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softlytowardthesun · 2 years

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Wich are your favorite fairy tale couples/romances and why?

*cracks knuckles* I'm excited for this one!

It's important to note that not all of these are necessarily "canon" to the story, whatever that nebulous word means in the context of oral traditions. Still, the fun of fairy tales as a genre is the audience participation aspect, allowing you to fill in our own imaginative gaps.

Gold-Tree, her husband, and her wife from "Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree": in this Celtic variant of "Snow White", the handsome prince fills the role that the dwarfs occupy in Grimm. She marries him and temporarily escapes her mother, but the wicked Silver-Tree finds Gold-Tree and poisons her. Thinking her dead, the prince takes another wife, and in a total reversal of "Bluebeard", the second princess walks into the forbidden room where Gold-tree slumbers, finds the thorn, and breaks the spell. The second princess then kills Silver-Tree when she makes her third attempt on Gold-Tree's life, and " prince and his two wives were long alive after this, pleased and peaceful."

The Peasant and the Soldier from "The Grave Mound": A comical story about two poor men who win their fortune through conning the Devil, which ends with them co-habitating and "living in rest and peace...as long as God is pleased to permit". I fell in love with this story after reading the dedicated chapter for it in the terrific academic anthology "Transgressive Tales: Queering the Grimms".

Betushka and the Wood Maiden: Every day at noon, a mysterious and beautiful maiden appears to the farm girl Betushka. They dance together until the sun goes down, and I'm just so moved by how it's described: "Betushka's cheeks burned, her eyes shone. She forgot her spinning, she forgot her goats. All she could do was gaze at her partner who was moving with such grace and lightness that the grass didn't seem to bend under her slender feet." Ultimately, Betushka succumbs to an Orpheus-style moment of weakness that separates them forever. Tragic, but undeniably beautiful.

The Clever Farmgirl and the King: I love a battle of wits where the two parties challenge each other but clearly respect and love one another. You listed this as one of your favorite tale types, and in hindsight, I'm inclined to agree.

Tam Lin and Janet: these two need no introduction. A haunting ballad of love and the transformations that it always entails. (Just please, never the non-consensual variants.) I have to shout out Overly Sarcastic Productions on YouTube for introducing me to this story, and the "Which Fairytale Lady Are You?" quiz, which assigned me Janet. I hope to be as bold and confident as this heroine, in love and in life.

Prince Yousif and Louliyya, Daughter of Morgan: An Egyptian relative of Rapunzel, I love their fierce and undying commitment to each other, and their resilience in the face of the many challenges between them and their happy ending.

The Lady and the Lion from "The Singing, Springing Lark": A "Beauty and the Beast" variant where the heroine knows about the curse from the word go, and they actually live happily in spite of his back-and-forth between his human and lion forms for a while, even having a child together. Of course, circumstances force them apart, and she travels to the Sun, the Moon, the Four Winds, and the Red Sea to get him back. It's a relationship built on honesty, communication, and willingness to sacrifice for one another. When people talk about wanting a fairy tale Prince Charming, this is the guy I picture.

The One-Handed Girl and her Prince: A lovely (if at times gruesome) Swahili story of a woman deprived of everything by her wicked brother, she finds love in a charming prince and they start a family together. When her love is out warring, her wicked brother rears his head and persuades her in-laws to banish her to the wilderness, and tell the prince that she and her baby died. I'm always moved by the makeshift funeral her husband arranges when he hears the wicked brother-turned-royal-advisor's lie, and their reunion at the end.

The couple from "The Nixie of the Pond": When her husband succumbs to a mysterious nixie, the heroine conducts a series of moonlight rituals, offering a comb, a flute, and a spinning wheel to the water spirit in exchange for his safe return. Of course, the nixie doesn't play fair, but they eventually get their hard-earned happy ending, finding each other under the moonlight listening to the same song she used to bargain for his rescue.

Broadening the definition of "fairy tales", I have to include Dorothy and Ozma, Clara / Marie and her Nutcracker, and Ahmed and Pari Banu. There are also stories with pairings that, while I can't honestly say I support, I still find compelling: Shahrazad leading Shahryar through the most intense talk therapy session in world literature, whatever the heck is going on with Velina and Tayzanne, the quasi-erotic dynamic of this proto-Little Red Riding Hood. Plus there's some terrific villain couples I love to hate, like the witch and her lover in "The Tale of the Ensorcelled Prince" (sorry, Burton's translation is all I could find online; if you have the chance, read Yasmine Seale's version of the text).

As you can tell, I've thought about this stuff a lot and I'm eager to talk about it. What are some of the romances and relationships you love / find compelling in fairy tales?

#ask response #ariel seagull wings #fairy tales #1001 nights #nixie of the pond #gold tree and silver tree #the grave mound #the wood maiden #the one handed girl #jack the master and jack the servant #the singing springing lark #tam lin #louliyya daughter of morgan #the farmer's clever daughter

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kmartmolotov · 2 months

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i’m made of waste

#ghost mountain #haunted mound #sematary grave man #southern gothic #appalachian gothic #liminalcore #photography #mine #rurex #cemetery #religioncore #relgiouscore

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ilovegraveyards · 8 days

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it’s my birthday

#sematary #haunted mound #sematary grave man #hauntaholics #rainbow bridge

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semataryyyy · 1 year

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#SEMATARY GRAVE MAN #BLACK KRAY #SICKBOYRARI #GOTH MONEY #HAUNTED MOUND

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mydigitaldeath · 26 days

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#sematary grave man #buckshot #sematary #graveman #buckeshot #haunted mound #hauntaholics #haunted #2k24

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solventabvser · 6 months

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#mine #sematary #haunted mound #american gothic #gothic #southern gothic #ghost mountain #witchouse #hauntaholics #rural gothic #s4lem #salem #silent hill #hackle #sematary grave man #buckshot #halloween #visuals

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thesilicontribesman · 9 months

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Replicas of 'The Folkton Drums' Prehistoric Carved Chalk Grave Goods, Museum of Hull and East Riding, Hull, Yorkshire

#ice age #stone age #bronze age #copper age #iron age #neolithic #paleolithic #calcholithic #mesolithic #grave goods #burial mound #burial ground #burial chamber #archaeology #ancient craft #ancient culture #yorkshire

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wrendered002 · 4 months

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𐂂

#ghost mountain #haunted mound #hauntaholics #sematary grave man #sematary

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lethalmanipulationnn · 26 days

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Some pics from last night in st Petersburg

#sematary grave man #sematary #haunted mound #hdoe #hackle

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fynnn0ah · 1 day

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#sematary #haunted mound #sematary grave man

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softlytowardthesun · 2 years

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As a complement to the previous ones: in your headcanons, how do you imagine your favorite fairy tale couples would be as parents?

To be honest, I haven't given much thought to a lot of these characters' lives beyond the story until you asked. But since you did, here goes:

Gold-Tree, her husband (whom I've named "Edmund", meaning "protection"), and her wife (whom I've named Acacia, meaning "thorn") are happily childless. Maybe the prince has an older sibling so they don't have to worry about heirs. After the life she endured under her wicked mother and at best daft father, Gold-Tree doesn't want another innocent child to suffer when parents hoist the worst parts of themselves onto their children. So the happy thruple enjoys each other's company, living happy and dying happy and never drinking out of a dry cappy.

"The Grave Mound" off-handedly mentions that the peasant is a single father, and it ends with the soldier moving in with them. The soldier instantly charms the peasant's kids and is basically everything you'd want in a stepfather: he's gentle, has a sense of humor, he's a master storyteller, and he encourages the kids to learn in unconventional but very effective ways.

The One-Handed Girl (I named her Asha, meaning "life") and her Prince (whom I call Hasan, meaning "handsome"), spend a portion of the story as proud parents of a little boy (Faraji, meaning "consolation"). Then she's banished into the wilderness with her baby and taken in by a kind group of talking snakes. Many of the boy's earliest memories are with the found-snake family, and once the couple is reunited, snakes are welcomed and protected in the kingdom. Faraji spends his childhood with both his human family (minus his evil uncle, obviously) and the snakes. It worries the king, Asha's father-in-law, at first, but he's learned to trust her wholeheartedly.

The couple from "The Singing, Springing Lark" (Lily, after Edgar Taylor and Marian Edwardes' version of the story, and Damian, "to tame") also have a baby midway through the story before his curse separates them. The child (I can never decide whether to call the baby Ari, meaning "lion", or Paloma, "dove") was raised by Lily's sisters during her seven-year quest to get her husband back. As such, the child has a bit of a readjustment period when his parents return. Still, they get to know each other and live happily. The whole community (including the other former lions) all support each other in child-rearing and supporting one another. They instill in their child a deep sense of gratitude and appreciation for the magic in their world, and the child's been known to wave hello to his mother's old friends the Sun and the Moon.

Side note here: Given how the curse works (lion by day, person by night; don't come into contact with candlelight or you will be a bird and fly around the world for seven years), it's not unreasonable to assume that the lark that started the story was another victim of the curse, and that is why Damian is so protective of her.

Janet and Tam Lin also have a pregnancy aspect to the story, but I've probably thought the least about them. I know for a fact that they raise the baby far away from Carterhaugh Forest and keep a steady supply of iron and fairy-vision-proof green cloaks around the home. Janet may have to renounce her title as a laird's daughter, but so long as the people she loves are safe, she doesn't mind.

I don't have much to say about the Daughter of Buk Ettemsuch and her Prince, but I do know that Buk Ettemsuch would be an insane grandfather. He's one of the few fairy-tale ogres this side of Shrek to have something resembling nuance in his characterization, and gets something at least adjacent to a victory when he's acknowledged by his son-in-law. Sure, he eats human flesh, but he has enough self-control around the humans he cares about, teaches magic, and protects people who need it. (all the more reasons, by the by, that this tale deserves to be better known).

"The Man Who Took a Water Mother for His Bride": the tale opens with a down-on-his-luck guy named Domingos who by chance meets a spirit called a Water Mother and marries her -- on the condition that he always treats her with respect. She makes him a happy home and his life comes together, but in time he comes to take it for granted. He crosses a line when he insults her for her origins as a river spirit, and she leaves him -- taking all of the property, wealth, and kids with her under the water. Custody negotiations between land and the water are as awkward are you imagine them to be. I'm a little fed up with divorce narratives where the father is always a deadbeat and the mother is always successful and better off without him, but when it fits, it fits.

#the man who took a water mother for his bride #the daughter of buk ettemsuch #tam lin #the singing springing lark #the one handed girl #the grave mound #gold tree and silver tree #ask response #ariel seagull wings #fairy tales

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coloredlion102-blog · 8 months

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