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katriniac · 5 months

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OMG you are in folk fairytales and legend Please can you tell me some of the cuteer ones you found even better if involving bears ? I loved interact with your OC too thanks fir joining and pls relax too from time to time and do not rush in answering me either 🙏🙏 I wish you a wonderful day 🤗🤗😘😘

Yesssss, I love them! Since a very young age I have been an avid reader/student of folklore, fairy tales, myths, and legends.

Below I talk more about my personal history/feelings on the topic, and end with my three favorite fairy tales. I hope they are “cute” enough for you!

But first I wanted to answer your question about stories featuring bears.

I tried to think of one in my memory where a bear played a prominent part, but turned up empty. I mean, yes, there is the standard “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”, but I assumed you wanted to hear about something off the beaten path.

So I dug around and found this one for you:

"The Bear in the Forest Hut".

It is a Slavic folk tale about a prince who was cursed to take the shape of a bear, and the brave and kind woman who helped him out of that curse. She had the typical misfortune to have a stupid father and an ‘evil stepmother’ who tries to stop anything good from happening to the heroine.

I liked this one because there is plenty of detail about the trials and tests the girl goes through in order to earn the bear’s trust and break his curse. Even more unique is how the story doesn’t just end right when the curse is broken (like so many folk tales). Instead, it goes on at length about how the two get married, travel over his kingdom, and what happens to the stepmother and stepsister.

@queengiuliettafirstlady What are some of your favorite fairy tales and myths?

How did I come to love fairy tales so much?

I think I can trace it back to my godmother, who was an amazing storyteller. She was Irish, so most of the tales she told me came from the British Isles and dated back to the 12th Century or earlier. The stories I most vividly remember her telling me were about the 3rd Century charismatic (but slightly foolish) folk hero Finn MacCool (or Fionn mac Cumhaill) and his very very clever wife Sadhbh.

As I entered my preteen years (1990s, pre-internet era) a library was built within a 15 minute drive from our rural town. I had never had such a frequent exposure to books before that, except our small school library. My mom would take me to the new public library often and I devoured every book they had on fairy tales and legends.

When I started college, the trend of turning ancient folktales into modern, dark retelling had begun to rise in popularity. Not only was my backpack full of those every week, but now I also had access to scholarly papers through our inter-collegiate online system! I could read published research on people all over the world, those who retraced Charles Perrault’s steps, or compared similar narratives, or discovered a new translation of an old work. It was also during my college years that I discovered The Aaarne-Thompson-Uther index, which categorizes the plots and themes of fairy tales.

When I learned about Perrault and the ATU Index, it changed my self-image.

Of course kids like fairy tales, but we are expected to grow out of those stories as we mature. I still had a deep love of folklore and myths well into my 20s and that made me feel a little silly and childish. But when I discovered that Charles Perreault (a historian in the 17th Century) believed the stories being shared in the oral tradition were important enough to be written down for posterity, that boosted my spirits. And when I stumbled across the ATU Index (begun in 1910, and continues to be updated annually still to this day), which took fairy tales seriously as anthropological artifacts, I was vindicated even more.

These historical efforts were proof that folk lore, legends, and fairy tales weren't just for children.

This short article is a MUST-READ for anyone who wants to have their love for storytelling rekindled and get pumped up to talk about fairy tales. It’s all about hope and courage. I especially appreciated the excerpt from Katherine Rundell when she talks about “the hope that is sharper than teeth”

As I studied more and more obscure stories from around the world, I soon had a list of my top 4 favorites that I came back to:

Katie Crackernuts

The Twelve Dancing Princesses

Beauty and the Beast

The Myth of the Selkie

The middle two I have owned a few printed copies of. They are quite common and have many retellings/variations. But Katie Crackernuts was a story I could only read online; I had never seen it in print.

There are actually similarities between parts of all three stories, which is probably why I love them so much.

I know you asked for ‘cute’ ones, but I don’t know if these really are that adorable. They all have happy endings for the heroines. Does that count? LOL

Katie Crackernuts (collected by Andrew Lange, first printed 1889)

This is a Scottish story about two sisters, one plain but clever (Katie) and one beautiful but simple (Anne). Despite this difference, they loved and supported one another as much as two sisters could. Through no fault of her own, Anne was cursed (you guessed it, by an evil stepmother) with the head of a sheep (or sometimes a donkey or goat, depending on the version) because the stepmother was jealous of her beauty. Katie put a hood over Anne to disguise her and left the house together, never to return.

They eventually came to the kingdom where there was a sick prince. His parents offered rich rewards for anyone who could heal his mysterious disease. Katie knew there had to be a reason normal medicine wasn’t working. She thought perhaps he was under a curse, too. Yep, he was going out at night in a trance to go under a hill to dance with fairies. So she watched and listened and investigated until she discovered the cure and how to administer it. Turns out the way to lift her sister’s curse was under that hill, as well!

She out-smarted the fairies, collected the items from them, and followed the instructions precisely. He grew well and discovered he loved her during all their time together while she was patiently investigating. When she used the cure on her sister, Anne’s sheep head turned back into a human one and the prince’s brother fell in love with her on the spot (of course he did). It was a lovely double-wedding.

The Twelve Dancing Princesses (collected by the Brothers Grimm, first printed 1812)

This is about twelve sisters who are constantly tired and ruining their expensive shoes every night, and no one can find out why. The king has offered rich rewards and even marriage to the most beautiful of his daughters, but any man who steps up to the challenge either dies, fails the task, or is never seen again. Until one clever man (who has been watching this happen over and over) decides to try solving the mystery. The eldest sister (the most intelligent and haughty of the siblings) tries to stop him each time, but he outsmarts her as he follows the princesses into a fairy forest where they dance all night until their shoes fall apart and they drop from exhaustion.

Just like Katie in the story before, he is observant and waits until he has all the information and proof he needs to confront the princesses. He convinces the king, who is angry that his daughters were escaping every night. The man explains they were under a spell that compelled them to sneak out. The king offers him the most beautiful daughter (who is also the youngest and the most silly), but the man opts to marry the eldest because she was the only one who came close to matching wits.

Katie Crackernuts has much in common with The Twelve Dancing Princesses.

Both have very strict rules for entering into the world of fairies, and the “wasting sickness” that comes upon a human who spends too much time in that world (which is also a metaphor for other maladies that were rampant during those centuries, such as tuberculosis). I enjoy that theme of “Good luck if you’re beautiful because your looks won’t save you. You need to be wise, patient, and clever in this world.”

Beauty and the Beast

This was one of my favorites long before Disney made their movie. Almost everyone knows how the story goes, so I won’t make this long post even longer by summarizing it here. The bravery and selflessness of the heroine was very inspiring to me, and I loved the idea of being surrounded by talking furniture and not a single human! I was a very introverted kid. And I guess I loved the idea of a sad prince in an unloveable disguise who needed to feel loved.

Another thing I think is neat about that story is there is an actual author: Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve, published the story in 1740. Most folklore and fairy tales have a shared origin and no single creator. Not so for Beauty and the Beast. This one has a bonafide author, which makes it unique. Not only that, but the author was a woman!

What Beauty and the Beast has in common with Katie Crackernuts is charity, mercy, humility, and selflessness.

The heroine not only saves herself, but she saves those who are entrusted to her. Who needs a prince, right?? Katie didn’t have to leave home to take care of her cursed sister, but she did. She didn’t have to agree to help the sick prince, but she did. Belle didn’t have to sacrifice herself in her father’s place in that unreasonable pact, but she did. She could have been disagreeable, rude, and throwing herself a pity party the entire time she was captive in the Beast’s castle, but instead she did her best to keep her spirits up and not hate her captor. (Readers: don’t come at me with the whole “Stockholm Syndrome” comment trying to be witty; it’s an old joke that was never funny in the first place.) Katie also tried hard to make the best of an awful situation, and she was never resentful to Anne or put her on a guilt trip. I was inspired by the important values and virtues portrayed by these two heroines.

The Legend of the Selkie

You asked for ‘cute’ stories, but this last one is anything but cute. The Celtic legend of the Selkie is heartbreaking, and there is hardly ever a happy ending. I heard briefly about it as a kid, but never found a published story to read. The oral tradition of the tale goes back to the 13th Century, but it didn’t make it into many books. Then the movie The Secret of Roan Inish came out in 1995. I was 15 at the time and didn’t have my driver’s license yet, so I begged a family member to bring me to the only theater in the entire state that was showing this independent film, over an hour away. It was magical. I bought the DVD as soon as it was available. It was the only thing I could find at that time (remember, the internet wasn’t really used for entertainment in 1995 like it is now) that displayed the Selkie myth, which is:

There are some special seals in the sea who can shed their seal-skin and turn themselves into human women. They are beautiful, quiet, and hard-working. And therefore they are much sought-after as wives by the lonely fishermen of the islands. The legend says that if you find a Selkie in her human form and take her seal-skin away from her, she is yours for the rest of your life. You can imagine the life of servitude that awaits the poor woman! She is usually desperate to turn the house inside out looking for her seal skin and return to the sea, or if she doesn’t find it she will murder her husband.

Fascinating!

Oof, okay. That post went on really long. Sorry. When I start to talk about fairy tales and folklore, I have a difficult time keeping it short, lol. And I didn't even get into the Greek myths! Yikes.

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