Stories for the Season: The Blue Bird

"The Blue Bird" was one of those fairy tales that had a huge influence on me as a child, thanks to the 1976 film adaptation which I saw in the theater. The story begins on Christmas Eve and is all about giving and new beginnings.

Here's a summary:

Two somewhat disgruntled children, Tyltyl (the older girl) and Mytyl (the boy) after wishing Christmas would be better for them (their parents are poor and cannot afford all the presents and wonderful food that other richer people are indulging in), are sent out by the fairy Bérylune on a fantastical trip into various lands (Land of Luxury, the Past, the Future etc) to search for the Bluebird of Happiness. They are accompanied by their dog and cat (given human form by the fairy - who also gives other objects like milk, sugar, light and fire a temporary human form), the characters of which provide their own complications to the search along the way. Finally returning home empty-handed, the children see in the light of the new day that the bird has been in a cage in their home the whole time. Tyltyl, having found happiness in herself, gives the bird as a present to a sick neighbor but the bird escapes to freedom.

The story was made into a play in the early 1900's by Maeterlinck, which was very successful and popular, and has been made into more stage adaptations, including ballets, as well. The play has also been made into a film a number of times: two silent films, another in color (which is the most famous, with Shirley Temple as Tyltyl) in 1940, another in 1976 (with Elizabeth Taylor, which I saw as a child) and later as a Japanese anime. Three of the films are now available on DVD (you can see a lot of images from all three films HERE).
The story is very much about teaching the value of family, love and 'the journey' (not 'getting the prize') and the importance of sharing and giving but despite being overtly didactic in this manner, the films and story have a lot of charm and all these 'lessons' contribute greatly to the overall Christmas and New Year feel.
As a child, I especially loved all the objects coming to life, the spirits of the forest/trees, seeing the children who were about to be born and the personified cat and dog and must admit these are still big draws to the tale for me today.
You can read the whole version (in prose, as written out for children from the play) HERE.

The Enchanted Conversation Begins... Tomorrow!

* STOP THE PRESSES * STOP THE PRESSES * STOP THE PRESSES *

2010 promises to be a great year for fairy tales in more ways than one.
Our year starts off with the premier issue of a brand new fairy tale 'blogazine', right on January 1st - tomorrow!

Happy New Year indeed!

Enchanted Conversation is an online 'zine with new stories and retellings, poems, articles, book reviews, new and classic/golden age art and even contests! It's a fantastic and very welcome addition to our fairy tale reading, writing and research, helmed by an awesome woman, Kate Wolford,* who really knows what she's doing.

Sleeping Beauty
by Sir Edward Burne-Jones

The first issue's theme is Sleeping Beauty and there's lots to explore (see Kate's Introduction for a quick overview of what's in the issue HERE).

What are you waiting for? Go join the conversation!

Click HERE to get started.

*Kate Wolford is a university lecturer and teaches both creative writing and a course on fairy tales at IUSB (Indiana University South Bend). She kindly makes her fairy tale teaching and resource blog "Diamonds and Toads" available to anyone who's interested in the study and reading of fairy tales - a topic which is clearly dear to her heart. I consider it a great privilege to call her a friend of Once Upon A Blog. Kate is committed to furthering the interest and study of fairy tales for all (think fun with substance!) and her magazine employs this principle along with a high standard of excellence in writing and research, so expect great things in this issue and in the ones to come.

New Moon Meets Beauty & the Beast

I just saw this, though it appeared in early October, and had to share. It's a very well edited mock-trailer by a talented guy named Kenneth Campbell, who used the sound and voices from the second Twilight film trailers for "New Moon" and edited scenes from Disney's "Beauty & the Beast" to fit. While it shows how there are similarities between the two films*, it also shows how reordering scenes can greatly change a story (the power of editing - both in writing and in the film editor's room!)

Enjoy!


*Please note, I'm not saying the Twilight series is like Beauty and the Beast, nor am I saying the Twilight series is a fairy tale. I haven't been able to read beyond a few chapters of the first book myself (sorry Twilight fans!) so can't properly comment. I just enjoyed the mash-up so thought a few of you might too. :)

Stories for the Season: The Tailor of Gloucester

"The Tailor of Gloucester" became one of the Christmas stories read to children each year and because Beatrix Potter's work is so closely linked to fairy tales (in fact, that was often her aim: to write new ones) I feel I can highlight it here. The story was initially self-published by the author and not available in her collections but it's now included in the big box sets. (You can read the story online HERE.)

It also seems Ms. Potter wrote this story specifically for someone, as the inscription indicates (below):

MY DEAR FREDA,

Because you are fond of fairy-tales, and have been ill, I have made you a story all for yourself—a new one that nobody has read before. And the queerest thing about it is—that I heard it in Gloucestershire, and that it is true—at least about the tailor, the waistcoat, and the "No more twist!"

Christmas, 1901

The plot is as follows (from Wikipedia):

A tailor in Gloucester sends his cat Simpkin to buy food and a twist of cherry-coloured silk to complete a waistcoat the mayor has commissioned for his wedding on Christmas morning. While Simpkin is gone, the tailor finds mice the cat has imprisoned under teacups. The mice are released and scamper away. When Simpkin returns and finds his mice gone, he hides the twist in anger.

The tailor falls ill and is unable to complete the waistcoat, but, upon returning to his shop, he is surprised to find the waistcoat finished. The work has been done by the grateful mice. However, one buttonhole remains unfinished because there was "no more twist!" Simpkin gives the tailor the twist to complete the work and the success of the waistcoat makes the tailor's fortune.

On Christmas Day this year, some lovely person uploaded the wonderfully done live action film adaptation from 1989 onto YouTube for us all to enjoy.

All five parts should play in order. Enjoy!

New Promo Pic for Disney's Rapunzel

Most of you will have seen this by now but I feel I should post it anyway. An unnamed French magazine published this new pic from the Disney fairy tale feature currently in production and due for a November 2010 release.

Below is the largest version I could find of the image so you can click on it to view all the details and take a good look at the painterly style Glen Keane developed so the CG film will have more of a traditional look than most CG films.As you may have noticed the image has the French text from the magazine still on it (Raiponce is the French translation of Rapunzel).

And a little Princess and the Frog news: despite it's incredible popularity and rave reviews from all over, PatF hasn't earned anywhere near Disney's expectations in box office returns (remember, dollars from marketing products don't 'count', which still seems odd to me as it should be an indication of how much people want a piece of the movie/story/characters for themselves). What this means for future 2D animated Disney projects and future fairy tale films is yet to be determined. Either way, we'll be seeing Rapunzel at the end of next year.

How Fairy Tales Can Nourish Children's Bodies (Article)

This article by Nancy Mellon discusses both the power of storytelling and how the imagery in fairy tales can be used to promote healthy thinking toward our own heart, lungs, liver and more. The suggestion is that we can promote healthy body thinking in children by telling them such stories and fairy tales.I found the stories discussed particularly interesting as most of them aren't well known. The writer concentrates on Grimm tales so those who've read them all will find them familiar.Here are a couple of excerpts:

How do stories nourish children's organs as they grow?... We can look with wonder and fascination at the fundamental archetypes of our organs to find characters and plot structures that express them.

Editors note (from the end): Stories have many levels of meaning and many possible interpretations... Contemplation and meditation about the images in these stories and how they may describe organ functions can reveal to connections.

The fairy tales discussed are:

• The Twelve Huntsman (a true bride tale)
  

• Jorinde and Joringel

• The Juniper Tree

• Little Brother and Little Sister

• Two Brothers

• The Queen Bee (another Simpleton who-is-kind-of-heart wins story)

• Gutta Percha (by George MacDonald)

• The Prince Who Feared Nothing

• The Frog King

A few other stories are mentioned too (eg Great Expectations) but the emphasis is on fairy tales throughout.Here's the article:

How-Do-Stories-Nourish-Childrens-Organs-As-They-Grow -

It's one way of using stories I haven't heard of before and although I admit I'm skeptical about children picking up this information subconsciously, I'm all for promoting health of mind and body through fairy tales.
You can download the article if you'd like to keep a copy HERE.

* All images are from the excellent fairy tale series "The Storyteller" by Jim Henson & Co. There's an overview of the epiosdes/tales with summary and images HERE and you can get your own copy of the DVD set which includes the Greek Myth series too, HERE.

Wonderland Solved (Article)

This article came to my attention a few weeks ago and the subject is very different from the usual sort of fairy tale content so rather than try to summarize I'll just give you the idea and point you to the URL in case it interests you.

If you know much about Lewis Carroll (whose name was really Charles Dodgson) you'll know not only did he possess a big imagination but was also a mathematician. Someone decided to put his best known work together with his best loved principles of math and algebra (which he taught to University students) to see if some of the oddities of the story could be solved.

Illustration
by John Tenniel

Here's an excerpt:

What would Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland be without the Cheshire Cat, the trial, the Duchess's baby or the Mad Hatter's tea party? Look at the original story that the author told Alice Liddell and her two sisters one day during a boat trip near Oxford, though, and you'll find that these famous characters and scenes are missing from the text.

As I embarked on my DPhil investigating Victorian literature, I wanted to know what inspired these later additions. The critical literature focused mainly on Freudian interpretations of the book as a wild descent into the dark world of the subconscious. There was no detailed analysis of the added scenes, but from the mass of literary papers, one stood out: in 1984 Helena Pycior of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee had linked the trial of the Knave of Hearts with a Victorian book on algebra. Given the author's day job, it was somewhat surprising to find few other reviews of his work from a mathematical perspective. Carroll was a pseudonym: his real name was Charles Dodgson, and he was a mathematician at Christ Church College, Oxford.

You may have guessed by now, this article isn't for the faints-at-the-sight-of-maths person but if you're an Alice fan and can peruse even some of it, it may give you a whole different way to appreciate Carroll's work.

You can read the whole article HERE.

And if that whet your appetite for more there's another article HERE and discussion of a book that concentrates on the mathematical side of Carroll/Dodgson.

Stories for the Season: Jack Frost

There isn't a specific fairy tale for Jack Frost, just some traditional poems, (though there are a few picture books) but he's a character that pops up a lot in Winter fairy and folktales in various guises - and he's often a different character from The Winter King.

Traditionally, Jack Frost (or King Frost or Father Frost), is an elf-like creature or sprite and ranges from elf-size-small to human size to the size of the wind, depending on what mischief he's up to. He's credited with decorating window panes and frozen surfaces with (spiked and frosty or 'fern-like') ice patterns, sometimes with his breath, sometimes with "his silver brush". He's also fond of nipping at fingers, toes and noses.

Jack Frost
by Oliver Herford

I particularly like Frank L. Baum's treatment of the character in which Jack Frost is actually the son of The Winter King (or Frost King) and, like most Jack characters, employs a strong streak of mischief in all he does. Santa Claus actually likes him (calls him "a jolly rogue") but doesn't particularly trust him and asks specifically that Jack spare the children. Jack sobers enough to reply he will if he can.

Jack Frost
by Eric Kincaid

Another activity attributed to Jack in literature includes the ability to freeze shadows, separating them from their owners and giving them their own autonomy (that appears to have originated from Baum too).

He's also been represented as having the ability to project ice and cold, be prone to jealousy, turn from mischievous to downright nasty (including amassing leagues of Goblins to help him take over Fairyland) or to simply be the light-hearted herald (sometimes filling a court jester role) of the Winter King.

Jack Frost
by Arthur Rackham

Though there are many poems written about Jack Frost there are (as far as I can make out) two traditional ones taught to children. You can find them HERE (by Laura E. Richards) and HERE (by C. E. Pike).

A composite of the Jack Frost covers from the "Fables" series
created by Bill Willingham

This character has appeared in countless myth-based novels and stories since in all shapes and forms, playing the protagonist to the villain. The Fables series also uses the character of Jack Frost too with his story and legend continuing to grow in various installments. He's such a versatile character, with many facets from country to country (a tiny pixie through to Norse heavy-weight frost-giant - with frost-giant brothers), I'm actually surprised we haven't seen more of this fellow*.

*Wikipedia has a growing list of references in literature and film and, though it's still far from complete, it's a good place to start researching (see HERE).

Stories for the Season: Edward Scissorhands

"Edward Scissorhands" is a movie it took me a very long time to see. When it was first in theaters I found the poster disturbingly like the "Freddy" horror posters and, despite what people were saying, didn't want to subject myself to anything remotely in that genre.

Many years later I saw the movie and quickly realized it wasn't a horror at all but a beautiful modern (and romantic) fairy tale of a boy misunderstood simply because of how he looks. It's quite reminiscent of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" with a light and magical aspect (for the most part) instead of the heavy Victor Hugo touch. The PG rating is more because of the unfortunate boy/creature's appearance than anything else, otherwise the film is touchingly humorous, beautifully fantastic and very romantic. The film is in many people's favorite fantasy film picks and has even been adapted into a very successful ballet.The supposedly true story of how the first snow came to fall on the town, is being told to a child by her grandmother. An old inventor is slowly completing his life's work: a boy he names Edward but Edward's creator dies before he can give him the hands he made for him and the poor boy-creature is left alone in the mansion/castle he was created in. One day a kindly Avon lady comes knocking one day and takes him under her wing. In all his years with his substitute hands that are made of knives and scissors, the gentle-hearted Edward has learned to use them to create beautiful things. This helps people get over their first fearful impression of him to start with but nothing is straight forward - of course. Especially when Edward falls in love with the Avon lady's beautiful daughter...In a quick search for favorite Christmas movies it's not surprising to see "Edward Scissorhands" on the peoples lists. The music alone has some beautiful winter/Christmas-sounding pieces but when you add the story you add the heart.

Stories for the Season: Snow Queen

Poster for Sherman Cymru's production of "The Snow Queen"
by Savage & Gray Design

One of the obvious stories for the season is "The Snow Queen", despite Christmas not being a featured part of the story. Andersen's long-form fairy tale has grown in increasing popularity (again) the past few years with more and more plays and ballets being staged specifically during the Christmas season, providing an alternate to the traditional Nutcracker production (companies staging Snow Queen are likely to be doing Nutcracker too, to keep their regulars happy though).

English National Ballet's 2009 Production of "The Snow Queen"

It's easy to see why it's quickly become a family holiday theater favorite. The story has remained popular throughout the years and there are many wonderful elements to work with for any form of presentation.

I have to say, that though many people include The Snow Queen when you ask about Christmas fairy tales it's not the whole 'Snow Queen steals Kai away and Gerda rescues him from the Queen and the Ice Palace' that makes me include it too. It's the sequence with the robber girl and the reindeer. Though those characters only appear for one of the chapters in Gerda's long journey to find and free Kai, to me it's the most 'Christmas' part with the robber girl maturing and learning to be a true friend and, in the end, helping Gerda escape, along with the generous gift (and letting go) of her pet/captive reindeer. The reindeer itself helps the Christmas sense too, of course.I won't go into the story too much as SurLaLune just had a Snow Queen week (see HERE) and showcased some gorgeous retellings , while The Fairy Tale Cupboard posted a fabulous article on The Queens of Ice and Snow (see HERE). There are a couple of other Snow Queen things I'd like to bring to your attention as additional resources.

Firstly, HERE is an article by a teacher of children's literature on the difficulties of teaching on the story and her fascination with the Andersen tale since childhood, which some of you will find interesting.

I also haven't yet seen anyone post on the made-for-TV movie Snow Queen (produced by Hallmark), so I wanted to mention it too. It's a very nice retelling of the story (gorgeous artistic direction!) with Gerda having to travel through the seasons to find Kai. In this version Kai is a boy/young man Gerda meets as a girl on the brink of womanhood. The robber girl isn't represented the same way as the original story or in books I've seen (and prefer) but the context for this movie makes sense. (I don't much care for the Summer sequences but that's very likely just my personal taste. I enjoy it again once Autumn appears, as inconsistent as the acting is in that section and the resolution of the movie is well done enough that I can forgive it trying to wrap up all the loose ends.) The power of love - especially true love, though mother's love is highlighted too - is the driving force of this retelling and is nicely handled.

By the way, if you've liked the Snow Queen illustrations in this post they're by award winning Ukranian artist Vadyslav Yerko and are available in a truly gorgeous looking book. You can see a preview HERE and find out more information about the book, the author (HCA of course) and the illustrator HERE.

There are just a few more stories I want to highlight before New Years, the idea being to give you plenty to enjoy if you're lucky enough to be getting any leisure time between Christmas and 2010, so keep watching. After that I will be taking a brief blog break to spend some time with both my family and my new books before I return with tons of news and fairy tale finds as usual. :)