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Author
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Comment
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blairbe
Unregistered User
(8/25/02 3:56:17 pm)
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weird facts
hey, do you know any weird facts about fairy tales.. this year our yearbook is going to focus on fairy tales .. and i MAJORLY need some help! thank you! cant wait to hear from you!
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blairbe
Unregistered User
(8/25/02 4:07:22 pm)
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interesting facts
PLEASE help.. interesting literary facts are great too! thanks~
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Kate
Unregistered User
(8/25/02 5:14:57 pm)
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Great Idea!
I think a fairytale theme for a yearbook is a really neat idea. I'll try to think of some fun facts for you. I'm sure others on the board will too.
In the meantime, you might even want to invest in the book FROM THE BEAST TO THE BLONDE by Marina Warner. It is available in paperback, so not really expensive, and maybe your school library can order it. It includes lots of unusual background information on fairy tale themes. Of course there are lots of other books too, but I think you might find some helpful facts and interpretations of tales in there. It also has art images that might inspire you for layouts and such.
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Midori
Unregistered User
(8/25/02 7:03:58 pm)
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weird facts
hmm..do you mean weird facts as in things that are true about fairy tales (such as how many times does the word "eichor" appear in fairy tales) or just some of the bizarre (and certainly not facts) things/creatures/events that happen in fairy tales? (which might actually be more fun). If you are interested in the latter...try looking at Katherine Briggs "Encylopedia of Fairies"--it's great fun, full of information on all sorts of "fairies" and goblins, bogies and other supernatural creatures in the tales and probably available at a library. For example Fir Chlis, or the nimble Men or the Merry Dancers; the Highland name for the Aurora Borealis...according to Lewis Spence in The Fairy Tradition, the Fir Chlis were supposed to be those fallen angels who fall was arrested before they reached the earth."
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blairbe
Unregistered User
(9/6/02 7:40:47 pm)
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thanks!
Many thanks to those who have helped me! I'm checkin out the books! I appreciate your tips! More are welcome.. ANYTHING! I need .. unusual facts and bizarre facts and real literary facts.. ANYTHING that you think would b interesting for pre-k to 12. Thanks so much!
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blairbe
Unregistered User
(9/7/02 3:30:39 pm)
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NEED HELP!
IDEAS are still welcome! PLEASE PLEASE HELP ME!
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Heidi
Anne Heiner
ezOP
(9/7/02 5:34:03 pm)
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Re: NEED HELP!
I imagine you are looking for information for blurbs in the yearbook as well. Another great book to consult for this purpose would be "The Illustrated Book of Fairy Tales" retold by Neil Philip. It is a DK book. DK is well-known for writing books with lots of little facts and trivia in the margins. This book does just this and I learned some things I didn't know from it. Philip has collected and edited many folklore collections, so it is also more reliable than some of the other similar sources written for kids. Although aimed at kids, it does not talk down to its readers and might give you some great ideas for the yearbook from its design and its information.
Here is a link to the book on Amazon. I often see copies available at bookstores so you may even see one available at your local store.
www.amazon.com/exec/obido...lalufairyt
Here is some quick trivia off the top of my head which might work well for you:
1. Goldilocks is a recent addition to the story of The Three Bears. Earlier versions of the story usually featured an old hag, a woman with silver hair, instead of the precocious golden haired child we know so well today.
2. Charles Dickens claimed his first love was Little Red Riding Hood.
3. The famous kiss in "The Frog King" was added by Edward Taylor when he translated the tale from the Grimms' German to English. The original German tale told of the spell being broken when the princess threw the frog against a wall in her disgust.
4. In recent years, The Story of the Three Little Pigs has been rewritten numerous times for children, often reversing the story to make the wolf the sympathetic character. One of the most popular versions is "The True Story of the Three Little Pigs" by Jon Scieszka, illustrated by Lane Smith.
Is this the kind of stuff you are looking for?
Heidi
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Jess
Unregistered User
(9/7/02 7:30:37 pm)
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My favorite weird fact
Cinderella's "glass slipper" was probably originally a "fur slipper". The fur being mistranslated to glass. Cinderella's teeny feet were probably a remnant of a Chinese version and Chinese foot binding traditions.
Jess
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janeyolen
Unregistered User
(9/7/02 11:33:07 pm)
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"facts"
In the earlier French versions of Red Ridinghood, she escapes the wolf by claiming to need to go the bathroom.
There are 500 variants of Cinderella in Europe alone.
jane
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blairbe
Unregistered User
(9/8/02 5:33:09 am)
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yall are AMAZING!
Thanks SO much for your help! that was EXACTLY what i was looking
for! keep the ideas comin! I can't thank you enough!
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Terri
Registered User
(9/8/02 11:10:12 pm)
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Re: yall are AMAZING!
Okay, this may be too risque for a year book, but my favorite fairy tale fact is that in the older versions of Sleeping Beauty, she's not awakened by a simple kiss by the prince, but awakened by the twins she gives birth to after the prince has been there and left again.
Another fact is that the story doesn't end with her waking up, it goes on to recount how the prince takes her home to his ogress mother, is called away by war, whereupon the ogress orders her cook to kill and roast her daughter-in-law and her two children.
Another fact: Snow White's jealous step-mother was originally her own mother. The Brothers Grimm changed her to a step-mother in later publications of the story in order to make it slightly less horrific. Ditto for Hansel and Gretel.
In the Walt Disney cartoon version of Snow White, the prince falls in love with Snow White at the beginning of the story, and then comes to save her with a kiss at the end. But in the older folk tale versions, the prince has never met Snow White before when he encouters the little men carrying her dead body through the forest. He finds her so beautiful, even in death, that he demands that they give the body to him. She then wakes by pure accident: one of the servants bearing the coffin away stumbles, dislodging the poisoned apple from her mouth. The prince declares his love for her, and she marries him, despite the fact that they are complete strangers to each other!
In Lapland versions of Snow White, the little men don't put Snow White's body in a glass coffin, but drape it over the antlers of a reindeer.
In Japanese versions of Cinderella, she's helped by a talking carp (goldfish), not a fairy godmother. In Scottish versions, it's a cow (who speaks in her dead mother's voice).
In Fernand Noizere's version of Beauty and the Beast, 1909, Beauty is outraged when he makes his final transformation back into a man. "You should have warned me!" she cries. "Here I was smitten by an exceptional being, and all of a sudden my finace becomes an ordinary, distinguished man!"
Edited by: Terri at: 9/8/02 11:17:26 pm
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Janeyolen
Unregistered User
(9/9/02 4:51:32 am)
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Asian Cinderella
I thought it was the Chinese version (Yeh Sheh) that has the talking carp.
Jane
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Gregor9
Registered User
(9/9/02 6:44:30 am)
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Risque
This, too, may be more than you can use...(and my favorite)
Rapunzel, in the very first edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales, revealed her secret relationship with the prince who climbed her hair not by saying (as in later versions) "You're much heavier to pull up, Mother Goethel, than the prince" (which would admittedly be one of the all time most foolish things to say), but by saying "Mother Goethel, my clothes aren't fitting anymore, they're too tight." She, "protected" from knowledge not only of men but of her own body, had no idea she was pregnant. Mother Goethel knew, and thereby knew everything the girl had kept from her.
Greg
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blairbe
Unregistered User
(9/9/02 2:36:57 pm)
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thanks!
hey guys! Ya'll are AWESOME! thanks SOOO much! Ya'll are amazing.. so intellegent.. thanks for help.. and for the help in the future!
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Terri
Registered User
(9/9/02 11:42:25 pm)
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Re: thanks!
Both the Chinese and Japanese versions have talking carp, actually...but Jane, you're right that the reference should be to the Chinese tale, since I believe that one is older.
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blairbe
Unregistered User
(9/12/02 2:47:08 pm)
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HELP!
NEED MORE>> PLEASE>> THANKS FOR EVERYTHING SO FAR!
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Zai000
Unregistered User
(9/15/02 7:47:29 pm)
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Re:
Don't know if this counts, but Maid Marion was introduced into the Robin Hood tails long after the stories were started.
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Jess
Unregistered User
(9/16/02 9:51:19 am)
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weird or just interesting?
Here is one about Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy ("The White Cat, "The Yellow Dwarf", etc):
She tried to get rid of her husband by accusing him of treason against the king. It didn't work and she barely escaped France; her male compatriots in the scheme were executed. She may also have been a spy for France while abroad.
Jess
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blairbe
Unregistered User
(9/20/02 3:36:55 am)
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thanks!
Thanks for everything.. if u have anymore cute/weird/funny facts
about fairy tales i would love to hear them! thanks!
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blairbe
Unregistered User
(10/15/02 3:32:31 am)
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HELP!
please help me.. im still in search for literary facts! i MAJORLY need your help! it is MUCH appreciated! ANYTHING! THANKS !
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Laura
McCaffrey
Registered User
(10/15/02 3:35:29 pm)
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Re: HELP!
Blairbe -
You may want to take a trip to your local library and check out Benet's Readers Encyclopedia and/or some various dictionaries of folklore. These will give you all kinds of tidbits about literature and folklore.
As to a fact to add - many tales we think of as classic Arabian Nights tales are actually tales stuck in later by translators or collectors. One of these later tales, not part of the original Arabian Nights collection, is "The Story of Aladdin and the Magic Lamp"
Laura Mc
Edited by: Laura McCaffrey at: 10/15/02 3:40:38 pm
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