Annotated Fairy Tale: The Wonderful Birch

[ursulav]

Here we go, yet another one! I admit, however, that this is not so deeply bizarre as the Wonderful Sheep, but it still is…err…wonderful! And has sheep!

This is a Russian version of the Cinderella story, and naturally has some bits that would never make the Disney cut, but also a few lines that I find surprisingly charming, and a weirdly sympathetic

Comments

[timprov]

She didn't say "If and only if you spit in my sheath or run through my legs."

[timprov]

Also, there seems to be a weird assumption in there that you would just know that obviously she had been discarding the reindeer skin to nurse her baby. I just figured, hey, reindeer, they're mammals.

[pedanther]

[archangelbeth]

I was intrigued that she then changed into all kinds of other things -- part of the curse, or did she become a shapeshifter from having spells cast on her? Will she grow up to be a witch in her elder years?

[shatterstripes]

I feel like "beetle" is losing something in translation and is actually a piece of a spinning wheel or some other piece of common peasant household technology.

But even without this, that is one weird damn story.

[tabbyclaw]

Google tells me that a "wooden beetle" is a type of hammer, and comes from the same root as the verb 'beat.' Before I looked it up, I ws guessing that it was a kind of darning egg.

[movingfinger]

A beetle is something used for pounding, like a pestle.

[pedanther]

[randombler]

A beetle, as in "beetle and wedge", is a sledgehammer or similar, used with a metal wedge for splitting logs. A wooden beetle would also be known as a maul, from which we get the word mauled, and is a pretty fearsome implement. The ones I have seen consisted of a fairly hefty section of branch, bound with an iron ring at each end to stop it splitting and with a handle. It could be seen as sort of leg shaped.