More Pumpkin Coaches

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Last year I also featured a few images of DIY Cinderella coaches using actual pumpkins. I rarely decorate pumpkins any more, but when I do, Cinderella's coach is the only thing I want to create!

Haunted Disneyland

In this age of technology I'm very skeptical of video "proofs" of ghosts...however I think it's still fun to read/watch and entertain the notion enough to get a thrill.


The above two videos seem the most convincing to me out of the several supposed ghost sightings in Disneyland on Youtube. Others are floating around out there and I either don't see anything or it's obviously a special effect. Disneyland is, after all, a place of illusion...
This ideo below is one man's explanation for the most common ghost "sightings," although from the comments left on youtube this isn't a very popular explanation for the supposed ghosts. You can decide for yourself which explanation seems most likely.

Real Wicked Queens

Everyone likes a really evil villain who gets punished at the end of the story, but I personally never found the wicked queens and stepmothers to be very convincing.

But as I learn more about royalty, I understand better why some of the wicked Queens in fairy tales behaved rather psychotic. A little jealousy is one thing, but to go to such extremes as Snow White's queen did, all the disguises and poisons, seems like too much just to hold a number one title that no one is even aware of except the mirror. But as royal people were raised, in general, they were told that they were inherently better than everyone else; that they deserved their royal position-it's a little hard for an American to understand when a presidency is fought for and held for only a relatively small amount of time. We (hopefully) respect our president but don't idolize him. But in an inherited monarchy, the Royal Family was basically one step under being God.

So their egos were totally inflated and royals were used to getting everything they wanted. Add to that the fact that royals were only allowed to marry other royals. That's really a small pool of people to choose from, and over time, royal families or local aristocratic families would intermarry several times and later generations would get a bit...unhinged.


The Countess Elizabeth Bathory (1560-1614) was quite a colorful character-she was responsible for the torture and deaths of possibly over 600 young women. I mentioned her before after reading about her in a book. The wikipedia article makes it sound like many of the things in the book stated as fact are now more exaggerated legend, but according to The Truth About Dracula by Gabriel Ronay, she believed that bathing in the blood of young virgins would make her beautiful and had girls brought to her castle claiming to give them work, where she instead found pleasure in seeing them bleed under all kinds of torture, sometimes sucking their blood or sexually abusing them. Her desire for youth and beauty drove her far beyond the extremes of Snow White's mother/stepmother, and she was only caught once she decided to move from peasants' blood to more upper class blood, because again the law was so catered to the upper class Elizabeth could get away with nearly anything-and did for quite a while.

(EDIT: Read more about the likely true story on Multicolored Diary. It's probably just as horrifying as the truth)


I learned recently of Lucrezia Borgia (1480-1519) when reading Mirror, Mirror by Gregory Maguire. He sets his novel retelling of Snow White in Italy and has her as the role of the Wicked Queen. He used some of the scandalous rumors about her-a possible incestuous relationship with her father, the Pope, and a fondness for poisons and murders make her a perfect candidate for the character. The facts about her life are not known for sure, but it makes you realize that even the exaggerated evil of the villains in fairy tales may not be all that far from the truth after all. (Technically my post title is a bit of a misnomer-it should have been "potentially real wicked queens" or something like that, but doesn't quite have the same ring to it...)

Panna a Netvor

Not to repost from Surlalune, because I think you all follow Surlalune anyway (and if you don't, you should), but I just wanted to throw in my two cents about a movie that was discussed last month- a 1978 Czech version of Beauty and the Beast, Panna a Netvor. (On Surlalune, you can read a very thorough and tantalizing review by guest writer Megan Kearney). I've gotten to the point where, if there's a version of Beauty and the Beast I haven't even heard of yet, it's probably not that good...but this one really is good and I was ecstatic to watch it! Now it is a little bizarre, sort of in the tradition of the Cocteau, but it's richly symbolic and has good exploration of the characters, especially the Beast.

And it is pretty dark-people get murdered (not typical for BATB,) it's kind of like an old haunted house movie meets a vampire romance. Seriusly-if you like the concept of Twilight but are appalled by its lack of quality, this movie is for you. The plot is basically: a supernatural creature feared by man is tortured by his love for a woman verses his animalistic bloodlust for her as well. Sound familiar?? Only this version has good acting and scriptwriting! Possibly the only intelligent review I've ever found of Twilight has to be this one from The Oatmeal...seriously, you should click through and read it because it's so funny but so true...

The Juniper Tree

Below is a summary of The Juniper Tree, a tale from the collection of the Brothers Grimm, full text can be read here. Look for the significance of food/eating, and the similarities between this tale and Snow White.

A long time ago, a man and his wife loved each other greatly but were sorrowful that they had no children and prayed fervently for one. One day when the woman was peeling an apple under the juniper tree in the garden, she cut her finger and blood dripped on the snow. She wished for a child as red as blood and as white as snow, and felt happy.

Spring came, and as the berries grew on the Juniper Tree, a child grew in her womb. The woman gorged herself on the berries from the Juniper Tree until she felt sick, and asked that if she die, she be buried under the Tree. The woman finally bore a son, as white as snow and as red as blood, and died of joy. The man was heartbroken and wept for days. After a time he felt better and was eventually ready to take a second wife.

The second wife gave birth to a daughter, and was concerned that her daughter receive the entire inheritance, and was harsh and cruel to the son.
One day her daughter asked her for an apple, and she gave her an apple from a chest with a big heavy lid. The girl asked if her brother could have an apple as well, and the woman, annoyed, said that the boy could have one when he got home from school. When he did, the wife acted as if possessed by the devil-she gave him a look of hate but asked sweetly if he would like an apple. He did, and as the little boy bent down into the chest, she slammed the lid down and his head flew off into the apples.

The wife realized with fear what she had done, and quickly fetched a scarf, propped the boy's body up, and tied the head on with the scarf. When his sister Marlene asked him a question and he did not answer, she became frightened of his stillness and pale face, and asked her mother about it. Her mother suggested that, if her brother did not answer her again, she slap his face. Marlene did this, and his head flew right off. Marlene ran crying to her mother, who said, "What a dreadful thing you've done! But don't breathe a word to a soul, for there's nothing we can do. We'll cook him up into a stew."

The mother chopped the little boy into pieces and cooked them into a stew which needed no salt because Marlene sat there and wept into it. When her father returned home, he asked where his son was, and his wife told him he had gone to stay with his uncle. The father was upset that his son had left so suddenly without saying goodbye, but he began eating the stew and thought it was delicious. He kept eating more and more, saying, "No one else can have any of it. Somehow I feel as if it's all for me."

Marlene sat crying through the meal. As her father threw the bones under the table, she collected them, tied them up in a silk handkerchief, and buried them under the Juniper Tree-only then did she feel better and stop crying. Just then a mist arose fom the tree, in which a flame was burning, and from the flame emerged a beautiful bird that began to sing. Marlene felt happy and returned home.

Kay Neilsen

The bird began to sing:
"My mother, she slew me,
My father, he ate me,
My sister, Marlene,
Gathered my bones,
Tied them in silk,
For the juniper tree.
Tweet, tweet, what a fine bird am I!"

The neighbors who heard the bird all came out and begged him to repeat his song for them, but the bird said he would not repeat his song for nothing. He received a gold chain from the goldsmith, red shoes from the shoemaker, and a millstone from the mill workers, in payment for singing his song to them. Then the bird returned to the house with the Juniper Tree and began to sing his song again. His father felt happier the more the bird sang, the mother more frightened, and Marlene continued to weep. But the bird dropped the gold chain around the father's neck, and the red shoes at Marlene's feet, and she was happy again. The mother went outside to see if she would feel better too, but the bird dropped the millstone on her head and she died. The bird vanished in a cloud of flames, and when they left, their brother and son was standing there, and they all went in to a meal together.



Warwick Goble

This macabre tale adds cannibalism to the list of unsavory events that happen in the fairy tale world. In this tale, I don't find the murder scene nearly as chilling as the dinner scene, with the father obsessed with the stew made of his son's meat-though he is portrayed as a good character, his emotions in this tale are dramatically different than Marlene, the real compassionate hero, who was told that her brother's death was her fault.

This tale is not a true folk tale, but from a text given to the Grimms by Philipp Otto Runge, which is why it is a bit more realistic than some fairy tales. The mother has many emotions, from annoyance with her stepson, and when she kills her stepson it isn't necessarily the natural result of her hate but the result of a moment of temporary insanity; afterwards she is plagued by fear and guilt and tries to cover up what she's done, unusual for evil stepmother characters.

Maria Tatar says that both P.L. Travers and J.R.R. Tolkein thought this was a beautiful tale, despite its gruesome aspects, and I agree. Though the Grimms' version ends with the boy returning, some versions keep him as a bird. Though I'm happy for the family reunion ending (which represents the ideal family as motherless, which is a whole other issue...) I might like the other ending better. Again, it's more realistic. The son has been deeply traumatized and will never be the same, but there is still hope when he is transformed into a different, beautiful creature who recounts his story through song.

Swan Lake Images

I was looking for an image for my last post of Von Rothbart from Swan Lake, and found these images of Yolanda Sonnabend's designs for the Royal Ballet's Swan Lake, and they were all so spectacular I wanted to share them in a separate post.

A tale about the tale of Bluebeard

Once upon a time...

Hermann Vogel

I was babysitting three girls and the oldest was going through a phase where she HATED Disney Princesses, she only liked villains. She only liked scary things and her favorite color was black. So when it came to story time, I tried telling Beauty and the Beast, my go-to, but it wasn't scary enough because there was no villain. I told them Swan Lake, and she liked that better because of Von Rothbart, but still wanted scarier. So finally I said, "Okay, you really want scary? Then I'll tell you the story of Bluebeard."

In retrospect this was pretty dumb. She was only 5 or 6 at the time and had two younger sisters there. Her parents had asked me a while before this to kind of ignore the subject of death if it came up-these parents also later made us mute the volume of Katy Perry's "Hot n' Cold" every time we played it on Wii dance when she sang "PMS" because they told them it was a swear word, so they're pretty protective-which is something I should have respected at the time. But anyway, I told it, and Caroline (the oldest) seemed to like it and I hope the younger two weren't traumatized.

It was later that night when her parents came home that I really regretted it. Caroline was very excited to tell her father the stories that I told them, including, "And THEN she told us about BLUEBEARD!" and I was like, oh no, oh no-what was I thinking telling the story of a serial killer to three innocent little girls? The parents are going to fire me and this is my favorite family to babysit!

In this instance, the relative obscurity of the fairy tale in America was my salvation. Her dad laughed and said, "Oh, you mean Redbeard the Pirate?" and thought no more about it.
None of the girls ever mentioned Bluebeard again, and they turned out fine, but I still shouldn't have told it with the younger two there, and not when the parents clearly wouldn't have wanted me to. Raising your own children is COMPLETELY different than taking care of someone else's, and as I've said before, as a teacher and a babysitter, what you say to kids really can come back to haunt you so you have to be really careful. But at times, children can surprise you with what they're ready for...

The Skeleton Fairies of Tessa Farmer

In theory, I plan on October being a sort of morbid/creepy fairy tale month, in honor of Halloween. I may run out of creepy things and find lots of cutesy things instead so we'll see, but to start off, these images of fairies by Tessa Farmer that are definitely not the fairies we're used to seeing.

From her website:
"Tessa's miniscule sculptures reinvigorate a belief in fairies: not the sweet Tinkerbell image in popular conscience, but a biological, entomological, macabre species translating pastoral fable into nightmarish lore. Constructed from bits of organic material, such as roots, leaves, and dead insects, each of Tessa's figures stand barely 1 cm tall, their painstakingly intricate detail visible only through a magnifying glass.

Hovering with rarefied, jewel-like beauty, Tessa's tiny spectacles resound with a theurgist exotica: their specimen forms borrow from Victorian occultism to evolve as something alien and futuristic. Playing out apocalyptic narratives of a microscopic underworld, Tessa's manikin wonders rule with baneful fervour: harnessing mayflies, battling honey bees, attacking spindly spiders. Presented as wee preternatural discoveries, Tessa's sculptures conjure a superstitious premise, dismantling the mythos of fantasia with evidence of something much more gothic, sinister, and bewitching."

More images can be viewed here.

The cultural idea of fairy tales

To the dismay of fairy tale lovers, the phrase "fairy tale" is mainly used in culture in a condescending, even accusatory way. Though, as we who love the genre are quick to point out, fairy tales include many gruesome and gory details such as murder, thievery, and incest, this doesn't stop others from seeing the fairy tale as a trite and insignificant world where nothing ever goes wrong and everything ends happily. Really, we shouldn't need violence and sex to make a story worth reading, but how has this view of fairy tales managed to be prevalent? Even I catch myself sometimes using the phrase as a negative thing, as if I've learned two different definitions: the actual tales I know and love, and the cultural definition of a story that doesn't come true.

I've paid attention to when the phrase is used most negatively, and it seems to come with the assumption that someone is basing hopes for their own life off of expectations that it will end just like a fairy tale and will ultimately be disappointed. It may be true that fairy tales help set up unrealistic expectations in a young person's mind, but really, how are they that different than most other entertainment sources? What family friendly film, chick flick, or action movie doesn't promote the same hopes and wish fulfillment that a fairy tale does? In some ways, the more "realistic" movies can be more dangerous because they are supposedly set in the real world, but the lifestyles and romance and beauty we see in many films and books are just as much a fantasy as a world with secret kingdoms and fairy godmothers.

Though you never hear the phrase, "don't get your hopes up, it's nothing but a chick flick" or "I'm too old to believe in Hollywood stories," you have probably heard variations on those using "fairy tale," which has sadly born the brunt of criticism.

Now there are of course more realistic movies and books, just like there are fairy tales that separate from the norm-and we always have to remember that traditional folk tales are a totally different genre and we should have different expectations of them. I think maybe it's the nature of the "happily ever after" that turns people off. We like stories with resolution where the main character gets the guy or girl and a solution to a main problem has been found, but in fairy tales the character not only ends up better than he/she was before, but usually married to a King or Queen and ruling the country with unbelievable wealth at their fingertips. But again, this is a method of exaggeration and extremities common in fairy tales, and the fact that the world of the tales is so stark and extreme really makes it hard to believe that the listener is expected to base their own life expectations around it.

Some examples: In Miracle on 34th St (at least the old 1947 version), the mother refuses to tell her child fairy tales because she wants her to have a realistic view of life. It's later revealed that the mother herself expected her first husband to be Prince Charming and when he left she became bitter. Ironically, the movie ends with Santa Claus being real and she gets a better man anyway, so according to it, fairy tales really are true, in a way.
From the song "When there was me and you," from High School Musical:

"I thought you were my fairytale
My dream when I'm not sleeping
A wish upon a star that's coming true

...Now I know you're not a fairy tale
And dreams were meant for sleeping
And wishes on a star just don't come true"

Now I just find this humorous. Disney itself, in one of its cheesiest and most unrealistic hits, references back to the films that made itself famous as if the world wise high school girl's maturity is reached when she realizes fairy tales don't come true. But oh wait-in the end she DOES get back together with the cute guy and everything is perfect as they get the leads in the play, win the basketball championship, and she sings and dances in a cute red dress with all of her unified friends. Maybe I'm noticing a pattern...those who claim that unrealistic expectations are "just a fairy tale" are the ones who go on to create an unrealistic ending themselves, but somehow a little cynicism in the middle is supposed to heighten drama and and realism.

Now these were just the first two examples that popped into my head. I also hear the phrase thrown around in conversation a lot but nothing I can quote. Anybody have any examples from books, movies, conversations, etc., where the phrase "fairy tale" was used and perhaps abused?

Gregory Maguire's Mirror Mirror

It's nothing new, but this weekend on a trip I read Gregory Maguire's Mirror Mirror for the first time, which as you can probably guess from the title, is a novel retelling of Snow White. Maguire is most famous for authoring the book Wicked, on which the musical was based. I have an old post on the book vs. the musical which you can read, but essentially, both are good, you just have to have different expectations for each. One is an inspirational family-friendly musical with catchy tunes which reverses the black and white villains and heroes of the book Wizard of Oz, another is an adult book which has many flawed characters and was meant to give depth and history to the Wicked Witch. It can be kind of a shock to go from the musical to the book unless you realize they're quite different and for different audiences.

Mirror Mirror was along the same lines as Wicked the book, but with no other expectations to go by it stands on its own as a strong retelling. The essential elements of the story are there-wicked queen, mirror, apple-but all a little different, and all woven in to history, an element I really love, set in Italy in the early 16th century. Again, this is an adult book-the characters are very frank about bodily functions, but really this is more historically accurate anyway. From the Publisher's Weekly review of it: "Fairy tales in their original form are often brutal and disturbing; with his rich, idiosyncratic storytelling, Maguire restores the edge to an oft-told tale and imbues it with a strange, unsettling beauty." Actually, despite their phrase "restoring the edge" implying that the edge is usually lost, this is one of the things I like about Snow White-really no retelling has been able to make it "dumbed down". Without the murder attempts it's not the same tale, and who can forget the demand for Snow White's heart brought back to the Queen in a box? Even Disney has these gruesome details.

Back to Maguire-Dwarfs are said to be creatures of the earth. Maguire's dwarfs are literally stone creatures learning slowly to take on more human characteristics such as individuality and quicker thought processes. It's really an interesting philisophical way to ponder humanity as if viewed from outside-this is an aspect of what can make fantasy great literature: the ability to imagine a world different enough from our own that we realize the profundity of characteristics of our world in matters we usually don't even think about.
I really enjoyed the book. Coincidentally, I happened to be in Washington DC last weekend, just at the time that the National Book Fair was going on, and Gregory Maguire was a featured author there-but I didn't get a chance to see or hear him.