Essay: Brothers Grimm

       The unit I chose to read this week was the Brothers Grimm (LibriVox). I was drawn to this particular unit because I really wanted to read the familiar stories of Sleeping Beauty and The Frog Prince. I am glad I re-read these stories because I thought the story of The Frog Prince was completely different from the original. I thought that true loves first kiss would break the frog spell in order to make the prince human again. In the actual story, the only way to break the curse was to have the frog eat from the same plate as the princess and sleep in bed with her. I understand why the story did not revolve around true loves first kiss because than it is a short story and finding true love can be hard. For example, what if the prince did not fall in love with the princess and but the more time he spent with her, the more he would grow to love her and then the spell would be broken when they kissed.  So if true loves first kiss was the only way to break the spell, I could see how that would elongate the story.

       When I chose this unit, I thought that all the stories would be familiar fairy tale stories but I read some that I had never heard of. There was a story called The Fox and the Horse that was about a horse who was left by his owner because he was too skinny and old to work. The fox met the horse as he was leaving the farm and decided to help him. He told the horse to lay down and pretend to be dead while he tricked a lion, telling him there was a dead horse. When the lion got there, however, the fox told the lion to pretend to be dead so he could tie him up then tie him to the horse’s tail. Once the horse finally dragged the angry lion back to the farm, the owner kept the horse. 

Snow White by Anne Anderson (1874-1930).

Week 13 Storytelling: Looks Can Be Deceiving

A young princess lived within an immaculate castle in a kingdom deep within the woods. Because she was around the age of 16, she began to feel confined and decided to explore outside the walls of the kingdom. After begging her father, the king, he allowed her to go outside the kingdom but he made her promise him to not talk to any strangers. The princess promised and then set off on her journey.  

The first thing the princess came upon as she walked outside the kingdom walls was a path that led into a forest. The further she went on the path, the darker the forest seemed to get. After walking for about ten minutes, the princesses came across a handsome boy who sat beside a pond with his legs in the water. There was something drawing the princess into wanting to talk to the boy but she remembered her father’s order and she held her tongue as she walked past the boy. As she walked by, the boy called for her to sit with him but the princesses refused because she was unable to talk to him due to her fathers orders. He stayed calm with his feet still in the murky pond water, patting down beside him again to motion for the princess to sit next to him. Nervous and confused, the princess apologized, for all she wanted was to sit next to the handsome boy but she was conflicted by her and her fathers’ promise.

As she walked away, she heard the boy take his feet out from the water and stand up. Right after hearing the sound, the princess’s turned around to see all the commotion and her jaw dropped in shock. From the knee up, the boy’s legs looked human but from the calf down they were green and looked like legs of a frog with webbed toes. She tried to ask why his legs were messed up but as he tried to explain, he began to croak. It seemed like he struggled to speak because all he could do was croak.

Confused and nervous, the princess turned around and ran towards the castle. As she ran, she could hear the webbed feet running behind her as well as the croaking noises. Before she could make it to the doors of the kingdom, the frog boy tackled the princess and kissed her. The princess pushed the frog boy off of her and stood up. She was about to start yelling at him when she noticed his legs began to turn back into normal human legs and his croaking ceased. The boy began to explain to the princess that he was a prince but some time ago a spiteful fairy turned him into a frog. If he kissed princesses, some of his frog attributes would subside but the only way to completely break the spell is receiving true loves kiss.

 Since the princess broke the curse fully, the prince asked her hand in marriage. Since the boy was so handsome and he said that he was a prince, the princess agreed and they lived happily ever after.

The Frog Prince by Paul Mayerheim (1842-1915).

Author's Note: I used the story of The Frog Prince in the Brothers Grimm (LibriVox) unit. The story was about a young princess who walked outside of the castle and went to a pond. She was tossing a ball up in the air to herself and she accidentally dropped it in the pond. A frog said he would get the ball for her but only if she would let him eat off of her plate and sleep in her bed. She 'agreed' and the frog got her the ball. But when she got the ball, the princess ran off to her castle with the ball and without the frog. The frog showed up later that night at the kings door begging to come in. After the princesses reluctantly let the frog in, she let him eat off her plate and sleep next to her in bed. The next morning, the princess woke up to a handsome prince beside her. The prince explained that a spiteful fairy turned him into the frog and the only way to brake the spell was if a princess would let him eat off of her plate and sleep in the same bed as her. They then got married and lived happily ever after. Because I had always thought that the only way to brake the spell was true loves first kiss, I decided to incorporate that into my story, along with her young curiosity of wanting to leave the kingdom. I also added her father telling her not to talk to strangers because I wanted the princess to try and avoid the prince. 

Reading Diary B: Grimm

The reason why I chose Grimm (LibriVox) unit for this weeks reading was because I wanted to read about The Frog Prince and also Sleeping Beauty. But upon reading these stories, I also came upon another that I really enjoyed which is called The Fox and the Horse. Not only did the title draw me in, but also the fact that the fox was so nice and helpful. Sometimes, foxes can be depicted as sly and conniving in a bad way so I was happy to read a story, other than my other storytelling, that a fox can have be sly and conniving for the greater good. In this story, the fox helped the weak and skinny horse that got kicked out of his stable by his farmer because he had no use for a horse so weak. After he was kicked off the farm, the horse ran into a fox that was able to help him prove to the farmer that he is still strong. So the fox tricked a lion to lie down next to the horse, who was pretending to play dead so the lion thought he was able to eat him, so that he was able to tie his legs together then tie him to the horse so that the horse was able to drag the lion to the farmer. When the farmer saw his horse drag in a lion behind him, he let the horse stay with him. I also liked how, at the end, the fox never asked for a favor in return. He just wanted to help a random stranger.

Horse Frightened by a Lion by George Stubbs (1770).

Reading Diary A: Grimm

For this weeks reading, I chose the Grimm (LibriVox) unit because I wanted to read about Sleeping Beauty and The Frog Prince. I also wanted to try the audio book version to see if I would like it better. I listened to the audio recording of the story while I followed along. The only problem was, was that I felt like I was reading faster than the recording. I grew too impatient to continue the audio and just stuck with reading it.  Regardless of the audio, I thought the stories were great and a nice refresher to the knowledge I retained as a child when I read books over fairy tales like these. I was very happy to re-read The Frog Prince because the story was nothing like I remembered. Before reading this story, I thought that the prince was a frog and he needed a kiss from a Princess to break the spell to turn him back into a human. I was so wrong because the Prince didn’t need a kiss from the princesses, he needed to sleep in her bed and eat off her plate for a few nights to then break the spell. I am glad that the King told the Princess to keep her word that she would help the frog since he helped her get her ball form the pond; it only seemed fair. And if she did continue to refuse him into her home, then she wouldn’t have found such a handsome Prince to marry.

Frog4 by Walter Crane (1874).

Essay: Celtic Fairy Tales

The reading unit I chose this week was Celtic Fairy Tales because I have always had an interest in Celtic traditions and reading these stories gave me more insight on tales that have been passed down for generations. I wish there were more stories that talked about specific Celtic tales like the origin of the Celtic knot or the Claddagh Ring. Regardless, the short stories within this unit were still great to read because they had some spiritual tales as well as real life situations. An example of a story that was spiritual was the story of The Horned Women, which was about a woman who lived alone in a village. She allowed these witches who came into her door one by one because she thought one of the villagers called upon them and the witches got confused on the houses. The weird thing about the witches, however, was that they all had horns which seemed to range from the first witch that went into the home had only one horn. With each witch that came in, the more horns they had. So the last witch had twelve horns because she was the 12^th witch to walk into the house. The witches casted a spell on the woman of the house to do their bidding. When they commanded the woman to bake a cake, she went to the well to fetch water and the spirit from the well broke the spell and got rid of the witches. The story that seemed the most realistic was Beth Gellert, which is about a Prince who had a favorite dog. One day, the Prince went hunting and all his dogs went with him except for his favorite, Gellert, because he wouldn’t come to him when he called for the dogs. When the Prince returned from hunting, he saw Gellert with blood all over him so the Prince looked in his child’s room to see blood everywhere, which made him believe Gellert killed his son. In anger, the Prince killed his dog but then looked under the crib and found his son and a dead wolf. After he realized Gellert killed the wolf to protect the son, he was torn apart inside and then buried him outside the castle walls so people could visit his grave.

Trinity Knot (2005).