I agreed to be part of a team for a friendly trivia contest on the 14th. I'm not sure how to really prepare for a trivia contest, but I've been playing QuizUp which can't hurt. One of the categories is "Fairy Tales" and it refers to so many that I haven't read. One that is had questions about that I hadn't heard of is The Bee and the Orange Tree by Marie Catherine Baronne from The Fairy Tales of Madame D'Aulnoy, 1892. It's one of the few fairy tales where we actually get names for most of the characters.
After many childless years, a king and queen had a daughter, whom they named Aimée. Unfortunately, a ship she was on, wrecked. As fate would have it, she drifted ashore in her cradle. There, an ogre couple, Ravagio and his wife Tourmentine, found her, and the ogress resolved to raise Aimee, instead of eating her. She resolving that the infant would make a good...
Today's tale is another from The Turnip Princess and Other Newly Discovered Fairy Tales by Franz Xaver Von Schonwerth. "Learning How to Steal" is from the Tall Tales and Anecdotes section of the book. It's an odd story featuring the clever young man.
Klaus was a farmer's son, but he was lazy and didn't want to learn how to do anything. The farmer sent Klaus on the road, hoping he would at least learn how to steal. Doesn't really seem like something you should hope for your son, but there you have it. Klaus eventually returned home, but his father was still mad at him, so he decided to head back out on the road, but first he needed to have new travel papers issued. When asked by the authorities what he did for a living, he responded that he was a master thief. They all made fun of him and the judge was sure he couldn't be that great a thief.
The judge...
Today's tale is another from The Turnip Princess and Other Newly Discovered Fairy Tales by Franz Xaver Von Schonwerth. "Flour for Snow " is from the Legends section of the book. I admit that I chose it because I am tired of winter, even if we've had more just cold temperatures than actual snow. "What good was snow after all? It had not fallen in Paradise, and it was also not on Noah's ark. It could not possibly be a part of God's creation."
Once again the story features a woodcutter. He's tired of working, especially when the snow makes his job harder, and constantly complains to the Lord about his misery. One day, while he's out chopping wood, it starts to snow - again. He crawls into a hollow and just as he starts to stretch out, an angel appears. The angel ask him why he spends more time calling out to the devil than to God and he replies...
Today's tale is another from The Turnip Princess and Other Newly Discovered Fairy Tales by Franz Xaver Von Schonwerth. "The Howling of the Wind" is a sad story without a happy ending.
A woodsman had a son and when the woodsman died, the son had no job, so he, in typical fairy tale fashion he went out into the world to seek his fortune. He ended up getting lost in the woods and eating all he had, a crust of bread. He became terribly thirsty, but as luck would have it he spotted a footpath that led him to a well. At the well, a beautiful woman was drawing water. She offered him a drink which he accepted and then offered him a job working for her, which he of course accepted.
They soon fell in love and were married, but he woman had one condition. Her husband must not ask about her on Thursdays. For almost fourteen years, they lived happily together and...
I was happy to get a copy of The Turnip Princess and Other Newly Discovered Fairy Tales by Franz Xaver Von Schonwerth, edited by Erika Eichenseer, translation and commentary by Maria Tartar, for review.
From the blurb:
"Franz Xaver von Schönwerth traversed the forests, lowlands, and mountains of northern Bavaria to record fairy tales, gaining the admiration of even the Brothers Grimm. Most of Schönwerth’s work was lost—until a few years ago, when thirty boxes of manuscripts were uncovered in a German municipal archive.
Now, for the first time, Schönwerth’s lost fairy tales are available in English. Violent, dark, and full of action, and upending the relationship between damsels in distress and their dragon-slaying heroes, these more than seventy stories bring us closer than ever to the unadorned oral tradition in which fairy tales are rooted, revolutionizing our understanding of a hallowed genre."
The book will be released on the 24th, so I though I'd feature stories from the collection for my Thursday's Tales this...
"Henny Penny" is one of the variations of folktales that are cumulative tales about a chicken who believes the world is coming to an end. There is also a very relevant moral.
Henny Penny was scratching around the farmyard looking for food when something hit her on the head. She leaps to the conclusion that the sky is falling and heads off to warn the king. Along the way she meets Cocky Locky, Ducky Lucky, Goosey Loosey, and Turkey Lurkey. In turn, she tells each of them that the sky is falling and they join her on her trip to warn the king.
They run into Foxy Loxy and tell him their story. He agrees to go with them to tell the king and says he knows a short cut. He leads them into the woods (don't go into the woods!) and to a dark hole. Of course, it's the door to his house, and inside his wife and kids are waiting for dinner. One by one they follow him in and Cocky...