save them, even though they say, big as day, that they belong to Bravo TV. Each of the teams had to make a centerpiece that showed what fairy tale inspired their desserts. For Goldilocks and The Three Bears, for example, one of the desserts was Baby Bear's Porridge, Hot Ranier Cherries, Basil Syrup and Cherry Sorbet. Who'd have guessed you could eat your fairy tales?!

Fairy Tale Fridays - Fairy Tales Japanese Style

This was meant to be a post about fairy tale princesses but the first thing I saw (well, after I sifted through hundreds of images of Disney princesses, little girls in princess costumes and some naughty princess costume shots) was a lovely Japanese book titled "Japanese Fairy Tales: Princess Splendor." My mind immediately changed tracks. "Princess Splendor" is more widely known as The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter.

There once lived a poor, elderly bamboo cutter and his wife; their great sadness was that they were never able to have children. Every day, the bamboo cutter, Taketori no Okina, went out to cut bamboo which he brought home and fashioned into items that he sold. One day when he was in the bamboo forest, a soft light began glowing from one of the bamboo stalks. When Taketori no Okina looked closely, he discovered, in a notch in the stalk, a very tiny girl, who glowed as if light by the moon. He took the girl home and he and his wife adopted the girl as their own. Everyday after that, when the bamboo cutter went off to work, he found gold and precious gems in the bamboo stalks and he and his family were soon wealthy.

The tiny girl. Kaguya-hime, blossomed into a fully-grown young lady whose beauty soon became known throughout the land. Soon suitors began appearing at the home but the girl had no interest in marrying. Five suitors came to beg for her hand and she set them all off on impossible tasks. None of them succeeded. When the Emperor of Japan, Mikado, heard of Kaguya-hime, he came to see her, fell in love with her and asked her to marry him only to be turned down. Kaguya-hime told the Emperor that she was not of his country so could not go to his palace.

That summer, whenever the moon was full, Kaguya-hime became depressed. When her worried parents questioned Kaguya-hime about her sadness, she finally told them that she was from the Moon and must return to her people there. As the time drew near for Kaguya-hime to leave, the Emperor sent an army to protect her from the Moon people.

But when the Moon people arrived, the guards were blinded by a strange light. Kaguya-hime announced that she must return to her home, despite her love for her parents and earthly friends. She wrote her parents and the Emperor a sad apology for leaving, gave her parents her own robe as a memento and entrusted the elixir of life to a guard to take to the Emperor. When a feather robe was placed on her shoulder, all of Kaguya-hime's sadness was forgotten and the heavenly group left for the Moon.

When he received the elixir, the Emperor said that he didn't want to live forever without Kaguya-hime.  He sent a guard to the top of the mountain closest to the heavens to burn his message to her, along with the elixir of life, hoping that his message would reach her. Legend tells that the Japanese word for immortality became the name of the mountain...Mount Fuji.

The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter is still widely told today and has been adapted in many forms. It seems hard for me to believe that it wasn't an inspiration for Hans Christian Anderson's Thumbelina. It has been made into a film and an opera and both Sesame Street and Hello Kitty have included the story in special episodes. For manga fans, you may be familiar with the idea of Moon people from the book/television series Sailor Moon.

Once again, in looking into fairy tales, I've come across something new to me that has only piqued my interest in learning more. More Japanese fairy tales to come!

Fairy Tale Fridays - The Art

One of the things I've enjoyed since I started Fairy Tale Fridays is looking for the artwork to include in my posts. I've stuck to the traditional drawings, largely because I wasn't finding a lot of more modern interpretations. Thanks to my niece, I've discovered a page on Stumble! that features minimalist artwork for fairy tales. I'm liking these almost as much as my beloved Arthur Rackham works.

Rackham's work is so traditional, so appropriate to the feel of the fairy tales, that it seems that it must be hundreds of years old as well. But Rackham (9/9/1867 - 9/6/1939) didn't even begin studying art until 1885 and the works for which he is famous were not created until after the turn of the century. By that time, Rackham had developed his own technique, explaining why his pieces are so instantly recognizable.

Other well-known fairy tale artists are Maxfield Parrish, Gustave Dore, and Edmund Dulac. While Dore's works are literally and figuratively darker, Parrish and Dulac's works are all about color.

But Lisa, you as, were there no women illustrators? Why, yes there were; thank you for asking. Among the better known female illustrators of fairy tales are Margaret Ely Webb, Jessie M. King (a Scotswoman whose work was influenced by the Art Nouveau movement), Helen Stratton, Jennie Harbour, and Anne Anderson (whose work was a bit more stylized).

Jessie Wilcox Smith is, perhaps, the most famous of the female fairy tale illustrators.Smith, a contemporary of Rackham's, was as well known for her magazine covers as she was for her children's book illustrations and her illustrations for Charles Kingsley's The Water Babies (1916) are housed in the Library of Congress.

You may notice, if you should happen to click on all of these links, that all of these artists are deceased. There appear to be almost no modern fairy tale works to be found, making me even more happy to have found that page on Stumble! but, once again, I'm left wanting more. Let the research continue!

Fairy Tale Fridays - What's New In Fairy Tales

In my last Fairy Tale Fridays, I focused on Giambattista Basile, one of the first people to commit fairy tales to paper. This week, I wanted to focus on what's happening with fairy tales more recently.

Kate Bernheimer (who I've raved about endlessly when talking about Omaha Lit Fest specifically and fairy tales in general) recently released the third in a trilogy of novels about the Gold sister. In March, The Complete Tales of Lucy Gold was published by FC2 completing the trilogy started in 2001 with The Complete Tales of Ketzia Gold and continued in 2006 with The Complete Tales of Merry Gold. HTML Giant has an in-depth (3000 words in-depth!) review of the trilogy.

Previously I mentioned SurLaLune as a great source of annontated fairy tales. There is now a blog associated with the site as well. From there I see that there is not just one but four movies in the works Snow White, three of which are a trilogy starring Kristin Stewart of Twilight fame. The other is a Julia Robert's project. A Beauty & The Beast movie adaptation in the works, starring Emma Watson of Harry Potter fame, is being pulled together by Guillermo del Toro among others. All of those, in conjunction with the upcoming ABC t.v. series Once Upon A Time appear to mean that I'll be watching fairy tales almost as often as I'm reading them.

New sites I found while doing research on the internet (okay, playing), are Enchanted Conversation: A Fairy Tale Magazine and on dictionary.com fairytale flashcards and a quiz.  Now I'm off to go play (er, research) some more. Can't wait to see what else is out there is discover!