Friday’s Fairy tales

Welcome to a new weekly feature on this blog: “Friday’s Fairytales”.

I’ve long been a fan of the traditional tales, having been raised on them (and then some warped ones too), and since there seems to be a rising popularity of fairytale re-tellings in fiction these days, what better time to start a feature exploring the traditional tales?

In this feature, each week, I will select a fairytale (requests welcome), to explore. In that post, I will discuss the plot of the original tale in bullet points, and then go on to briefly explore differences in various adaptions to show how the tale has been morphed over time, sometimes emitting violence, sometimes adding it, sometimes changing the tale completely!

For everyone’s reference, the link to the Aarne Thompson Scale of Folklore.

I’m quite excited for this feature, so I hope it goes down well! Below is an index of all the tales which have been discussed so far:

11/04/14- 1. The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood/La Belle au Bois Dormant (410: The Wife)

18/04/14-2. East of the Sun, West of the Moon (425A: The Search for the Lost Husband)

25/04/14-3. Rumpelstiltskin (500: Supernatural Helpers)

02/05/14-4. Beauty & The Beast/La Belle et la Bête (430: Supernatural/Enchanted Relatives> Husbands)

09/05/14-5. The Ballad of Hua Mulan (Chinese Legend)

23/05/14-6. Cinderella/ The Little Glass Slipper (510A: The Persecuted Heroine)

06/06/14-7. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (709: Snow White and Others)

13/06/14- 8. Snow White and Rose Red (426: Supernatural/Enchanted Relatives- Husbands)

04/07/14- 9. Swan Lake (300: Princess and Dragons)

25/07/14-10. The Little Mermaid

12/09/14- 11. Rapunzel (310: The Maiden in the Tower)

03/10/14- 12. Twelve Dancing Princesses (306: Supernatural Opponents)

17/10/14- 13. The Frog King (440: Supernatural/Enchanted Husbands)

28/11/14- 14. Hansel and Gretel (327: The Children with the Witch/The Small Boy defeats the Ogre)

12/12/14- 15. Feature “East of the Sun, West of the Moon” Artwork by Celine Kim