The Princess Life

PSA: April Fool's Day. Believe no one and nothing. You're welcome.

I so wanted the find an image of a glass slipper that wasn't 100% fugly. Failed. I mean, yes, there's amazing art out there on the interwebs, but I wasn't willing to pay the prices involved with using any of them. The free clip art things were abominations. So here we are.

With you guessing that my favorite fairy tale is Cinderella. You'd be right, to a point. It's not the Disnefied version I favor. It's the old version of the tale. The one that predates even the appearance of the fairy godmother. It's a darker story that's less about impressing gender roles and 'appropriate' comportment and more an 'us versus them' tale. In that older story, Cinderella's dead mother is buried near the house. A flowering bush (sometimes a rose, sometimes an apple tree) grows from her grave. When Cinderella sees a chance to escape servitude via the prince's ball, it is too her mother's grave she goes to ask for assistance. The bush flowers. Inside the flowers are the gifts she needs - the dress, the shoes. Not so much the coach, but let's not get hung up on details. Everything goes as it should until the prince comes bearing the slipper in hopes of finding his mystery girl. In this story, the step mother takes one of her daughters aside and whacks off her toes in order to get her foot into the slipper. Content, the prince rides away with the poor girl until a bird perches on his shoulder and sings a song about maybe he ought to notice the blood overrunning the shoe. He takes the girl home. Stepmom likewise mutilates her second daughter (slicing a bit off at the heel this time). Prince rides off with the new girl. The bird shows up again. Back they go and one imagines the prince MIGHT be getting a little miffed by this point. He searches the house, finds Cinderella and puts the shoe on her himself - am I the only one who hopes it got washed first? Sum result: HEA. Though, frankly, I don't see how. I can't help but feel like Cinderella could do a whole lot better than some dude who can't tell three women apart or bother to notice blood and pain when it rides beside him. But hey. Love is blind, right?

I confess I'm not crazy about the Western European fairytale tradition. It's short on strong women, instead espousing the sweet, child-like feminine ideal of the era in which most of them originated. That's what sends me back into the grimmer folktales that inspired the familiar fairytales. Cinderella started life as a story about the love between a mother and daughter - love that transcended death and that provided the inexperienced daughter with a template for manipulating her abusive step family. So while I love a Disney princess as much as the next gal, I do prefer my heroines with some shadows. And some serious guts.

Now. For chicks with guts, lets talk mythology. The women of the Mabinogion have got it going ON.

Handsome Beasts

My favorite fairy tale is Beauty and the Beast.

C'mon, it's a given. The chick in it is a reader. She digs a fellow who plays tough, looks rough, but underneath is sweet and smitten with her.

The original version by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve provides backstory on the main characters, some of which the Disney version touched on, but the condensed version by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont is the one most folks are familiar with.

What author wouldn't love access to a library like this...

Of Thieves and Poverty: Favorite Fairy Tales

My favorite fairy tale? It's a tie between Ali Baba & The Little Matchgirl.

The first for the real hero of the story being a GIRL and a slave girl at that! She's smart, observant, and brave. Oh, yeah, she ain't afraid to boil some thieves affixin' to kill her master and his family. And the sword dance? Come on, she's like a Persian Janette Bond two centuries before Mr. Shaken Not Stirred was even a glimmer in Ian Flemming's mind. Hell, Britain was still dealing with Jacobites when Morgiana was repeatedly saving Ali Baba. She wasn't a princess in need of saving. She wasn't a socialite (her master) or a speshul snowflake (Ali Baba) who made a series of bad choices. Girl had her shit together well enough to take care of two families against 40 thieves.  You.Go.Girl.

The second story because it broke my heart and still does. For every fairy tale and fable where the orphan/whelp/ragamuffin was saved by benevolence, fate, magic, family, etc, ...it didn't happen for the Little Match Girl. The cruelty of family, the indifference of community, the inescapability of circumstance...GAH! All.The.Feels.  Mom used to tell me it was a reminder to never be so big for my britches that I couldn't see those in need of help.

On Funerals and Fairy Tales

I'm up in northern Wyoming for a funeral. Always good to see the Big Horn Mountains again, and to spend time with family. The one good part of sad events like these is that family from long distances come together and stories get told that people haven't heard before. Something about a person's death unlocks old memories, as if their passing has opened a window into all of their life.

This week in the Bordello we're discussing our favorite fairy tales.

I have to be careful with answering these kinds of questions because the last time I did, my writer brain started spinning on the idea and I ended up writing my own retelling of The Goose Girl, HEART'S BLOOD.

Also, one of my very first fiction releases was PETALS AND THORNS, which is a BDSM version of Beauty and the Beast.

I have a long and passionate relationship with fairy tales, so many of them crowd into my head when I'm asking for my favorite, vying for attention to be the next I obsess over.

The one in my head right now? Rapunzel.

There's something about the princess trapped in a tower, with her hair the avenue of entrance and escape for everyone but here. In fact, the new fantasy I'm writing has a lot of those elements, though it's not a retelling precisely. But there is a princess in a tower, and she's trapped into that life in many ways. Until the arrival of the prince. I think this book will be called LONEN'S WAR. You heard it here first, folks! I haven't talked about it publicly yet, because I tend to be pretty secretive and protective of the newborn books. This one is a whole new world, too, so I've been particularly close-mouthed about it. But she's going off to school now, to be read by my editor and educated in how to be a grown-up book. Stay tuned for more info!

What about you all - what's your favorite fairy tale and why?

Fairy Tales

by Allison Pang

I hardly know where to begin here.

Fairy tales have been one of the main staples of my reading life for as long as I can remember. Grimm's. Anderson. All those lovely colored fairy books. (i.e. The Blue Fairy Book, etc.)  Plus numerous books on Asian, African, Native American stories...I loved them all.

But, of course, I'm still going to say The Little Mermaid is the one that holds the greatest influence over me.  (Link here if you aren't familiar with the original.) One of Anderson's original stories, it originally had a "sad" ending where the mermaid merely became foam upon the water - but critics deemed it depressing, and so he changed so that she became a spirit of the air in the hopes of receiving an eternal soul.

Not sure if that's a whole lot LESS depressing, but at least it gives her hope.

I still always thought the mermaid got a raw deal, though - I'm all about stories of sacrifice for love, but it's doubly bad when the object of your affection is pretty much oblivious to you. But that's what makes it so poignant. There's no happily ever after here - sometimes things just don't work out, no matter how many chances you take...but sometimes it's more about the journey than the destination, as they say.

Still, when it comes to fairy tales, I'm also a big fan of retellings and reinterpretation. So many of the old tales were fairly simplified when it comes to characterization - breathing new life into it can really make a story pop for someone else. Robin McKinley is queen of this - DeerSkin, Spindle's End, *two* retellings of Beauty & the Beast in the form of Beauty and Rose Daughter, to name a few.

So, will I be retelling The Little Mermaid? In a way, yes. Twice, possibly. I've got two comic projects in the works - I've got a story coming up in Issue 5 of Womanthology: Space (which will be put out by IDW) - I've always joked that I wanted to retell TLM via a futuristic/steampunk work with robots  - there's a very good chance I'm going to attempt to do that here, though it depends on how many pages I'll be allowed and if I can condense the story to fit.

The other is in my own webcomic Fox & Willow. F&W has an overall story arc between a girl and her cursed Kitsune companion - but each issue is a retelling of a common fairy tale, with hopefully a few twists. For example, the first issue is Came a Harper, which is a line from Loreena McKennit's song "Bonny Swans", so the story deals with some of the events from that particular tale.



But the second issue is definitely a different take on The Little Mermaid - I don't really want to do spoilers, but let's just say the prince isn't the end game here.  We'll also be tackling Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel,   and the Snow Queen, among others. The point isn't really the retellings, per se - sometimes Fox & Willow are more passive observers to what unfolds, but it's the lessons they take away from each chapter that become important in how they attempt to undo the curse and fight their own demons.

We've just started the comic this month, and we update every Monday and Thursday, so I'm going to plug it and ask people to come check it out! :)

In the meantime, just two last things as far as retellings go. 1) I did want to mention this marvelous piece of flash fiction I found on Tumblr a few months ago, by Hamburgerjack. Goldilocks had never really been on my radar as a favorite story, but this one really opened my eyes and the sentiment is lovely.

And 2) This really awesome animation of Little Red Riding Hood - definitely worth a look and a nice spin as well.  :)

Why Are There Gnomes In Your Yard?

Gnomes. They're real, don't you know? Well, sure they are. A Dutch doctor, Wil Huygen, wrote a book about them, detailing their physical features characteristics, their diets, habitats, medicines, ... and yes, their strong connections to nature. Illustrator Rien Poortvliet brought the good doctor's research to life on the pages.

There are many different types of gnomes: woodland gnomes, dune gnomes, garden gnomes, house gnomes, farm gnomes, and the Siberian gnome. You never know when you might spot a gnome. Treat them well and they will return the kindness.

Do you know why people put statues of gnomes in their front yard? Well, allow me to summarize the fairy tale:

The Gnome Statue

Once upon a time there was a miller who looked after his farm gnomes and house gnomes. The gnomes in turn looked after the miller's grains and his windmill. This symbiotic relationship made the miller prosperous, which made his neighbors jealous. They harassed him and accused him of horrible things. The miller's nearest neighbor was the worst of the lot. That neighbor had a young daughter with a generous heart and a quick wit. She knew real reason for the miller's prosperity. To show her support for the miller, she made a small statue of a gnome and put it in her family's garden -- where her vicious parents couldn't miss it. Her parents derided her horribly, but they let the statue be. The miller's gnomes saw her tribute and left her tiny presents. When her parents saw the presents, they started to believe in gnomes. They stopped being mean and started being kind. Gnomes came to them. Their family cared for the gnomes. The gnomes helped the family prosper. The villagers noticed and put gnome statues in their yards in hopes of luring actual gnomes into their lives.

Now you know.

The next time you pass a gnome statue, consider taking it home with you. Keep in mind, however, too many statues is a bit like screaming demands at a gnome family. They won't like it and things will end badly for you...but that's another gnome story.

THESE THINGS ARE FOR CHILDREN???

Ahhh fairy tales. They seem so innocent, so friendly, so sweet. No, they are just so sanitized. lol. The original fairy tales were born in a really horrible time. Plagues, crushing poverty, oppressive caste system, brutality abounding... you name it and it sucked big time in the dark ages....this wasn't no damn Ren Fest. My favorite original fairy tale is Rumpelstiltskin. You are familiar I am sure, but here is the recap, James style. A miller decides to let his mouth write checks his ass can't cash so he makes some dumbass claim that his daughter can spin straw into gold. The king says: "Well, that sounds pretty damn good to me." Orders her locked in a tower and demands she spin straw into gold for three nights. If she can then he will marry her, if not then off with her head. Of course the girl is a bit distraught by what her (probably drunk) dad has gotten her into. She cries and cries until the emanating grief from her calls forth an imp. Now, word to the wise, if an imp appears in your room like Nightcrawler from the X-men, you should probably NOT play Let's Make A Deal.

He tells her that he can spin straw into gold if she gives him a gift. She pulls off her necklace, gives it to him, and he spins the straw into a pile of gold. The next night, same deal. Crying, imp, deal, gold. (Some say the miller's daughter gave up the goods on night 2 since she had already lost her necklace and the 3rd night offered the same, but old Rumpy said no to used goods.) The third night the imp shows up, and the daughter has nothing to give him. He asks for her first born. She agrees and the deal is struck. The king marries her and sure enough, one thing leads to another and one year later, she pops out a kid. Guess who shows up to claim his prize? Yep. She of course is a welsher and doesn't want to pony up so he tells her he will let her keep the kid if she tells him his name.

She doesn't know it, some random woodsman (what is it with the woodsmen in these stories?) passing by hears him bragging that she'll never guess his name is Rumpelstiltskin. He rats him out to the now Queen. The imp shows up to collect, she drops his name, and he flips his lid. Stomps his foot so hard it sinks into the floor then freaks out trying to get free that he RIPS HIMSELF IN HALF. So what is the moral of the story? Beats the hell out of me.