Tell me what you really think.
Widdershins! I thought that was standard vocabulary! You obviously learned it at a much younger age than myself, but I was taught the power and magnitude of that wondrous word by a crazy, insane, totally awesome English teacher I had in sixth grade!
Unfortunately, I was never well versed in my unedited fairy tales, so I must immediately read this Burd Ellen and get to fixing that!
*Grin* I love that we agree on so much.
Finally, someone else who knows that the Little Mermaid dies in the end.
Not only did the Little Mermaid die at the end, but she also got what she really wanted, which was not the prince, but a soul; she didn't have to turn into seafoam like all the other mermaids.
I think it would have been hard for Disney to do that story, though.
While it's still available (my local bookseller can't get it anymore, try Amazon) obtain a rerelease of The Golden Book of Fairy Tales, translated by Marie Ponsot, illustrated by Adrienne Segur.
It was originally published in 1958. The illustrations are stunning (seriously, everyone is amazed who has seen them), the translations are excellent, and they keep much of the original horror of the fairy tales.
Also, Terri Windling is an author and an editor, who is also an authority on fairy tales. Any book that she has edited (she co-edits annuals of fantasy and horror, among others) has been scary, sad, horrifying, wonderful and hopeful.
Thank you.
Yes, you're brilliant. Widdershins, eh? How very AWESOME. Well! I'm off to your link. :D
what a neat-sounding word! i've never heard it before, nor of that particular fairy tale.
i had a hand-me-down set of old hardbacks and one had myths and fairy tales. my favorite was atalanta and the calydonian boar hunt/golden apples.
i have a book of grimm's fairy tales, and the cinderella is deliciously gross at the end. stepmom is still alive and doesn't get punished though, just the sisters. hm.
I loved fairy tales, too, as a child. I pity the poor children of today with their politically correct versions and mindless videos.
My favorite "real version" fairy tale is Sleeping Beauty. The story does not end with her waking up. Sleeping Beauty even wonders about the hundred years she slept off, and the story talks about her having to adapt to the new customs of the prince's time.
New issues are brought up, too, as the story goes on about her mother-in-law troubles after she marries the prince. The mother-in-law doesn't like the new wife, so she steals the grandchildren when they're born and claims the daughter-in-law is a witch who ate them or something like that. Poor sleeping beauty can't prove otherwise, so she's to be thrown into a pit described in disgusting detail as full of all sorts of creepy crawlies and horrible creatures as punishment. The day is saved, however, and the prince throws his mother in the pit instead.
I love that story.
When I went to New Zealand back in 2003, I kept trying to remember to watch the water drain widdershins out of the motel sink. Alas, something else always grabbed my attention--you know, like the blood trickling down my cheek where I nicked myself with a razor. I never was one to watch water swirl--either clock-wise or counter-clockwise--down the drain. Some people ARE easily amused, but I'm not one of them (most of the time).
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