Tell a Fairy Tale Day, February 26th

Tell a Fairy Tale Day

I was really excited when I first read about this day, a few weeks ago. I had plans to write a fairy tale and post it, and feel all good about myself for accomplishing something. Yeah, I forgot.

So then, last night while I was trying to quickly write something, I came up with the idea that I would start a story like this:

I was a child back in the day when wishing wells were dug at every corner, and one could drop a penny or two in them on their way to their daily chores and still believe that the magic would be worked through by the end of the day. I was the youngest of seven beautiful daughters of a King. I was not considered as beautiful as the rest because I read too much, and asked too many questions. I was even getting crows feet at the tender age of 15 because of my late night power reading. My mother worried about this and one morning took away all my books. She sent me out to the wishing well, underneath a lemon tree, in the royal gardens, with a golden ball to keep me amused.

I would then encourage my blog readers to continue the story. That was my plan. But last night I teetered back and forth, worried that not enough people would comment to complete the story. And I hate unfinished stories. Today I realized that I need to get over this. The nature of this medium is that it is random, and that is one of the reasons that I like it. If people feel so inclined, please continue on with the story, if not... I will finish it myself.

(Oh, and sorry Master Fob I didn't see your comment until this morning, or I would have tried harder to get this out last night. But if you dreamed about the Frog Prince, then the ESP connection has not been broken.)

The Frog King

This is my favorite fairy tale. And not the one where the girl kisses the frog and he turns into the prince, the one where she throws him against the wall, which is how the Grimm Brother told the story. I think that this story got re-told to make the princess look better mostly because women fairy tales are geared toward little girls these days, and little girls want to be princesses. Never mind that princesses are more likely to behave in the way that the Frog Prince princess behaves, we have created a mystique around the idea of being a princess. Disney has picked this up and marketed it quite well. Anyway, I like the original story, because it shows real human behavior, in all it's ugliness. It tells us to be better princesses, nicer princesses, because the frogs that we are dealing with might turn out to be enchanted princes.

My absolute favorite retelling of this story, isn't really a retelling. It is sort of an analysis of the story... well, it is retold, but we get a psychological perspective of the two characters. Anyway, it is The Frog Prince: A Fairy Tale for Consenting Adults. I have two copies of the book, I like it so much. Here is an excerpt:

THERE ARE TWO KINDS of women: those who marry princes and those who marry frogs. The frogs never become princes, but it is an acknowledged fact that a prince may very well, in the course of an ordinary marriage, gradually, at first almost imperceptibly, turn into a frog. Happy the woman who after twenty-five years still wakes up beside the prince she fell in love with. Entropy is the name that our scientists give to this phenomenon, the irreversible downward slide of events: life becomes death, order becomes disorder, princes become frogs. That is the way of the world, scientists say, and most of us solemnly nod our heads in agreement. But the rules of physics, though they resemble the rules of an ordinary marriage, do not at all correspond to the rules of the human soul. There are no exceptions to the rules of physics, whereas the rules of the soul consist of nothing but exceptions. That is why I want to tell you a different kind of love story, about a frog who became a prince.

Now, don't be afraid of the sub-title "for Consenting Adults," it just means that it isn't a children's book.

My next two favorite retellings are: A Frog Prince, by Alix Berenzy and The Frog Prince Continued, by Jon Scieszka. Both books are children's books, and both challenge the "happily ever after" idea of fairy tales.

So, I hope that everyone goes out and tells a fairy tale today! It's a good day for it.