Here is where we can discuss everything related to fairytales/folklore. 
Six Swans by Warwick Goble
Ever since I found my mom's copy of Andrew Lang's The Red Fairy Book, I've been an avid fairy tale fan. Before reading that, I always thought fairy tales = "cinderella" "snow white and the seven dwarves" etc...but there's so, so much more to them then the typical ones that everybody knows about! I'm hoping this thread will encourage you to try reading some more obscure ones, and to bring all the fairy tale fanatics together! 
Bluebeard by Arthur Rackham
Some questions to get the conversation rolling 
What are your favorite fairy tales? I like The Death of Koschei the Deathless ( http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/2585878 ), it's actually really random in typical fairytale style, it's almost funny! I also have always liked The Twelve Dancing Princesses ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twelve ... Princesses), it's just a sweet story But my new favorite, hands down, is Fitcher's Bird ( http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm046.html ), it's a rare sort of fairy tale in that the heroine actually manages to get the better of the villain and save the day!
And The Master Thief ( http://www.rickwalton.com/folktale/red06.htm ) is quite fun too.
Do you have a favorite fairy tale illustrator? Arthur Rackham is awesome. 
I also love Warwick Goble.
Do you like Disney's adaptions of fairy tales? I'm not a fan of Disney in general, and while I think the Disney fairy tales are "cute" and I can certainly see why everyone likes them, I don't feel they've captured the right "feel", not to mention they've of course changed key elements to some of the tales to fit the culture they were presenting it to (but then, the Brothers Grimm did the same).
Cinderella by Edward Dulac
I wanted to post a few links in this opening post, for anyone who wants more info
http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/index.html -- this site is an invaluable tool for anyone interested in researching tales. It has an easy to use search for finding illustrations/illustrators/tales, and notes thru out the tales with details.
http://www.amazon.ca/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?u ... &x=17&y=15 -- Andrew Lang's huge collection of "color" fairy books--with every tale imagineable under the sun! I've read the Red Fairy Book and the Blue Fairy Book. They're wonderfully illustrated too!
http://www.amazon.ca/Fearless-Girls-Wom ... =8-3-fkmr0 -- I've mentioned this in the book thread a while back. I'd highly reccomend it to any girl who loves fairy tales! It contains ONLY stories in which the girl is the main character, saves the day/her family/her man, and beats the bad guys. It was really cool to read. If there's one thing fairy tales need, it's strong female characters.
The Princess and the Pea, by Edward Dulac
More questions
What are some of your favorite fairy-tale adaptions? Ella Enchanted is sort of a given for me, I just adore that book I'm a huge Shannon Hale fan and love her take on The Goose Girl. Probably one of the best fairy-tale adaptions I've read is Ice by Sarah Durst. It's a beautiful retelling of East O' the Sun/West O' the Moon.
Do you have a favorite "collection"--aka, Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault, Hans Christian Anderson, etc? I'd have to go with Andrew Lang. I really enjoy his collections of fairy tales, seems like he always has really odd and obscure ones that are more fun (for me) to read then the well known ones like Cinderella or Little Red Riding Hood.
East O' the Sun and West O' the Moon by H. J. Ford
Speaking of Little Red Riding Hood...a month or so ago I was really into this book called Uncloaked--all about the orgins of the tale (good book, but it def. deals with some mature subject matter, just fyi). The original version of the story was meant to be told to adults, not children, and isn't family-friendly enough for NW. When Charles Perrault got ahold of it in the late 1600's, he polished it up and turned it into a warning for young girls getting involved with strange men. After several centuries it was sanatized liberally and used as a cautionary tale for children of what happened when they didn't listen to their parents (don't wander/gets eaten by wolf) It's interesting how tales get twisted and turned with each culture changing it to fit their moral perspective of the time.
Little Red Riding Hood by Arthur Rackham
I can't help but think--are there any fairy tales in films? The only thing I can think of is Ever After = Cinderella (well, besides Disney). 
*is stumped*
Oh! And one more link 
I stumbled across this book recently and it was SUCH fun to read. Basically each tale has been completely changed until it's totally "politically correct".
http://www.amazon.ca/Politically-Correc ... 488&sr=8-1
The wolf said, "You know, my dear, it isn't safe for a little girl to walk through these woods alone."
Red Riding Hood said, "I find your sexist remark offensive in the extreme, but I will ignore it because of your traditional status as an outcast from society, the stress of which has caused you to develop your own, entirely valid, worldview. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must be on my way."
The Goose Girl by Walter Crane
Sorry this was rather a long-ish opening post. Can you tell what my latest obsession is? Happy posting!
"Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius, and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring." Marilyn Monroe
Topic starter
Posted : September 12, 2010 11:59 am
Ooooh! A fairy tale SF! And this time I can add a more detailed two cents than I did the previous one.
But, alas, my short memory is my sad lot in life-- I can't remember them all, but I a few do come to mind. So far I've read a nice copy of all (or so I presume) the Brothers Grimm fairy tales, a few Hans Christian Andersons, and some other random ones.
It's interesting how tales get twisted and turned with each culture changing it to fit their moral perspective of the time.
I know what you mean! While reading the Grimm book, it was really interesting to see the different stories yet based on a similar plotline, a few of them. Such as, there were several variations of what people heard of our traditional Snow White, one even ending up that the main character was a hero with like circumstances.
What are your favorite fairy tales? This is quite a hard one to answer, so I'll just answer what is my favourite fairy tale that I've read recently. 'tis a tie between Perrault's Cinderella/Grimms' Aschenputtel, Rose-Red and Snow-White (by I forgot who...), The Plain Princess, King Thrushbeard, The Princess and the Peah, and The Eleven Swans, The White Queen.
Do you have a favorite fairy tale illustrator? Edward Dulac is pretty impressive.
Do you like Disney's adaptions of fairy tales? D'awwww, yes! True, they aren't very faithful to the stories but they're dearly sweet.... 
What are some of your favorite fairy-tale adaptions? Ella Enchanted, Fairest (by Gail Carson Levine) and The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale are actually the only adaptions that I've read and remember, but I'd say the first wins my favour.
Do you have a favorite "collection"--aka, Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault, Hans Christian Anderson, etc? As far as I've read them now, I'll have to say Brothers Grimm because I've read majority of their collection. Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tales were extremely impressive, too, but some reasons made me not continue reading them.
Andrew Lang and Charles Perrault are two fairy-tale writers that I'd really like to read more of.
Thanks for all those links, Val! They're very helpful.
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Posted : September 12, 2010 1:05 pm
I love all the illustrations, Val! And very nice opening.
What are your favorite fairy tales? Oooh, that's hard. I love a lot of random ones: King Thrushbeard (sometimes known as King Grizzlybeard, I think), Longshanks, Girth, and Keen, The Black Bull of Norroway, Snow White and Rose Red, The Hag's Old Long Leather Bag (I think that's the name...it's been a while), and Staver and His Wife Vassilissa, to just name a few, though.
Do you have a favorite fairy tale illustrator? No, actually. 
I've never really searched into or seen many illustrated books/illustrations for fairy tales. That said, I really love this version of The Twelve Dancing Princesses.
Do you like Disney's adaptions of fairy tales? The ones that I have seen are mostly fun (at least they are now...they terrified me when I was little), but they're not the best if you want a 'true' retelling/adaptation. Then again, what exactly is a strict retelling of a fairy tale?
What are some of your favorite fairy-tale adaptions? Well, I liked The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale, but then found the sequels a bit strange. I quite like Beauty and Ella Enchanted by Robin McKinley and Gail Carson Levine, respectively, and Jessica Day George's three retellings (Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow, The Princess of the Midnight Ball, and The Princess of Glass) were enjoyable. East by Edith Pattou was pretty good, and I'm looking forward to reading Ice by Sarah Beth Durst soon (the library is getting it and I'm #1 on the hold list...which, as I discovered when I went to place a hold and found I already had one, is due to me requesting that the library buy the book ). I love Elizabeth Marie Pope's The Perilous Gard, a sort of retelling of Tam Lin set in Tudor England. Also, for a very different take on fairy tales, I've really enjoyed Regina Doman's books---they're modern retellings and though you can tell the plot is a fairy tale plot, it's not necessarily the first thing you think of while you're reading.
I'm not entirely sure this counts, but I recently read In The Forests of Serre by Patricia McKillip and while it's not a straight retelling of a fairy tale, it has a lot of fairy tale elements in it (a witch who lives in a house of bone, a firebird, a mad prince, a mysterious and vast forest, numerous talking and advice-giving animals, etc.) and it's quite a good book.
Do you have a favorite "collection"--aka, Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault, Hans Christian Anderson, etc? Not particularly. That said, probably one of my first (and therefore, rather cherished) introductions was in the form of a Junior Classics volume of Fairy and Folk Tales. Also, years ago, we got the Tenggren Tell It Again story book (without the lovely cover shown, though, sadly) and I've quite enjoyed that collection, as well. This page has a number of illustrations from that book. I also have a random collection of Scottish folk and fairy tales that's fun.
And just a note on the 'common, overused' fairy tales, such as Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast etc: It's interesting to see the 'original'/less well-known versions of the tales since they are so well known. There's this one version of Sleeping Beauty where it talks about how the prince wakes up Aurora and says something along the lines of, "The prince thought she was very beautiful but could not help noticing that her clothes looked like something his grandmother had worn, though he did not tell her that." Then it also mentions her little fluffy lap dog that is jealous of the prince since he takes up all of Aurora's attention after she wakes up, and that the fairy godmothers had given her dreams of her prince all during the 100 years, so she felt that she knew the prince already---which leaves the prince feeling rather awkward. 
Some days you battle yourself and other monsters. Some days you just make soup.
Posted : September 12, 2010 1:08 pm
Hasty post here. Lovely opener, Val.
Favourite fairy tales: Ali Baba, Tam Lin, Beauty and the Beast, The Juniper Tree, Bluebeard, Donkeyskin, and The Snow Queen.
Favourite illustrators: Kay Nielsen (i.e. The Twelve Dancing Princesses and East of the...), Arthur Rackham, Trina Schart Hyman (Snow White). I also love anything by P.J. Lynch. I have a German version of The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen that's illustrated by him, it's brilliant.
Favourite collections: The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales and The Annotated Hans Christian Andersen, both edited by Maria Tatar, were fascinating. They're not collections, but I also LOVE some of Lewis, Tolkien, and Chesterton's commentary on fairy tales, about how fairy tales appeal to a basic human thirst for justice and good vs. evil, and how so many of them subtly mirror the ultimate Story. Very cool.
Favourite retellings: Waking Rose and The Midnight Dancers, The Perilous Gard, On Lickerish Hill (from The Ladies of Grace Adieu), Beauty, and The Goose Girl...I'm sure there are others...
Has anyone read the newest Regina Doman book? It's based on Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.
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Posted : September 12, 2010 7:32 pm
I used to be really into fairy-tales when I was younger. I still like some of them, but I haven't read some of these in years.
My favorites. East 'o the Sun and West 'o the Moon, The Fairy Goddaughter, The Troll Bride, The Firebird, The Boy Who Read Aloud (some of these are more 'modern' fairy tales), The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, The Blue Bird, The Three Dogs, The Wild Swans, one about a prince called Narcissus, one about rainbow fish, one where the heroine's husband was enchanted as a pig, one where the heroine was the middle sister and the only one with two eyes, one where the princess successfully passed herself off as a man, and one about a prince who's father was called Tubby. I can't remember the titles of a lot of them, but those were the ones I liked best.
Favorite Illustrator. The only one I've really seen is Arthur Rackham. But I liked those.
Favorite Collection. The only one I own, "Classic Fairy Tales to Read Aloud" It has a lot of my favorites in it.
Favorite Retellings. Ella Enchanted and Fairest. But those are the only ones I've really read. I want to find Beauty, though, since I liked the other stories by McKinley I've read (The Hero and the Crown, The Blue Sword, The Outlaws of Sherwood.)
The glory of God is man fully alive--St. Iraneus
Salvation is a fire in the midnight of the soul-Switchfoot
Posted : September 13, 2010 2:30 am
I really like the opening picture, Val, and the final one by Walter Crane. (As opposed to the others, which I just like. )
Favourite Fairy Tales: I like The Six Swans, the The Golden Bird, The Princess with the Heart of Glass, Dwarf Longnose, and pretty much anything in the Brown Fairy Book...
Favourite Fairy Tale Illustrator: H.J. Ford, Kay Nielson, Charles Folkard, Barbara C. Freeman, Ivan Bilibin and Errol le Cain... actually, one of my favourite things to do is to browse this collection on Flickr
Do you like Disney's adaptions of fairy tales?: I am indifferent to them.
Favorite fairy-tale adaptions/retellings: Beauty by Robin McKinley is my absolute favourite, with Elizabeth Marie Pope's The Perilous Gard standing a close second. I am quite fond of Jessica Day George's cheerful retellings of various stories; some of the others can be rather dour.
Aloysha, I haven't read the newest Regina Doman book yet, but I have a hold on it at the library. Does that count?
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost - how long ago! -- G. K. Chesterton
Posted : September 13, 2010 12:09 pm
Favorite fairy tales: Beauty and the Beast hands down.
Favorite illustrator: I don't really have a particular favorite, but I cannot stand illustrations that look like cartoons. If the story is beautiful, than the illustrations must be beautiful as well.
Disney's adaptations: They're all right. I really like that version of Beauty and the Beast (although it doesn't hold a candle to McKinley's Beauty). The trailers advertising them are all wrong, though--Cinderella is not at all a magical love story, it is a musical comedy.
Favorite adaptations: Beauty, Ella Enchanted, and Fairest. I actually read Fairest before I read Ella Enchanted so although I guessed at who Fairy Lucinda was I really had no idea that she was...........um, well, that she was!
Favorite collection: I really don't have one.
I keep hearing good things about Perilous Gard and Goose Girl. I suppose they need to be bumped up on my reading list, as well as more McKinley.
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Posted : September 13, 2010 2:41 pm
What are your favorite fairy tales? Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, The Ugly Duckling, The Humpbacked Horse, and The Snow Queen.
Do you have a favorite fairy tale illustrator? Nope
Do you like Disney's adaptions of fairy tales? Not all, but most. For example I just love their adaption of Beauty and the Beast, but I really don't like their Sleeping Beauty.
What are some of your favorite fairy-tale adaptions? I don't have any
Do you have a favorite "collection"--aka, Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault, Hans Christian Anderson, etc? We used to have this big book with fairy tales. I don't remember what it was called because I was very little. All I remember is that it had very nice and colorful pictures.
I like The Death of Koschei the Deathless
Wow you read Death of the Koschei the Deathless 
! You know about it??? I had no idea that people out there read it! You see I'm from Russia and here it is a very well know fairy tale. (I just finished reading that fairy tale in my literature) And actually Koschei the Deathless is a fairy tale charachter that is used in a lot of fairy tales. And Ivan is usually the main character in Russian fairy tales.
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Posted : September 16, 2010 1:58 am
Yay! A fairy/folk tale SF! I am an avid reader of both.
What are your favourite fairy tales?
Hard to say. I have so many favourites. I enjoy Six Swans, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, The Bronze Ring, Rapunzel, The Tinderbox, Seven Daughters and Seven Sons, and Why the Sea is Salt to name a few.
Do you have a favourite fairy tale illustrator?
Warwick Goble, by far. I love the illustration you posted from Six Swans, Val!
Do you like Disney's adaptations of fairy tales?
Very much. When we were little, my sisters and I each claimed a Disney princess as our alter ego. I am Snow White.
What are some of your favourite fairy-tale adaptations?
I'm not really into book adaptations.
Do you have a favourite "collection"--aka, Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault, Hans Christian Anderson, etc?
I love Andrew Lang's collections. I enjoy the variety he offers by giving tales from all over the world, not just his own country or history.
Posted : September 16, 2010 11:45 am
What are your favourite fairy tales and folk tales? Hmm, I can't recall the names of any obscure ones, so I'm going with unoriginal ones - East Of the Sun and West Of the Moon, The Frog Prince, Why the Sea is Salt, The Raven, The Goose Girl, The Snow Maiden, The Fisherman and His Wife (or The Three Wishes), Hans Who Made the Princess Laugh... The Golden Key and The Light Princess by George MacDonald are awesome too... he counts, right? Some of these are folk tales I think so I changed the question
Do you like Disney's adaptions of fairy tales? Mmm, not really
What are some of your favourite fairy-tale adaptations? Ooh! I love fairy-tale retellings! We're talking books right? Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow (Jessica Day George) is amazing, so is The Goose Girl (Shannon Hale) and Ella Enchanted and all the Princess Tales books (Gail Carson Levine)
Do you have a favorite "collection"--aka, Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault, Hans Christian Anderson, etc? Andrew Lang. He counts, right? I read every single book of collections of his that I could find in the library. My mom would always make me get a certain number of non-fiction books whenever we went to the library, and I managed to convince her that those books counted as non-fiction because for some reason they were in the non-fiction section. I think it's really interesting how a lot of the fairy tales he included are similar to each other.
I read a lot of fairy tales back in the day when I actually went to the library. My library had a HUGE section of fairy tales (and folk tales, but I considered them fairy tales at the time. I still do. ) and I read just about every one. My favourites were these big hardcover books with fairy tales and folk tales from different countries. The best one was the Persia one, I read it OVER AND OVER. I wasn't able to find them on Goodreads or Google but I'm thinking that if I go to the library I can find them again. They were awesome. Has anyone read books that sound like these?
Some other collections I loved were the Father and Son tales, Father and Daughter tales, Mother and Son Tales, and the Mother and Daughter Tales. I cant recall a single thing about them except that I loved them and they were in the fairy tale section. I also have this huge book full of short stories that I got when I was about eight (one of my first thrift shop purchases *fond memories*) and it was full of fairy tales and folk tales and folk tales listed under animal stories and stories of make-believe. It is a truly lovely book. It's currently coverless and falling apart, but I'll occasionally dig it out and read it just because I love it so.
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Posted : September 17, 2010 12:21 pm
A long ketchup post...
I'm not entirely sure this counts, but I recently read In The Forests of Serre by Patricia McKillip and while it's not a straight retelling of a fairy tale, it has a lot of fairy tale elements in it
It'd probably classify as a "fantasy" rather then fairy-tale adaption, Valia, if it isn't based on any tales in particular.
"The prince thought she was very beautiful but could not help noticing that her clothes looked like something his grandmother had worn, though he did not tell her that."
Haha, nice! Now I want to find this version
The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales and The Annotated Hans Christian Andersen, both edited by Maria Tatar, were fascinating.
Oooh, I love Maria Tatar! I recently finished a book on fairy tales and the culture of children by her. And I have an Annotated Brothers Grimm out from the library by her!
favourite retellings: Beauty,
Oh, totally forgot this, and also Rose Daughter (which I've always preferred over Beauty)!
Has anyone read the newest Regina Doman book? It's based on Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
Noo...whats it called? I recently read Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves for the first time...yup, never read it before now And I loved it! If I remember correctly, it was a woman who sort of "saved the day" which I thought was cool, especially for such a well known tale.
one where the heroine's husband was enchanted as a pig
I remember this one! It was in the Red Fairy Book, I think. It was one of the "enchanted husbands" types of tales, where the heroine is married to an animal, who turns out to be a man under a spell, and then even tho she shouldn't she looks at him one night and then she has to walk around the world and wear out a pair of iron shoes before she can see him again? (very similair to East of the Sun/West of the Moon)
ut I cannot stand illustrations that look like cartoons. If the story is beautiful, than the illustrations must be beautiful as well
I can't agree more! I think this may be partly why I'm not partial to the Disney fairy tales (also cause I didn't grow up with them). They seem too "cutesy" to me, and not elegant/"Old World" enough...
I keep hearing good things about Perilous Gard and Goose Girl.
I didn't enjoy Perilous Guard (just couldn't get "into" it) but I looove the Goose Girl. It's definetly one of the most original retellings I've heard.
Wow you read Death of the Koschei the Deathless
Well, I read it in the Red Fairy Book, haven't read any other stories with him in it. I *think* i had an inkling he was a "bigger character" but yeah...that's cool! I especially love that particular story a)because of the cool title and b) becuase of this one really random part where the hero opens a door and it just says "he opened the door and there hung Koschei the Deathless, fettered by twelve chains". And it's just like...okay, WHAT? Who is Koschei the Deathless? How does the hero know it's him? Is he famous or something? WHY is he in the closet? How is he "deathless" (and of course he dies in the end of the tale)? Don't we get more of a build up instead of "he opened the door and there he hung". Sooo random. Cracks me up every time. 
Andrew Lang. He counts, right? I read every single book of collections of his that I could find in the library.
Yup He's my favorite! I've read the Red Fairy Book cover to cover, as well as the Blue Fairy Book, and I'm reading the Green Fairy Book from the library atm!
My library had a HUGE section of fairy tales (and folk tales, but I considered them fairy tales at the time. I still do.
They sound familair...I know I've seen a lot of amazon and have a bunch in my wishlist "fairy tales from scandanavia/sweden/persia/whereever".
"Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius, and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring." Marilyn Monroe
Topic starter
Posted : September 17, 2010 1:08 pm
*pops in to share a link* An early version of Cinderella in French! (translation included)
And yes, this may just be so I can find it again in the morning, but it looks really interesting.
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost - how long ago! -- G. K. Chesterton
Posted : September 20, 2010 5:58 pm
Favorite fairy tales: Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella.
Disney's adaptations: I love them all! many to mention but definitely Cinderella.
Favorite adaptations: Of course, Cinderella. 
Favorite collection: I have none.
"Two sides of the same coin"
Posted : September 23, 2010 10:39 pm
Please note that this Special Feature will be closing on Monday, October 4, after which you may continue discussing Fairy Tales in the appropriate thread (Books, Television, or Past Movies).
If you have an idea for a Special Feature, please PM one of the Spare Oom mods.
But all night, Aslan and the Moon gazed upon each other with joyful and unblinking eyes.
Posted : September 29, 2010 7:59 am