We Love Fairy Tales Week Tag

 

Continuing the general celebratory feel of my last post, Hamlette is hosting a We Love Fairy Tales week over at her blog! For today I thought I'd do the tag. Enjoy - and do go and participate in the party if you're not already!

On to the questions:

1.  What's your favorite fairy tale?

My personal favourite is the Six Swans (though depending on the version, it's sometimes the Seven Swans). Have you read it? A (simplified!) synopsis is that a king marries a wicked woman, from whom he hides his six sons and one daughter. The stepmother finds them and turns the sons into swans. The daughter, who was hiding in another place, discovers that the only way to lift the spell is to sew a shirt for each brother out of nettles, and remain silent for the six years this will take her. During those six years, she meets and marries the king of a neighbouring country; but, when her three children are born and disappear (they have been stolen by the stepmother) she is accused of witchcraft. Just in time, before she is burned as a witch, the girl finishes the sixth shirt and throws them over her brothers, the swans, who are then transformed back into men - except for the youngest brother, who still has the wing of a swan instead of an arm, for the sister did not have time to finish his shirt. The stepmother is punished, the girl and her husband are reunited with their children, and they all lived happily ever after.

2.  If you could cast any actors and actresses ever in a movie version of that fairy tale, who would you pick?

Well, I'm planning to do a dream cast of this later in the week... so I might skip this question till then ;)

3.  Do you have a favorite fairy tale movie?

Let's just have a moment of silence for Ella's wedding dress

Yes! I just love Cinderella (2015). It's one of my favourite films ever - the music, the casting, the script, the costumes (the costumes!) - I love it so, so much.

4.  Do you have a favorite book that retells a fairy tale?

No, I don't, actually, but I want to read them (and write them!)

5.  If you got to be in a stage or film production of a classic fairy tale, what fairy tale would you want to be in, and who would you like to play?

Let's imagine I can act (which I can't)... I would love to play Cinderella. Just something about her resonates with me. Not, I should clarify, that my family is anything at all like her family - and I'm not much like Cinderella. I just feel that we would be friends! (Unlike Snow White, for instance... I feel that we wouldn't click!)

6.  Do you like fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen or the Grimm Brothers best?  Or someone else's?

I definitely prefer the Brothers Grimm fairy tales! I know they have a bit of a reputation for being grim by name, grim by nature, but I find lots of the Anderson ones rather irritating. Looking at you, Little Mermaid.

7.  What more obscure fairy tale do you think more people should know about?

Apart from the Six Swans, how about Rumpelstiltskin? Spinning straw into gold, a poor girl becoming queen, a battle of wits... good times!

I'm going to be nerdy for a moment and say, aren't some of the phrases in fairy tales so satisfying? "Once upon a time", "spinning straw into gold", "glass slippers", "she shall prick her finger on a spinning wheel", "she shall sleep for a hundred years"... ah, lovely!

Aaaaanyway, there we are! That's the tag done - head over to Hamlette's blog for more fun and games!