"Snow White and Rose Red" by The Brothers Grimm
Although I've heard of this story, I've never actually read it. I am much more familiar with "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," a totally different story. This one does involve a dwarf, but he's a nasty little man who gets killed in the end.
Snow White and Rose Red are sisters who live with their mother, a widow. All three live together happily. The sisters are dearest friends and wander the woods without fear, as all the animals are kind to them— the girls/young women are just that perfect.
One day, when the three woman are reading by the fire, they hear a knock at the door. They open it, assuming it's a traveler looking for lodging, and find a bear. The bear speaks, telling them he won't hurt them he just needs some warmth. They welcome him in and he returns every night until summer. the girls tease, flirted and wrestled with...
"The Ear of Corn" by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
This is one of the Grimms' shorter Household Tales. In a time when God still walked on the earth and each stalk of corn produced far more than they do now, a woman tore up a handful of ears of corn to clean mud of her daughter's dress. God was angry and threatened that the corn stalks would produce no more food, but relented when the people cried that even if they were undeserving, the birds would starve.
The Lord, who foresaw their suffering, had pity on them, and granted the request. So the ears were left as they now grow.
We need to be thankful for what we have, for what God's given us, because we can lose it. Definitely a good moral, but not one of my favorite stories.
I read...
"The Tale of the Three Brothers" by J. K. Rowling
I've read most of the Harry Potter series, all but the last one actually, and seen several of the movies, but I've never gotten any further into it. This is a story in The Tales of Beedle the Bard, a "wizarding classic" from that world.
It tells the story of three brothers who through magic make a bridge that allows them to cross over a dangerous river. Death congratulates the brother, but actually feels cheated out of three victims. He offers to give the brothers prizes for their cleverness.
The first asks for a powerful magic wand, the second for the power to bring back the dead, and the third, the youngest, is given a Cloak of Invisibility that will allow him to travel without Death following him. The first two brothers end up dying quickly. The oldest is killed by another wizard who steals his wand. The second commits suicide when he...
"The Juniper Tree" by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
This is another one of the Grimms' tales that I hadn't heard before and it's really no wonder, part of it is downright gruesome. The illustration above is by Louis Rhead from Grimm's Fairy Tales, Stories and Tales of Elves, Goblins, and Fairies (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1917).
The story opens with a rich, childless couple who love each other dearly. One winter, while the woman is pairing apples underneath the juniper tree in their courtyard, she cuts herself. When she sees the blood on the snow she wishes for a child "as red as blood and as white as snow," and immediately she feels happy and knows that she will have a child. Months pass and eventually she has a baby boy and then she dies.
Father eventually remarries and, surprise surprise, the new wife turns into an evil stepmother who sees the boy as the only obstacle between her daughter and the...
"The Old Grave-Stone" by Hans Christian Anderson
The title for this story sounds a lot spookier than the story really is. A fairy tale about a gravestone has all kinds of possibilities, but this is more the story of the people whose names are engraved on the stone.
The gravestone was actually purchased when a church was being demolished and it now lay in the courtyard of a house. The people who live there are talking about the stone and the oldest man in the room remarks that it must be the gravestone of Preben Schwane and his wife, Martha. He tells of the couple who were well-loved by everyone.
Preben and Martha were a fine old couple, and when they both sat on the bench, at the top of the steep stone steps, in front of their house, with the branches of the linden-tree waving above them, and nodded in a...
"The Little Mermaid" by Hans Christian Andersen
Disney's movie The Little Mermaid came out in 1989 when I was 14 or 15, but it was the only version of the story I can honestly say I was fmiliar with before I read the original for today's Fairy Tale Friday post. So I was of course expecting a happily ever after ending. Even looking at other fairy tales, Cinderella and the princess who sleeps on the pea get their prince, I assumed the Little Mermaid would too. I was wrong.
After longing to see the world above the gorgeous undersea kingdom and hearing about its wonders from her older sisters and her grandmother, when the Little Princess is 15 she's finally allowed to swim to the surface wherever she would like. When she swims to the top, she sees a boat where a prince is having a birthday party. She is enchanted, but then the ship wrecks in a storm. She saves the...