Fairy Tale News New Year's Bumper Edition: Fairy tales in performance arts

• Do the tales of the Arabian Nights have resonance for audiences today? (Article by Marina Warner on the Royal Shakespeare's Company production of Arabian Nights and the resonance of the tales with people today [via The Fairy Tale Cupboard] )

• Beauty & the Beast theatrical production with audience participation. (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA)

• Korea National Ballet's Cinderella (Jan 29 to 31, 2010, Seoul Arts Center) is more dynamic than the traditional presentation and offers unique touches, twists and theater craft (eg Cinderella's mother and father are both shown in a touching relationship at the start before the mother dies and returns as a fairy-in-a-corset to look after Cindy the rest of the story; Cinderella is barefoot for most of the performance - including for the ball, in which her feet are dipped in a sparkling sequin dust; etc)

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Fairy Tale News New Year's Bumper Edition: Friends and other fairy tale people

• The Magic Nutshell - new-to-me blog by fellow folklore nut, 'Genie of the Shell'! She also writes fairy tale related articles (see HERE for an interesting entry to get you started) and posts excerpts from her fairy tale retellings for you to read and comment on.

• Golden Apples With Silver Leaves - new translation of a Swedish fairy tale by Tea Doom. From the writer: "... I decided to do this little thing where I translate one myth or legend from each of Sweden's 25 provinces; some of them are very general, other special for the area they hearken from, and some I just found really nifty. I've posted a link to a map of all the provinces in each post, so you'll have a clue of where they are from". (Via an LJ Community Told This Time post HERE, where there are links to more translated tales.)

Delicate Splendour by Sarah Goodnough

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Fairy Tale News New Year's Bumper Edition: Blog posts and/or articles discussing/using fairy tales

• Fairy Tale Survival Guide plus tips for self-rescuing princesses blogged by author Danyelle Leafty at Myth-takes

Rapunzel by Steering for North

• Which fairy tale will spawn a new princess next? Article from the LA Weekly which discusses four fairy tales not yet touched by Disney and how they would be 'Disneyfied' (i.e. what the Disney version might end up like) if they were chosen for a new 'princess film'. Article could have used a spell check (or just a read through) for mistakes but otherwise is interesting and quite amusing. Fairy tales discussed are: The Rose Elf (Andersen), Godfather Death (Grimm), The Red Shoes (Andersen). The Maiden Without Hands (Grimm).
  

Godfather Death by Lefler & Urban

• Hidden Personality - Bluebeard. One of many excellent student guest posts at the Diamonds & Toads blog (the post was an assignment). I particularly love this one on Bluebeard. Well researched with interesting thinking, clear writing and a great read. Perfect companion to the Bluebeard photoshoot I've also pointed you toward today under General Headlines.

Bluebeard by Gustav Dore

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Fairy Tale News New Year's Bumper: General (& latest) fairy tale news headlines (that I haven't seen posted elsewhere)

• Hunt for 'giant Cinderella' by a shoe store to fill size 15 Wellingtons/rain boots - free to anyone they fit.

Athena by Carlos Dunn

• Neil Gaiman introduces Neverwhere - article in which Neil Gaiman tells how Neverwhere (his novel about London-below, the parallel fairy land universe) came to be and was developed. Comments and 'conversation' on the subject and with Mr. Gaiman are encouraged during January 2010.

• A modern Brother's Grimm hunting down (and recording) Emirati fairy tales. Fascinating article with excerpts from wonderful tales included, as well as their roots in history - awesome! If anyone can figure out how to get a copy of his collection, "Kharareef", I'd be very interested in getting a copy.

• Bluebeard costumes and photoshoot by Sidhe Etain - beautiful costumes and shoot! Photography by Frank Tuttle. One of the best fairy tale photoshoots I've seen in a while - highly recommend clicking the link and seeing all the photos and story in sequence, along with the text by Walter Crane. (Via Told This Time LJ Community)

• Bryan Singer now in negotiations to make Jack the Giant Killer as a 3D movie (thanks to the success of Avatar).

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Fairy Tale News New Year's Bumper Edition!

"I believe in the truth of fairy-tales more than I believe in the truth in the newspaper."

- Lotte Reiniger
(Silhouette AND quote)

Hello and welcome to 2010 - a year that promises to be exciting for fairy tale enthusiasts everywhere. (Yay!)

I've been away from the blog longer than planned due to unexpected commitments and am still unable to return to daily blogging this week BUT the Fairy Tale News Hound is bursting with news she simply must share!

So: to bring you up-to-date and give you lots of fairy tale news (despite the fact I really shouldn't be online) I thought we could do something a little different...

A Fairy Tale News 'New Year's Stories' Bumper Edition!

Check out the collection of posts today for lots of story summaries and links, newspaper style. You have the following 'sections' (i.e. posts) to browse through (or you can hop straight there from here):

General (& latest) fairy tale news headlines (that I haven't seen posted elsewhere)
Blog posts and/or articles discussing/using fairy tales
Friends and other fairy tale people online
Fairy tales in performance arts
Fairy tale artists & illustrators (past & present)
Fairy tale journals/magazines/online 'zines
Fairy tale films & movies
Fairy tale influenced books (and reviews)
Newly discovered online fairy tale retellings
Fairy tale fashion news
Home & garden fairy tale style
Fairy tale sports
Fun fairy tale finds
Fairy tale funnies
Fairy tale weather & the natural world
Fairy tale music/audio
Food and dining fairy tale news
Classifieds/ads for fairy tale people
Careers - fairy tale knowledge required!
From the archives: fairy tale articles to read again (or for the first time)
End notes & recap

Snow White On Flowers
by Marina B.

Enjoy the "issue".
I'll catch up with you soon and be back to daily blogging before long.
:)

Psst!

Red Keds Design Collective (from Russia) - 33 Fairy Tales project
(Individual artist of this piece unknown)

Giant
Fairy Tale News
Special New Year's
'Bumper Edition'

coming shortly!

Stay tuned...
:)

Happy New Year!

New Year's fireworks over Cinderella's castle in Disney World, Florida

Happy New Year!

I found an great blog post from Russophilia that explains the importance of the New Year in Russia. It's the most magical time of the year there because it not only celebrates the end of an old year and the beginning of the new but also comes complete "with all the same enchantments as our Christmas," with children waiting for presents to appear under a tree from the Russian equivalent of Santa Claus. (December 25th isn't celebrated. Instead the Orthodox Christ-mass is celebrated on Epiphany - January 6th.) As a result Russian New Years cards are of great significance. The blog shares a few lovely ones and I thought I'd post the one that comes straight from a Russian fairy tale, along with some excerpts to explain the significance.

I found this (New Year's) postcard which depicts a character from Russian fairy tales, Emelya, Емеля, the fool who snuggles up to the fireplace and never wants to have to leave to do anything. He gets lucky when we catches a magic pike (fish) in the river and the pike tells him a secret phrase to say to make everything obey his will:

I haven’t quite figured out what this has to do with the New Year, but I think it has to do with hopes of luck and success and a minimum of labor. A wish that in the New Year, may you, like Emelya, have every success and happiness, ability to get out of trouble and avoid punishment for your reckless behavior, may you have a princess fall madly in love with you, and most importantly, may you never have to leave the comforts of your warm fireplace to obtain these things. This is the Russian’s ideal year!

(You can read the whole article HERE.)

That's got to make you smile!

Let me rephrase, from me to you:

May your 2010 be wonderful:

full of magic, joy and plenty of good luck too!

Happy New Year!

New Years Eve fireworks over the Sydney Harbour bridge, Sydney Opera House & Sydney Harbour

Please note:

I'll be taking a brief blog break but then will be back with plenty of fairy tale news as usual. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy all the Stories of the Season posts (and more) I've put up over Christmas - there's plenty of reading there to catch up on and lots of links to follow.

All the best for the season and a magical New Year.

Gypsy

UPDATE 1/1/01 (12:36PM)

I have just posted my last two "Stories for the Season" posts at the date and time they were originally intended to appear - in the last hours of December 31st, 2009. Please scroll down to see a post on The Little Match Girl and a final 'story roundup' with lots of additional suggestions and links.

Enjoy!

Stories for the Season: More To Explore - Story Roundup

This is my last "Stories for the Season" post but it's by no means a complete collection of fairy tales, and stories for fairy tale people that can be enjoyed during this end of year/beginning of a new year holiday time.

Here is an additional short list of stories I ran out of time to profile individually and why they can be included on your Christmas fairy tales list:

The Velveteen Rabbit or How Toys Become Real
by Margery Williams
It's the classic Christmas toy story

The Wild Hunt
by Jane Yolen
Winter arrives and The Wild Hunt rides (excellent book!)

The Wooden Shoes of Little Wolff
adapted by Francois Coppee
A boy with a good heart unknowingly helps the Christ Child and is rewarded

Miracle of 34th Street
Novella written by Valentine Davies and made into the Oscar winning film from 1947 about a department store Santa insisting he's the real thing.
NOTE: Watch the black and white 1947 version - it's MUCH better than any of the remakes and has a gentle and special touch

Who's That Knocking on Christmas Eve?
by Jan Brett
A children's version of the Norwegian folktale The Cat on the Dovrefell (see below)

The Snow Princess
by Ruth Sanderson
Based on Tchaikovsky's Russian opera/ballet The Snow Maiden

The Cat on the Dovrefell
by Asbjornsen & Moe
A great white bear (yes, a bear - not a cat, but don't tell the trolls...) helps counteract an annual Christmas invasion by trolls - I love this one!

Why the Sea is Salt
by Asbjornsen & Moe
A poor boy goes begging on Christmas Eve and has a big adventure

Tatterhood
by Asbjornsen & Moe
An invasion by trolls on Christmas Eve sets things in motion

The Christmas Cuckoo
adapted by Frances Browne
Poor brothers become rich due to their good treatment of a cuckoo found on Christmas Day

The Christmas Fairy of Strasburg
A German folktale about the origins of the Christmas tree

The Golden Cobwebs
A folktale about the origins of tinsel/tree trimmings. (It's still good luck to have a spider ornament on your Christmas tree in the Ukraine.)

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus
by L. Frank Baum
Mentioned in my post on Jack Frost

The Mail Coach Passengers
by Hans Christian Andersen
A New Years story in which the Twelve Months take a ride
(I couldn't find a correlating image for the story sorry - so you're being reminded of Gennady Spirin's work. :)

Again, there are many more, especially if you look at all the little folktales, but I thought these ones would interest my readers most (that I'm aware of anyway). Of course, if you have others to add please feel free to add a comment.

I hope you've enjoyed this series of posts. If you want to find them all, just click on the 'Xmas tales' tag in the sidebar.

If you're interested in finding more make sure you visit The Fairy Tale Channel HERE - they have an excellent collection of fairy tales and often post appropriate to the seasons throughout the year too (an excellent resource!).

Merry storytelling!
May fairy tales fill and enrich your holidays and the coming year.
:)

Christmas Bell Babies Grow in Australia
(They sing you joy)
by May Gibbs

Individual illustration credits (book covers show illustrators:
1. An engraving of "The Cat on the Dovrefell" from TALES FROM THE NORSE by George W. Dasent
2. Princess of Wands (Tatterhood) from THE FAIRY TALE TAROT by Lisa Hunt
3. The Christmas Cuckoo from GRANNY'S WONDERFUL CHAIR AND THE TALES IT TOLD by Frances Browne with illustrations by Florence White Williams
4. The Christmas Tree Fairy by Cicely Mary Baker
5. A Christmas spider ornament from the Ukraine (photographer unknown)
6. From THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF SANTA CLAUS by Lyman Frank Baum, illustrated by Mary Cowles Clark

Stories for the Season: The Little Match Girl

by ArtBIT

You were probably wondering if I forgot this tale but I was just saving it as my 'book end', since it's the first tale I mentioned this month.

by The Enigma (Ella Baru?)

development art from the Disney short directed by Roger Allers

by Jaqueline Hudon-Verrelli

You're most likely all familiar with the story so I won't repeat it except to tell you that the translation of the danish title actually means "The little girl with the sulphur sticks" - which makes it seem even more sad for some reason.

by Miwa Yanagi

In the middle of a stressful season it's good to remember to be thankful for all I have and to remember there are many who aren't nearly so lucky and that if I have the opportunity to help, I should.

by Tekkoman

by Ariel Padilla

I find different images/illustrations bring different emphasis to the story so thought I'd post a few - quite different from each other - that I've found in the past. (The SurLaLune blog has already had a "Little Match Girl" week and highlighted some lovely illustrated retellings so I'm focusing on one-off illustrations, although I've included a couple of classic for comparison.)

album cover for Loren Mazzacane Connors

by Honor C. Appleton


Laetitia Angot plays The Little Match Girl in the theater production by Martin Jaques

scene from the Disney short directed by Roger Allers

by Christian Birmingham


by McLelun

by Robert Dress

And one little charm in a matchbox - a collaboration by Zoe Sernack and Lang Leav.
In addition I found a special Match Girl book, by artist Chloe Lan, which cleverly uses text to both tell the story, set the scene and communicate the mood of the story. I've included one example below. Click to view larger and read the text:

Click HERE to view some other pages and to learn more about the book.

I couldn't complete this entry with at least a little film so found a lovely, 'conceptual art animation' for you by Charlene Wienhold (a.k.a. AuroraInk on deviantArt) who has an amazing portfolio HERE. Enjoy:


I also wanted to mention a story titled Little Piccola by Francis Jenkins Olcott. This story reminds me of The Little Match Girl very much except it has a happy ending - and the girl lives to see another Christmas.

You can read the original poem the story was adapted from HERE.

Piccola, illustration from McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader
St Nicholas Center Collection