Old Time Stories - A Collection of Classic Fairy Tales This book brings many memories to the older generation and still offers a great opportunity to present a few pieces of not-so-old history to younger generations. It is a collection of eleven fairy tales. Some of them are classic works, representatives of the genre, and well-known all over the world, others are forgotten, but still worth your attention. All these years after their first publishing, they still possess a very specific charm. You are invited to be a part of it. The first eight fairy tales were written by Charles Perrault. You'll probably know most of them. You probably need to live on another planet if you don't want to hear about Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, or Puss in Boots. Perrault wrote only eleven fairy tales in his lifetime yet the majority still circulates around. They are actually among the most popular stories in the world. While the cover and inside title don't give credit to the other two authors, it's only fair to expose them too. The first one is Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, who wrote the most known (not the first) version of The Beauty and The Beast, another all-time classic. The second author (third altogether) is Catherine d'Aulnoy, who is represented by two less-known fairy tales but is officially credited as a mother of the genre. She coined the fraise conte de fee, which means fairy tale. We'll explore all eleven fairy tales with the help of superb illustrations signed by William Heath Robinson (1872-1944). We have already seen a few examples - pen and ink vignettes (black and white pictures are in the majority) and one of a few color pictures (this one, a so-called frontispiece, represents a scene from the story Little Tom Thumb. After the list of fairy tales and the list of illustrations, the book begins with a short preface. Then fairy tales follow one by one. We'll present them in exactly the same order. The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood Perrault's version of this fairy tale begins similarly to the more known variation popularized by the Grimm brothers. The king and the queen can't have children. When they succeed, they throw a huge party. Unfortunately, they forgot to invite one of the fairies who curses the baby. She will die of the spindle. This curse is later softened to the long sleep, but can't be annulled. The king tries to forbid the spindles in the whole kingdom. When an inevitable happens, a dwarf informs the good fairy who comes to the castle with a sleeping beauty and puts everybody else to sleep too. A thick forest protects everybody inside from the inside world. One hundred years later a prince comes and, hearing about the rumors about the sleeping beauty decides to go through the forest. The trees retract from him and he enters without a problem. The guards were sleeping. Everybody was sleeping. The prince finally found the sleeping princess. When he approached her, she woke up. Everybody else wakes up too. But this is not the end of the story as Perrault wrote it. The happy couple marries and has two kids, but the prince doesn't want to introduce his wife to his parents. His mother is an ogress who likes to eat people. But after a while, she finds his secret and tries to eat his wife and kids. In the end, the son confronts his mother. She dies and he lives with his new family happily ever after. Puss in Boots This story starts with the death of the miller who had a mill, a donkey, and a cat. Each one of his three sons got one of these. You can imagine the youngest, who got a cat, wasn't very happy. Yet this was not an ordinary cat. He built a false identity for his master by flattery, cheating, lying, and threatening. When the identity of the so-called Marquis de Carabas needed hard evidence in the form of real estate, the cat even challenged an ogre and managed to steal his possessions. It was obvious this cat was worth much more than a mill. So the miller's son became a king and the cat his most valuable member of the court. This fun and still very popular story raises some questions. Isn't the moral of Puss in Boots at least a bit questionable? An in-depth article about this fairy tale deals exactly with these kinds of questions: https://letterpile.com/books/puss_in_boots Little Tom Thumb This fairy tale is less well-known outside of France. It's actually a French version of Hansel and Gretel with elements of Jack and the Beanstalk. Little Tom Thumb is the youngest of seven boys, all children of a poor woodcutter who decides to leave them in the woods because they gonna die of hunger anyway. Thanks to Tom and white pebbles they safely return home but the second trip didn't pan out so well. Tom got bread crumbs instead of pebbles and boys couldn't find their way home anymore. After long wandering through the forest they came to the house where a man-eating ogre lived. He wasn't at home, his daughters were already sleeping (with little crowns on their heads), but his wife was there and opened the door just to warn them not to come in. They persuaded her to take them in because they would die in the forest just before the ogre returned. He found them and decided to fatten them a bit before eating them. Little Tom Thumb noticed they were all put into the same bed and this bed was in the same room as the bed of seven ogre's daughters. So he waited until the dark and changed the caps of the boys with the crowns of the girls which proved a life-saving trick for him and his brothers. The ogre, who was pretty tipsy, came to the bedroom in the night, and without proper orientation decided to slaughter the kids without crowns - his own daughters. Tom woke up the boys and they ran out of the house while the ogre and his wife slept. In the morning ogre noticed his mistake and started a pursuit with seven-league boots. When he almost caught the boys, they hid under the rock and the ogre sat on the same rock to catch some breath. He fell asleep, so the boys got a chance to escape to their home, but Tom had another idea. He stole the ogre's boots, returned to his house, persuaded his wife to give him all the treasures from the house (he told her the ogre was kidnapped by robbers), and made himself and his family very rich. Tom later used seven-league boots many times. They earned him good money and a lot of favor among the nobility. The Fairies This fairy tale is in English speaking world more known under the Diamonds and Toads title. It tells a story about two girls, sisters with different characters. The nice sister is awarded for her kindness, the rude one is punished. Guess which one got a prince for a husband! Ricky of the Tuft In my opinion, this story is the most boring and predictable of all in this collection. There was a queen who had an extremely ugly son. But he was very smart. He also had a gift to make other people smarter if he wanted. And there was another queen who had two daughters. The older one was the prettiest and dumbest girl in the kingdom. Her younger sister, on the other hand, was very ugly but clever and sensitive. Both sisters attracted men. When the beauty of the first one can't prevail over her stupidity anymore, everybody turns to her sister, who is a brilliant speaker. After a while, Ricky fell in love with the picture of the beautiful sister and when he met her, he promised to make her smarter if she promised to marry him. There was a catch. When she really became smarter, he forgot about her decision from the time of stupidity. She wanted to marry a handsome princess instead of Ricky. Then Ricky told her he would become handsome too if she only used her special power to make somebody beautiful if she loved him, she did exactly that. So two beautiful and smart people marry each other. The only unhappy person in this story is the ugly sister. Cinderella By far the most popular fairy tale in the world is best known in Perrault's version - with a fairy godmother, carriage made of pumpkin, and glass slippers. Cinderella's mother dies, and her father remarries, so she has a stepmother and two step-sisters. Very soon Cinderella fell to the level of the lowest servant. She was forced to sleep in the kitchen. After a while, a prince decided to find a wife. So he throws a great party and invites all the girls. Cinderella's sisters are going too. But Cinderella is not allowed. She doesn't have a proper dress anyway. Then her fairy godmother appears and does all the best tricks. Cinderella did everything to hide her identity. Somehow she lost a slipper. The prince decided to find a lady whose foot would fit this slipper. She will be his wife. He finds the next queen in Cinderella. Perrault's version is different from Grimm's in many ways. If we focus only on the ending, we find out Cinderella is very forgiving. She even arranges to find two noblemen for her step-sisters. Little Red Riding Hood The grandmother is sick and Red Riding Hood needs to bring her some food and wine. She was told not to talk to strangers. When she met the wolf, she forgot about the warnings. While she was picking flowers, the wolf ran to her granny's house and ate her. Then he got in her bed, waiting for some fresh flesh. After the most famous dialogue in fairy tale literature, the wolf eats the girl. There is no hunter or other rescuer in Perrault's Red Riding Hood! Blue Beard A very rich man with a bad reputation marries a young beautiful girl. He is very mysterious. One day he has to leave the castle. He gives his wife the keys. Among these keys, there is one she must not use. Believing he will never find out, she takes the key and opens the forbidden room. Blue Beard returns home, discovers her lack of loyalty, and decides to kill her. But her brothers came to the castle soon enough to kill him and save her.
This is where Perrault's works end. But don't worry. Here are the links to the rest of the book: Beauty and the Beast by Madame Leprince de Beaumont Two fairy tales by Madame d'Aulnoy All three fairy tales were illustrated by William Heath Robinson as well. It's also good to know his brother Charles Robinson illustrated Perrault's fairy tales too. Not just that, he illustrated the very same fairy tales with the very same addition of three more!
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