A year and a half after our call to action to support Unbound Publishing’s 21st century roadmap of British folktales, Tales of Britain, is finally available to buy — but it’s been a long and winding road, and the campaign continues…
The story of William of Cloudesly is found in a 16th century ballad, Adam Bell, Clym of the Cloughe and Wyllyam of Cloudeslee, but may be older. It was included in the influential 19th century collection, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, as ballad 116, by Francis James Child. Although it is a male dominated, rip-roaring, all action story, three women play a significant part, emerging at points to influence events. Presented here is a short retelling followed by a brief discussion on the influence of the three females on the story.
‘Snow-White & Rose Red’ is a literary tale, adapted by Wilhelm Grimm from a short story ‘The Ungrateful Dwarf’, written by the German children’s writer Karoline Stahl.
Snow-White and Rose-Red are sisters living with their mother, a poor widow, in a cottage by the woods. Red and white roses grow together by the door. One winter night, a bear knocks on the door. He is half-frozen and they let him warm himself by their fire. The girls play with the bear, and he comes back every night for the rest of that winter. When summer comes, the bear tells them that he must go away for he needs to guard his treasure from a wicked goblin. Later the girls rescue the goblin whose beard is stuck in a tree, but he is ungrateful and yells at them for cutting off his beard. The girls encounter him again and again, helping him each time, but he continues rude and ungrateful. Eventually the bear kills the dwarf, and reveals himself as an enchanted prince.
The notion of fairy changelings, whilst dating back centuries, in many ways feels like a modern concept. That a human might be stolen away by the little folk and replaced with a worn-out fairy or stock of wood, enchanted to look like them, is reminiscent of the human-seeming aliens in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. […]
19th century Japan was obsessed with ghost stories. These stories are so influential that they serve as direct inspiration for today’s horror films.
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