The Rogues' Holiday/ The Troublesome Visitors

While reading The Complete Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales this weekend, I came across two stories that were so similar, they had to be variants of the same tale:

The Rogues' Holiday:

A rooster and a hen decided to take a trip into the country to hunt for nuts. They came across a pile, but as they were eating and gathering them, a duck came along and accused them of stealing her winter stash. The rooster and the duck fought, and the duck lost. As punishment, the rooster hooked the duck up to a cart made of nut shells and forced her to pull the couple back home. Along the way, they encountered a pin and a needle who were traveling on foot. The pin and needle asked to ride along, and as they were small the rooster and hen allowed it. (The duck, obviously, had no say in the matter.) Because of the duck's short legs, the group only made it as far as an inn before it became too dark. Though they had no money, the rooster convinced the innkeeper that he could have an egg from the hen and from the duck in the morning for his breakfast. Early the next morning though, the rooster and the hen made a breakfast of the hen's egg, moved the sleeping needle and pin to the innkeeper's chair and towel, and flew out the window home. The duck, awoken by their flight, found a stream and swam back home, and the innkeeper was stabbed by pin and scratched by the needle when he went to sit down and then wash his face. The story ends with the important, if somewhat common thought of, "then [the innkeeper] took an oath that he would never again admit such knaves into his house -- ragamuffins who ate a great deal, paid nothing, and above all, instead of thanks, performed knavish tricks."

Slightly less cruel is the story of The Troublesome Visitors.

The Troublesome Visitors:

In this story, a rooster and a hen decide to visit their old master, Dr. Korbes. They build a cart and hook up 4 mice to it and begin their journey. Along the way, the encounter and pick up a cat, a millstone, an egg, a duck, a needle, and a pin. The arrive at Dr. Korbes house and find that he is not at home, however that does not stop them from making themselves comfortable. The rooster and hen nested on a perch, the cat crawled into the fireplace, the duck wattled out to a stream, the egg rolled up in a towel, the needled sat (point upward) in a chair, the pin jumped into the bed, and the millstone sat over the entrance door. When Dr. Korbes came home at night, the cat threw ash in his face as he tried to light a fire, the duck splashed him with water from the stream as he tried to get the ash out of his eyes, the egg broke on his face and glued his eyes shut as he tried to wipe off the water, the needle pricked him, the pin scratched him, and the millstone dropped on his head and killed him when he tried to leave. The rooster and hen were nowhere to be seen during Dr. Korbes' last hours. The story ended with, "this Dr. Korbes must really have been a very wicked, or a very injured man."

The Rogues' Holiday is also listed as The Pack of Ragamuffins in other books. The Aarne Thompson classifcation code for these stories is AT 210. I need to learn more about Aarne Thompson. Yay, more research!

Clever Elfe/The Six Fools

While reading through my copy of The Complete Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales, I came across the story of Clever Elfe. The story begins very similarly to one of Zora Neale Hurston's collected folktales that we have in the library, The Six Fools. (Original Hurston story found in Hurston's Every Tongue Got to Confess (HarperCollins, 2001))

In Hurston's version, a young man comes courting a young girl, whose parents believe her to be very clever. While the young man is visiting, the parents send the girl to the basement to get the man some cider. While down in the cellar, the girl starts thinking about their wedding, their marriage, and what to name their first child. She lets the cider run during this and stays in the cellar thinking. Eventually the mother goes down to find out what is taking so long. She finds her daughter standing and thinking, with cider up to her ankles. The daughter explains what she has been thinking about and the mother joins her. The father eventually goes down, the cider is now at their waist's and the cycle continues. Eventually the young man goes down the cellar and finds the three with cider up to their necks. When they tell him what they've been thinking about, he tells them that they are all fools and he won't marry the girl until he finds three people who are as big a fool as they are. As he travels, he finds:

1. A man who attempts to jump into his pants by jumping in the air.
2. A woman who tries to brighten up her kitchen by hauling sunshine into her house in a wheelbarrow.
3. A farmer feeding his cow on the roof.

Once he finds these three, he returns to the girl, only to discover that she's married another man in his time away from her. It leaves the reader with the question: Who's the biggest fool?

Elfe's story is slightly different. In Elfe's story, Elfe's parents believe her to be the cleverest girl ever. They brag of her cleverness to a young man named Hans, but do not tell him of her idleness or her laziness. Like with Hurston, she goes down to the cellar to fetch him some cider, but instead of thinking about a child, she notices a crossbar left in the ceiling by a mason. She starts crying because she believes that if she marries Hans, she will be killed by the crossbar. The cycle of people going down to find Elfe is similar, but is expanded to include servants, all of whom find her extremely clever for finding out this information. Eventually Hans goes down stairs and find the group crying with cider or ale all around them. Unlike Hurston's young man, Hans believes Elfe is quite clever for seeing this, and marries her. He takes her home, still unaware of her idleness, and they have a few wonderful days together. Eventually Hans goes out to earn some money and he asks Elfe to cut down the corn in their field. She goes out to the field and falls asleep, waking up hours later. By this time, Hans is extremely upset that she isn't at home, the work isn't done, and his supper isn't ready. He finds her in the corn field and covers her with a fowler's net covered in tiny bells and heads home. When Elfe awakens, she begins to walk home in the dark, but the sound of the bells confuse her until she's not sure who she is. When she gets back to their cottage, she knocks on the window and asks Hans if Elfe is home. He tells her that she is, and Elfe exclaims, "Then I am not the clever Elfe after all." Elfe wanders from house to house inquiring who she is, but no one will let her in and she is never heard from again. The story ends with the humorous moral, "So, after all, it is better to be industrious than clever."

Isn't that a great message to keep the children in line?

:)

The Steadfast Tin Soldier vs. The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep

While researching some information about Fantasia 2000 for a patron, I rediscovered The Steadfast Tin Soldier by Hans Christian Andersen. While the Disney version (set to Dmitri Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 2 in F Major) has a happy ending, the original version did not:

For his birthday, a young boy recieves a set of tin soldiers to play with. The last soldier is misformed and only has one leg. While out of his box, the Soldier sees a paper ballerina with a spangle on her sash. As she is also standing on one leg, the Soldier falls in love with her. That night, a Troll/Jack-in-the-Box challenges the Soldier to no longer look at the Ballerina, but the Soldier ignores him. The next day, the soldier falls from a windowsill and lands in the street. Two boys find the soldier, place him in a paper boat, and set him sailing in the gutter. The boat washes into the sewer, where a rat demands the soldier pay a toll. Sailing past the rat, the boat is washed out to sean where the Soldier is swallowed by a fish. While preparing the fish, the maid discovers the soldier, but he and the ballerina are knocked into the fire by the little boy. The ballerina burns away; the maid later discovers that the Tin Soldier has melted into the shape of a heart.

By contrast, The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep (Also by H. C. Andersen) is a story about two porcelain figures who live on a side table in a drawing room. They're in love, but a porcelain Satyr on a cabinet lusts after the Shepherdess and wants to marry her. He sends a porcelain chinaman (claiming to be her grandfather) to the table to force the Sheperdess to marry the Satyr. The couple escapes down a table leg and hide in a child's puppet theater. The lovers then climb with great difficulty up through a stovepipe, following the light of a star. When they finally reach the roof, the Shepherdess is frightened by the size of the world that she sees and immediately wants to return to the safety of the drawing room. The chimney sweep tries to dissuade her, but he finally agrees and guides her back to the table top. When they return, the learn that the Chinaman was damaged beyond repair and cannot force the Shepherdess to marry the Satyr. The lovers are safe at last.

Alas! There isn't any good clip art of of Shepherdess! So, as I need a vacation really, really, REALLY badly (and am not going on one until December) here's my longing for Disney:

Befana/Babushka

Wow, I can't believe it's been nearly a week since I've posted. Things have been a little crazy for me this week (I've been hunting down Australian Folklore for work), but more of that later.

I finally had a chance to sit down a read a couple variations on the Befana story and I found some Russian variations where the witch is referred to as "Babushka" (Russian for grandmother). Also, the Russian variants don't emphasis the character as a witch; she's a peasant woman only. The versions I was able to read were The Story of Befana by Ilse Plume, Babushka by Charles Mikolaycak, and Baboushka: A Christmas Folktale from Russia by Arthur Scholey. I also have Tomie De Paolo's The Legend of Old Befana on hold at the library, so when that comes in, I may edit this post to include information from it.

Befana

The folktale of both Befana and Babushka are similar: A woman, who lives alone, meets the three wise men on their way to visit the Baby Jesus. The woman's home is fanatically clean and in some versions the three wise men stay the night with her. They tell her of Jesus and offer to take her with them to meet him, but she feels she cannot leave her house for whatever reason. (i.e. chores, cleaning, no gift to give, etc.) After they leave she regrets her decision and sets out to find the baby Jesus herself. She may or may not take repaired toys with her that were left over from a child that had died. She travels far and wide and cannot find him, but leave presents or candy for children along her way. The Italian version claims that she also sweeps up the houses that she visits and that children who see her will only get a whack from her broom. Bad children are given coal and onions instead of presents, candy, or apples, oranges, and nuts.

Another version of the story that I found online is much darker. In it, Befana had a child who died; because of this death, she went mad and set out to kidnap the Baby Jesus as her own. When she found him, he blessed her, cured her madness, and made her the mother of all the children of the world. Therefore she leaves presents for them on the Epiphany.

It's a cute story; I can't wait to see what else I pick up from it.

Baba Yaga

This past weekend I took home three versions of Baba Yaga's story: Vasilissa the Beautiful by Elizabeth Winthrop, The Flying Witch by Jane Yolen, and Baba Yaga and Vasilisa the Brave by Marianna Mayer.


I loved reading these stories because I've always been enchanted by the idea of Baba Yaga; I think the fascination comes from not knowing how Baba Yaga will be portrayed in the story. In some tales, she's a good character, in others she's a neutral observer, and in others she's the antagonist. I can't think of many folktale characters that have that kind of depth and range. Anansi is one and the wolf from the three little pigs/little red riding hood has been rewritten as a sympathetic character in modern adaptations. But are there many more? This is something I'm going to have to think about for a while.


So in honor of Baba Yaga (and my new-found skills at modifying clip art in Microsoft word), I created my own clip-art Baba Yaga. Hopefully I can use her on my proposed "Did you know" signs for the Folktales section at the library.

Baba Yaga

I wanted to reflect her flexible role in various stories, so although she looks a little surly, she wouldn't be immediately frightening. I was able to create her from a clip art version of Befana, the Italian epiphany witch. Befana is similar to St. Nicholas; she brings candy to good children and coal to the bad ones. The interesting part about her legend is that if you see Befana, all you'll get from her is a whack from her broom, regardless if you're good or bad. Isn't that a great way to keep kids in bed!

Here's the image of Befana I used to create Baba Yaga:

As you can see, the have the same body type, but Baba Yaga is paler, a little meaner looking, and has fly-away hair and a babushka. I also changed the color scheme of her dress; every image I've ever seen of Baba Yaga has here wearing red in some way and most feature purple too.

While modifying the Befana image, I was able to do a little research on her. It's an interesting story and one that I'll be blogging about later!

Bluebeard

So of course after rereading Bluebeard's Daughter yesterday, I had to go back and read Perrault's Bluebeard again. I first encountered this story a few months ago as I was going through a retired Librarian's things and came across her box of scary stories. I read her hand-copied version of the story, not realizing that this was one of Perrault's or anything about the story.

Bluebeard is an interesting story. From what I've read about it, it may have been based off of the story of the serial killer, Gilles de Rais. Here is the except from Bluebeard's entry in the encyclopedia Brittanica (my apologies for not citing properly):

"...murderous husband in a story, “La Barbe bleue,” in Charles Perrault’s collection of fairy tales, Contes de ma mère l’oye (1697; Tales of Mother Goose). Similar stories exist in European, African, and Eastern folklore; the essentials are the locked and forbidden room, the wife’s curiosity, and her 11th-hour rescue. Perrault’s version probably derived from Brittany and may have been based on the career of the 15th-century marshal of France Gilles de Rais and that of Comorre the Cursed, a 6th-century Breton chief, each of whom committed crimes similar to those in the Bluebeard stories."

While researching the history of this bit of folklore, I also frequently came across this terrifying illustration of Bluebeard by Gustave Doré from 1867.


I also realized that Neil Gaiman included a Bluebeard-themed poem in his 2006 book Fragile Things entitled "The Hidden Room." So Bluebeard is a more prevalent story than I initially thought!

One thing still bothers me though: If you look logically at the story, you are forced to wonder what great crime Bluebeard's first wife committed that resulted in her being murdered and left to rot on the walls of the hidden chamber. Perhaps there's another story locked in Bluebeard's tale besides Gaiman's and Townsend Warner's.

On a completely unrelated note, I DID beat my personal best yesterday and scored 91 in my first game! Our time ran out during our second, but as of the 6th round, I had scored 68. I consider myself now a master bowler. :)

Bluebeard's Daughter

I just finished rereading Bluebeard's Daughter (1940) by Sylvia Townsend Warner. It's a strange little short story that moves Perrault's Bluebeard story from France to the Middle East and continues the story based on assumption that Bluebeard only killed his insufferable wives and had a daughter by his third. She, it seems, died in childbirth. The girl moves with the last bride to the city, becomes a ward of Bluebeard's solicitor, and eventually returns to his castle when she marries. From there, she and her new husband both become obsessed with learning what's behind "the fifth closet" of the secret rooms and this obsession nearly drives them apart. Luckily, after falling over a cliff in their coach and each abandoning the other (or so they think) with an elderly shepherdess, they individually return to the castle where the husband breaks down the door, breaks his collarbone, and they make up. Then they become astronomers. Seriously, I couldn't make this one up if I tried.

Joking aside, it's a strange little tale. My interpretation rereading it the second time through is that it's one of those stories that skirt the line of satire so closely, it sometimes bobbles over the line into just plain weird.

Perhaps after reading more of Ms. Townsend's work, my opinion will be altered. More to come later, but first I need to head out to a join birthday party at a bowling alley. Hopefully I can beat my personal best score of 75!