Once Upon A Blog: A List Of Fairytales I Love

Once Upon a Time there was a girl who loved books and perhaps wanted to write books and then she grew up into a woman who wanted to blog about, books & so she has since 2019 and then for the past 3 years I’ve interviewed authors and different people about books for the blog. That woman is me, and my story isn’t finished being told! Many of you might wonder why I started my blog post like this. Well, it’s because I found out today is National Tell A Fairytale Day! In honor of today I’m going to list a few of the many fairytales I enjoy!

Snow White & Rose Red By The Brothers Grimm

Not to be confused with Snow White & The Seven Dwarves, Snow White & Rose Red are about two sisters who live in a cottage in a forest with their mother. On a cold winter night, a black bear shows up asking for shelter from the cold. The bear visits during the cold winter nights but once summer comes, he doesn’t return. The sisters also encounter an ungrateful dwarf who they’ve saved from danger multiple times and had shown the dwarf kindness. Snow & Rose don’t know that the dwarf is evil until the very end, when the bear kills the dwarf and turns into a handsome prince. The prince tells the sisters the dwarf cursed him and stole his precious stones and the only way to break the curse was with the dwarf’s death. Snow White ends up marrying him & Rose Red ends up marrying the prince’s brother. The sisters and their mother end up moving to the castle with the mother bringing with her roses, both red and white.

The Goose Girl By The Brothers Grimm

A princess is being escorted to another kingdom to meet her future husband, a prince. The princess’s treacherous maidservant had other plans, however. The maid servant, looking very much like the princess, forces the princess to switch identities. The maidservant forces the princess to swear an oath to never reveal their identities or else she’d be killed on the spot. The Princess, having no choice, does what she’s told. The princess becomes the goose girl working with the goose boy Conrad. The false princess tells the prince to kill the real Princess’s horse Falada, for she knew Falada would talk and tell the Prince that she was an imposter. The real princess paid someone to have Falada nailed to the wall and the real Princess & Falada speak despite Falada being a head. Conrad, the goose boy witnesses this and witnesses the princess brush her long blond locks. The Princess had power over the wind and had the wind blow away Conrad’s hat. Conrad tells the king all of this and the king wants her to tell who she really is. After telling the King she could not, The King had her relay her story to the stove. As the king listened and told his son she’s the real princess. Things get exciting when the king asks the imposter princess, who by the way doesn’t know she’s been busted, about someone stealing someone’s identity. The King asked the imposter what the appropriate punishment is. Her response?

She deserves no better fate than to be stripped entirely naked and put in a barrel which is studded inside with pointed nails, and two white horses should be harnessed to it, which will drag her along through one street after another, till she is dead.”

“It is you,” said the aged king, “and you have pronounced your own sentence, and thus shall it be done unto you.”

The evil maidservant/false princess is executed in this manner and the real princess and prince are married and eventually become king and queen and rule happily for the rest of their days.

One Thousand And One Nights

One Thousand And One Nights tells the story of King Shahryar who finds his wife in the arms of her lover and has her executed. The King resolves to marry a virgin each night and have her executed in the morning so she could not betray him as his first wife had. Scheherazade, who is the daughter of the vizier, volunteers to marry the king even though the vizier is obviously against this. The first night Scheherazade starts telling Shahryar a story and the king is impressed. The sun rises and she stops in the middle. Shahryar demands she tells him more, but she refuses for the moment. The king keeps her alive so she can finish. She finishes the story and then begins another & keeps the ruse going for one thousand and one nights. Scheherazade tells the stories of Aladdin, Ali Baba, Sinbad etc. During this one thousand and one nights, Scheherazade gives Shahryar 3 sons. Scheherazade begs Shahryar for her life reminding him of the sons she gave him, and he agrees.