Wow, I actually made it to part three. Be awed by my awesomeness. Just kidding, now let's begin. I've got seven new tales to talk about; some are known some are not. Each one has something horrifying about it. Let's just hope that nobody gets nightmares after reading this.
We'll start with the classical tale of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Now, everyone knows the story of Goldilocks and her adventure through the woods. She comes upon a house and goes inside, which of course is a crime. There she finds three bowls of porridge, ew. What's even more disgusting than three bowls of porridge? Eating the three bowls of porridge! Excuse me while I puke. Anyways, she tries each one and finds that one is too hot, one is too cold, but then thinks the smallest one is just right; then she eats the rest of it. Yay for stealing! Personally I don't get how all three of them could be different temperatures, but that will be one of fairy tales many mysteries. Then she goes into the living room and sits in each of the three chairs. She complains one is too hard, one is too soft, but when she sits in the smallest one, she finds it just right. Well then she breaks the small chair; destruction of property. This girl is really building up a criminal record. Then she gets tired and goes into bedroom. She tries out each bed and it's the same with the chairs; one is too hard, one is too soft, but the smallest one is just right. Afterwards she falls asleep. Now, the bears come home and are devastated to find somebody has eaten their porridge, sat in their chairs, and slept in their beds. They find Goldilocks still in baby bear's bed. In the 'fluffy' version she escapes out the window or something. Personally I think that the story should have ended with the bears calling the cops and hauling her butt to jail; that's what any normal person would do. But then again, these are bears, not people. So what do you think they do? They tear her to shreds of course. There is also another version where Goldilocks is actually an old hag, who still gets torn to shreds.
Our next tale is also a very well known tail. Everybody knows about the Swan Princess. Now this fairy tale was turned into a movie; not made by Disney! I would know, I have the movie. Anyways, the Swan Princess is based off the ballet Swan Lake. In the movie version, Prince Derek's mom and Princess Odette's dad set up an arrangement for Derek and Odette to meet every summer. When they're kids, they hate each other, but then when they're older and on their last summer together they fall in love. Everybody thinks there is going to be a wedding, until Odette asks the question about why Derek loves her. He tells her it is because she is beautiful and there is no other reason. Odette declines the marriage and leaves. Then she is captured by the sorcerer, von Rothbart, who was once one of her father's subjects. People think Odette is dead except for Prince Derek. He goes out to look for Odette and eventually finds her. Rothbart put a curse on her that during the day she is a swan, at night she is a human. He is happy to see her, but she cannot escape with him. She tells him how to break the spell and agrees to come to his birthday ball that is coming up. Once Derek leaves, Rothbart appears and tries to convince Odette to marry him. She does not accept of course. Rothbart knows that Prince Derek has visited Odette and decides to make Derek kill her. He does this by disguising his ugly maid as Odette and having Derek make a vow of everlasting love to her. Derek horrified about what he has done, goes to find Odette. She lays dead near the lake where they were reunited. Rothbart appears and Derek fights and kills him. With the sorcerer dead, Odette comes back to life and they live happily ever after. The original story is a lot more sad than the movie version. Though they did do a good job following most of the original story. All the names are the same, except for the prince; his name is Siegfried, not Derek. Well, the prince has to find a wife by his birthday ball. Not happy he can't marry for love, he leaves to go into the woods. There he sees a bunch of swans and aims a crossbow at them. One lands on the lake and turns into a woman. Prince Siegfried becomes very enamored by the maiden. He finds out her name is Odette, and that she was captured by the evil sorcerer, von Rothbart. Siegfried falls in love with her and is about to make a vow of love to her; which would break the spell. Then Rothbart appears and Siegfried tries to fight him, but Odette stops the fight. Siegfried leaves afterwards. Rothbart disguises himself and goes to Siegfried's birthday ball with his daughter, Odile; who he has disguised as Odette. Siegfried makes the vow to Odile, which makes it impossible to break the spell now. Once he realizes what he has done, Siegfried goes and finds Odette. After he apologizes, she forgives him. They decide that the only way they can be together is to commit suicide. They jump into the lake and drown. This breaks the curse and von Rothbart dies shortly afterwards.
Next is a not so well known fairy tale. It is called The White Bride and the Black Bride. The story starts out with God, yes God, disguising himself as a poor old man and comes upon a little cottage. There he asks a woman, her daughter, and step-daughter how to get to the town. The woman and her daughter rudely remark that he should find out himself. The step-daughter feels bad for the old man and leads him the town. Angered by the woman and her daughter, he makes them as black and ugly as sin. For the step-daughter he grants three wishes. Her first wish is to be beautiful; so she becomes as white and beautiful as the sun. Her second wish is to have a purse that never runs out of money. Then her last wish is to go to heaven when she dies. The woman and her daughter are angered by the step-daughters good fortune and their wickedness grows. Now the step-daughter has a brother, who loves his sister dearly. Because she is so beautiful, he has her painted and the painting hung up on his wall. Now, the brother is also coachman to the king. The king's wife just died and thinks that he will never love another as beautiful as her. He is wrong when he sees the portrait. He asks who the girl is in the painting and the brother tells the king it is his sister; forgot to mention the brother's name is Reginer. He's the only one with a name. The king then makes the announcement he is going to marry Reginer's sister. The white bride is of course thrilled, while the woman and her daughter are not. The mother uses witchcraft to make the brother blind and the white bride deaf. On the day they go to the palace, the woman and her daughter get into the coach. The brother says something, but the white bride can't hear what he is saying. The woman tricks the white bride into giving the daughter her dress and hood. Then when they are going over a bridge, they push the white bride into a water and a duck comes up from the water. When they get to the palace, the king is mad to see the black bride instead of his white bride. He throws Reginer into the snake pit. The woman uses her magic to convince the king to marry her daughter. Then the duck comes to the palace for three days, and when the king finds out he goes and cuts off the ducks head. The white appears and the king is overjoyed. He punishes the black bride and her mother by stripping them naked, throwing them into barrels full of nails, and having the barrels dragged by horses. The brother is taken out of the snake pit and lives happily with the king and his white bride.
Everybody knows of course the story of Hansel and Gretel, also known as The Lost Children in an earlier version. A poor wood cutter and his wife do not have enough to take care of themselves and their two children. The mother convinces her husband to take their children out tomorrow and leave them in the woods. Hansel hears this and climbs out the window and fills his pockets with shiny pebbles. The next day, Hansel and Gretel are given each a small piece of bread and go with their father out into the woods. All the while, Hansel is dropping the pebbles on the ground. When the father leaves the children to work, they both eat their bread and go to sleep. They wake up and follow the trail of pebbles that are reflecting the moonlight. They go home and their father is happy to see them again, but the mother is not. Again that night the wife convinces her husband to leave the children in the woods. The next day, Hansel and Gretel are give two more pieces of bread. Hansel leaves a trail of bread crumbs, which are eaten by the birds. The children split Gretel's bread in half and eat it, then go to sleep. They cannot find the bread trail, and so they wonder around in the woods. They come upon a gingerbread house. Now according to today's modern version, a witch owns the house. She takes the children into the house and plans on eating them. They eventually throw her into the oven and grab all the treasure they could find in the house. They leave and eventually find their way back home and their father is happy to see them. The mother is dead and the children with their father live happily ever after. Now in the earlier version the witch is actually a devil. The devil gets out a sawhorse and when the devil demonstrates how to use the sawhorse by laying on it, the children take a knife and slit the devil's throat.
When I was a child I use to watch the movie about the fairy tale called The Steadfast Tin Soldier. I thought the story was cute and was a bit upset about the actual tale. This is a fairy tale about a tin soldier who only had one leg because there was not enough tin to make him whole, after the nineteen other soldiers in the box he came in were made. The Soldier was set up around a paper castle that had a paper maiden in it. She was a dancer and stood on one leg with the other in the air. The tin soldier fell in love with the paper maiden. While the people of the house slept at night, the toys would play. The tin soldier and the dancer did not move, but the tin soldier could not look away from her. Now there was a goblin, or a jack-in-the-box, who did not like the tin soldier for looking at the maiden that way. The next day the tin soldier was put on the window sill and because of the goblin, was thrown out of window. The children looked for the soldier, but could not find him. Later it began to rain and two boys passed by. They saw the tin soldier and made a boat out of newspaper. They put the one-legged soldier in the boat and watched it sail away on the gutter. The soldier showed no fear as he sailed, and eventually went into a tunnel that led to the cannel. There he was eaten by a fish. The fish was caught, taken to the market, and bought. That night when the cook was making the fish, the tin soldier was taken found and taken out. To the soldier's surprise it was the same house as before. He was on the table and looked at the paper dancer still int he castle, for she could not move. Then without reason, the tin soldier was thrown into the fire by one of children. The soldier stood tall on his one leg and looked at the maiden while the flames engulfed him. The paper maiden looked at him and then was caught by a draught when a door open. She fluttered into the fire with the tin soldier. The next day while the maid was cleaning out the fire place, she found what was left of the tin soldier, in the shape of a heart, and the dancer's spangle that she wore, burned as black as coal.
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves is one of the most popular tales from Thousand and One Nights. This is about a poor man who happened to come upon a the hideout of the Forty Thieves. He hid up in a tree and watched as the Forty Thieves opened up a cave with a magic word and all the treasure they put inside of it. The next day Ali Baba comes back and gathers all the treasure that he could. His wife is overjoyed about the treasure and goes over to her brother-in-law's house and asks his wife for a measuring cup. The wife hands Ali Baba's wife the measuring cup, but is curious about what they are measuring over there, so she puts some candle wax on the bottom. Now, Ali Baba's wife measures the gold and then gives the cup back to her brother-in-law, who is named Cassim. There was one piece of gold stuck to the bottom of the cup and when Cassim and his wife saw it, they asked Ali Baba about it. Ali Baba told his brother about the cave and the password. Cassim goes to the cave and gets into it, but is trapped inside and cannot remember the password. He waits inside the cave and is killed when he found by the thieves. Ali Baba worries and goes looking for his brother, only to find him cut up into pieces. Cassim had a clever maid named Morgiane, who helped Ali Baba cover up Cassim's murder. She went into the city and went to a chemist to get medicine for her mast, whom she said was very sick. For days she came back asking for stronger and stronger medicines, so by the time it was announced that Cassim was dead, nobody was surprised. Next Morgiane went to a garmentmaker and paid him money to come to her house. She blindfolded him and led him to the house, and asked him to sew her master back together. He did so and was blindfolded once again and led back to the city. Now a thief talked to the garmentmaker and found out about him sewing Cassim's body back together. Even though the garmentmaker was blindfolded he was able to lead the thief to Cassim's house, which belonged to Ali Baba now. The thief marked the house and went to tell his band, but the plan was foiled by Morgiane. The leader of the thieves did the same as the other thief and found Ali Baba's house. Later he came to the house with forty jars, one with oil, and the others with the thieves. He told Ali Baba he was an oil trader and needed a night to stay. Ali Baba let the leader stay. That night Morgiane found out about the plan and killed all the thieves by heat up the jars with oil from the jar that did have oil in it. The leader was furious and ran away. Morgiane was rewarded her freedom, but stayed with Ali Baba and his family. The leader of the thieves became a cloth merchant and became close with Ali Baba's son. The thief leader was invited to Ali Baba's house where he planned to kill Ali Baba. But Morgiane killed the leader and married Ali Baba's son.
The last tale is going to be The Firebird. In this tale, there is a Tsar that had a tree that grew golden apples. A firebird would come and eat the apples. The Tsar wanted to get rid of the bird and called for his three sons. He said that whoever could get rid of the bird would receive half of his kingdom. The first and second son both failed by falling asleep under the tree. The third son, Ivan was able to grab a feather from the bird. That was good enough for the Tsar, so he gave his youngest son half of his kingdom. For a long time the bird did not show and the Tsar missed the bird. He called his sons and told them that whoever finds the bird with receive the other half of his kingdom. The sons go and search for the bird. As Ivan travels he meets a wolf who takes him to the bird. The bird is trapped in another castle. The wolf warns Ivan to take the bird, but the not the golden cage. Ivan doesn't listen and takes the cage along with the bird. He is caught by the guards and taken to the king. Ivan makes a deal with the king to get the horse with the gold mane in exchange for the firebird. The wolf leads Ivan to the castle that has the horse with the golden mane. He tells Ivan to take the horse, but not the golden reins. Ivan doesn't listen and is once again caught and taken to this castles king. The king makes a deal to give Ivan the horse if he can bring him Princess Helen-the-beautiful. The wolf takes Ivan to where Helen lives, but falls in love with her. When the wolf and Ivan take Helen, the wolf transforms into Helen and goes with Ivan to the castle that has the horse with the golden mane. The king gives the horse to Ivan and he rides off with the real Helen. Then the wolf joins him again and transform into the horse with the golden mane. The king gives Ivan the firebird and Ivan rides off with Helen and the real horse with the golden mane. Now Ivan departs with his wolf friend heads home. Ivan and Helen rest, and then comes Ivan's older brothers. Out of jealousy they kill Ivan and threatened Helen. They took Helen, the horse, and the bird with them back home, leaving their brother's body in the wild. The wolf comes and tells a crow to bring back some magic water. After three days, the crow comes back with the water and the wolf sprinkles it on Ivan, bringing him back to life. The wolf takes Ivan home where he tells his father what happened. Ivan's brothers are thrown into the dungeon and Ivan marries Helen and lives happily ever after.
Phew, glad to be done with part III. I hoped everyone enjoyed it. Now, will there be a part IV? I'm sure some of you are wondering if there is or not. Well it all depends if I can find seven more tales to write about. Thank you all for reading.
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