"There was once a woman who lived with her daughter in a beautiful cabbage-garden; and there came a rabbit and ate up all the cabbages." To get rid of the rabbit, the woman tells her daughter to shoo it away, and she does. "'Shoo! shoo!' said the maiden; 'don't eat up all our cabbages, little … Continue reading Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales: The Rabbit’s Bride

"Once on a time the cock and the hen went to the nut mountain, and they agreed beforehand that whichever of them should find a nut was to divide it with the other." This fairy tale is quite gloomy, as you can correctly deduce from the title. It also [unexpectedly, yet seamlessly] contains elements introduced … Continue reading Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales: The Death of the Hen

"There lived in a certain village a poor old woman who had collected a mess of beans, and was going to cook them." This short origin story is full of surprises - which is to say it's a delightful fairy tale that plays to the imagination. The old woman mentioned in that first sentence "made … Continue reading Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales: The Straw, The Coal, and the Bean

"Near a great forest there lived a poor woodcutter and his wife and his two children; the boy's name was Hansel and the girl's Gretel." I will admit - I am familiar with the Grimm's version of Hansel and Gretel, so I was not blindsided by details or expecting my view of the tale to differ … Continue reading Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales: Hansel and Gretel

"There was once upon a time a King who had a daughter, and he caused a glass-mountain to be made, and said that whosoever could cross the other side of it without falling should have his daughter to wife." This fairy tale did not go in the direction I guessed it would. I figured a … Continue reading Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales: Old Rinkrank

"In times past there lived a King and Queen, who said to each other every day of their lives, 'Would that we had a child!'" And so The Sleeping Beauty begins in a similar way that Rapunzel began; our not-yet-sleeping-beauty, Rosamond, is born beautiful and is basically cursed from that day of her birth. Fortunately in this … Continue reading Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales: The Sleeping Beauty