#readfairytales

[fairytalesandfolklore-blog1]

The Will-o’-the-Wisps Are in Town

“The Will-o’-the-Wisps Are in Town,” by Hans Christian Andersen, from Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen, translated by Marte Hvam Hult. Read online.

This  appears to be a story about a writer who has lost his inspiration. The  man says the fairy tales have not been to visit him in some time, so he  goes out looking for them. He eventually encounters a bog witch who has a  large supply of bottled poetry (including fairy tales), and who tells  him a story about how some will-o’-the-wisps are in town looking for  ways to cause havoc.

There’s this odd little passage about fairy tales and poetry.

Fairy  tales and poetry--well, they’re two of a kind. They can go lie down   wherever they want. All their work and talk can be brewed both better   and cheaper than they do it. (34)

In other words,  they are both imaginative works that take their time weaving in flights  of fancy rather than just telling a thing outright. They aren’t all  that practical.

They are necessary, though. Our protagonist  has been through a dark time. There had been a war with much  devastation. The war was over, and it was time to begin the recovery  process, but somehow the stories, the flights of fancy, the poetry were  all necessary for the process to fully succeed.

[kerstiewalthall]

Reading Cornish Tales 🌊👻💀 #cornishtales #fairytales #giants #mermaidofzennor #pixies #witchcraft #readfairytales

[giftideasfromaycaramba]

Albert Einstein

If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”

~Albert Einstein

W. Heath Robinson - The Moon’s First Voyage, 1916

[fairytalesandfolklore-blog1]

The Master Thief

“The Master Thief” by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, from The Great Fairy Tale Tradition (Norton Critical Edition), translated by Jack Zipes. Read online. 

This tale is a variation on “Cassandrino the Thief.” This time the thief is the son of a peasant couple who has returned to visit his parents after a long absence. He is dressed like a nobleman, and he admits that he has become a master thief. He reassures his parents that he is not a bad person by claiming to only steal from the rich. He’s a bit of a Robin Hood in that he says he gives to the poor, but I don’t think we could say his motives are altruistic. He obviously keeps most of the spoils of his trade for himself.

The thief pays his obligatory visit to the local count, presumably his parents are tenant farmers on the count’s land. The count gives him a series of tests of his skills that are almost identical to those in “Cassandrino the Thief.” He passes the tests against impossible odds and therefore wins the right to keep living. The count lets him go with orders never to return.

He won’t see his parents again, and he won’t be of any help to them in their poverty or their old age, but at least they will know that their rascal of a son is doing okay for himself somewhere out there in the world.

I feel for these parents. This is one tale I’d like to add an epilogue to in which the parents are take away to a place where they can live a better life. Or perhaps they receive mysterious gift baskets from time to time, and strangers pass through town with money for the old people to use to hire some help. My version isn’t realistic even for a fairy tale, though. We all know that no matter how charming this thief is, he isn’t considerate enough of others to think of helping his parents from afar.

[fairytalesandfolklore-blog1]

Cassandrino the Thief

“Cassandrino the Thief” by Giovan Francesco Straparola, from The Great Fairy Tale Tradition (Norton Critical Edition), translated by Jack Zipes.

From The Facetious Nights of Straparola, this tale is about a thief who is so clever and charming that he gets away with everything. Everyone knows he is a thief, but the magistrate likes him and wants to help him. The magistrate gives Cassandrino a series of tests to find out just how talented he is as a thief. If he fails, he will pay for his crimes. If he passes all three tests, he will be given a cash reward. The tests seem impossible, but Cassandrino is indeed clever, and he manages to pull off every one of them. He is given gold, escorted out of the city, and told to never return.

This is a sort of lovable rascal character. He’s not good, but he’s not evil either, and we want him to be successful even if he is operating on the shady side of the law.

I suppose this is why we love pirates. We don’t want to be fleeced by a pirate, but we sure do admire their style.

[fairytalesandfolklore-blog1]

The Waiting Maid’s Parrot

“The Waiting Maid’s Parrot” by Hao Ko Tzu, from Chinese Fairy Tales and Fantasies (Pantheon Folklore Series), translated by Moss Roberts.

A young girl is serving as a maid in a great household, and the master favors her, which is bad news for her because it means that he plans to make her his concubine. She feels shame over this but has no power to escape the fate.

She’s given the job of caring for a prize parrot, though, and it turns out this parrot is no ordinary parrot. It makes promises, and it promises this young maid a proper husband.

The bird escapes and goes out searching the countryside for a husband. She finds just the right guy and starts passing messages back and forth between him and the young maid. Meanwhile, there’s much jealousy on the part of the other maids, and they start to spread petty gossip about her being involved with a man.

The master beats the girl nearly to death and buries her still alive. The bird gets killed trying to deliver messages. The lover sees a vision in his dream and finds out that the bird is the sister of the young maid from a former lifetime. He also finds out that his love is still alive, and he goes to rescue her and somehow he manages to both marry her and keep her hidden from her former master with murderous intentions.

It’s a Chinese version of a princess story with past lives and visionary dreams and animal communion and all sorts of wonders.

[fairytalesandfolklore-blog1]

The Cricket

“The Cricket” by P’u Sung Ling, from Chinese Fairy Tales and Fantasies (Pantheon Folklore Series), translated by Moss Roberts. 

In this story, cricket fighting is popular in the court, and the people have to provide the crickets. The story itself is a fantasy, but cricket fighting is real. The system of oppression of the people depicted here is also real.

The story is about a local official named Make-good who was unable to meet his cricket quota. He was unwilling to use the same brutal tactics that other officials used of raiding people’s homes and forcing others to hunt crickets for him. He tried to do his own cricket hunting, but he wasn’t very successful.

From there we enter the realm of fantasy when Make-good’s wife consults a fortune teller. Make-good finds a prime fighting cricket, loses the cricket, almost loses his son who falls into a coma for a long time, finds another cricket, enters that cricket into fights that lead all the way to the palace and to prosperity for the family, and finally ends with the son waking up to tell about his dreams of being the champion cricket while he was in the coma.

This is such a beautiful tale. There’s a lot of reality in it. We get a pretty good glimpse of what life is like for the common people who are oppressed for the sake of the entertainment of the wealthy. But then we are also shown the fantasy in which the humble are rewarded.

By society’s standards Make-good is not making good. He is not tough enough, ambitious enough, or assertive enough to make good. Yet in the fantasy he is rewarded for his lack of cruelty and his persistence and faith.

It’s pretty to believe that the meek shall inherit the earth.

[fairytalesandfolklore-blog1]

What One Can Think Up

“What One Can Think Up” by Hans Christian Andersen, from Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen, translated by Marte Hvam Hult. Read online.

Another HCC story throwing shade at critics in which a young man wants to be a writer but laments the fact that all of the good stories had already been told. He goes to see a wise woman. She shows him that there are still plenty of stories in the world, but she also says that she can’t help him to become a writer because imagination can’t be taught. She suggests he become a critic instead since critics don’t require an imagination.