WONDER READER ROUNDUP
Weekend Wonder Boost #1
Fairy tale, Wonder & folklore articles to enjoy over the weekend
From time to time I plan on sending out a link list of interesting articles and recommended reads that have recently caught my eye, specially curated for folks who love fairy tales, folklore, Wonder tales, and all related things. Everything underlined is a breadcrumb (that is, a clickable link) to articles waiting for you to discover them. May you find many treasures in your reading this weekend!
For Mother’s Day: the mother, and maternal power in fairy tales
This beautifully written reflective piece, wonderfully full of tales, resonated strongly with me as a mother. I, too, have often quietly asked the universe: is there no story where the mother can be the main character? The hero?
I tried to stay on the path, like Mother said, but the way to Grandmother’s house — the house of nurture? of wisdom? — wasn’t clear to me. It seemed to me that motherhood was an initiation, a story of attaining power. So why did its meanings fade like dreams when I tried to tell them? The wolf was whispering in my ear about the book I wasn’t writing. When I looked at the work of creation, I saw books and paintings being made, and creators struggling, growing, and changing. When I looked at mothering, every day was another meal, another story, the same stories over and over: “goodnight moon,” “hello Mog,” “Once upon a time.”
… Then I realized I knew some very old stories in which mothers’ selves are lost and regained. I realized that there were some tales that treated motherhood not as happily ever after but as a new coming of age.
If you are a mother and an artist, writer, and/or creative, and you are drawn to fairy tales, this will be an affirming read.
An illustrator drew the only known portrait of the “real” Mother Goose
Here’s another read, perfect for Mother’s Day. Written by one of the most entertaining and passionate-for-women’s-history writers on Medium, Linda Caroll has done a deep dive into the character of the real Mother Goose. Complete with her trademark sassy insights, Linda takes you through all the theories you have heard and leads you around to the storyteller who inspired one of the most famous fairy tale writers of all time. This article will give you that storytime fodder of your own.
Backward-walking people and why they are our hope
Fairy and folktales about The Fool can be found in pretty much every culture, but the reasons are even better than they, at first, appear. To Be the Fool — in Literature and in Life by Grant Faulkner has a great overview of The Fool and why this archetype is both underrated and more necessary than ever. This author discusses Fools from many places, backward-walking heyoka to characters like Ted Lasso, and why The Fool deserves our acceptance and respect. Absolutely worth a read. See below for a taste.
You might say the Fool is the ultimate storyteller: they take risks to tell the tale only they can see.
Carl Jung described the Fool as being a “potential future,” meaning that through various attempts and failures, the Fool gains experience, builds character, and eventually develops into the archetype of the Sage or Savior.
The Fool is depicted in tarot cards as looking hopefully skyward. The Fool represents new beginnings, faith in the future.
Talking cabbages!
The first thing she did when she reached her room was to throw the cabbage out of the window. But she was very much surprised to hear an odd little voice cry out: “Oh! I am half killed!” and could not tell where it came from, because cabbages do not generally speak. (from Felicia and the Pot of Pinks)
The Folktale Project is in the process of releasing their lovely recording installments of Madame D’Aulnoy’s fairy tale Felicia and the Pot of Pinks (using the version from the Lang’s Blue Fairy Book).
The “pot of pinks” in this story refers to a type of dianthus flower known as “garden pinks.” Its name is not due to the color pink but rather to the serrated edges of the petals, which look like they were cut with pinking shears. In fact, the color pink may be derived from this particular flower. (source)
You can start listening to Part I here. (Cabbages begin talking here.)
Goose-chases, cats that change the subject, and a post-apocalyptic Musicians of Bremen
New fairy tale respinnings from Kelly Link are creating a buzz, in White Cat, Black Dog: Stories. (Published Mar 27, 2023, illustrated by Shaun Tan) From the publisher:
Seven ingeniously reinvented fairy tales that play out with astonishing consequences in the modern world… In “The White Cat’s Divorce,” an aging billionaire sends his three sons on a series of absurd goose chases to decide which child will become his heir. In “The Girl Who Did Not Know Fear,” a professor with a delicate health condition becomes stranded for days in an airport hotel after a conference, desperate to get home to her wife and young daughter, and in acute danger of being late for an appointment that cannot be missed.
There is also a delightful interview with Link that’s a delightful read all on its own. Aptly titled “The Fabulist in the Woods”, it quickly becomes apparent that Link’s life mirrors the blend of the odd and absurd with classic fairy tale patterns you can find in her stories. From the beginning of the interview: We settled at the kitchen table beside a potted sweet-potato vine that had sprouted in the pantry. “I didn’t have the heart to …” She petted the leaves. “It was so determined.”
“One thing that fairy tales teach us, of course, is that it’s wise not to examine such magic too closely — better to accept the gift gratefully than to inquire into its provenance.” (Kristen Roupenian for The New Yorker)
Gathering glimpses of her writing life and process, her connection to fairy tales and “old storytelling forms”, her close friendship with popular authors Holly Black and Cassandra Clare, and her chickens named after fonts and dragons, the interview also includes a little about her new book and includes nuggets like this: In one of them, a post-apocalyptic retelling of the “Musicians of Bremen,” set outside the ruins of Chattanooga, the narrator refuses to explain just how the world has changed, or who he was before it did. That is a “small story, so small I could fit it into a box that would fit into another box, that box still small enough to carry inside the smallest pocket,” he says at the beginning of the tale. “Were I to take it out of its box, I do not know that I could ever fit it back inside again.”
A little bonus info: did you know East of the Sun, West of the Moon was one of Kelly Link’s favorite fairy tales? And that Prince Hat Under the Ground is a Swedish variant? (Prins Hatt under jorden) Link’s story, Prince Hat Underground, included in her new book, takes its title from this “search for the lost husband” fairy tale.
Color me intrigued! You can read the first story, and see some of Shaun Tan’s illustrations for the book here.
Hunting lost folklorists and their forgotten tales
You probably know that folklorists are excellent tale-hunters. But what happens to the tales when the folklorist disappears? Hunting down folklorists who have disappeared from view takes both expertise and serious tenacity.
Fortunately for the world, Jack Zipes is well qualified in both and has dedicated his retirement to rediscovering forgotten and underappreciated folklorists and fairy tale collectors. He’s made it his personal mission to bring them, and their work to light — often translating their work to English for the first time — and publishing their collections.
Here is a brief and intriguing round-up of five of these “lost folklorists” who deserve to be as well known as the Grimms, Andersen, and Perrault.
Have a Wonder-filled weekend!
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Gypsy Thornton (she/her) is the Guardian of a chicken-legged coffee cup with a mind of its own. A night owl forced to get up with larks, she often describes herself as liminal and is forever trying to do impossible things before breakfast. She can only be seen in her true form after midnight.
