Once upon a time
Oct. 10th, 2005 08:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
changelingThis is an update, to amuse Steph.
Has anyone got a favourite fairy story? I read a few adult retellings (in a Datlow and Windling book), and was wondering about everyone else's favourites - especially the sort with blood and guts in it. Do you have a favourite that is a very specific telling of a tale?
Tell me a story.
Has anyone got a favourite fairy story? I read a few adult retellings (in a Datlow and Windling book), and was wondering about everyone else's favourites - especially the sort with blood and guts in it. Do you have a favourite that is a very specific telling of a tale?
Tell me a story.
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Date: 2005-10-10 03:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-10 04:45 pm (UTC)*nods*
Absolutely definately. I've always had a connection to that one. Not much guts, but there IS a river of all the blood thats been spilled on earth.
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Date: 2005-10-10 06:22 pm (UTC)And then many, many years later I read Kathe Koja's adults-only version of the story in an issue of Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine...
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Date: 2005-10-10 07:43 pm (UTC)When Fox first walked, he was curious and wanted to see everything. Vixen was wiser; Vixen had already seen everything and she told him where not to go, but Fox, being Fox, was not good at listening unless listening brought him birds or eggs or other good things to eat, so he wandered in the places she said not to. And there he found Men.
Men were different back then; the men who live now call the ones that lived then "gods" and "angels" and name them in power, but back in the beginning of things, when Fox was first wandering, they were just Men and Women, and the world was young and simple and they feted and partied all and every day. And Fox wandered in among them, and they caught him.
Being young and simple also means being cruel; the Men put Fox in a cage with flowers tied on it to make it look good to them, and set him beside them as they drank and laughed and played. And Vixen, in the forest, waited for Fox to come home and knew, after a while, that he would not, so she hid her den and her cubs deep in the roots of trees and the banks of hills and did not come out for a very long time.
Fox was angry. They had tied things on his tail (for Fox had only one tail, in those days, though some of us would have more later). They had stuck things through his ears. They had put something about his neck. Then they had decided that white was too dull a colour and tried to dye him a deep, brilliant scarlet, but he hunkered down over his paws and snapped and bit at their fingers, so they only got most of him.
Fox was angry, but Fox was cunning. He waited and waited and waited until the Men drank themselves to sleep and all that was waking now were the small Man-kits and Man-cubs, wandering about and making trouble. He called to one of the females to come over.
Nobody knows what Fox said to the little female man-kit that made her open her cage. It is one of Fox's secrets, and Fox has many, and would have many more to come. But Fox is cunning and Fox used pretty words and tricked her into opening the cage.
Then he bit the throats out of many of the Men and Women, so much that he got the bad taste of their blood in his mouth and tried to wipe it off onto the ground, but only got the charcoal of their fire stuck in his muzzle. It made him sneeze, and then some of the other Men woke, so Fox fled.
He fled to the river and washed himself all over with gravel and sand, but he could not make the red come out, ony make it dull and orange instead, and his paws and his muzzle were blackened forever. When they saw this, Vixen and their cubs decided to match him. And so all foxes are red, except for where they do not know the old Men.
And all men hate foxes, for what Fox did to escape. But Fox kept his secret, and he will keep all the rest of them, for Fox is cunning and Vixen is wise.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-10 10:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-10 11:54 pm (UTC)There once was a good and wise king, and he had many, many children. He had twelve boys and one girl, and her name was Elise. He loved his children very much, and they loved him, and Elise was the most loved by everyone, because she was the youngest. The king was happy, but he was also sad, for his wife had died some years ago, and he wished for another.
Eventually, when Elise was about 9, he married again. The new queen was beautiful, but she was jealous of his children. She was also a witch, although no one knew of it. She turned the king's heart through her magic, and blinded his eyes to her wickedness. She cast a spell on the brothers, and they turned into beautiful swans, and flew away. She tried to cast a spell on Elise, but the girl was too good and pure for the evil to change her. So the queen rubbed her face with mud and poison ivy to make it swell, dressed her in the rags of the swineherd, and took her to live with some peasants a long way away from the castle.
Elise spent five years with the peasants, and they were kind to her, though they did not know who she was. She was happy there, but she missed her brothers terribly. One morning she was walking by the shores of a lake, and in the lake swam twelve swans. The swans followed her around the lake, and she found herself coming back each day to see them. Some time later, as she came to the lake to see the swans, a hag told her to stay after sunset, and she would see something remarkable.
(There's a lot more, but it's way too long to post in a comment. I'll post it in my journal.)
no subject
Date: 2005-10-11 02:26 am (UTC)In the realm of bloodchilling, nothing beats Mr. Fox.
Alternately, my 2 favorite fairy tales are as follows: the one with various titles that I always refer to as "As Meat Loves Salt" (the one King Lear is based on with the king attempting to divide his kingdom according to which daughter loves him the most; the youngest gets banished because she tells her father she loves him "as meat loves salt); and "King Thrushbeard," which involves a taming-of-the-shrew-like premise, and which I based my fairytale fic The Sparrow Prince on.
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Date: 2005-10-11 04:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-11 10:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-12 12:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-12 01:25 am (UTC)... I like "The Sparrow Prince" better than "King Thrushbeard". At least the prince wasn't conspiring to trick his wife - er, Draco. I think I would have wanted to slap the bastard and walk out if he tried that sort of trick.
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Date: 2005-10-12 01:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-12 02:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-12 02:11 am (UTC)I like the sound of the hoplite armour.
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Date: 2005-10-12 03:01 am (UTC)Thomas the Rhymer
TRUE Thomas lay on Huntlie bank;
A ferlie he spied wi' his e'e;
And there he saw a ladye bright
Come riding down by the Eildon Tree.
Her skirt was o' the grass-green silk, 5
Her mantle o' the velvet fyne;
At ilka tett o' her horse's mane,
Hung fifty siller bells and nine.
True Thomas he pu'd aff his cap,
And louted low down on his knee 10
'Hail to thee Mary, Queen of Heaven!
For thy peer on earth could never be.'
'O no, O no, Thomas' she said,
'That name does not belang to me;
I'm but the Queen o' fair Elfland, 15
That am hither come to visit thee.
'Harp and carp, Thomas,' she said;
'Harp and carp along wi' me;
And if ye dare to kiss my lips,
Sure of your bodie I will be.' 20
'Betide me weal; betide me woe,
That weird shall never daunten me.'
Syne he has kiss'd her rosy lips,
All underneath the Eildon Tree.
'Now ye maun go wi' me,' she said, 25
'True Thomas, ye maun go wi' me;
And ye maun serve me seven years,
Thro' weal or woe as may chance to be.'
She 's mounted on her milk-white steed,
She 's ta'en true Thomas up behind; 30
And aye, whene'er her bridle rang,
The steed gaed swifter than the wind.
O they rade on, and farther on,
The steed gaed swifter than the wind;
Until they reach'd a desert wide, 35
And living land was left behind.
'Light down, light down now, true Thomas,
And lean your head upon my knee;
Abide ye there a little space,
And I will show you ferlies three. 40
'O see ye not yon narrow road,
So thick beset wi' thorns and briers?
That is the Path of Righteousness,
Though after it but few inquires.
'And see ye not yon braid, braid road, 45
That lies across the lily leven?
That is the Path of Wickedness,
Though some call it the Road to Heaven.
'And see ye not yon bonny road
That winds about the fernie brae? 50
That is the Road to fair Elfland,
Where thou and I this night maun gae.
'But, Thomas, ye sall haud your tongue,
Whatever ye may hear or see;
For speak ye word in Elfyn-land, 55
Ye'll ne'er win back to your ain countrie.'
O they rade on, and farther on,
And they waded rivers abune the knee;
And they saw neither sun nor moon,
But they heard the roaring of the sea. 60
It was mirk, mirk night, there was nae starlight,
They waded thro' red blude to the knee;
For a' the blude that 's shed on the earth
Rins through the springs o' that countrie.
Syne they came to a garden green, 65
And she pu'd an apple frae a tree:
'Take this for thy wages, true Thomas;
It will give thee the tongue that can never lee.'
'My tongue is my ain,' true Thomas he said;
'A gudely gift ye wad gie to me! 70
I neither dought to buy or sell
At fair or tryst where I might be.
'I dought neither speak to prince or peer,
Nor ask of grace from fair ladye!'—
'Now haud thy peace, Thomas,' she said, 75
'For as I say, so must it be.'
He has gotten a coat of the even cloth,
And a pair o' shoon of the velvet green;
And till seven years were gane and past,
True Thomas on earth was never seen. 80
GLOSS: ferlie] marvel. tett] tuft, lock. harp and carp] play and recite (as a minstrel). leven] ?lawn. dought] could.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-12 03:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-12 03:36 am (UTC)