The Twelve Brothers

Just spinning wool in a tree. Like you do.

This week, we go back to the familiar territory of the Grimm brothers' fairy tales, but with a tale that is not as widely known as many of their others. The Twelve Brothers is a story about a crazy king, a crazy good princess, and ravens. Click on the link above to read the story, and then let's dive into the nitty gritty.

First of all, why was this king insane? Has he never heard of rewriting his will? If he really didn't want to leave his sons anything, he didn't have to. There are many ways around this without killing them. Apparently, none of them were certain enough for this crazed monarch. So, the queen is left with a terrible dilemma. I'm glad she doesn't decide to try to kill her husband to stop him from killing their sons, because that would be a completely different kind of story. In this case, the mother tells her sons to run, and run far. I'm not sure if they didn't think they were really in trouble, or were just lazy, but the brothers didn't go very far away. It has barely a test of her princess-ly might for their sister to find them.

The boys may not have been worried about getting far away from their father, but they were worried about going back. As soon as they reunited with their sister, I thought they would go home and she would defend them to her father until he agreed that they could live. Instead, she just started living with them. Then again, she is only 10 and facing her father down might have been a little bit too much for her.

Speeding ahead, after she'd been living with the boys for some time, the princess picks twelve white lilies and accidentally turns them into ravens. I actually had to stop here and reread the paragraph. Excuse me? How did picking flowers turn her brothers into ravens? Was there a curse on the house? Did something happen to all of the boys when they were born? Is there a curse on the king's family, passed down to the males, and that's why he wanted to kill his sons? What I think actually happened was that at some point, the teller of this story decided they also wanted to tell the story of twelve boys turning into ravens and picking flowers seemed as good as any reason to mix that story in with this one.

In any case, the boys are now ravens and a helpful woman appears out of nowhere to explain why to the princess. If she's a fairy, which she seems to be, why did she leave that spell on the lilies? Or, better yet, why didn't she tell the princes and princess about it so they left the flowers alone? Maybe the fairy is related to the queen who never set off herself to find her kids or let them know if she was successful in changing her husband's mind about murder.

Speaking of questionable decisions, why did this new king want to marry a woman he just met sitting in a tree spinning? Add her muteness to that and you've got a pile of strange that the new king didn't hesitate to pick up and take home with him. I can't blame the new king's mother for being suspicious, but she went overboard. It's a good thing the princes' time was up before the princess burned to death. I'm not sure her silence would have counted if she were dead.

The moral of this story is either to make sure mental illness treatment is available and free of stigma so that all can easily get the care they need, or not to pick any flowers in case they turn your family members into birds. One or the other.

Do you have a different moral? Or want to talk about something I missed in this story? Comment below!

If you give me a folktale, fairy tale, legend, etc, I will write a post about it. Just let me know if there's any you would like to hear.

The Boy Who Wanted More Cheese

This. Looks. Delicious.

Hello again, reader. This week, I have a Dutch tale for you. I chose The Boy Who Wanted More Cheese because I always want more cheese, so I had to see what happened to this boy. Don't worry, it's not a dark fairy tale, so he survives. Follow the link above to read the story before we dive below the surface of it. There's quite a bit of detail at the beginning, but they do get to the plot after that.

Firstly, we've all known those people who are about as big around as a stick, but who seem to have bottomless stomachs. Klaas is one such person. He must be kind of a trial to his parents. They want to be able to feed all of their children enough, but Klaas can never get enough. He seems to be a good child in everything else, but I wonder if his parents feel a bit inadequate that they aren't able to feed him until he's full. Hopefully they just accept his hunger along with his more pleasing traits. After all, this isn't Hansel and Gretel where the kids are abandoned in the forest because they're eating more than the parents can afford.

As soon as Klaas knew that fairies were calling him and he decided to answer their call, I thought he would either never go home again, or it would be about 50 years later when he got there. Fairy time runs differently than human time. Then, with all of this unknown risk, he gets to their fairy ring and there's no cheese! I was a little outraged for him. He's throwing away everything to get some more cheese and when he gets there, the fairies just want to dance with him. However, Klaas doesn't seem to mind working up an appetite and the fairies don't dance him to death, which was also a possibility I was wondering about. Then, and only then, does Klaas get the lesson of being careful what he wishes for.

Klaas seems to eat an impressive amount of cheese, but even he has a limit. I have to take a minute here and marvel that he ate the cheese straight. There is no mention of crackers, bread, or anything else. We've all eaten cheese straight, but it is more enjoyable with something else to go with it. Oh, you haven't eaten cheese by itself? I do recommend it, just not to the extent that Klaas does it. When he wakes up and Klaas realizes he's eating grass, I have to wonder about the rest of the cheese. Was some of it real, but the fairies switched out for grass at the end? It makes more sense that all of it was grass, but as a fellow cheese lover, I hope Klaas at least got some of the cheese he was wanting.

The moral I found for this story is to make sure you specify that you only want real cheese when you're accepting unlimited amounts of it from fairies. What do you think? Did Klaas get what was coming to him for messing with the fairies? Or is he to be pitied for being lied to?

Do you have a fairy tale or legend you want me to read? Comment below and I'll write a post about it!

East of the Sun, West of the Moon

Because who would be afraid to ride a bear?

Hello, reader! This week's story comes to us from Norway. East of the Sun, West of the Moon is a story about a man who's a real bear, and the woman who loves him. Follow the link above to read the story before we start dissecting it.

I like the heroine of this story right off the bat. Her father is essentially trying to sell her into marriage to a bear and she says no. This girl knows her own mind. Of course, her family is starving, so she eventually decides that she will marry the bear after all and off they go. In several places throughout the story, the heroine is asked if she is afraid, and she always truthfully replies, "No." You have to admire that kind of courage. This woman isn't afraid to do anything to get her love back. Either that, or she just doesn't realize how many things could go wrong in her adventure.

I also want to look at the bear's stepmother for a moment. What kind of stepmother bewitches her stepson to be a bear during the day and a man at night? I am also confused about the princess in this story. The princess and the stepmother live in the same castle. Is the princess from a previous marriage of the stepmother's? That would be pretty messed up to try to make half-siblings get married. Or, maybe the princess is from somewhere else and the stepmother is so determined to marry the girl to her stepson that she invited the princess to live with her. Either way, it's strange. We also never hear about the prince's father, which makes me wonder about his stepmother. And any woman this stepmother wants her stepson to marry.

But I digress. We know this stepmother has quite a bit of magic at her disposal, yet she never interferes with the heroine's journey to win back her man. The heroine is doing quite a bit of running around and you would think there would be plenty of opportunity for the stepmother to foul up the heroine's quest. Maybe the stepmother is too focused on what's happening in her own castle, or she doesn't think the heroine will be able to get to the castle East of the Sun and West of the Moon. Either way, she seriously underestimates the heroine and pays the price for it. By exploding. Maybe her heart just failed her, but the story seems to paint a picture of troll pieces all over the castle. No wonder the reunited couple left it behind.

As far as the moral of this story, I would say it's either not to drip burning wax on the person you love, or to understand that you either have to put your patient pants on or undergo a dangerous and long quest if you want to be happily married to a bear.

What about you? What sort of moral would you give this story? Comment below!

Is there a story you want to see me take apart? Put it in the comments, and I'll write a post about it.

Simorgh; An Ancient Persian Fairytale

Simorgh looks like a good friend to have.

Hello, dear reader. This week, our tale comes to us from Iran. Simorgh is a story about a too-trusting prince, and the women who help him.

I was a little surprised at the emphasis on God in this story, but once you get past that, this fairy tale is very similar to some others I've discussed. The brothers staying awake to find the thief in the night is just like The Firebird. We also have the jealous brothers who leave the youngest for dead. That's in too many fairy tales to count. However, there are many things that make this tale interesting, and I'll focus on those.

Jumping right in, this prince is noble, as all youngest princes in fairy tales are, but I was surprised that Prince Khorshid wouldn't kill the deav (a demon) in his sleep. It would have been the easy road, but it's not the way this prince wanted to go, and he defeated two other deavs because this woman he rescued wanted her sisters freed as well. There's one thing that bothers me about this woman, whom he instantly fell in love with, and her two sisters. These women are the same ones who were the pomegranates on the tree in the beginning, right? Let's go with that. Otherwise Price Khorshid failed at his quest and those three women/fruit are wasting away somewhere.

This woman who Khorshid loves is very wise. It makes me wonder why she wasn't able to rescue herself from the deav. Then again, if she is a pomegranate woman, she wouldn't have been there very long, so she might not have had time. In any case, she saves Khorshid's life several times over with her wisdom. Firstly, she doesn't trust his brothers, even though she's never met them. Secondly, she tells him what secrets she knows about how to get him out of that place and help him find her once he does. Thirdly, she uses what she told him to stall so she didn't have to marry some random guy, but could hold off on marrying anyone until he found her again. If only Khorshid hadn't jumped on the wrong bull.

Khorshid's indebtedness to women doesn't stop there. Once Khorshid does several Herculean tasks, he wins the friendship of Simorgh, the bird/perfect human being/etc. and she agrees to carry him back to his world and even gives him three chances to call on her again, should he need her.

Prince Khorshid is brave, strong, and good-hearted, but he wouldn't have gotten anywhere without the women in this tale. I suppose the moral is to be the best that you can be, but to make friends with those who make up for what you lack. Either that, or to get a better security system for your pomegranate tree that sometimes has women on it.