Showing posts with label Fairy Tales. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fairy Tales. Show all posts

Friday, March 04, 2016

Friday, February 19, 2016

Fairy Tale Friday

This week's collection is Folk Tales from Tibet, with Illustrations by a Tibetan Artist and Some Verses from Tibetan Love-Songs, collected and translated by Capt. W.F. O'Connor.
I recommend The Story of Room Bacha and Baki.  It has themes from the story The Giant Who Had No Heart in his Body.

Illustration from the book.

Friday, February 12, 2016

Thursday, February 04, 2016

Fairy Tale Friday--The Heavenly Messengers

From Old-World Japan: Legends Of the Land of the Gods retold by Frank Rinde, with illustrations by T.H. Robinson, enjoy The Heavenly Messengers, in which the gods try and try again to bring order to the Earth.


Friday, January 29, 2016

Fairy Tale Friday

Enjoy Ancient Tide Lore and Tales of the Sea, From the Two Ends of the World, also, Some Highly Curious Ancient and Legendary Little-Known East Coast Maori Stories collected and translated by William Colenso.

Friday, August 14, 2015

Fairy Tale Friday--Huldu-Folk

After seeing the movie Thale, I wanted to find tales featuring Hulder, seductive forest-dwelling women with tails. This book, Scandinavian Folk-Lore, edited by William Alexander Craigie, has several starting on page 162.  Unfortunately, it has no illustrations, but I've collected some from other sources. Note the tails sticking out from under the Hulders's skirts.


Friday, August 07, 2015

Fairy Tale Friday--The Voice of the Bell

This tale of a bell, a baby, and a male curfew is from The Unmannerly Tiger and other Korean Tales by William Elliot Griffis.  I can't remember reading any other tale featuring a male curfew. I'd like to find others.

Folkwear Pattern

Baby Bell Pepper


Friday, July 31, 2015

Fairy Tale Friday--The Unnatural Mother: a Swazi Tale

From Fairy Tales From South Africa by Mrs.E.J. Bourhill and Mrs. J.B. Drake enjoy The Unnatural Mother.

In this tale a child sends a parent on a quest; I've never come across that situation before.  A mother sins against nature, so has to redeem herself by finding and bringing home some special water.


between 1919 and 1936

Friday, July 24, 2015

Fairy Tale Friday--Jack o' the Lantern

This origin tale for the Jack-o'-lantern is on page 5 of Irish Fairy Tales: Folklore and Legends, illustrated by Geoffrey Strahan. A grumpy man, an angel, some demons.








Friday, July 17, 2015

Fairy Tale Friday--The Plague-Omen

This short Polish tale deals with the plague as a merry-making train of specters. or the Homen.  Look for it on page 19 of Slavonic Fairy Tales, Collected and Translated from the Russian, Polish, Servian, and Bohemian,  edited by John Theophilus Naaké.

Friday, July 10, 2015

Fairy Tale Friday--The Carnation Youth

This week check out another free online book by Elsie Spicer Eells, Tales of Enchantment from Spain.  I recommend the second tale in the collection: The Carnation Youth.


This tale features:

  • A young man turned into a flower
  • A young woman who leaves home to find him
  • Helpful birds

Friday, July 03, 2015

Friday, June 26, 2015

Fairy Tale Friday--How Night Came

This week's free Google Book is Fairy Tales From Brazil: How and Why Tales From Brazilian Folk-Lore by Elsie Spicer Eels with Illustrations by Helen M. Barton. How Night Came is the first story.

Friday, June 12, 2015

Fairy Tale Friday--Seven Brothers and their Sister

This week check out Santal Folk Tales translated by A. Campbell of the Santal Mission.  The Santal People are a tribe in India. In the preface the translator admits to some bowdlerizing: "It was to be expected that in the popular tales of a simple, unpolished people like the Santals, expressions and allusions unfitted for ears polite would be found."
The story Seven Brothers and their Sister features the sacrifice of an unwilling victim.  A jugi gosae (a caste of Hindus who make and sell doras) is consulted.



Friday, May 29, 2015

Fairy Tale Friday--Master and Pupil (or The Devil Outwitted)

From Georgian Folk Tales translated by Marjory Wardrop enjoy Master and Pupil.  Who doesn't love a deceiving-the-devil story?

Friday, May 22, 2015

Fairy Tale Friday--The Maiden the Sun Made love to, and Her Boys

From Zuñi Folk Tales, edited by Frank Hamilton Cushing, enjoy The Maiden the Sun Made Love to, and Her Boys.  The Zuñi are a Native American tribe living in New Mexico.
Dancers at Zuni Pueblo courtesy Wikimedia


This long, complicated tale includes:
  • Solar impregnation
  • Twins
  • Dismemberment
  • Resurrection
  • An explanation for the origin of anger 

(Dear fairy tale fans, I originally planned to find motif numbers for every tale, but it's getting to be too much work.)

Friday, May 15, 2015

Fairy Tale Friday--God's Godson

From Gypsy Folk-Tales by Francis Hindes Groome, enjoy God's Godson. It's a short hero tale.

This book has a very long introduction, in case you decide to browse.

Amazon