The King and the Ju Ju Tree

How can you tell if a tree is magic or not just by looking?

Greetings, readers! This week's story comes to us from Nigeria. The King and the Ju Ju Tree is a story about a king who learns what price we're willing to pay when we're in great pain. Click the link above to read the story and continue with me below to analyze it.

The Boss

I definitely picked a difficult fairy tale to bring into our modern era, but the arbitrary rules of this blog are firm. On one post I analyze a fairy tale, and the next post I write a modern version of it. I scaled down the warfare to office drama, but I ended up keeping the religious aspect of Andersen's original story. I suppose I could have had a boss threaten coffee breaks instead, but this seemed a bit more true to the original.

Never underestimate the importance of a person's desk.

The Wicked Prince

When power is won at the point of a sword, a king rules through fear.

Hello again, readers. I found this story a few weeks back and I thought it would be apt for our world these days. I didn't realize how apt it would be. The Wicked Prince is a story by Hans Christian Andersen and it's about a leader of a nation that creates his power through war and demands to be the ultimate power in his kingdom. When that doesn't work out for him, he reverts to the only thing he knows: more war. At least this fairy tale has a happy ending. Read the story at the link above and continue reading below to analyze it with me.

Family Fun

Greetings, reader! I have to admit, this story stumped me for awhile. The original fairy tale has a lot of murder and death in it. It works well for that story, but I didn't have it in me to write a modern day story that followed it too closely. I found myself focusing more on the boy who talked to spirits and the title character, the woman magician. Once I realized that a family reunion in the woods would be the perfect setting for this story, everything else sort of fell into place. I hope you enjoy it! This is one of the few stories I've written that's close to horror. But with magic.

The trees look so inviting in the daytime...

The Woman Magician

To be fair, this looks like a difficult place to hunt.

Salutations, reader! This week's story comes to us from the Inuit people of North America. The Woman Magician is a story of betrayal and magic. Click the link to read it, and continue below to analyze it.

Wow. I can't be sure, but it seems like the Exaluq could have just asked the Quern if they would share their meat. Since they hunted together all the time and made a community, including some intermarrying, it's likely the Quern would have helped them, at least as much as they could. But, we don't know if that would have worked because the Exaluq decided it was a better idea to kill all of the Quern men. Rude.

I also have to wonder at the one Exaluq man who went home to his Quern wife that night. He didn't say a word to her about what had happened, and he also thought he'd be safe sleeping next to her. I really wonder what was going on in his head. Was he conflicted about all of this? Did he think it was his due? We're not given any answers, just his murder.

All of that being said, the main characters of this story are the murderous little boy and the old woman with magic. It's interesting because usually the protagonist of a fairy tale or legend is a young man or young woman looking for adventure and/or a spouse. But both of these main characters are a little uncanny. The little boy can hear the dead, and the old woman can use magic. Which is also kind of unusual, and makes this story more interesting, at least to me.

What happened to the Quern is actually quite terrible and worse than it first appears. They had to leave their home in the middle of the night to protect themselves, without taking much of anything. The men who murdered so many of their group run after them, and the old woman saves them by cutting the ice and making it impossible for the Exaluq to follow them. So, now the Quern are stranded somewhere far from home, on the inhospitable ice, and all of their hunters are dead. I like happy endings, so I like to think the old woman was able to provide for them with her magic until they could take care of themselves without magic.

The moral of this story is that you won't get away with mass murder. If no one else was a witness, the dead will find someone to talk to. Alternatively, don't be violent jerks and maybe things will work out for you.

Have a different moral? Wonder if the Quern hunters really were messing up the Exaluq hunters? Have a story you want me to talk about? Comment below!

Of Lamps and Rings

Hello, readers. This week, we have my modern version of "Aladdin and the Magic Lamp".
I do want to specify that a florin used to be a coin, and the resonance of naming a greedy character after money was just too good to pass up. Even if the name is a little different.
I hope you enjoy the story!

Doesn't really look like a lamp to me.

Aladdin and the Magic Lamp

What would you wish for?

Hello again, readers! This week's story is probably familiar to you. It's Aladdin and the Magic Lamp. What surprised me was that this story is set in China. I thought it was part of One Thousand One Nights, or Arabian Nights, but apparently not. It was associated with that book later. Either way, it's still a fun story, so let's dive in.