Puppy Love

A puppy, in its natural habitat

This week's story comes to us from South Africa. It caught my eye because, really, who doesn't want to read a story called Puppy Love?

We have all the makings of a standard fairy tale to begin with: the king who only wants a daughter and finally gets one, the daughter who doesn't turn nasty and selfish even though she gets everything she wants, and some jealous girls. Typically in European fairy tales the jealous girls are instead the girl's step-mother, but so far it looks pretty similar. Then the girl rescues a puppy from drowning. He doesn't talk, like he would in some fairy tales, but he follows her everywhere and they're best friends.

I was surprised that this beautiful princess didn't catch some young man's eye. She was saved from certain death by a dog instead of a prince or a man, which takes out the whole idea of her marrying her rescuer and makes it instead about debts being repaid. Her father and the men of the village come along afterward to essentially walk her home, and so the chief could see with his own eyes what had happened to his favorite daughter. To be honest, I'm surprised the girls tried to kill the princess, no matter how much they hated her because it could backfire on them like this.

I was a little worried about the king's wording of his punishment. If all the girls had to do was bring the monster to the chief, then it could destroy the village and they would still have kept their word. However, this is probably something that was changed in translation, so I shouldn't worry about it too much. The girls did as they were told, though. They brought the monster into the village and even managed to cage it, so that the warriors of the village could kill it.

I know this story is about the princess and how much she and her dog loved each other. I am on board with that, truly, but I think these nameless girls are the real heroes. I mean, after they tried to kill their princess. They were the only ones who were able to get rid of the monster in the lake. They did not kill it themselves, but they put themselves in danger to get it out of the lake and into the kraal.

The moral of this story is either to save puppies as often as you can, or to be able to run really fast if you're trying to get rid of a monster.

Alphege, or the Green Monkey

Looks about right....

This week's story comes from England. Alphege, or the Green Monkey is a tale of love, loss, and a monkey. You can have this particular tale read to you, if you want. Isn't it lovely what technology can do these days?

We have all of the usual ingredients for a fairy tale here: the stepmother who is jealous of her step-child, the clueless father who doesn't know how evil his second wife is, and the noble prince just trying to survive. As a bonus, we also have a fairy godmother, of sorts. The prince also has a loving set of parents in his governess and tutor, which is a relief knowing his father and stepmother can't have been that attentive.

One aspect I was surprised by, but really like, is that the new queen's son is actually a good person. He is a good ruler while his older half-brother is away on monkey business, and when the older prince is restored to himself, the stepbrother immediately offers to give up the throne. I think the older prince made a great call in ruling jointly with his stepbrother, especially since that prince would know far more of what was going on in the kingdom than the older prince, at least until the monkey prince got caught up on current affairs.

We need to talk about the "fairy godmother" for a moment. I'm a little confused by her. When the prince turns into a monkey, she comes to the desert with him to relieve his suffering, which is great, but she didn't cure him and it was a long time until he found his way back home. If she's so powerful and loves him so much, why didn't she change him back sooner? I feel like this "Good Queen" had been wanting to meet her godson again for a long time, remember he never left his kingdom, and now that she had a chance to spend time with him, she kept him for as long as she could. It's definitely not the best motivation, but it's understandable. However, even after she decides to let him go back home, she doesn't change him back into a man. She leaves him as a monkey for awhile longer before finally telling the prince's old governess in a dream how to change him back. I'm not sure this is the kind of godmother I would want.

The moral of this story should be, "If you get into trouble, you have to be very patient for someone else to get you out of it, even if you have a fairy godmother." It's a good thing the old governess recognized the monkey as the prince, or he might never have been changed back.

Prince Bariam and the Fairy Bride

Is she a dove or is she a woman? Trick question: she's a fairy.

This week, dear reader, we turn to Pakistan for our fairytale. This one certainly intrigued me. It's Prince Bariam and the Fairy Bride.

Just to begin the tale, we have a male giant kidnap a prince. I have seen a tale where a man kidnaps another man so rarely, I double checked to make sure I wasn't misreading "princess". So already we're off to an interesting start. This giant is longing to possess the prince, which is usually something that happens only to princesses and beautiful women. Prince Bariam is treated like a possession, so of course his fairy bride is as well. Firstly, he steals her clothes so she can't turn back into a dove and run away from him. Then the giant, whose wife she was before, decides that since he loves Prince Bariam so much, he'll give away one of his wives. Oh, but it's all okay because the fairy wife fell in love with Prince Bariam too. Or something. She was very philosophical about never seeing her fellow fairies again.

Everything was fine until the wife, Ghulab Bano, decided she needed to see her parents again. Once they found out she was married to a mortal, her folks got mad and locked her up. Because she's still theirs even though she's been married to two different people now, I guess. Fortunately, Prince Bariam gets a magical cheat code from the giant so he goes to live with Ghulab Bano in her prison. I thought this was an interesting choice. It might have felt a bit stifling to live with the giant, since he sort of had feelings for both of them, so I can understand why they might want to get away from that for awhile, but why didn't Prince Bariam take her to his home? In any case, it must not have been too bad because after Prince Bariam and Ghulab Bano left the prison, they went back to live with the giant for several years. Several awkward years.

Meanwhile, the prince's kingdom has been ruled by the vizier and three of the prince's four wives are now married to the vizier. I can't really blame them. Prince Bariam never thought about them during the years he was gone and the one wife who defied the vizier was put in a pit and fed scraps. Prince Bariam doesn't bother trying to take his kingdom back until he thinks the vizier has kidnapped Ghulab Bano. Then he raises his army of giants, defeats the vizier, kills his unfaithful wives, and saves his faithful wife. He must have been kind of mad when he found out the vizier didn't kidnap Ghulab Bano. He must have felt like he did all of that for nothing if he hadn't bothered to try to take his kingdom back before. Prince Bariam must have been even more mad when Ghulab Bano wouldn't come live in the human world with him after that. What a silly situation to be in. Prince Bariam split his time between fairy world and the human world, like a kid with divorced parents, until he died.

As for the moral of this story, I suppose the best one is that it's not all bad when a giant falls in love with you.