My Fairy Tale Romance Is Not For the Faint Of Heart

The cover for Winter rose by Patricia A. McKillip, painting by Kinuko Y. Craft

I'm not usually one to note days like Valentine's Day but with all the talk of love and fairy tales at the moment in the media I thought I'd take the opportunity to share one of my favorite fairy tales ever since it has a lot to do with love.

It's Tam Lin and I love this fairy tale ballad, but not because of the initial passion and "romance", though clearly the girl who insists on exploring "her" land, (despite that it's forbidden) is not some shy, retiring violet. Depending on how you read it, it can be seen as a lust-at-first-sight situation (and she's actually the one who makes the first move) which leaves the girl pregnant. Even if you allow for some time and it not all happening on a first meeting, it's still happens very quickly. While it's all very sexy (and the metaphors within the ballad can be interpreted quite steamily!), it's not really a good basis for a relationship. But it's what happens afterward that draws me in.

The girl, Janet (or Jennet or sometimes Margaret) stands by her decision to choose this man, against her father's will, against the possibility of losing everything and facing the very real possibility that she will be a disowned single mother with no title, land or resources. Not only that, in order to be with her man at all, she has to go up against the Faerie Queen (think super model with celebrity status, hefty bodyguards and actual magic to boot) to win her man back from the tithe/enchantment he's under - and it's a really tough challenge.

She has to pull him off a horse from the middle of an intimidating (and dangerous) Faerie Retinue that's in the middle of a serious procession,  then has to keep a hold of him as he changes forms, trying to escape her grasp, until he changes back into a man and wraps him in a green cloak. The forms include a bear, a lion, a giant snake and fire (!). Her mantra through all this is to remember he is already committed to her (he reminds her he will be present in the future as the father for their son too) and to "hold tight, don't let go".

It's simple but hefty advice for a couple - to hold tight to your partner, to your relationship and your family, through all the changes and challenges you never see coming.

She wins, of course, and the Faerie Queen is furious but must keep her end of the bargain.

I always imagine the heroine in quite bad shape afterward (not to mention exhausted and worried about her baby that's almost due to be born) while her just-freed man is disoriented, aching and naked under the green cloak she's wrapped him in. It's a tough start for the little family but it's an exhilarating one and it's clear they're not people who give up. He isn't (he's been waiting years for the right girl to bond to and to free him) and she isn't (she's just proven that) and they're about to start a new line of fierce people who love with their all.

Because Tam Lin had kept his human heart - the heart that loved Janet - intact through it all (much to the Faerie Queen's regret), he was able to turn back to his true self and be with the one he truly loved - the one who truly loved him.

I can't think of a better way to show your love for someone than to celebrate them as fully as possible and be proud of that in the good times and to be there with them, side by side, when challenges rise, no matter what happens and how unrecognizable they become in the process.

May we love wisely, well and fiercely!

What is your favorite fairy tale about love, passion and/or romance, and why?

Note:  Apart from the header, images above are by Jill Karla Schwarz from the Time Life Series Enchanted World retelling of Tam Lin. While there are a number of wonderful retellings of the story in novel form, my favorite is still Patricia A. McKillip's Winter Rose, the full spread cover of which is shown at the head of the post. (See? I do have somewhat of a romantic side!)

Eternity...

I didn't know this existed until recently but it was most definitely inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen. It even comes with the quote attached. (Looks really closely at the teeny letters below the shapes in the tray. I've kept the image as big as possible so it will spill over into the sidebar, but you can read it...)

It would make for an interesting gift for a friend, don't you think? I mean, would you be saying "I'll love you for Eternity" or "you're a puzzle I will never put together"? ;)

The creator is Artemy Lebedev and should still be available for purchase.

He arranged his pieces to spell out many words; but he could never find
the way to make the one word he was so eager to form.
The word was “Eternity.”
The Snow Queen had said to him,
“If you can puzzle that out you shall be your own master,
and I’ll give you the whole world and a new pair of skates.”

"Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs" Movie Coming

My first reaction was probably like yours: ??

There isn't much information but thought I'd give the heads-up on this anyway, especially as it will be, feature length, made in English and intended for distribution to the US, and likely UK and Australia as well.

From Variety:

South Korean sales agency Finecut has picked up international rights to “Red Shoes & The 7 Dwarfs,” an English-language animated feature that is a twist on the classic “Snow White” tales.

The $12 million family-oriented 3D animated project is now in production at Locus Creative Studio, one of the leading animation and VFX companies in Korea. Delivery is scheduled for summer 2017.

Director Hong Sungho describes the film as “tackling the inconvenient truth” about Snow White, namely that the dwarves are knights under a spell and Snow White is no longer the fairest woman in the land.

The screenplay previously won a 2010 Korean Story Competition and sees the dwarf knights on a quest for red shoes which have magical powers, but which are already on the feet of another woman.

The film will be CG and apparently Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs is a working title.

The film is scheduled to be released in the Summer of 2017 in Korea so, with news reaching Variety like this, there's a chance the US will see it in the same calendar year as well. Maybe.

Handless Maiden Fairy Tale Weekend Workshop (Sydney, Australia)

Swahili version of the Handless Maiden by Megan KearneyThe One-Handed Girl from the Lilac Fairy Book (text HERE)
(She's currently illustrating a comic/sequential retelling of Beauty & the Beast)

From Belinda Calderone of the Monash Fairy Tale Salon and the AFTS, news of a Fairy Tale Workshop on the theme of The Handless Maiden:

Highly recommended collection of retold fairy tales
(Goodreads link for more info)

The Grimms’ “Das Mädchen ohne Hände” (The Maiden Without Hands) is certainly one of the most disturbing and fascinating fairy tales.There are over a hundred variants, often known as “The Handless Maiden,” “Silver Hands” or “The Armless Maiden.” 

A whole weekend workshop focussing on this tale? Yes, please! 

This beautiful workshop is run by Heather Keens, an experienced individual and family therapist, and Joan Harcourt, an experienced body psychotherapist and group leader. Together they will help attendees explore this rich fairy tale from a Jungian psychological perspective. 

As Keens and Harcourt remind us, “The Handless Maiden is a story about individuation, about developing one’s inner strength, resilience and creativity. It is a story about losing your hands, living with silver hands and finding your hands.” 

The part I love the most is that these inspiring women take this tale of loss and healing, and make it personal to the attendees: “there will be an opportunity to explore your own journey to the conscious feminine and the inner positive masculine in a safe and contained setting. We work through discussion, metaphor and symbol, movement, dream work and art in this process.” 

Sounds incredible! 

This workshop will be of interest to health professionals, counsellors, expressive therapists, storytellers, writers or anyone engaged in their own psychological journey.

The workshop will take place from February 20 through to the 22nd, 2015.

Further details on the workshop times, location and fees can be found in the PDF flier, available to view HERE.

Casting News: Emma Thompson in Talks for Mrs. Potts

The Oscar-winning actress is in negotiations to play Mrs Potts, the housekeeper turned into a teapot, in the live action film version of Disney’s Beauty And The Beast. 

The kindly Mrs Potts helps Belle, the tale’s heroine, sort out her romantic entanglements. Emma Watson will star as Belle. 

Director Bill Condon has been working with composer Alan Menken about which songs from the 1991 animated movie will feature in the new picture. (Source)

So will this be for her voice only, or her voice and an appearance at the end or ...?

Right now I'm having trouble imagining how the enchanted objects aspect of Disney's Beauty and the Beast will work for a live action film.

I've always been enamored of the invisible servants approach myself.

Fifty Shades Is Just Beauty & the Beast?! (No, no, no, no, no..!)

CONTROVERSIAL SUBJECT ALERT:

But I guess this was an inevitable comparison. 

I just didn't quite expect the write-up to read quite like this:

It seemed to many E.L. James, America’s new softcore sweetheart, was working some kind of magic on jaded American consumers, and had stumbled on the one choice of subject matter that could get people reading again. Yet the roots of its popularity stretched much deeper than its author’s source material, and what a Newsweek cover story dubbed “The Fantasy Life of Working Women.” At its most basic, Fifty Shades of Grey—like Twilight,and like so many bestsellers that have come before—appealed not just to suburban housewives, but to the little girls they had once been. The story is less a booster for bondage... than a retelling of Beauty and the Beast. At the end of her saga, when all the whips have been sheathed and the harnesses have been unstrung, Anastasia Steele has tamed and wedded her beast, given birth to one of his children, and conceived another. In its final lines, the narrative appears less a celebration of sexual transgression than of the nuclear family. ...The beast, vanquished, has transformed into a prince, and she has become his princess. 

(There's more. You can read the whole, huge article, titled 50 Shades Is Just 'Beauty and the Beast' with Handcuffs and Sex Toys, with all its reasonings HERE.)

So basically Twilight & Fifty Shades of Grey = Beauty & the Beast?

Only if the message in the fairy tale is "transform your man", "tame your Beast", "give in to your Savior complex" or "stand by your nightmare until he becomes a Prince"!

Please tell me this is not really the "fairy tale" (colloquial use of the term) that people truly want?


See this is where I think Disney needs to seriously overhaul the Beast's character at the beginning of their movie. There needs to be another way for he and Belle to be in conflict, because the resulting message, no matter how it was originally intended, is a recipe for abuse (and possibly Stockholm syndrome), and we've ended up with a lot of confused "little girls" out there...

*DELETES EVERYTHING ELSE I JUST WROTE*

Why am I bothering with this here? Because no matter how bad this film is purported to be, the book was (is?) a scary cultural phenomenon, which is how this it came to be made into a movie at all, and you know there are people you know that will see this. And when it gets talked about in conjunction with a fairy tale which is held as a favorite (for good reasons) by many enlightened people I know... well I think you should know and be prepared for it in case you get asked about it.

Ima jus' gonna leave this here now and move on...

UPDATE, LATER THE SAME EVENING AS WRITING THE ABOVE:

I just skimmed the article in Entertainment Weekly called Sex, Lies & Fifty Shades, because right there, smack in the middle of the article are pictures of Disney's Snow White (The Prince Paradigm) and Cinderella (The Cinderella Complex). Sleeping Beauty and Beauty and the Beast are also referenced in the article as are fairy tale and feminist issues in general, but not in the way I expected after the last article. The interesting thing about this use, is that the author/magazine used the images to draw you (me) in, to say "that's not what it's really about at all".

The real reasons for the popularity of Fifty Shades, and for the persistent role of domination and submission in women's sexual imaginations, are rooted in what it actually means to live life in a female body - and the truth about that is so dark it makes Christian Grey's Red Room of Pain seem as innocuous as a backyard sandbox. (Leslie Bennetts for Entertainment Weekly. A longtime writer for Vanity Fair, she is the author of The Feminine Mistake: Are We Giving Up Too Much?)

While I don't agree with the whole article I think this makes a good and resonating point: one which, should you find yourself discussing fairy tales and feminism and the mixed up signals pop culture is sending us, that is worth keeping in mind.

You can currently read the EW article online HERE. You may want to note it starts provocatively, stating much about sex lives and the popularity of the books and coming movie, but this is only really the introduction to illustrate the baffling phenomena of this series that has bright minds having many arguments as to 'why?'. The quoted paragraph is the last one from that section and then it gets into a discussion that better suited to the question of "why are so many modern women consumed by this Fifty Shades fascination?" It may indeed have something to do with fairy tales, but not in the way that most people might think.

"The Light Princess" (A.R.T. Institute) Flies Into New Victory Theater

Poster from original production by A.R.T.

It's so interesting to see all the different stage versions of this fairy tale. George MacDonald's fairy tales (full text of The Light Princess is HERE) seems to have come back into public consciousness again in recent years with Twyla Tharp's work (contemporary dance), Tori Amos' musical theater adaptation (the photos look amazing! I will have to do a catch up post...) and now the A.R.T. Institute are presenting their version.

Note: this is one of many current family theater offerings advertising their "sensory friendliness" so for sensitive children and kids dealing with autism, this is produced to be as enjoyable for all as possible.

From the press release:

Can a girl who can’t fall at all, fall in love? The Light Princess follows the journey of a young princess cursed to live without gravity in a new musical from A.R.T. Institute.  

Funny, romantic and buoyed by whimsical original songs, The Light Princess is an enchanting tale for all ages, running at The New Victory Theater from February 27th to March 8th, 2015.

In this delightful musical by writing duo Lila Rose Kaplan (Wildflower, Second Stage Theater; Biography of a Constellation, 2009 National Science Playwriting Award from the Kennedy Center) and Mike Pettry (2012 ASCAP Foundation Harold Adamson Lyric Award winner for musical theater and a 2007 Jonathan Larson Award winner), two witty wisemen sing a story of a young princess cursed by a wicked witch to float through life indefinitely.

With direction by Allegra Libonati, The Light Princess comes from a widely lauded and popular run at the acclaimed American Repertory Theater (Artistic Director, Diane Paulus). Accompanied by live, onstage music and cleverly choreographed byJeffrey Kuperman and Rick Kuperman, our young heroine twirls above the stage, through the kingdom and into a magical forest as she searches for a way to come back to earth by her sixteenth birthday (or be doomed to defy gravity forever!).

Based on the nineteenth-century Scottish fairy tale by George MacDonald, The Light Princess features actors from the A.R.T. Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University.

Here's the entertaining trailer. It certainly looks like a lot of fun for actors and audience!

I like this trailer from A.R.T.'s production the year before as well. It gives a different overview (and the actors will be different), but if you're not familiar with the story or production , this may fill in some gaps:

The performances run from February 27th through to March 8th, 2015 and the The New Victory Theater in New York, NY.

More information and tickets can be found HERE.

Fairy tale bonus of the day:

Here's a lovely illustration of The Light Princess by Alteya of deviantArt.

New "Cinderella" Trailer: Not Just About the Magic

As promised, released today, here's the new, second official trailer for Disney's live action Cinderella.

We finally get to see a little more of the driving force behind this retelling as well as a little more of the transformation magic.

Perhaps I'm extra critical because Branagh is a Shakespeare and classics guy who should be well aware of layering, stories, use of symbology and plot points etc so I expect more than average but this trailer is definitely a step in the right direction, even if it still doesn't feel particularly innovative to me at this point. There does seem a chance that people will think slightly differently of Cinderella in the future though but we'll have to wait and see.

Note: Cinderella is going to be EVERYWHERE. The last few days have been filled with announcement upon announcement from various stores and chains collaborating with Disney to handle Cinderella-specific merchandise. You will not be able to escape this during Springtime. It's definitely being boosted by the new Frozen short, Frozen Fever, being included before the movie but the longevity of the Cinderella merch. will depend on a variety of things. Suffice it to say - if you want fairy tale themed clothes, accessories etc now is a good time to start looking around.

In the meantime, enjoy the trailer! It's worth watching to see where they're going with this:

Calling All Writers Who Love To Read!

Our partnership with Timeless Tales has opened up an exciting new opportunity for our readers. We are forming a team of volunteer reviewers, so if you're a fellow fairy tale lover who would like to contribute to this blog (and have the opportunity for a little publicity for your own work), here is how you can apply.

We currently have a team of three regular reviewers and would like to add 2-3 more consistent members to our team and a longer list of intermittent members.  

I have no idea what kind of response this will receive, so consider this an open invite until May 1, 2015 with the possibility of us extending it.

INSTRUCTIONS

Send an email to Tahlia at 
timelesstalesbookreviews AT gmail DOT com 
with "I want to join the team!" in the subject line. 

Include the following information:

1. Your name and a short paragraph about yourself, focusing on your love of fairytales, your writing background, and what genres you like/dislike reading (so we know what books your most likely to enjoy). Please include links to any blogs or published pieces. Note: you are not required to be previously published to be considered for this position.

2. Are you interested in reviewing ebooks?

3. Do you have an iPad or iPhone? (We have a request at the moment that requires one of these devices) 

By Agata Kawa

General info:

• When you send us your application info, Tahlia will look it over and if she likes what she sees, she'll send you a review to write as a trial run. With the assignment, you will also receive all our review writing guidelines. If she's happy with what you submit, we will use it on the blog and consider you for further reviews. 
• This is sadly not a paid position, but we will give you full credit and a bio blurb at the end of the review, including links. 
• However, you will be allowed to keep any review copies/ARCs of books sent to you.
• The expected word count for your posts will be 250-500 words (not including the published blurb/synopsis).
• We will try to be flexible with your schedule, but must have writers who can commit to an agreed-upon deadline. If we send you a request and you choose to pass, that's totally fine. Once a deadline is agreed to and we send you a book, however, we will need you to meet that deadline (usually around a month after we mail you the book). Note: This is particularly important for books about to be released. We aim to support and promote the work of fairy tale authors, and possibly, one day, you too!

Glass Slippers & Conspiracies

Remember how I mentioned I hadn't seen anything regarding marketing of an iconic Cinderella shoe as a marketing/consumer tie-in to the upcoming movie (and that I wouldn't have been surprised if it ended up being an exclusive thing)?

Ta da! Disney has approached nine luxury shoe designer brands and asked them for their interpretations of a Cinderella 2015 shoe.

(In other words, they went the exclusive route.)

The distinguished designers, in alphabetical order, are: Paul Andrew, Alexandre Birman, René Caovilla, Jimmy Choo, Salvatore Ferragamo, Nicholas Kirkwood, Charlotte Olympia, Jerome C. Rousseau, and Stuart Weitzman. Each brand has created its own interpretation of the famed glass slipper Cinderella accidentally leaves behind when the clock strikes midnight. 

...Swarovski, which produced the iconic glass slipper for the film under the direction of Academy Award®-winning costume designer Sandy Powell, provided the crystals featured in the designers’ shoes.

 

The words: PVC, perspex, transparent - these all make me think of ugly, squished, sweaty and deformed feet (especially in these heels! Are any under 3 1/2 inches??) Yikes. Feet can be very beautiful but, ironically, this combination seems a conspiracy against that ideal..

You can see the rest of the shoe designs HERE (none of which seem particularly innovative, but what do I know), along with statements from the designers about creating a new iconic Cinderella shoe. The rest of write up from Consumer Products is HERE, including a list of where you're able to order these shoes, if you are so monied, er, inclined. (!)

In other Cinderella movie updates, there is a new TV Spot, focusing on an apparent conspiracy the Stepmother is "in" on, with regard to keeping Cinderella hidden and apparently there's a new full trailer due out tomorrow.

Here's the conspiracy:

I want to be excited, I do, but it's not feeling very unique - not even a different spin on a classic (and fairy tale writers out there know there are many, many ways to do that, even when restricted by using required/classic/iconic material). I know Branagh did his research. I know he read many versions of Cinderella in preparation for making this movie but I'm not seeing lots of evidence of that yet. Cinderella "pre-meeting" the prince so it's not love at first sight has been done so often (heck, Disney made sure this happened for Snow White so she'd have a little history with her guy before being woken up!), I just can't see it as being a different take (Ever After easily did it better and that was a very less-than-perfect movie.)

But... this little featurette came out today about the love story between Cinderella and the Prince so, for people who've never seen Ever After or The Slipper and the Rose (highly recommended) this may feel very fresh.

Without doubt, whatever it is, it will be beautiful.