I always loved fairytales when I was a little kid––and no, not the silly watered-down ones. I liked the real, hardcore shit. The fairytales where everyone dies. Those are the good ones. Those Disney princess movies always bored me. (Except I loved Beauty and the Beast, because Belle isn't a dumbass and she reads a lot––like meeee!)Anyway, if I recall correctly, I had at least one of Andrew Lang's fairytale collections when I was a kid … maybe a couple of them. Then, this past month, I had an assignment for my drawing class to illustrate a story. I immediately started remembering all these crazy fairytales I had read as a kid, and started to look them up. I stumbled upon Lang's collections again, and discovered that they were available on Amazon as free ebooks! Yay! So naturally, I downloaded them all (I think there were only two that weren't free on Amazon, but those two were free on Project Gutenberg, SOOO.)(Side note: I ended up illustrating a Norwegian fairytale called "East of the Sun, West of the Moon" and you can see my illustrations here.)Anyway, I got caught up in reading these fairytales and read the whole Blue Fairy Book. There were a lot of fairytales I'd forgotten and remembered again, some I'd never heard of, and a lot that I'd heard before but which were different versions than what I was familiar with.For example … DID YOU KNOW there's a version of Sleeping Beauty in which, after they get married and all that jazz, the prince's mother is an evil ogress who tries to eat Sleeping Beauty and her children? True facts! Oh, and then she makes this giant pot of like snakes and crocodiles and shit that she's going to put Sleeping Beauty and the kids into, and then the prince walks in and he's like, "Mom, what the fuck are you doing?" and she's like "Uh … um … How do I cover this up." So she just jumps into the pot herself and gets eaten alive. Yup.Anyway, a lot of these fairytales just had total WTF moments."The first thing she did when she reached her room was to throw the cabbage out of the window. But she was very much surprised to hear an odd little voice cry out: "Oh! I am half killed!" and could no tell where it came from, because cabbages do not generally speak."… Like that.Also sometimes the old timey language could have some hilarious results."There was a miller who left no more estate to the three sons he had than his mill, his ass, and his cat.""Here, son. You get my cat. Other son, here's my mill. And third son … you just get MY ASS.""Oh, thanks Dad."HOHOHO.Also, of course, the word "gay" had a different connotation back then.- "He was young, and gay, and handsome …"- "Then he dressed himself carefully in rich brocade, with scarlet and white plumes, and threw a splendid embroidered scarf over his shoulder, and, looking as gay and as graceful as possible, he presented himself at the door of the palace …"Ha. Haha. Anyway …There are some pretty sexist moments. I guess that's to be expected because of the time period in which these stories were created. But still."She fainted away, for this is the first expedient almost all women find in such cases."And a lot of super violent things just happen out of the blue."She had picked up a knife and cut her head off in an instant."Oh yeah, also for some reason the first five chapters of Gulliver's Travels were in this book. And I'm like … uh, that's not a fairytale. So. What the hell. Also the Greek myth about Perseus was in here, except all the names were changed. So that was odd.Anyway … the point is, fairytales are crazy and weird and I love them. The end.
I'm excited to be re-reading these!I appear to have bookmarked (on my e-reader) the story of Prince Hyacinth and the Dear Little Princess, perhaps because the female Fairy has a large role. In fact, I had sort of forgotten what a significant percentage of traditional fairy tales - even western ones - have active women using agency. Hint: They're mostly not the ones that people today are aware of, because they're not the ones retold in the media.Anyway, more of my bookmarks: I really liked The Tale of a Youth Who Set Out to Learn What Fear Was, mainly because the ending is hilarious. I seem to have bookmarked a page out of Beauty and the Beast, but I'm not sure why. (I wish my Kindle would let me take notes on my bookmarks!) I bookmarked the Master-Maid, because it is all propelled by a woman, who saves the day several times. It's actually a fairly common style of story, wherein the maiden imprisoned by the bad guy takes a fancy to the hero and basically tells him how to do all the difficult tasks, or sometimes does them for him. I bookmarked Felicia and the Pot of Pinks, because it's an old favorite and also about a woman. The White Cat is another of the maiden-takes-a-fancy-to-our-hero-and-takes-care-of-all-the-difficult-tasks stories. I bookmarked a page toward the end of the Terrible Head, and I can't tell why, but the story is basically Perseus, which is interesting. I also appear to have bookmarked one of the last pages of Dick Whittington, and I'm also not sure why. I also bookmarked The Wonderful Sheep, which starts out like King Lear and then gets weirder, but I liked it, even though there's a truly horrible scene wherein Princess Miranda's monkey, dog, and servant all commit suicide on her behalf. The Forty Thieves was another good one, because it's the slave Morgiana who saves the day several times by being fifty times smarter and tougher than everyone else. I also liked Prince Achmed and the Fairy Paribanou, which also falls into that one category of fairy tale, and also has a neat twist (towards the beginning!) wherein our hero marries the awesome fairy instead of the lovely princess. And of course I've always liked The Princess On the Glass Hill, just because. And there's the bonus delight of East of the Sun West of the Moon, which has been retold several times recently in YA fantasy novels, most notably East by Edith Pattou.I'm looking forward to the rest of these :)
Do You like book The Blue Fairy Book (1965)?
This is a review of the Librivox.org edition (big thanks to all the volunteers who make it possible). It was interestting to listen to such a broad range of fairytales read by so many different people. There are a few that I was familiar with before The Blue Fairy Book; namely Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood (different ending; must have been Grimm), Sleeping Beauty (no dragons in this pre-Disney tale), The Tale of a Youth who Set Out to Learn What Fear Was (a variation of the one I know), Rumplestiltskin, Why the Sea is Salt, and a few more. Of particular interest to me were The Yellow Dwarf (excellent reader, really caught the dwarf's malicious nature in his voice) , The White Cat, Toads and Diamonds (because of that line in Neil Gaiman's poem Instructions), Trusty John, and The Black Bull of Norroway (a Scottish reader who almost sounds as if he's speaking Middle English? Yes, please). If I may borrow a phrase, it's just amazing the amount of primordial ooze for storytelling that is present here. I can highly recommend this collection to anyone who wants to write or simply just get a better grip on our history as a people who love to tell stories. I will probably pick up the next book in the series which is The Red Fairy Book (I've already peeked at it, there's a couple of Russian stories I'm excited to hear).
—Zach Sparks
I was leaning towards a four star, but couldn't make up my mind. I enjoyed the collection of fairy tales. There were many fairy tales that were introduced to me and ones I heard throughout my childhood. I understood the time that these were written, but I did find the repetitiveness of "being pretty" and "pretty princess" was tedious. I want girls with wit and character and adventure, not idly standing for their princes to come and save them. It was a great review of yesterday's fairy tales though.
—Khinna
The book " The blue fairy " is wrote for a wide spread of audience. It has many stories in it. There is no specific location of the stories. Some are in kingdoms and some are in modern times. The book begins with a story about a gardeners son who falls in love with the kings daughter and she with him. Throughout the story the boy comes to different challenges to over come to win the princesses hand in marriage. These include wining a race with the kings closest friends son, who also wishes to marry the princess. He also had to cure a old king of his old age and weakness. Toward the end the boy looses her to a dark magician. This magician tricks the princess into trading the ring to him for a couple of pretty fish. He eventual recovers his bronze ring which has a magical genie that obeys the owner of the rings every wish. With this he takes back his bride and they live happily ever after. In one of these particular stories a millers daughter has been put with the task of spinning hay into gold. She has no idea on how to do this so she sits and weeps. After a while of being locked in the room a short little man comes in and asks her what's wrong. She tells him that the king has locked her in here and she has to spin all this hay into gold before the kings comes back in the morning. The little man say I will do this for you but what will I get in return. She gives him her necklace and he sets to work. The next day the king puts her in an even bigger room t d the same. She again cries. The little man comes back and offers to do it again, but asks what he gets in return. So she gives him her hair comb. The king is thrilled and says if you spin this largest room before I come back in the morning I shall make you my wife. If not you shall die. So the little man comes back and asks what he get s in return yet again. She tells him she has nothing more to trade. The little man then say " I will do this'll, you promise me your first born is mine". So real untimely she agrees. The king and miller maid get married and years go by. She forgets about the little man and her promise. She has a beautiful little boy and one day the little man comes back. He say " I've come for the child. The queen is quickly to offer him all the wealth of the kingdom if he leave. The little man refuses. So she cries and cries. The little man feels sorry for her and offers her three days to come up with his name. The first she try's all the names she knows and fails. The second she sends a man out to find out all the names in the kingdom and right them down. The little man comes back and asks what's my name. She reads name after name and fails. The third she goes to cry by the well and she hers the little man in his little house singing on how she will never figure out his name is rumplestilskin. The little man come back and she names a few names and the asks " could it be rumplestilskin" the little man if ferrous. He stops his foot so hard it sinks Jo to his wast in the ground. He then grabs himself by the waist and rips his body in half trying to get free. The queen the king and the prince all live happily ever after. I am a fan of fantasy and mythology so I enjoyed this book. It makes great for bed time stories or just to read. I will tell people to read t if they like fantasy and mythology books.
—Blake
