a sorta fairy tale with you...

[pprfaith]

I wasted time in the children's section of a books shop today and noticed that fairy tales seem to be big again. Which, of course, gave me a story idea. Which, in turn, made me decide to brush up on my fairy tale knowledge

Comments

[paregmenon]

Writing that much by hand... ouchies. And I so want to read those original fairy tales - they're meant to be quite gruesome.

That actually is very interesting! When I was a kid, I used to want dragons in fairytales, but could hardly ever find any. Now, I have an answer! :D

And I once read a short ficlet about a damsel who is supposed to be rescued by a prince, but instead kills the dragon herself and steals the guy's horse. It was awesome.

[pprfaith]

I love modern fairy tales that break with the traditional roles, ie, girl saves herself. I try to do 'my own fairy tale' with my kids at least once a year and the results are amazing. Whoever said today's kids have no imagination was very, very wrong.

A friend of mine did a two week project with her fifth graders and one of the stories had little Red Riding Hood running the wolf over with a Ferari. Go girl!

As for the original fairy tales, I'd just about murder someone to get my hands on an old book. Alas, my university has an amazing collection of Arthurian legends and pretty much zip fairy tales. I mean, it's not hard to find what the original tales were like, but to actually read them, word for word... Those thing are pretty much the oldest horror stories around, yeah?

/geek fest

[vesselandpestle]

Oldest moral stories, definitely. Horror? *evil grin* Well, they're definitely the start of a LOT of common fetishes... not to mention all the rape-is-romance stuff that it played straight. In one of the older versions, Sleeping Beauty isn't woken by a kiss, she's woken by the birth of twins. Yes, you heard that right: her Prince Charming slept with her comatose body and impregnated her, waking her up mid-delivery.

I can never decide if that's creepier than the version where she sleeps through the delivery or not.

Also, since you've got me on the subject, here's link to an artist who does twisted Disney Princesses. They're made of awesome and win (especially the Tiana one) and I know that you'll love them.

http://jeftoon01.deviantart.com/gallery/#Twisted-Princess

[pprfaith]

I love you.

Where'd you get the Sleeping Beauty bit? Cuz I'm collecting websites at the mo.

[vesselandpestle]

I didn't get that from a website, actually. Can't remember the exact origin, but it might be from some of my older fairytale books (I collect them). Italo Calvino has a massive collection (about 200 stories) of Italian folktales, and I re-read the book every few years.

My FAVORITE story in the book is called "Olive". The title character is a good little Jewish girl whose father sends her to live with a Christian family while he merchants around. She learns to be a good little Christian and when her father comes back he (and obviously I'm cutting out bits) eventually cuts off her hands because she won't renounce her faith. THEN, handless, she goes into a forest where she meets a king and marries him, blah, blah blah... She gets prego and then he goes off to war, her wicked mother-in-law claims that the girl has given birth to a scorpion and a tiger cub, so the King washes his hands of her and she's sent back into the woods (STILL HANDLESS) with her newborn twins. Later on there's a fun part where she drops her babies in a river

[pprfaith]

Ouchies.

[vesselandpestle]

HANDLESS!

She does get them back. Eventually.

[pprfaith]

You know, I read an article about how enormously traumatic events can, for a short time, affect a person's DNA and that, in turn, any offspring. That article just got tangled up with the handless chick in my mind and I imagined handless babies.

Mental FUBAR!

[vesselandpestle]

Aaaaannd another link, this one to an article/essay on Italian folktales and how they fit in with the rest:

http://www.endicott-studio.com/rdrm/forital.html