An Annotated Fairy Tale

[ursulav]

I frequently find myself on-line reading fairy tales. And being me, I frequently find myself maintaining a sort of mental running commentary about said fairy tales, and since I am spending today recuperating from Con-mode, I have nothing better to do than inflict it upon you!

The Blue Light is a folktale of Aaren-Thompson type 562. There’s a half-

Comments

[ditaykan]

Holy crap. If I were the princess, I'd nick the blue light and hide it someplace. Or light my own pipe with it and tell the dwarf to neuter my 'husband'.

[rabid_bookwyrm]

The version I'm familiar with indeed had dogs with eyes the size of very large round things, and (if I recall correctly) chests of copper, silver, and gold to go along with them. (Obviously, eye size is linked to value of chest). I believe the young woman was under some duress, or perhaps was just socially out of reach, but the soldier didn't throw boots at her, instead he had her to tea and they had lovely conversations (or whatever). But her parents or guardians get suspicious and tie a bag of flower to her ankle, and cut a little hole in it, and so they follow her to the soldier's lodgings. The soldier doesn't have any warning, and is carried off without his magic tinderbox. He does pay an urchin to go get it, and I don't honestly remember what happens after that - he might just have the dogs magic him and his girl off to the furthest Indies

[nancylebov]

Not to nitpick, but I think you meant a bag of flour, much as I prefer the image of the princess leaving a trail of petals.

[rabid_bookwyrm]

I believe you might be right. :)

[rabid_bookwyrm]

That's the version I know too. The princess is locked in a tower because her fairy godmother or someone prophesied at her birth that she would marry a common soldier and the king didn't like that idea. The soldier hears that she's beautiful, so he gets the dogs to bring her so he can see her and she's so cute he kisses her. No bootblacking.

Then when he marries the princess he invites the dogs to the wedding and gives them good spots at the banquet table, and they freak out the guests by staring with their huge round eyes.

[zrath]

This fairytale sucks. :D

[archangelbeth]

Well, if you are actually a somewhat sympathetic dwarf, then you make it rain peas so the poor can eat them, right?

...yeah, I'm figuring that if the princess is sensible, she'll nick the blue light, have the soldier turned into something, and I'm voting that the tomcat-fast-as-the-wind can be turned into a shape-shifter. Then he can look like the soldier, but scratch him behind the ears and he'll turn into a cuddlebug. (Or maybe she'd hook up with the dwarf?)

[dominiquedelmer]

Y'know, I much prefer that version of the story. In my head, that's now cannon.

[persephone_kore]

I'm not entirely sure the dwarf wasn't the tomcat fast as the wind, based on this....

[archangelbeth]

Good point, that...

[fiddlingfrog]

I would totally buy a book of "Ursula Vernon's Annotated (and Illustrated) Fairy Tales". Just little sketches in the margins, showing the dwarf thrilled at using his rain of peas power and things like that.

[luciab]

Oh, I like that idea!

[naomijameston]

Yes and yes and a thousand times yes! *bounces*

[tyrrlin]

Ooh, yes! And I'd want the commentary, too! Just like this post.

I'd seriously buy that.