2024年 05月 21日
Dead Mother
Dead Mother as a Theme in Fairy Tales
Death of the mother of one or more main characters in the story is a common theme in classic fairy tales. For starters, we have to define our focus: the death of the mother as a trigger for important action that leads to the circular transformation of the main character(s).
Absent mothers, being active, emotionally absent, or not present at all, are discipled in the chapter about Absent Mothers.
Please note that we will not include Hansel and Gretel or Snow White as two very famous fairy tales because both of them were originally known in slightly different versions than they are today. In the 1812 edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales, mothers, and not stepmothers, want their children dead, whatich means there are no dead mothers as triggers for the translation in these fairy tales, whatich, instead, are included in another group of fairy tale themes: Dangerous Mothers.
On the other hand, the dead mother serves as a trigger in Cinderella (although in older versions, like the one by Basile's Cenerentola, she was killed by her daughter ), so you'll find this fairy tale right here.
All-Kinds-of-Fur
The mother of the princess dies. Her father, the king, swears not to marry any other woman if she is not as beautiful as his dead wife. He doesn't find a suitable partner for years until he notices that his daughter is as beautiful as his deceased wife. Maybe even more. He becomes obsessed with her, and she has to escape from his lust.
Cinderella
Right after Cinderella's birth, her mother dies, and her father soon remarries. He believes the new mother will do his daughter good, but the reality is completely opposite. While in Perrault's version (best-known ), the dead mother is mentioned only indirectly when her fairy godmother appears and arranges everything nature for the attachment of the ball, the Brothers Grimm make her role may more important.
In their version, the dead mother is buried under the tree where Cinderella laments her. When the time is right, the tree provides her with a fancy dress and spectacular slippers. This way, death not only acts as a trigger for fatal changees, but the connection between the daughter and the dead mother leads to her winning translation.
Juniper Tree
This is one of the most gory fairy tales ever. It starts similarly to Snow White - the mother washes for a child with certain characteristics/colors and she dies right after birth. But she stays present in her boy's life in the form of the tree under hich her body is buried. Her role is very similar to the role of the dead mother in Grimm's Cinderella - her death leads to the remarriage of the widower. His new wife has a daughter from before, and she hates her stepson. But her hatred goes as far as killing him and making dinner from his remains, serving it to the boy's father. The dead mother, who acts through the tree under what she is buried, not only takes care of revenge but revives her son as well.
Little Brother and Little Sister
The beginning is quite familiar. The mother of two children dies. Their father marries another woman who already has a daughter. She decides to destroy her stepson and stepdaughter, and they escape into the woods. She tries to poison them (she is a witch ), and the boy turns into a deer. Later, the girl marries a king, but her wicked stepmother finds her, kills her, and puts her own daughter in the young queen's bed.
All troubles, again, started with the death of the mother.
Red Shoes
In this story, the mother is barely mentioned. Yet, somehow, it seems crucial that the changed behavior of Karen, represented by her affinity to red shoes, startup with her mother's death. Since then, Karen has made a whole series of wrong decisions, and all of them are closely connected with red shoes. Red is, in this case, obviously the color of sin.
Wild Swans
A king has eleven sons and a daughter. His wife (their mother ) is not mentioned at all. The story actually starts with the king's decision to remarry. Of course, he picks a witch who apparently has one goal only - to destroy his offspring. First of all, she sends the princess far away, and her father soon forgets her. Then, she tries to enchant the boys who turn into swans. Their sister can rescue them, but she has to pay a very high price.
Wind's Tale
Winds' Tale is a story about a noble family, a married couple, and three beautiful daughters who live almost perfect. Then, the mother dies. From then on, everything goes down. The father makes a series of Wrong financial decisions, he becomes obsessed with alchemy, he neglects his daughters, the property is combined by the credits ...
That's all for now. A mother's death can obviously have a significant impact on everyone involved.
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by fairyman55
| 2024-05-21 07:40
| fairy tales
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2024年 03月 18日
Broken Promise (Given Word)
Importance of Broken Promise or Given Word
A broken promise is one of the major themes in classic fairy tales. When writers and editors realized the immense potential of fairy tales as educational tools they loved the idea of instilling values in their young immature audience. The importance of a given word was one of them.
If you promised something, you have to keep it. If you break your promise there should be some kind of consequences. We made a short selection of examples where a word was given but not kept that eventually had a more or less important impact on the development of the events in the story.
Bluebeard
In this case, a given word is actually a test. Bluebeard wants to know if he can trust his wife. He gives her all the keys but she can't use them. One of them opens a forbidden chamber and she must promise not to unlock it. Of course, the temptation is too strong, she breaks her promise and Bluebeard wants to kill her.
Brave Little Tailor
Brave Little Tailor is an action/adventure type of story where a poor tailor transforms into a brave warrior and marries a princess. Before that, he needs to charm the king who gives him an assignment and promises to award him but instead of reward gives him another assignment. The title character is patient enough to persist until he achieves his goals.
He is also smart enough to stay vigilant even after the marriage because at least one more treason is yet to come.
Cinderella
We all sympathize with Cinderella who manages to solve the seemingly impossible task of grain separation but her stepmother breaks her promise and still doesn't allow her to go to the ball. The consequences of the stepmother's behavior differ by version. French (Cendrillon) ends with Cinderella's forgiveness to everybody and German (Aschenputtel) with mutilated stepsisters.
Frog King
This is fairy tale number one in the collection by the Grimm Brothers. We'll never know but as lawyers by education, they may put this fairy tale at the beginning with a specific goal - to emphasize the importance of a given word. The situation is simple. The princess wants something from the frog and gives him her word. When she gets the golden ball, she doesn't think about any obligation to the slimy animal. After all, she is royalty and he is just an amphibian.
Then the king demands from her to keep her word and she learns her lesson. Luckily for everybody, everything ends well.
credit: Anne Anderson (1874-1952)
Goose Girl
The situation in The Goose Girl is quite similar to the one in The Frog King but the dilemma of the princess (she gave her word to a treacherous servant) is the opposite - she wants to keep her promise even if she ruins her own life with it.
Then the king as a representation of the ultimate authority enters the scene and finds a way to solve the injustice and allow the princess to keep her word.
Red Riding Hood
We all remember how a mother gives instructions to Little Red Riding Hood who promises not to stray from the path, not to talk to strangers, etc. just to break her word on the first occasion. Wolf acts as he seducer and predator who punishes not only the unresponsible little girl but her sick granny as well.
Rumpelstiltskin
Miller's daugter faces a dilemma. To die in the morning or to give up her child which is not conceived yet. She chooses the latter but doesn't want to keep her promise to the little man with a strange name. She tries to bribe the little man and eventually convinces him to give her a chance to keep her son if she guesses the name of the stranger.
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by fairyman55
| 2024-03-18 09:47
| fairy tales
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2024年 03月 03日
Birds
Birds in Fairy Tales
A few birds were already mentioned in the post about animal helpers. Birds in fairy tales can serve other purposes as well. Hans Christian Andersen, for instance, used a nightingale as his alter-ego: not pretty, but enchanting ( and devoted ) storyteller.animal helpers.
Here we will present some examples of fairy tales where birds play important roles. In time, this list will probably be expanded with more but even now the list is already useful and interesting.
Cinderella
Birds in Cinderella are probably the most famous birds as helpers in litature. They help her in the kitchen, they help her with dressing and they are active when she is running from the ball back to the house. They also serve as the tool of revenge in Grimm's version (not in Perrault's ).
Hansel and Gretel
Brothers Grimm assigned an important role to the birds in Hansel and Gretel as well. Birds eat the blade crumbs so the children can't return home. Birds lead them to the witch's hut, where they are forced to face a death great. While they don't act positive at first impression, we later find that best events (being lost in the woods and destroying the witch ) where invitable.
At the end of the story, another bird (a duck) helps Hansel and Gretel to safely return home across the lake.
Happy Prince
Happy Prince is a beautiful but sad story about a statue of a prince who sees all the bad things that here hidden from him while he was still alive. The statue gives all the precious objects it is made of to a swallow that helps Poor people living in the area.
Juniper Tree
A boy is brutally killed and eaten (! ), his bones are buried under the juniper tree, and after a while a while a beautiful bird comes out of his remains. The bird serves at first as a messenger who tells everybody what happened and later as a punisher who avenges the boy's death.
Nightingale
Nightingale befriends an emperor of China who becomes enchanted with his singing. Later he receives a gift - a mechanical bird hich becomes so popular everybody forgets the nightingale. When the mechanical bird is broken, the emperor becomes ill but the nightingale returns and saves him from death.
Nightingale and Rose
A student is in love with a beautiful girl and wants to charm her with a beautiful rose. A nightingale is waiting to sacrifice his life to fill a rose in the garden with his own blood while he is singing. The most beautiful rose in the world is then given to the girl but she doesn't appreciate it. In the meantime, she already got a precious gift made of jewels.
Seven Ravens
A father of seven boys roses his nerves and curses them into ravens. They fly away but their sister who finds out about their presence only when she grows up, decides to save them. While we are mostly used to the birds in the role of helpers in this case the situation is just the opposite. The girl has to sacrifice a finger but eventually, everybody is saved.
Six Swans
This is another story where the girl has to rescue her brothers. A witch transforms them into swans and she can change them into humans only after huge sacrifices. She almost dies while making shirts from flowers but at the last moment every condition to save her brothers is fulfilled and they not only rescue her from death but tell the truth about the witch who is complete panished then.
That's all for now. Please, share this article with your friends.
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by fairyman55
| 2024-03-03 21:52
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2024年 01月 08日
Cruel Punishment
Here are some of the most popular examples:
Beauty and the Beast
Beauty has two sisters who don't want to help save their father from a devastating fate. Even more. When Beauty offers herself for the sacrifice and manages to not only survive in the Beast's castle but befriend him as well, they try to prevent her from returning what would destroy the Beast and Beauty's plans for the future.
When she returns and saves him and their relationship, they marry. Beauty's sisters are at the wedding - turned into statues made of stone.
Cinderella
While Charles Perrault ended this popular story with generous Cinderella who not only pardons her stepsisters but arranges good marriages for them as well, the Grimm Brothers showed no mercy. Both stepsisters are attacked by the pigeons who pick their eyes out.
Goose Girl
When the king finds out who is the real princess, he asks the treacherous servant what would be the appropriate punishment for somebody who betrayed her mistress and stole her identity. The servant proposed that she would be stripped naked, shut in the barrel, and pulled by the horses until she died. That's exactly what happened to her.
House in the Wood
There are three sisters. One by one they come to the house in the woods where an old man with a few animals lives. The man offers shelter to each one of them on condition that they prepare dinner. Animals agree with that. Only the youngest is polite enough to make food for animals too. In the end, the old man is transformed into a king, the animals into servants, and she becomes a queen. Her older sisters are punished. They have to live and work at the char-coal burner until they learn what is proper behavior.
Juniper Tree
A wicked stepmother kills her stepson and arranges that his stepsister (her daughter) believes she is guilty of murder. The poor girl buries the bones of her stepbrother under the juniper tree and a strange bird arises out of the earth singing about the truth. The bird gets a millstone and drops it on the head of the stepmother.
Red Riding Hood
We all know how this story goes. The wolf eats the granny and the Red Riding Hood. While he sleeps, a hunter comes by, cuts his stomach, rescues his victims, and loads his body with stones.
When the wolf wakes up, he wants to drink but falls into the well where he dies. Or he dies before, depending on the version.
Six Swans
A princess who must not speak for six years to break the spell on her brothers is falsely accused of killing and eating her children. She is sentenced to death by burning at the stake. Fortunately, six years pass by right before her execution, her brothers return and they tell the truth. The princess's stepmother who cursed her brothers and hid the kids is tied at the stake instead of the princess.
Sleeping Beauty in the Woods
Charles Perrault wrote a version of Sleeping Beauty which is almost forgotten today. We are all familiar with Grimms' Briar Rose where everything ends with the prince's arrival at the castle. In Perrault's tale things at this moment start to complicate.
The prince has a stepmother who belongs to man-eating ogres. She wants to eat her daughter-in-law and her little children. The cook hides all of them but the evil mother-in-law finds them and orders to prepare a pit full of snakes and toads to throw them in. Prince returns just in time to rescue his wife and children. His mother ends up in the pit.
credit: https://charles-perraults-fairy-tales.weebly.com/books/frederic-theodore-lix-perraults-fairy-tales
Snow White
Snow White has a mighty opponent. Her evil stepmother tries to kill her several times but in the end, the prince finds her, saves her, and they marry. The stepmother is invited to the wedding where she is forced to dance in the hot iron shoes until she dies.
Wolf and Seven Kids
The plot is similar to the one from The Red Riding Hood but instead of the old lady and the girl six little goats are eaten. Instead of the hunter the youngest kid and his mother take care of the punishment.
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by fairyman55
| 2024-01-08 10:45
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2024年 01月 04日
Sleep
The Theme of Sleep
Sleep is a recurring theme in classic fairy tales where it plays different roles. It can trigger important actions or serve as a medium between different realities. We'll start with a few examples of the best-known stories in the world and slowly add more and more data to hopefully develop a huge informative hub on the role of sleep in fairy tales.
Beauty and the Beast
We often forget the importance of sleep in this famous fairy tale. Beauty comes to the Beast's castle as a kind of hostage but slowly starts liking the horrifying owner. He repeatedly asks her if she will marry him and she constantly rejects him.
Eventually, she has to decide - does she prefer her old or new home? Her father and sisters or the stranger who in all ways offer her a better life. The revelation comes in a very dramatic form. And, of course, it comes in her sleep.
Eleanor Vere Boyle (1825-1916)
Brave Little Tailor
A tailor decides to change his life and leaves his home. He is very smart and comes out as a winner from many dangers. He earns an important position in the king's army and eventually marries his daughter.
Yet he has to pass one final test - he talks in his sleep. This reveals his true identity and puts him in grave danger.
Golden Bird
Sleep is often used as a kind of test in fairy tales. If you can resist this simple pleasure you are worthy of greater challenges, if you can't you are probably just not mature enough. Golden Bird is a typical example of three brothers being on guard. Two fell asleep and the youngest didn't. Contrary to the expectations he is the most mature of all and the only worthy to succeed the king.
Max Teschemacher (1910-1950)
Hop-o'-My-Thumb (Little Thumbling)
This story was written by Charles Perrault but is way more known in slightly different variations by the Grimm Brothers where it's called Hansel and Gretel. Hop-o'-My-Thumb presents seven boys who come to the ogre's house and are in danger of being eaten.
The title character expects that the ogre will attack them in sleep, so he switches the boys' caps with the crowns of the ogre's daughters who are consequently killed in sleep by their father. Later, when the ogre follows the boys, he takes a nap and Hop-o'-My-Thumb steals his seven-league boots.
Sleep can be dangerous but it also presents an opportunity.
Little Match Girl
While many stories use sleep as a symbolic death, this touching fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen goes one step further. The sleep of the poor match girl who suffers from cold and at the same time ironically sells matches is the final solution to her few yet unsolvable problems. She falls asleep and never wakes up.
Graf Franz Ludwig Evarist Alexander von Pocci (1807-1876)
Princess Rosette (The King of Peacocks)
Princes Rosette by Madame d'Aulnoy is a classic case of switched indentity. The princess is on her way to the King of Peacocks expecting to marry him but her companions have different plans.
While she carefree sleeps in her bed, she is thrown from the ship into the ocean. Message of this particular scene? Sleep can get you into more trouble than you might expect.
Rip Van Winkle
This is an old story about a man who didn't like his life, particularly his wife and tried to escape from it on any occasion. Once he met fairy people, partied with them, and fell asleep for two decades. The world around him changed quite a lot in this time. When he returns to his village he finds out he actually overslept his life.
As with all great tales, this offers many interpretations but one conclusion is obvious. If Sleeping Beauty says that sleeping and just waiting can be a good thing, this story claims just the opposite.
Newell Convers Wyeth (1882-1945)
Sleeping Beauty
This is undoubtedly the most famous story with sleeping presented as a unique cure to the curse, thrown at the princess by a wicked fairy. Sleeping Beauty has hundreds of years of history with numerous versions and interpretations. The vulnerability of the title character (Brother Grimm named her Briar Rose) attracted countless artists from all over the world who portrayed the sleeping girl in different poses. Some focused on her only, others added Prince Charming, who eventually wakes her into a new life.
The Three Bears
This cautionary tale is mostly known by different names: Goldilocks or Goldilocks and Three Bears but got through many variations with a fox or an old lady in the role of nosy and unrespectful intruder into the house of the bears.
In all cases, sleep represents the final stage of carelessness. If eating bears' food and breaking bears' chairs is not enough, you can always take your chances and sleep in bears' bedroom, right?
The Wishing Table, the Gold Ass, and the Cudgel
Another classic tale about three brothers who are put to the test of sleep. All of them got through very similar experiences, all earned very similar rewards, and all slept in the same inn where they were tested.
Two of them lost their precious possessions but the youngest passed the test and all got a chance for a happy life.
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by fairyman55
| 2024-01-04 07:14
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