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(Every now and then we'll get a Sunday edition of The Erie Times-News. In the back of their comics section, is a retelling of folktales. I thought I'd share last week's story.)

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THERE was once a rich and powerful King, who had a daughter remarkable for her beauty. When this princess arrived at an age to be married, he caused a proclamation to be made by sound of a trumpet, and by placards on all the walls of his kingdom, to the effect that all those who had any pretension to her hand were to assemble in a widespread meadow.

Her would-be suitors being in this way gathered together, the Princess would throw into the air a golden apple, and whoever succeeded in catching it would then have to resolve three problems, after doing which he might marry the Princess, and, the King having no son, inherit the kingdom.

On the day appointed the meeting took place. The Princess threw the golden apple into the air, but not one of the first three who caught it was able to complete the easiest task set him, and neither of them attempted those which were to follow.

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Up in the northern city of Sendai, whence come the best of Japanese soldiers, there lived a samurai named Hasunuma.

Hasunuma was rich and hospitable, and consequently much thought of and well liked. Some thirty-five years ago his wife presented him with a beautiful daughter, their first child, whom they called 'Ko,' which means 'Small' when applied to a child, much as we say 'Little Mary or Little Jane.' Her full name was really 'Hasu-ko,' which means 'Little Lily'; but here we will call her 'Ko' for short.

Exactly on the same date, 'Saito,' one of Hasunuma's friends and also a samurai, had the good fortune to have a son. The fathers decided that, being such old friends, they would wed their children to each other when old enough to marry; they were very happy over the idea, and so were their wives. To make the engagement of the babies more binding, Saito handed to Hasunuma a golden hairpin which had long been in his family, and said:

'Here, my old friend, take this pin. It shall be a token of betrothal from my son, whose name shall be Kōnojō, to your little daughter Ko, both of whom are now aged two weeks only. May they live long and happy lives together.'

Hasunuma took the pin, and handed it to his wife to keep; then they drank saké to the health of each other, and to the bride and bridegroom of some twenty years thence.

A few months after this Saito, in some way, caused displeasure to his feudal lord, and, being dismissed from service, left Sendai with his family--whither no one knew.

Seventeen years later O Ko San was, with one exception, the most beautiful girl in all Sendai; the exception was her sister, O Kei, just a year younger, and as beautiful as herself.

Many were the suitors for O Ko's hand; but she would have none of them, being faithful to the engagement made for her by her father when she was a baby. True, she had never seen her betrothed, and (which seemed more curious) neither she nor her family had ever once heard of the Saito family since they had left Sendai, over sixteen years before; but that was no reason why she, a Japanese girl, should break the word of her father, and therefore O Ko San remained faithful to her unknown lover, though she sorrowed greatly at his non-appearance; in fact, she secretly suffered so much thereby that she sickened, and three months later died, to the grief of all who knew her and to her family's serious distress.

On the day of O Ko San's funeral her mother was seeing to the last attentions paid to corpses, and smoothing her hair with the golden pin given to Ko San or O Ko by Saito in behalf of his son Kōnojō. When the body had been placed in its coffin, the mother thrust the pin into the girl's hair, saying:

'Dearest daughter, this is the pin given as a memento to you by your betrothed, Kōnojō. Let it be a pledge to bind your spirits in death, as it would have been in life; and may you enjoy endless happiness, I pray.'

In thus praying, no doubt, O Ko's mother thought that Kōnojō also must be dead, and that their spirits would meet; but it was not so, for two months after these events Kōnojō himself, now eighteen years of age, turned up at Sendai, calling first on his father's old friend Hasunuma.

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Taken from Sacred Texts: Ancient Tales and Folk-lore of Japan

A long time ago, there lived two woodcutters, Minokichi and Mosaku. Minokichi was young and Mosaku was very old.

One winter day, they could not come back home because of a snowstorm. They found a hut in the mountain and decided to sleep there. On this particular evening, Minokichi woke up and found a beautiful lady with white clothes. She breathed on old Mosaku and he was frozen to death.

She then approached Minokichi in order to breathe on him, but then stared at him for a while, and said: "I thought I was going to kill you, the same as that old man, but I will not, because you are young and beautiful. You must not tell anyone about this incident. If you tell anyone about me, I will kill you."

Several years later, Minokichi met a beautiful young lady, named Oyuki (yuki = "snow") and married her. She was a good wife. Minokichi and Oyuki had several children and lived many years happily. Mysteriously, she did not age at all.

One night, after the children were asleep, Minokichi said to Oyuki: "Whenever I see you, I am reminded of a mysterious incident that happened to me. When I was young, I met a beautiful young lady like you. I do not know whether it was dream or she was a Yuki-onna..."

After finishing his story, Oyuki suddenly stood up, and said "That woman you met was me! I told you that I would kill you if you ever told anyone about that incident. However, I can't kill you because of our children. Take care of our children... " Then she melted and disappeared.

After that, no one saw her.



Taken from Wikipedia.

The Golden Key

Origin: Germany
On-line source: http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm200.html

Once in the wintertime when the snow was very deep, a poor boy had to go out and fetch wood on a sled. After he had gathered it together and loaded it, he did not want to go straight home, because he was so frozen, but instead to make a fire and warm himself a little first. So he scraped the snow away, and while he was thus clearing the ground he found a small golden key. Now he believed that where there was a key, there must also be a lock, so he dug in the ground and found a little iron chest. "If only the key fits!" he thought. "Certainly there are valuable things in the chest." He looked, but there was no keyhole. Finally he found one, but so small that it could scarcely be seen. He tried the key, and fortunately it fitted. Then he turned it once, and now we must wait until he has finished unlocking it and has opened the lid. Then we shall find out what kind of wonderful things there were in the little chest.

END

What do you all think of this little tale? Interpretations?

The Sealskin

Origin: Iceland
On-line source: http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type4080.html#sealskin
(For those interested in other tales of the "Mermaid wife" type, you should check out that site.)

Early one morning before people had gotten up, a man from Myrdal in the east was walking past some cliffs when he came to the entrance to a cave. He could hear that there was merrymaking and dancing going on inside the hill, and outside he saw a large number of sealskins. He picked up one of them, took it home, and locked it in his trunk. Some time later, in the course of the day, he went back to the cave's entrance. A beautiful young girl was sitting there. She was entirely naked and crying bitterly. She was the seal to whom the skin belonged that the man had taken. The man gave the girl some clothing, comforted her, and took her home with him.

Later she came to accept him, but never got along very well with other people. She would often just sit there and look out to sea. After some time the man took her as his wife. They lived well together and had many children.

The peasant hid the skin, locking it securely in his trunk, and he carried the key with him everywhere he went.

Many years later he rowed out fishing and forgot the key at home under his pillow. However, others say that the peasant went to a Christmas service with his people, but that his wife had been sick and was unable to go with them. They say that he forgot to take the key out of the pocket of his everyday clothes when he changed. When he arrived home that evening the trunk was open, and his wife had disappeared with the skin. She had found the key, out of curiosity looked through the trunk, and found the skin.

She could not resist the temptation. She said farewell to her children, put on the skin, and threw herself into the sea.

Before the woman jumped into the sea, it is reported that she said:

This I want, and yet I want it not, --
Seven children have I at the bottom of the sea,
Seven children have I as well here above.

It is said that this touched the peasant's heart. After this, when he rowed out fishing, a seal often swam around his boat, and it seemed that tears were running from its eyes. From this time on he was always successful catching fish, and luck often came to his beach.

People frequently saw this couple's children walking on the beach while a seal swam along out in the sea accompanying them. It would throw colorful fish and pretty shells to them.

But the mother never again returned to land.

I first read an iteration of this story in a collection of Tibetan folktales edited by Sandra Benson. The title of the collection is Tales from the Golden Corpse. One of the things that most interests me about this version of the folktale is how it differs from the one I've read before. However, since I don't have the book with me and so can't reliably tell you of the differences, I'll simply post this version and then write of it again later:

The White Rooster
Folktale Origin: Tibet
On-line source: http://www.crosby-lundin.com/tibet/culture/folktales/rooster.html

In the shade of a mountain, by the side of a calm lake, surrounded by all the beauty and lovliness of nature, stood a small house. It was like a tiny jewel set between mountain and lake, nestling in the subtle green and brown shades of the grass and trees. This spot was one of the prizes of nature, showing in its character all the temperment of the seasons: the calm laziness of summer, reflecting hazy shadows in the mirror-like lake; the mellow thoughtfulness of Autumn, when the trees come to rest, dropping their leaves and yawning in anticipation of winter's sleep; the cruel beating of winter as it wages war with weapons of snow, ice, and wind, finally resting to view the conquered land, lying silently beneath a gentle cover of snow; and beneath this the earth nurtures the fresh youth of spring, waiting to stretch its arms and meet the new dawn of life. The little house saw the passing of the seasons, spring following winter, autumn following summer; the lake gazed at the mountain; and the mountain, in all its magnificent glory, looked protectively down onto the little house and the lake as a father regards his children, offering shelter and comfort.

The people who lived in the house also reflected the seasons. The mother, widowed, in the winter of her years, had known the joys of youth, of falling in love, of giving birth to three daughters, and now she wished only for their future happiness. The eldest daughter, Pema, possessed a deep, haunting beauty, her eyes reflecting the burnished riches of deep autumn gold. The second daughter, Tsokyi, was like the summer, warm and beautiful, with a gaiety that surrounded her life with laughter and contented happiness. The family was poor, but this did not worry the second daughter, for she delighted in the simplicity of life and found joy in the meanest of tasks. The youngest daughter, Dekyi, was like the spring, fresh, innocent, and full of youthful energy, but unlike her second sister, she worried about her family's future, and dreamed of the day when they would all be rich and prosperous. So lived the family, in the little house, on the edge of a lake, overlooked by the snow-topped mountain.

Each day, in turn, one of the daughters would go out with the small herd of yaks to graze them on a nearby pasture, while the other girls stayed at home to help their mother churn milk, roast barley, and attend to all the household chores. The herd of yaks was the family's only valuble possession. They milked the yaks to make butter and cheese; butter was used to fuel the lamps that illumined the home, and was also added to tea mixed with salt, thereby making a thick, soup-like liquid that was both refreshing and nourishing to drink. Butter and cheese could also be traded for other essentials such as barley, salt, and household items. So the herd of yaks was most important to the family's well-being, and the daughters looked after them with much love and care.

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Originally posted to my journal 8/21/07:

To be perfectly honest, I've never been much of a fan of this tale. I like the name stuff, but the rest of it just torques my cookies. You've got a tomboy who prefers wandering the hills to spinning and sewing and keeping house for her father, and then you've got said father, who's a boastful idiot, and the greediest king since Midas. Thanks to these two admirable gentlemen, the tomboy ends up locked in various rooms for three nights, instructed to spin increasing amounts of straw into gold by morning. Her punishment if she fails? Death to herself and, in some versions, her father. Her reward for compliance? Marriage to the king who delivered the threat of death. Umm, what's wrong with this picture?

To make it even better, a lot of versions have phrasing similar to the following when she promises the dwarf her firstborn child: "the miller's daughter made her foolish promise." Umm, yeah. Because she had so many other options. @@

The Faerie Tale Theatre version follows the above formula closely, which is too bad. There are a few subversive eps in this collection, but "Rumpelstiltskin" isn't one of them, beyond that the parts of the king and the miller's daughter are played by non-conventionally attractive people (Ned Beatty and Shelley Duvall). Of course, the script is still written as though they fit the bland mold of Disney fairy tale beauty, so you can either read it as a strike for widening our concepts of beauty, thanks to those visuals being described in that language, or you can read it as, "Let's pretend they're gorgeous for the duration, just like we're pretending this castle isn't just painted backdrops." Hervé Villechaize makes a good Rumpelstiltskin, and while I can't help but think he was cast for both size and accent, he doesn't rely on those for the character's menace. He storms and stomps and gets up in Shelley Duvall's face, but even at his worst, I think I'd run away with him before agreeing to marry that king. Yikes.

I did note there's at least one scene missing. I distinctly remember the introduction of the miller's daughter was a downright embarrassing scene in which Shelley Duvall capered with stunt animals on a soundstage, and then they all had lunch. I'm not kidding, we got to watch them eat. I'm glad that scene was cut, even if it did give the background of the miller's daughter's ability to talk to animals that later comes in useful in her search for Rumpelstiltskin's name. That later scene works on its own, and the less we saw of the production's "unicorn," the better. That was pure stunt casting of the world's smallest horse, and it didn't work so hot.

Minus that scene, the whole episode works better and looks much less self-indulgent on Duvall's behalf. Of course, she also plays Rapunzel in tomorrow's offering, which I guess could be argued to be self-indulgent, but dude, if I were producing these things and I were an actress? I'd want a play a heroine or two myself. And I do remember liking the "Rapunzel" rather a lot, not least because the prince (as played by Jeff Bridges, if I'm remembering right) is exactly the sort of goofy yet stalwart man I'd...well, I did marry. So there you go.

Originally posted to my journal on 8/20/07:

Some birthday or Christmas in the past few years, my parents got me the DVD set of Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre. I hadn't had a chance to watch any of it yet, but today I had a yen, so I popped in the first DVD, on which the first offering is "The Frog Prince."

For those who don't know, Faerie Tale Theatre is a project Shelly Duvall & Co. did throughout the eighties. Each "episode" is a retelling of a fairy tale, starring some very well-known names of the time (some of whom are still very well-known). "The Frog Prince," for example, stars Robin Williams as the eponymous amphibian, and Teri Garr as the princess whose golden ball he retrieves from a well in return for her friendship. Though not one of my favorite fairy tales (despite the frog and the whole animal bridegroom motif), I loved this particular retelling as a pre-teen and teen, so I was a little trepidatious about what I'd think of it now.

Well, the teleplay is by Eric Idle, which will give you some idea of the tone of the piece. I wasn't introduced to Monty Python until I was in my mid-teens, so I missed that connection the first time around. I also wasn't familiar enough with Rene Auberjonois to get a kick out of him as the princess' father, and there were jokes I didn't get that I do now. It's a spoofy version of the tale, without much character growth in the princess, and it's the cleaned-up transformation via kiss version of the tale, rather than, you know, frog racquetball or skinning. Or the prince's loyal servant, Henry, who has a band of iron placed around his own heart when the prince is transformed. Still, much as I like those darker elements, this version still makes me laugh, and some of that laughter is at different points and for different reasons. So I'd say it's one for several age brackets.

Seventh Story:
Of the Palace of the Snow Queen and What Happened There At Last

THE walls of the palace were formed of drifted snow, and the windows and doors of the cutting winds. There were more than a hundred rooms in it, all as if they had been formed with snow blown together. The largest of them extended for several miles; they were all lighted up by the vivid light of the aurora, and they were so large and empty, so icy cold and glittering! There were no amusements here, not even a little bear’s ball, when the storm might have been the music, and the bears could have danced on their hind legs, and shown their good manners. There were no pleasant games of snap-dragon, or touch, or even a gossip over the tea-table, for the young-lady foxes. Empty, vast, and cold were the halls of the Snow Queen. The flickering flame of the northern lights could be plainly seen, whether they rose high or low in the heavens, from every part of the castle. In the midst of its empty, endless hall of snow was a frozen lake, broken on its surface into a thousand forms; each piece resembled another, from being in itself perfect as a work of art, and in the centre of this lake sat the Snow Queen, when she was at home. She called the lake “The Mirror of Reason,” and said that it was the best, and indeed the only one in the world.
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Sixth Story:
The Lapland Woman and the Finland Woman

THEY stopped at a little hut; it was very mean looking; the roof sloped nearly down to the ground, and the door was so low that the family had to creep in on their hands and knees, when they went in and out. There was no one at home but an old Lapland woman, who was cooking fish by the light of a train-oil lamp. The reindeer told her all about Gerda’s story, after having first told his own, which seemed to him the most important, but Gerda was so pinched with the cold that she could not speak. “Oh, you poor things,” said the Lapland woman, “you have a long way to go yet. You must travel more than a hundred miles farther, to Finland. The Snow Queen lives there now, and she burns Bengal lights every evening. I will write a few words on a dried stock-fish, for I have no paper, and you can take it from me to the Finland woman who lives there; she can give you better information than I can.”
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Fifth Story:
Little Robber-Girl

THE coach drove on through a thick forest, where it lighted up the way like a torch, and dazzled the eyes of some robbers, who could not bear to let it pass them unmolested.

“It is gold! it is gold!” cried they, rushing forward, and seizing the horses. Then they struck the little jockeys, the coachman, and the footman dead, and pulled little Gerda out of the carriage.

“She is fat and pretty, and she has been fed with the kernels of nuts,” said the old robber-woman, who had a long beard and eyebrows that hung over her eyes. “She is as good as a little lamb; how nice she will taste!” and as she said this, she drew forth a shining knife, that glittered horribly. “Oh!” screamed the old woman the same moment; for her own daughter, who held her back, had bitten her in the ear. She was a wild and naughty girl, and the mother called her an ugly thing, and had not time to kill Gerda.
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Fourth Story:
The Prince and Princess

GERDA was obliged to rest again, and just opposite the place where she sat, she saw a great crow come hopping across the snow toward her. He stood looking at her for some time, and then he wagged his head and said, “Caw, caw; good-day, good-day.” He pronounced the words as plainly as he could, because he meant to be kind to the little girl; and then he asked her where she was going all alone in the wide world.

The word alone Gerda understood very well, and knew how much it expressed. So then she told the crow the whole story of her life and adventures, and asked him if he had seen little Kay.

The crow nodded his head very gravely, and said, “Perhaps I have—it may be.”

“No! Do you think you have?” cried little Gerda, and she kissed the crow, and hugged him almost to death with joy.
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Third Story:
The Flower Garden of the Woman Who Could Conjure

BUT how fared little Gerda during Kay’s absence? What had become of him, no one knew, nor could any one give the slightest information, excepting the boys, who said that he had tied his sledge to another very large one, which had driven through the street, and out at the town gate. Nobody knew where it went; many tears were shed for him, and little Gerda wept bitterly for a long time. She said she knew he must be dead; that he was drowned in the river which flowed close by the school. Oh, indeed those long winter days were very dreary. But at last spring came, with warm sunshine. “Kay is dead and gone,” said little Gerda.

“I don’t believe it,” said the sunshine.

“He is dead and gone,” she said to the sparrows.
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Second Story:
A Little Boy and a Little Girl

IN a large town, full of houses and people, there is not room for everybody to have even a little garden, therefore they are obliged to be satisfied with a few flowers in flower-pots. In one of these large towns lived two poor children who had a garden something larger and better than a few flower-pots. They were not brother and sister, but they loved each other almost as much as if they had been. Their parents lived opposite to each other in two garrets, where the roofs of neighboring houses projected out towards each other and the water-pipe ran between them. In each house was a little window, so that any one could step across the gutter from one window to the other. The parents of these children had each a large wooden box in which they cultivated kitchen herbs for their own use, and a little rose-bush in each box, which grew splendidly. Now after a while the parents decided to place these two boxes across the water-pipe, so that they reached from one window to the other and looked like two banks of flowers. Sweet-peas drooped over the boxes, and the rose-bushes shot forth long branches, which were trained round the windows and clustered together almost like a triumphal arch of leaves and flowers. The boxes were very high, and the children knew they must not climb upon them, without permission, but they were often, however, allowed to step out together and sit upon their little stools under the rose-bushes, or play quietly. In winter all this pleasure came to an end, for the windows were sometimes quite frozen over. But then they would warm copper pennies on the stove, and hold the warm pennies against the frozen pane; there would be very soon a little round hole through which they could peep, and the soft bright eyes of the little boy and girl would beam through the hole at each window as they looked at each other. Their names were Kay and Gerda. In summer they could be together with one jump from the window, but in winter they had to go up and down the long staircase, and out through the snow before they could meet.
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This one is a bit long, so it'll be broken up into sections. Happy Holidays!

The Snow Queen

Story the First,
Which Describes a Looking-Glass and the Broken Fragments

YOU must attend to the commencement of this story, for when we get to the end we shall know more than we do now about a very wicked hobgoblin; he was one of the very worst, for he was a real demon. One day, when he was in a merry mood, he made a looking-glass which had the power of making everything good or beautiful that was reflected in it almost shrink to nothing, while everything that was worthless and bad looked increased in size and worse than ever. The most lovely landscapes appeared like boiled spinach, and the people became hideous, and looked as if they stood on their heads and had no bodies. Their countenances were so distorted that no one could recognize them, and even one freckle on the face appeared to spread over the whole of the nose and mouth. The demon said this was very amusing. When a good or pious thought passed through the mind of any one it was misrepresented in the glass; and then how the demon laughed at his cunning invention. All who went to the demon’s school—for he kept a school—talked everywhere of the wonders they had seen, and declared that people could now, for the first time, see what the world and mankind were really like. They carried the glass about everywhere, till at last there was not a land nor a people who had not been looked at through this distorted mirror. They wanted even to fly with it up to heaven to see the angels, but the higher they flew the more slippery the glass became, and they could scarcely hold it, till at last it slipped from their hands, fell to the earth, and was broken into millions of pieces. But now the looking-glass caused more unhappiness than ever, for some of the fragments were not so large as a grain of sand, and they flew about the world into every country. When one of these tiny atoms flew into a person’s eye, it stuck there unknown to him, and from that moment he saw everything through a distorted medium, or could see only the worst side of what he looked at, for even the smallest fragment retained the same power which had belonged to the whole mirror. Some few persons even got a fragment of the looking-glass in their hearts, and this was very terrible, for their hearts became cold like a lump of ice. A few of the pieces were so large that they could be used as window-panes; it would have been a sad thing to look at our friends through them. Other pieces were made into spectacles; this was dreadful for those who wore them, for they could see nothing either rightly or justly. At all this the wicked demon laughed till his sides shook—it tickled him so to see the mischief he had done. There were still a number of these little fragments of glass floating about in the air, and now you shall hear what happened with one of them.