Happy Monster Chicken Day!

Tabletop Gaming News

A Personal Note From Our Fairy Tale Newsroom:

We have spent almost as much time living in hospitals and doctor's offices than we have at home this past month (March), due to an emergency with our junior fairy tale newshound, so please excuse the lack of follow-through on promised posts. With his ongoing recovery still our main focus, we will be posting some of our intended articles a little late over the next couple of weeks, even though they aren't as timely for the season as we would have liked. We hope you still find them interesting.

This is one of our Fairy Tale Newsroom's favorite times of year. When we prepare for this season's magical visitors, most people expect us to mention The Easter Bunny, but not as many are familiar with The Monster Chicken. (You can read about this unusual visitor HERE.) Longtime readers of this blog will be aware, however, that this particular supernatural creature is looked forward to with more anticipation than its famous long-eared counterpart.

As the Monster Chicken plays hide-and-seek with its owner (the terribly intimidating Baba Yaga), relishing being free for the short time its absorbed magic enables it to transform each Spring, we always hope it will find a place to take refuge and catch its breath in our yard (and perhaps leave a monster egg in thanks). We prepare the night before by leaving nesting materials and a sign, welcoming the Monster Chicken to hide in our garden if it needs to, and to our collective delight, along with signs of a giant claw-footed visitor, another specially painted monster egg has appeared each year we've done so...

We have yet to catch sight of "the MC" in person but considering its origin, we thought you might like to see an old attempt at building it (in walking hut form) from a few years ago, in Minecraft Pocket Edition (a limited tablet version of the popular game). And since we are, we thought we'd throw in our homage to another fairy tale with an unusual building...

Being a cube-building game, creating organic things can be a challenge but as long as you can count, a little math, color play and imagination can make a blocky landscape quite folk art-like:

Newbie Minecrafter practicing design-via-math to create a folk-art like carpet for the purpose of creating fairy tale scenes in Minecraft (you can see a teensy bit of Baba Yaga's chicken-legged hut in the background).

Baba Yaga's chicken legged hut (on every day but Easter morning...)

Fuzzy close-up of Baba Yaga's chicken-legged hut from the side in Minecraft Pocket Edition.(Out of focus blocks lend themselves well to a tapestry-like impression it seems!)

An attempt at building Rapunzel's tower in Minecraft PE. Thing is, with Pocket Edition, there is a 'ceiling' so you can only build so high. Had to excavate lot before starting... interesting concept for keeping it hidden really!

Hidden tower...

Whoa. That's intimidatingly tall from this angle. (Rapunzel's tower in Minecraft PE.)

So what does the Monster Chicken look like once a year when it transforms and breaks loose? More importantly, did you give it a place to hide on its annual freedom run this year, and receive a thank-you-monster-egg in return?

Antonio De Luca's take on Babayaga

From the Seasonal Archives - Household Tales: Easter, Baba Yaga & The Monster Chicken

Bunny Beware by Michael Sowa

A little treat from my household to yours.

You've probably heard of Baba Yaga and her hut on chicken legs. But did you know the hut has its own story? 

The chicken-legged house spends all year long soaking up the magic leaking out of Baba Yaga's kitchen, and one day each new Spring (a day we call Easter), there's finally enough in its bones that a wondrous thing happens. The hut shakes its walls and shingles into feathers, breaking enough of the spell keeping it chained to Baba Yaga's bidding, to transform into the strangest half-house, half-chicken monster anyone has ever seen. 

Having picked up a few tricks living with its Master, the hut always manages to escape, forcing Baba Yaga to give chase. For a whole day, the Monster Chicken plays a mischievous game of hide-and-seek, dodging the Yaga's flying mortar and pestle by hiding in the yards of good-hearted children. Wherever it sits and makes a hurried nest, it leaves monster eggs as thank you's for the household's hospitality.  

Hut on chicken legs during the spring nesting season
Divo-Ostrov", Saint-Petersburg

At the end of one whole day and one whole night, however, the hut is tired and has enough of running. Baba Yaga catches up with it and drags her little house back to their home in the woods. There it gives one great shake before turning its body back into a hut and settling into a good long sleep, dreaming of the next year when it can run on its own again.  

But even though the hut is sleeping, sometimes the dreams are so strong, it gets up on its legs, stretches them out, turns around and settles down again, without even waking up...

Update April 2017: My son, now 10, still adores this tale of ours (and if any of you have had visits from the Monster Chicken  my son would LOVE to hear about it!). With the fairly recent news confirming many dinosaurs as having feathers, in addition to being related to chickens, this story no longer seems quite as fanciful... ;) He looks forward to visits from the Monster Chicken even more than the Easter Bunny. Frankly, I think the Easter Bunny is tickled to have the magical company in our yard every year. 

Mystic Chicken by Ekaterina/Philieria

 Do you have a personal 'Household Tale' of your own you'd like to share? Write to fairytalenews AT gmail DOT com. We'd love to share your personal traditions and stories.

Household Tales: Easter, Baba Yaga & The Monster Chicken

Bunny Beware by Michael Sowa

A little treat from my household to yours.

You've probably heard of Baba Yaga and her hut on chicken legs. But did you know the hut has its own story? 

The chicken-legged house spends all year long seeping up the magic leaking out of Baba Yaga's kitchen and one day each new Spring (a day we call Easter), there's finally enough in its bones that a wondrous thing happens. The hut shakes its walls and shingles into feathers, breaking enough of the spell keeping it chained to Baba Yaga's bidding, to transform into the strangest half-house, half-chicken monster anyone has ever seen. 

Having picked up a few tricks living with its Master, the hut always manages to escape, forcing Baba Yaga to give chase. For a whole day, the Monster Chicken plays a mischievous game of hide-and-seek, dodging the Yaga's flying mortar and pestle by hiding in the yards of good-hearted children. Wherever it sits and makes a hurried nest, it leaves monster eggs as thank you's for the household's hospitality.  

Hut on chicken legs during the spring nesting season
Divo-Ostrov", Saint-Petersburg

At the end of one whole day and one whole night, however, the hut is tired and has enough of running. Baba Yaga catches up with it and drags her little house back to their home in the woods. There it gives one great shake before turning its body back into a hut and settling into a good long sleep, dreaming of the next year when it can run on its own again.  

But even though the hut is sleeping, sometimes the dreams are so strong, it gets up on its legs, stretches them out, turns around and settles down again, without even waking up...

Note: My son adores this tale of ours (though if any of you have had visits from the Monster Chicken  my son would LOVE to hear about it!) and looks forward to visits from the Monster Chicken even more than the Easter Bunny. Frankly, I think the Easter Bunny is tickled to have the magical company in our yard every year. 

Mystic Chicken by Ekaterina/Philieria

 Do you have a personal 'Household Tale' of your own you'd like to share? Write to fairytalenews AT gmail DOT com. We'd love to share your personal traditions and stories.