Category: fairy tale

"Rapunzel" by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm The Rapunzel story for me could have been boiled down to the mean old witch keeps beautiful Rapunzel in a tower, climbing her hair to visit her. Along comes a prince, learns the secret, has Rapunzel let down her hair to him and the two live happily every after. But then I read the Grimm version at Project Gutenberg. So how does the witch get Rapunzel?  Takes her from her parents, of course. This is a fairy tale. You see, Rapunzel's father snuck into the witch's garden to steal rampion, a leafy green vegetable like spinach for his wife. The witch, of course, catches him, and says he may take all the rampion he can on the condition that he give her his daughter when she is born, promising that "it shall be well treated, and [she] will care for it like a mother." Father agrees, but he didn't really have any choice. Well, the witch, not...

Chickerella by Mary Jane and Herm Auch (Suggested reading level: Ages 4 -8 ) I talked about Cinderella the other day and then ran across this farmyard retelling at the library. Amber (10) did not read it with me. It's below her reading level and we're in the middle of Harriet the Spy, but more important she hates chickens and this book is full of them. The illustrations are actually photos of stuffed chicken mannequins made with clay, yarn, feathers and fabric. Chickerella's mother was killed by a fox and her father marries a hen with two daughters who shows up from another farm. This stepmother sends Chickerella's father on a wild goose chase and he never returns. Chickerella, true to the story, is forced to be the servant of the household. For some reason, the water she drinks makes her lay glass eggs. Some time later, a Fowl Ball is held (yes, the book is chock-full of bad puns). Chickerella is told...

This week for Fairy Tale Friday, I'm featuring one of my favorites when I was a child. We actually had this troll story in two books, "The Stone Cheese" in Favorite Tales of Monsters and Trolls retold by George Jonsen which has awesome illustrations and "The Lumberjack and the Cheese" in Trolls compiled and illustrated by Doug Cushman. I don't know why it was a favorite, but we actually still have both of those books, one at my mom's and the other at my house. In the story, an old man lives at the edge of a forest. In turn he sends his two oldest sons out to chop wood, but both brothers are frightened off by the "ugliest, meanest-looking troll anyone could imagine" who threatens to rip them to pieces. On the third day, the youngest brother goes out to chop wood, taking a piece of white cheese with him. When he is confronted by the troll, he takes out...

"The Princess and the Pea" by Hans Christian Andersen Most of us have heard or seen versions of this fairy tale, called "The Real Princess" in the version of Andersen's Fairy Tales I read at Project Gutenberg. A prince wants to marry a princess and travels far and wide to find the perfect woman, but there is something wrong with each woman he meets. He can't be sure they are "real" princesses, so he returns to his castle alone. On a dark and stormy night, a young lady pounds on the door, stating she is a real princess. She is invited to stay the night, but the Queen-mother sets up a test to see if the woman truly is a "real" princess. The Queen-mother puts three peas under the twenty mattresses and twenty feather beds that the woman is to sleep on. As we all know, the princess does not sleep well. "I have scarcely closed my eyes the whole night through. I do not...

"The Emperor's New Clothes" from Andersen's Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen Finally a fairy tale with no evil step-mothers, no wicked witches, no damsels in distress waiting for a knight to save them. The Emperor is obsessed with his wardrobe and hires two weavers who promise to make a beautiful cloth that will be invisible to anyone who was not fit for their job or who was "extraordinarily simple in character." I'm sure you know what happens next. The weavers are frauds and just pantomiming work at their looms, but anyone who comes to view the cloth pretends that they can in fact see it, that it is beautiful. Once the "suit" is finished, the weavers help the Emperor put it on and he wears it for a procession through town. All the villagers admire the beautiful fabric until a child calls out that the Emperor has "nothing at all on." Others take up the cry. The Emperor was vexed, for...