Showing posts with label twitter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label twitter. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 30, 2018

The Theme For This #FolkloreThursday is Favorite Folk and Fairy Tales!

                               
Do you know this Icelandic fairy tale? (Answer below)

If you're not a Twitter regular, may we suggest popping in on Thursday this week for a topic close to our hearts: Favorite Fairy Tales!

All you need to do is look up the hashtag:
(ie. put this hashtag into the search bar
and all the tagged posts will list automatically for you to peruse and enjoy.
Make sure you click "latest" instead of just "top",
so you see all the posts as they appear).

Everyone has the opportunity to chime in with their two cents and it's a good way to discover ones you haven't heard of, as well as see awesome artwork and fairy tale trivia and facts, all thanks to the enthusiastic folklorists and fairy tale aficionados who spend their days chasing and musing on tales - popular through the obscure. Just make sure you add #FolkloreThursday to your tweet so everyone will see it (especially on Thursday, people tend to follow hashtags first, then look up people afterward).

We are so much looking forward to this, we have it on the calendar and are organizing our day around it. Hope to see you there!

Note: #FolkloreThursday begins in the morning UK time, so US folks, you can start enjoying the posts on Wednesday night and early Thursday, but it does continue through to the end of Thursday (and sometimes trickles on a little the day after too).
Answer to header question: “The Witch in the Stone Boat" aka "The Giantess in the Granite Boat", found in Andrew Lang's Yellow Fairy Book, and in Icelandic Fairy Tales edited by Mrs. Angus W. Hall. Here is a storytelling video of the tale:

Wednesday, November 29, 2017

The Transformation of FLOTUS: A Dark Fairy Tale for the Season

In April of 2017, writer Kate Imbach wrote a reflection on Melania Trump, the then-new FLOTUS, as considered through the lens of Melania's personal photos, titled Fairytale Prisoner by Choice: The Photographic Eye of Melania Trump. The article was prompted by the odd issue that the new first lady was so very absent, compared to most other FLOTUS'  of the past.
Imbach wrote:
Why won’t the first lady show up for her job? Why? I became obsessed with this question and eventually looked to Melania’s Twitter history for answers. I noticed that in the three-year period between June 3, 2012 and June 11, 2015 she tweeted 470 photos which she appeared to have taken herself. I examined these photographs as though they were a body of work. 
Everyone has an eye, whether or not we see ourselves as photographers. What we choose to photograph and how we frame subjects always reveals a little about how we perceive the world. For someone like Melania, media-trained, controlled and cloistered, her collection of Twitter photography provides an otherwise unavailable view into the reality of her existence. Nowhere else — certainly not in interviews or public appearances — is her guard so far down. 
What is that reality? She is Rapunzel with no prince and no hair, locked in a tower of her own volition, and delighted with the predictability and repetition of her own captivity.
Written during the time when Melania declined moving to the White House and opted to stay in Trump Tower, it's an interesting assessment, and although sympathy from readers varies, the consensus seems to be that loneliness is, indeed an ongoing factor in this woman's life. The photos from high up - an actual tower - with the same landscape and differing only in weather and time of day, do give the viewer pause.

Just as interesting is the interpretation of Melania's photos of the interior of Trump Tower:

 We can all picture the gilded monstrosity of the Trump home from publicity photos (chandeliers, sad boy astride a stuffed lion, golden pillars), but it is a different place through Melania’s eyes. She takes photographs inside her house at weird, skewed angles. It is a strange effect when the half-obscured objects, chairs and ceilings, are all so golden. It looks like what a terrified little girl held captive in a ogre’s fairytale castle might see when she dares to sneak a peek through her fingers. (source: Kate Imbach)


If you haven't seen this essay finding the parallels between Rapunzel and Melania, pre and post FLOTUS status, it's worth a read. While the writer is clearly critical of Melania's 'fitness' to be a first lady, its' nevertheless a very different look at Melania Trump as a person. You can find the whole article, with Melania's photos throughout, HERE.

FAST FORWARD TO DECEMBER 2017:

Melania is now at the White House and chose to take an active - and apparently personal - role in decorating her new(ish) home, for the season. It's safe to say the public reaction to photos has been, less than warm...

A tweet from Donald Haase:


My retweet & comment:

And back to the growing list of folklore and fairy tale references mentioned (note: I have screen-captured the tweets referred to and inserted them after my tweets so readers can easily see what's being referred to, but the links in the embedded tweets also send you to the original tweet for the sources):



   

   


Note how the feet appear in the photo - enlarged below (it's obviously a lighting issue but it's still an interesting connection):





This comment (screen-capped below) expanded the supernatural narrative. Meant to entertain, it's also an interesting place to go:

A reply to one of the earlier tweets, pointing out the use of folklore:

And the tweet that prompted me to put it all in one place:

As an interesting callback to the original article about Melania in her tower, I thought I'd finish with the final sentence by Imbach, which has more resonance than ever:
 She’s living inside a dark fairytale, and in fairytales the women trapped in towers never save anyone but themselves.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Happy Birthday Hans Christian Andersen!

In honor of Andersen's birthday on April 2nd I got involved in 'Fairy Tale Facts Day' on Twitter and offered little known story details from the earlier, grittier version in 140 characters.

Please note: RT means 'retweet' and means I'm re-posting what someone else wrote. @ is used to reply to people for conversations.

Here's the 'transcript' of fairy tale related tweets from the day:
  • Happy Birthday Hans Christian Andersen! (b. 1805) And now some Fairy Tale facts for you in the next few tweets...
  • Before 'Disney-fication' fairy tales were often brutal & happy endings weren't guaranteed. They were legends, lessons, warnings & much more.
  • Figuring out Red Riding Hood wasn't originally a 'kiddie' story doesn't take a big leap. Originally Gran eaten-Red eaten-The End. No hunter.
  • In an early Frog Prince he returns to human form, not after a kiss but after being thrown at a wall by a horrible,spoiled & selfish princess
  • RT @JoshDrescher In original "Rapunzel" the Prince only comes back for Rapunzel at the end because he's gotten her pregnant & feels guilty.
  • The earliest known version of Cinderella (actual name Rhodopis) comes from Egypt in the 1st century BC. (thanks @JoshDrescher )
  • RT @JoshDrescher Original Sleeping Beauty: she's not woken with a kiss, but is actually impregnated by a prince/king who then abandons her.
  • RT @JoshDrescher She gives birth & only wakes when 1 of starving newborns sucks on her finger, removing flax that caused her to fall asleep.
  • RT @JoshDrescher There is an awesome Albanian version of Snow White where she lives with 40 dragons instead of 7 Dwarfs
  • Remember the zombie Snow White I mentioned earlier? In an early Snow White, she is not woken with a kiss. The Prince steals her corpse..!
  • RT @JoshDrescher While transporting coffin, the Prince's servants trip & drop it. This dislodges poisoned apple chunk & Snow White wakes up.
  • RT @JoshDrescher Assume necrophiliac Prince was disappointed to find he suddenly had live girl on his hands, thus ruining his weekend plans.
  • @PiaVeleno Cinderella 1 stepsister cuts off toes Yes. The other cuts off heels. And now women have surgery to fit into their Mahnolos..!
  • Yay for Twitter Search! Lots of people talking about fairy tales today - the REAL ones, not the happily-ever-after type. Gritty goodness!
  • @ChrisTomalty Do you have an online link for the Pinocchio was a Psychopath discussion? Interested. :)
  • RT @ireadkidsbooks Little Red Riding Hood by Beni Montresor- an extremely dark version of fairy tale. Not for kids! twitpic.com/2omho
  • RT @ireadkidsbooks The final three wordless pages where Little Red Riding Hood floats inside wolf's swollen stomach are disturbing to me.
  • (Need I say that Little Red Riding Hood by Beni Montresor is now on my wishlist? Delicious!)
  • And because it's fairy tale day here's that cool info graphics interpretation of Red Riding Hood: www.vimeo.com/3514904
  • Back to Fairy Tale Facts: Early Rumplestiltskin - dwarf grabs his own feet & rips himself in half after losing his bargain with the queen.
  • RT @JoshDrescher In the original version of "The Little Mermaid", she doesn't get the Prince AND winds up committing suicide.
  • RT @JoshDrescher Hans Christian Andersen eventually changed ending: She STILL doesn't get the Prince, but winds up going to Mermaid Heaven.
  • Most of the evil stepmothers were originally the real mother. Grimms changed it because they thought it threatened the family unit.
  • RT @JoshDrescher Original Jack & Beanstalk J is a murderous burglar. Giant isn't evil. J sneaks into castle, tricks wife, robs & murders G.
  • RT @JoshDrescher Wasn't till much later the giant was turned into a villain in order to provide Jack with heroic justification to kill him.
  • RT @JoshDrescher The original Princess and the Pea was full of bawdy double entendres.
  • RT @JoshDrescher After sleeping on pile of mattresses she complains to Prince "something hard" kept her up all night, to amusement of all.
  • The evil queen gets brutally punished in the 'original' Snow White by being forced to dance in red-hot iron shoes till she falls down dead.
  • In a very old version of Cinderella, C actually KILLS her 1st stepmother to get her father to marry the housekeeper instead.
  • The Three Little Pigs: Wolf eats the first two then climbs down the chimney of the 3rd, only to end up being boiled alive in a big pot.
  • Early Beauty & the Beast: the Beast had a snake-like appearance. He was transformed into a beast because he seduced an orphan (a kid).
  • Hans Christian Andersen's were often tragic & filled with religious (Christian) symbolism. Happy birthday HCA!
  • ...and some of them lived happily, some did not. The End.
  • Another Fairy Tale Fact by request of @filboidstudge (& Mary). "What info do you have on Donkeyskin?" This may take a couple of tweets :)
  • Donkeyskin is, even watered down, clearly about issues of incest. The 'adopted' part of the daughter was added. Originally she was pursued..
  • ... by her actual father. the act of her donning a donkeyskin to escape is doubly interesting. Skins, especially animal represent carnality.
  • The girl in Donkeyskin is wearing the disguise of the very thing she's trying to escape, outwardly wearing 'evidence' of her violations.
  • The donkey at beginning with gold 'tumbling out its ears' originally had gold feces. A little jibe on how the king made his wealth perhaps:)
(Here is the book mentioned in the tweets above. Though not a story by Andersen it still worth a mention!)