Magic Fairy Stories From Many Lands
Susan Taylor, illustrated by Severino Baraldi
ISBN: 0831757329 (Gallery Books, 1974)
A set of lesser-known fairy stories and folk tales with delightful classic-style illustrations throughout.
Baraldi's illustrations are beautiful and evocative; they remind me of the classic Dean's fairy tale illustrations, but these are a little more sinister and a bit more expressive, and also more representative of people of color or ancestry not in the classic northern european fairy tale mould.
Story summaries and comments below.
Foolish Frances: A variant of the Fisherman and his Wife story, where Mrs Luck tries to find someone who only wants something minor - someone who is mainly content and happy with their life so far. Mrs Luck finds Frances, who lives happily in a mud hut, and after some coaxing from Mrs Luck, after several demurrals, then wishes for a little cat to keep her company. Then of course she realizes she needs a goat to provide milk for the cat, and maybe a goat-shed, then a cow, then some hens, then she realizes she'd love to dance, but her dresses aren't good enough, and really she needs help with her hair also, and furthermore other people dance better than she does, and really she ought to have a big beautiful house to go with her beautiful hair and dresses, and won't Mrs Luck call her Madame Mayor now that she's hooked the leader of the town into marriage? The now-miffed Mrs Luck retracts all of the gifts, except the little cat, and that is why Lady Luck is so fickle and bad-tempered.
I would have liked this story a whole lot better if Frances had been the sort of "naive clever" rustic who shows the meddling Mrs Luck that bothering people with extra things when they've insisted they're perfectly happy is perhaps not helpful - as it is, it's too much of a Fisherman's Wife for me to really think much of it.
The Rich and Poor Widow (I also know it as Barren Wheat and as Why Sea Grass Grows): A haughty wealthy widow runs her husband's shipping company brilliantly with her business acumen, but her heart is cold and her soul is barren. During a famine, she and the other wealthy compete to find and display the most beautiful treasures of the world. A kind and loving sea captain (who is sweet on the widow, but she's spurned him) brings back a ship full of wheat to feed the hungry, arguing that charity and kindness is the greatest treasure, and that she would be beloved and blessed if she were to feed the wheat to the people of the city. She is unmoved, and dumps the wheat over the side of the ship into the sea. The famine worsens, everyone hates her, and she loses all her wealth and business. That summer, the dunes by the sea all grow what looks like wheat, but it's barren and inedible. Eventually the widow is reduced to gleaning in the fields, and she is humbled and kind. She's rescued by the kind captain, who is now wealthy and land-owning.
An interesting combination of the hauteur from Beauty and the Beast with the gleaning motif from the Book of Ruth in the Bible. I wish the widow had learned to be kind without having been reduced to starvation first, but that's fairy tales for you.
The Elf Boy: A barren woman and her farmer husband are given a half-elven child to raise, but the woman can't keep up with all the conditions laid upon her, especially to keep the elven rose water out of her eyes so she can't see fairy. The child is taken back, but he pines, so the woman is stolen away to be with him in fairy, until she's caught reciting the Lord's Prayer over him. When the child himself begins murmuring the prayer, he's reverted to fully human, and the child and woman are returned to the farm and to normal Christian life.
I'd really love to figure out a way to work this out so that the Christian overtones weren't necessary. I love the idea of a fae community realizing that a half-human child would need human parenting, but that the parents can't keep up with the strictures and the child has to eventually choose to be human or elven.
The Forest Prince (I know it also as The Wild Prince and The Royal Woodsman): A prince suffers a hunting accident and goes slightly mad in the woods as a result, before the "wild man" is then captured and placed in a cage on display in a neighboring King's garden. Pleas about his identity and his humanity are ignored, and the Prince finally bribes the Princess to release him by holding her golden ball hostage. When the King chases the escaped Prince, the Prince captures the King and keeps HIM in a cage until he grows matted and wild. The Prince tells the King that he'll only free him if the Princess marries the Wild Woodsman who was caged before (the King doesn't realize that his captor the Prince IS the Wild Woodsman). The Prince and Princess meet, the Prince passes a set of marriage tests with the help of the forest creatures he befriended in the woods and in the cage, and the King is set free, and the two royals marry.
A classic based on old tales of the knights of the round table, and other fables of wild men or hermits in the woods who are secretly royalty in disguise for various reasons. I like that the Prince is somewhat vindictive, but I wish the Princess had a bit more agency or time to fall in love.
The Rain Woman: A pair of young lovers and an older wise woman travel to the center of the earth during a drought to waken the Rain Woman to keep the land from burning under the attentions of the rampant Fire Man, after the boy's father refuses to let the pair wed unless the girl proves herself first.
This one is new to me, and I really liked it. I liked that the girl was the one who had to waken the Rain Woman, and that the boy helped her as best he could, and that the parents were reasonable and kept their promises, and I even liked the dichotomy of the Fire Man and Rain Woman, and the little Rumplestiltskin-esque trickery going on to find out the secret of where the Rain Woman was buried away.
The Glass Box: A sweet farm girl marries the Prince, and subsequently becomes Queen. Her two older sisters are bitter and jealous, and when the Queen delivers children, they steal them away and replace them with dogs and cats. The town and the King accuse the Queen of witchcraft, so she seeks the assistance of a wise woman and a sacred bird to prove her innocence and to find her children, using a glass compass to find her way to a valley where if you turn back, you're turned to stone. Of course she turns back. Then we skip to her children, who, after the deaths of their kind and good foster parents, are determined to find their parents, with the help of a wise woman and a sacred bird, led by a set of glass compasses. The boys in sequence fail, but the youngest girl (with a gold star on her forehead if you haven't figured it out by now) overcomes the trials and sets free her brothers, her mother the Queen, and a whole army of other idiots who turned around in the valley before getting to the bird. The bird confirms everything, and the army heads back to keep the King from marrying the Queen's nasty older sister.
This is a little bit of a "everything but the kitchen sink" sort of tale, but it was fun and the odd detail of replacing the babies with dogs and cats (that were then treated and raised like royalty) was interesting, as is the idea of a clear glass compass.
The Three Oranges: a trio of brothers goes to a wise woman to learn their fortunes. She asks them what they most desire - the first wants a beautiful wife, the second a rich one, and the third, simply someone he would love, and who would love him. The wise woman tells them of a far-away castle with an orange tree with three ripe oranges. If they can retrieve the three oranges all together, without hurting the tree, all will be well and they'll have their heart's desire. Sadly, the brothers are all idiots or incompetent. They split up, hurt the tree, and fail to harvest the oranges, until the youngest brother, who does pick them, but only by tearing off the whole branch. Then the elder two brothers eat all their rations on the way home, and tear open the oranges in their hunger, and have nothing to offer the beautiful rich ladies who appear before them. The younger brother saves his, and feeds his new wife. Sadly, because he broke the branch, the wise woman has to punish him, and pricks his wife with a needle and turns her into a bird until the dumb man's mother figures out that the bird has a needle in it's neck. Then they go rescue the other brothers, and somehow despite their incompetence and stupidity, they also get the wives they were after.
A beautiful fairy-tale rendition of how life isn't fair, nor sensible. The visuals of the ripe oranges are arresting, but the tale itself is a bit muddled and has lots of stuff going on, from the clever youngest brother trope to the beautiful woman disguised as fruit or baubles.
Mrs Luck and Mr Money: a really long and frankly not very interesting morality contest between Luck and Money as to which one is really needed more, and which one is more important. The two are married, and trying to decide who will be the boss of the marriage, so they torment this poor farmer with a horrible life until he's destitute, then offer him assistance to see which helps him the most.
Not a fan.
The Magic Thread: seen this one in lots of places. A bright boy is given a magic ball with a gold thread peeking out of a hole in the side. The thread represents his life, and he can pull the thread out to make time pass more quickly for him. He (of course) pulls the thread to escape boredom and pain and anticipation and things desired but delayed, or wars or illnesses, until he's very old and realizes that he's missed most of the life that other people have. The ending has the man asking for the gift to be taken away, and he wakes again as a young boy with his whole life ahead of him again.
Another strongly moral offering, but still fun to see what the boy chooses to skip in life.
The Prince's Pilgrimage: another new one for me. A Queen is desperate for a son, and promises the (always unnamed yet capitalized) Holy Saint that the kid will do a year-long pilgrimage on his 18th birthday if she has a child. 18 years later, Prince is setting off on his pilgrimage, and mom offers him wise advise for finding a traveling buddy. A good friend is found, and the two are inseparable and loyal to each other, even when faced with the temptations of a meddling King who wants the Prince for a son-in-law. At the culmination of the journey, the friend is supposed dead, but the Prince personally carries the body to the shrine of the Holy Saint and the friend revives. The final test comes when, after marrying the Princess, the friend is sick unto death (caused by the King-in-law) and the Prince has to sacrifice his infant daughter to save his friend. He does so, and the Holy Saint appears and resurrects the child, blessing the parents for their loyalty to their friend.
HOLY GAY SUBTEXT BATMAN! Yeahhhhh, so about that close bosom friendship there.
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