"The Goat-Faced Girl" is a classic Italian fairytale, although Leah Marinsky Sharpe takes many liberties in the re-telling of it. That's not a complaint though. The Goat-Faced Girl is a delightful book, a wonderful fairy tale to share with little girls in preschool or early elementary. It's magical, but has a message, too.
A baby is abandoned in the forest. Sounds like a fairytale so far, doesn't it? "But this foundling was an infant girl who was far too young for quests, unable to understand talking animals, and even too young to interest the witch in the gingerbread house." Eventually the baby is taken home by a giant lizard, a sorceress in disguise. The lizard-lady raises the girl, Isabella, who becomes a beautiful, polite, intelligent young woman. Her only fault is that she is incredibly lazy. One day, Prince Rupert arrives at the lizrd-lady's home, where he meets Isabella and after finding out how much they have in common, both being...
We're still visiting Italy this week. "The Little Girl Sold with the Pears" is a fairy tale collected by Italo Calvino in Italian Folktales, published in 1954. You'll notice some familiar themes in the story.
A man had to pay the king four baskets of pears each year, but one year he only had 3½ baskets to send, so he put his little girl in the bottom of the fourth basket and covered her up. She is eventually discovered by the King's kitchen staff. She is given the name Perina and she goes to work in the kitchen. Of course, she's beautiful and kind and smart and the prince falls in love with her. The other maids though become jealous and tell the King that Perina has boasted that she can steal the witches' treasure, and he sends her out to do so.
Perina travels through the woods, spending the night in a pear tree. In the morning, a little old woman...
I was thinking about concentrating on Italian folktales this month, in conjunction with Venice in February. First up is "The Foolish Friend" by Giovanni Francesco Straparola from The Facetious Nights, which was originally published between 1550 and 1553. The version I read, however, is from an English translation from 1901. The Facetious Nights tells the story of a 13-night party in the island of Murano, near Venice. The revelers add to the entertainment by telling each other stories that vary from bawdy to fantastic. "The Foolish Friend" is the 4th tale on night 13.
A grocer has a servant named Fortunio. On warm afternoons, the grocer takes a nap and it's Fortunio's job to keep the flies away. One day, however, there is a particularly nasty and insistent horsefly, and Fortunio decides to kill it. He picks up a heavy bronze pestle, and, when the fly lights on the grocer's temple, he swings at the fly with all his might, of...
Folks celebrated Chinese New Year earlier this week, so I thought it would be appropriate to share the Legend of Nian.
In ancient China there lived a ferocious monster, Nian (Year), who rose out of the sea each New Year's Eve to eat livestock, crops and villagers. Accordingly, each New Year's Eve all the people would flee to the remote mountains, taking the old and the young, to avoid the monster.
One New Year's Eve day, a beggar entered the village of Peach Blossom. The villagers were too busy packing, locking doors, getting ready to head to the mountains to take any notice of the beggar. Only one older woman gave him a bite of food and warned him to leave the town. The beggar told her that if she would allow him to stay in her house for the night, he would force the monster to leave. The woman had doubts, but had no choice but to run for the mountains...
"Tamlane" is a tale of a young man and the woman who loves him, both children of earls, told by Joseph Jacobs in More English Fairy Tales, 1894. I like this one because it's the woman who has to come to the man's rescue.
Tamlane and Burd Janet grew up together and had known since they were young that they would marry, but when the time comes near, Tamlane up and disappears to no one knows where. Many days later, Burd Janet takes a walk in the Carterhaugh Wood and is picking flowers from a bush when who should appear but Tamlane. She asks where he's been, and he responds that he's been in Elfland, a knight of the Queen. He says it's a wonderful place, except he misses her and he's afraid that he is going to be the tithe the Elves pay to the Nether world every seven years.
Burd Janet asks what she can do to save him. Tamlane...
Snow White is an already an odd fairy tale. You've got a young girl doing housework for a bunch of dwarfs while an evil Queen tries to kill her. But Michael Mullin takes it one step further in 8: The Previously Untold Story of the Previously Unknown 8th Dwarf, and it's downright funny.
The stories we pass down from parent to child
Were once filled with darkness, but somehow
turned mild.
We tweak and revise, and when all else fails
We choose to omit certain crucial details.
Until they're forgotten, and nobody knows
How a story originally, truthfully goes.
Told entirely in verse, this is the story of Creepy, the eighth dwarf who was banished to the cellar. From there, he has an unusual vantage point when Snow White arrives, looking straight up her skirt. But it is only thanks to him that the rather dim-witted young woman is saved from the Queen's evil intentions.
It's a hilarious short story, but definitely aimed at adults, not children, due to...