Shortly after I began work on The Witch and the Wyrm, I discovered a small problem: I was writing a retelling of a story nobody seemed to have heard of in the first place.
It’s not the first time I’ve been made aware that my taste is a little niche, but as someone who grew up reading fairy tale collections, I mistakenly thought that most people who liked fairy tales would have done the same – gone and gotten a book of fairy tales, most usually one of the Grimm collections.
That the average fairy tale enjoyer would only be familiar with 5 or 6 fairy tales at all never crossed my mind.
Rather than be bothered, I tried to think of some favorites that would be difficult to adapt and are likewise unlikely to be stories people are familiar with.
The Colony of Cats
This is from the Langs’ Fairy Books and features a story of a girl who runs away from home to tend to a colony of cats that are governed by a gentleman cat who turns out to be quite wealthy. The girl is modest and true and when he offers her the choice of being dipped in a jar of oil or dipped in a jar of gold, she chooses the oil. He instead dips her in the gold and embellishes her brow with a golden star before sending her home. Her selfish sister wishes to be dipped in gold, too, so she goes to serve the cats and proves to be a cruel caretaker. When the gentleman cat offers her a reward, she asks to be dipped in gold. Instead, he dips her in the oil, rolls her in ashes and feathers, and adorns her brow with a donkey’s tail before sending her home. You can probably guess which sister has a happily ever after.
One Eye, Two Eyes, and Three Eyes
This is a Grimm fairy tale about a woman who has three daughters, each with a different number of eyes, and they scorn the girl with two eyes because she’s just like everyone else. They punish and starve her until she comes into possession of a goat who can summon a table set with a lavish feast any time she’s hungry. All she needs is the magical words a wise woman taught her. When the sisters find out, the mother becomes angry and kills the goat. The wise woman advises the two-eyed girl to bury its heart, and she does, and on the spot grows a magical tree with leaves of silver and fruit of gold. One day, a knight comes along and asks for a branch from the tree. Try as they might, no one but the two-eyed girl can pick from it, so she gives him a branch and he whisks her off to the castle to be richly rewarded for her kindness.
The Golden-Headed Fish
This is another one from the Lang collection. When a king is struck with blindness, he is told his vision can be restored with the blood of a fish with a golden head. The prince is sent to fish for it, but catches the fish too late to save his father’s sight. He knows the doctors will kill the fish even though it’s too late, so he decides to spare the creature and turns it loose, even though it brings his father’s wrath upon him. The queen helped her son flee, and in a new country, he finds a servant who wishes to be paid but once a year. In this new country, a monster ravages the land, and whoever can slay it will be given half the land and the governor’s daughter. The servant slays the beast and tells the prince to take credit and request half the monster’s treasure instead. This gives them jewels and a boat, with which the prince sails to a new kingdom, where he is stricken by the beauty of the princess and asks for her hand. The prince is warned that she has been married one hundred and ninety times, and the groom has never survived the wedding day. The servant urged the prince to marry her anyway and they were wed. That night, due to a curse, a venomous snake darted from the princess’s mouth, but the servant killed it and broke the curse, leaving the prince whole and healthy come morning. The prince offered great reward, now that he was in line to become king, but the servant refuses–for he is, in fact, the golden-headed fish.
While I love all three of those stories, they don’t fit the conventional expectations that seem to be popular in fairy tale retellings, so they’re not super likely to pop up as popular books any time soon.
Have you heard of any of these? Are there any unusual tales you’d add to the list?
I only read it once, but there’s a fairy tale of a princess with a room filled with mirrors that allows her to see anywhere in the kingdom. Anyone who wants to marry her must hide where she can’t find him. If she finds him, he’s executed. She’s ammassed quite the body count when yet another prince tries his luck. He turns into a ferret the princess carries on her shoulders while she searches for him in all her mirrors. As none of them look into the room, she can’t find him. She’s engraged and smashes all of them to pieces. I don’t remember the ending.