I used to read this book when I was a kid, then forgot it, then thought I'd dreamed it, then found it last night. "The King O' The Cats" pretty well sums up my whole deal, but I recommend the Hobyahs too if you want to crawl inside my past.
There was once a man who had fine houses, both in town and country, a deal of silver and gold plate, embroidered furniture, and coaches gilded all over with gold. But this man was so unlucky as to have a blue beard, which made him so frightfully ugly that all the women and girls ran away from him.
ONCE upon a time there was a prince who wanted to marry a princess; but she would have to be a real princess. He travelled all over the world to find one, but nowhere could he get what he wanted. There were princesses enough, but it was difficult to find out whether they were real ones. There was always something about them that was not as it should be. They seemed capable of absorbing criticism…
The original text here. Once there was a little girl who tried very hard not to be born. Her father the king and her mother the king’s wife had six children already – all sons. Together they were happy. As the boys grew and took their first steps from the school-room to the field, the king realized that they would someday turn into men. Six sons were one thing. Six men were quite another.
Previously in this series: "Snow White the False" Good morning class! Over the course of this semester, we have had the opportunity to examine, and sometimes reappraise, how different monarchical institutions have adapted to crises. These monarchies are, by their nature, conservative and generally do not change course in the absence of fairly drastic events, usually driven by external forces. A single person – even if that person wears the Crown – rarely has the…
Previous Femslash Friday posts can be found here. This Femslash Friday is brought to you by Hans Christian Andersen. Yes, that’s right, Hans Christian Andersen, of such straight friendzone classics as “The Little Mermaid” and ladies-be-frail stories like “The Princess and the Pea.” Allow me to bring your attention to his work “The Snow Queen: A Tale in Seven Stories” -- or, as I like to think of it, “A Tale in Six Stories…
Previously in this series: The Little Red Hen. Original texts by the Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault. There once was a king who had a beautiful wife, and many other beautiful things besides. He was gentle in peace and terrible in war. Every country he found, he conquered, and every country he conquered he plundered, because he was a man who knew the value of things. And he brought gifts on the…
Previously in this series: The little mermaid. Original text by the Brothers Grimm here. In an old time in an old country there lived a king whose daughters were all beautiful and all unlucky. To be beautiful in this country was to be noticed by men; for this reason the girls were unlucky. It is lucky for a woman not to be noticed. In this country, women prayed to secret gods to let…
Hunger is the beginning of every story. It might not be the most literal sort of hunger, but there is always something wanted, what the folklorist Vladimir Propp summed up as “lack.” There is something missing--to get the shivers, to find a lost brother, to make a solemn princess laugh, to have a child-- and by the end of the story, that absence is satisfied-- the lack is “liquidated.”
THERE was once upon a time a widow who had two daughters. The eldest was so much like her in the face and humor that whoever looked upon the daughter saw the mother whether they wanted to or not. They were both so disagreeable and so proud that there was no living with them, but of course neither of them had much of a choice in the matter. The youngest, who was the very picture…
See also: The AP History of "The Mermaid's War" Good morning all. Given the state of my inbox, I understand that a number of you have issues with the marks you received on your term papers. I would ask that you book time to speak with me during office hours – I am, myself, in the process of completing a monograph on the catastrophic inflation and economic disruption that occurred in the Middle Eastern…
Cut off their hair and sell it to a wizard or something Designate a single door in your house Forbidden. If they open it, lock them in the attic for seven years. Turn some, but not all, of your children into swans. Build them a tree house, only instead of a tree it's a hundred-foot high nest of thorns, and also they have to live in there, and also they're never allowed out and no…
Fairy tales are women's tales. This has been said before, in words cleverer and more articulate than my own, but still, it bears repeating: fairy tales are women's tales. They're bent-backed crones' tales, sly gossips' tales, work-worn mothers' tales and old wives' tales. They're stories shared, repeated and elaborated on over mindless women's work like spinning or mending or shucking corn. These stories are the voices of those who were, within a social and cultural…
