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Stepmother
A stepmother, stepmum or stepmom is a non-biological female parent married to one's preexisting parent. A stepmother-in-law is a stepmother of one's spouse. Children from her spouse's previous unions are known as her stepchildren. Culture Stepparents (mainly stepmothers) may also face some societal challenges due to the stigma surrounding the "evil stepmother" character. Morello notes that the introduction of the "evil stepmother" character in the past is problematic to stepparents today, as it has created a stigma towards stepmothers. The presence of this stigma can have a negative impact on stepmothers' self-esteem. Fiction In fiction, stepmothers are often portrayed as being wicked and evil. The character of the wicked stepmother features heavily in fairy tales; the most famous examples are ''Cinderella'', ''Snow White'' and ''Hansel and Gretel''. Stepdaughters are her most common victim, and then stepdaughter/stepson pairs, but stepsons also are victims as in '' The Jun ...
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Janghwa Hongryeon Jeon
Janghwa Hongryeon jeon (literally ''The Story of Janghwa and Hongryeon'') is a Joseon-era Korean folktale. Story Introduction Once upon a time, there was a man named Muryong whose wife had a dream where an angel gave her a beautiful flower. Ten months later, she gave birth to a pretty baby girl, who the couple named "Janghwa" ("Rose Flower"). Two years later, they had another pretty girl and named her "Hongryeon" ("Red Lotus"). Unfortunately, the mother died when Hongryeon was 5 years old; and soon thereafter, the father remarried to continue his line. The new stepmother was both ugly and cruel. She hated her stepdaughters, but hid those feelings, only to reveal them once she had three sons in a row, which gave her a good deal of power, and she abused the girls in every possible way. But Janghwa and Hongryeon never told their father about any of it. Conflict When Janghwa came of age and got engaged, Father told his second wife to help Janghwa plan a wedding ceremony. Ste ...
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Snow White
"Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is a 19th-century German fairy tale that is today known widely across the Western world. The Brothers Grimm published it in 1812 in the first edition of their collection ''Grimms' Fairy Tales'' and numbered as Tale 53. The original German title was ''Sneewittchen'', a Low German form, but the first version gave the High German translation ''Schneeweißchen'', and the tale has become known in German by the mixed form ''Schneewittchen''. The Grimms completed their final revision of the story in 1854, which can be found in the in 1957 version of ''Grimms' Fairy Tales''. The fairy tale features such elements as the magic mirror, the poisoned apple, the glass coffin, and the characters of the Evil Queen and the seven Dwarfs. The seven dwarfs were first given individual names in the 1912 Broadway play ''Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'' and then given different names in Walt Disney's 1937 film ''Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs''. The Grimm story, whi ...
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Fairy Godmother
In fairy tales, a fairy godmother () is a fairy with magical powers who acts as a mentor or parent to someone, in the role that an actual godparent was expected to play in many societies. In Perrault's ''Cinderella'', he concludes the tale with the moral that no personal advantages will suffice without proper connections. The fairy godmother is a special case of the donor. In fairy tale and legend Actual fairy godmothers are rare in fairy tales, but became familiar figures because of the popularity of the literary fairy tales of Madame d'Aulnoy and other précieuses, and Charles Perrault. Many other supernatural patrons feature in fairy tales; these include various kinds of animals and the spirit of a dead mother. The fairy godmother has her roots in the figures of the Fates; this is especially clear in ''Sleeping Beauty'', where they decree her fate, and are associated with spinning. In the tales of précieuses and later successors, the fairy godmother acts in a manner atypi ...
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The Boys With The Golden Stars
The Boys with the Golden Stars (Romanian: ''Doi feți cu stea în frunte'') is a Romanian fairy tale collected in ''Rumänische Märchen''. Andrew Lang included it in ''The Violet Fairy Book''.Lang, Andrew. The Violet Fairy Book'. London; New York: Longmans, Green. 1906. pp. 299-310. An alternate title to the tale is ''The Twins with the Golden Star''. Origins The Romanian tale ''Doi feți cu stea în frunte'' was first published in the Romanian magazine ''Convorbiri Literare'', in October, 1874, and signed by Romanian author Ioan Slavici. Synopsis A herdsman had three daughters, Ana, Stana and Laptița. The youngest was the most beautiful. One day, the emperor was passing with attendants. The oldest daughter said that if he married her, she would bake him a loaf of bread that would make him young and brave forever; the second one said, if one married her, she would make him a shirt that would protect him in any fight, even with a dragon, and against heat and water; the yo ...
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East Of The Sun And West Of The Moon
"East of the Sun and West of the Moon" ( no, Østenfor sol og vestenfor måne) is a Norwegian fairy tale. It was included by Andrew Lang in ''The Blue Fairy Book'' (1890). "East of the Sun and West of the Moon" was collected by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe. It is Aarne–Thompson type 425A, the search for the lost husband; other tales of this type include "Black Bull of Norroway", "The Brown Bear of Norway", "The Daughter of the Skies", " The Enchanted Pig", "The Tale of the Hoodie", "Master Semolina", "The Sprig of Rosemary", "The Enchanted Snake", and "White-Bear-King-Valemon". The Swedish version is called "Prince Hat under the Ground". It was likely an offspring from the tale of "Cupid and Psyche" in The Golden Ass,Neumann, Erich. Amor and Psyche: The psychic development of the feminine. Vol. 24. Routledge, 2013. which gave rise to similar animal bridegroom cycles such as "Beauty and the Beast". Synopsis The White Bear approaches a poor peasant and asks if h ...
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Hansel And Gretel
"Hansel and Gretel" (; german: Hänsel und Gretel ) is a German fairy tale collected by the German Brothers Grimm and published in 1812 in ''Grimm's Fairy Tales'' (KHM 15). It is also known as Little Step Brother and Little Step Sister. Hansel and Gretel are a brother and sister abandoned in a forest, where they fall into the hands of a witch who lives in a house made of gingerbread, cake, and candy. The cannibalistic witch intends to fatten Hansel before eventually eating him, but Gretel pushes the witch into her own oven and kills her. The two children then escape with their lives and return home with the witch's treasure. "Hansel and Gretel" is a tale of Aarne–Thompson–Uther type 327A. It also includes an episode of type 1121 ('Burning the Witch in Her Own Oven'). The story is set in medieval Germany. The tale has been adapted to various media, most notably the opera (1893) by Engelbert Humperdinck. Origin Sources Although Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm credited "vario ...
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The Juniper Tree (fairy Tale)
"The Juniper Tree" (also The Almond Tree; nds, Von dem Machandelboom) is a German fairy tale published in Low German by the Brothers Grimm in ''Grimms' Fairy Tales, Grimm's Fairy Tales'' in 1812 (KHM 47). The story contains themes of child abuse, murder, cannibalism and Christian symbolism, biblical symbolism and is one of the Brothers Grimm's darker and more mature fairy tales. The tale is of Aarne–Thompson type 720 ("The Juniper Tree"). Another such tale is the English ''The Rose-Tree'', although it reverses the sexes from ''The Juniper Tree''; ''The Juniper Tree'' follows the more common pattern of having the dead child be a boy. Origin The tale was published by the Brothers Grimm in the first edition of Grimms' Fairy Tales, ''Kinder- und Hausmärchen'' in 1812. A somewhat different version appeared a few months earlier Johann Gustav Gottlieb Büsching, Johann Gustav Büsching's ''Volks-Sagen, Märchen und Legenden'' (1812). It was believed until the early 1870s that the ...
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Cinderella
"Cinderella",; french: link=no, Cendrillon; german: link=no, Aschenputtel) or "The Little Glass Slipper", is a folk tale with thousands of variants throughout the world.Dundes, Alan. Cinderella, a Casebook. Madison, Wis: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988. The protagonist is a young woman living in forsaken circumstances that are suddenly changed to remarkable fortune, with her ascension to the throne via marriage. The story of Rhodopis, recounted by the Greek geographer Strabo sometime between around 7 BC and AD 23, about a Greek slave girl who marries the king of Egypt, is usually considered to be the earliest known variant of the Cinderella story.Roger Lancelyn Green: ''Tales of Ancient Egypt'', Penguin UK, 2011, , chapter "The Land of Egypt" The first literary European version of the story was published in Italy by Giambattista Basile in his ''Pentamerone'' in 1634; the version that is now most widely known in the English-speaking world was published in French by Charles ...
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The Wild Swans
The Wild Swans (Danish: ''De vilde svaner'') is a literary fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen about a princess who rescues her 11 brothers from a spell cast by an evil queen. The tale was first published on 2 October 1838 in Andersen's '' Fairy Tales Told for Children. New Collection. First Booklet'' (''Eventyr, fortalte for Børn. Ny Samling. Første Hefte'') by C. A. Reitzel in Copenhagen, Denmark. It has been adapted to various media including ballet, television, and film. It is categorized as an Aarne-Thompson type 451 ("The Brothers Who Were Turned into Birds"). Other type 451 variants include such as ''The Twelve Brothers,'' ''The Six Swans'', ''The Seven Ravens'', ''The Twelve Wild Ducks'' and '' Udea and her Seven Brothers''. Synopsis In a faraway kingdom, there lives a widowed king with his twelve children: eleven princes and one princess. One day, he decides to remarry, but marries a wicked queen who is a witch. Out of spite, the queen turns her eleven stepso ...
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Svipdagr
Svipdagr (Old Norse: "sudden day"Orchard (1997:157).) is the hero of the two Old Norse Eddaic poems Grógaldr and Fjölsvinnsmál, which are contained within the body of one work; Svipdagsmál. Plot Svipdagr is set a task by his stepmother, to meet the goddess Menglöð, who is his "fated bride." In order to accomplish this seemingly impossible task, he summons by necromancy the shade of his dead mother, Gróa, a völva who also appears in the ''Prose Edda'', to cast nine spells for him. This she does and the first poem abruptly ends. At the beginning of the second poem, Svipdagr arrives at Menglöð's castle, where he is interrogated in a game of riddles by the watchman, from whom he conceals his true name (identifying himself as Vindkald(r) "Wind-Cold" apparently hoping to pass himself off as a frost giant). The watchman is named Fjölsviðr, a name of Odin in Grímnismál 47. He is accompanied by his wolf-hounds Geri and Gifr. After a series of eighteen questions and answ ...
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Hans Christian Andersen
Hans Christian Andersen ( , ; 2 April 1805 – 4 August 1875) was a Danish author. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, he is best remembered for his literary fairy tales. Andersen's fairy tales, consisting of 156 stories across nine volumes and translated into more than 125 languages, have become culturally embedded in the West's collective consciousness, readily accessible to children but presenting lessons of virtue and resilience in the face of adversity for mature readers as well. His most famous fairy tales include "The Emperor's New Clothes", "The Little Mermaid", " The Nightingale", "The Steadfast Tin Soldier", " The Red Shoes", " The Princess and the Pea", "The Snow Queen", "The Ugly Duckling", " The Little Match Girl", and " Thumbelina". His stories have inspired ballets, plays, and animated and live-action films. Early life Hans Christian Andersen was born in Odense, Denmark on 2 April 1805. He had a stepsister named Karen. ...
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The Twelve Wild Ducks
"The Twelve Wild Ducks" (Norwegian: ''De tolv villender'') is a Norwegian fairy tale collected by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe in ''Norske Folkeeventyr''. It is Aarne–Thompson type 451, the brothers who were turned into birds. Plot summary There once was a queen who had twelve healthy sons, but no daughters. She said she would not care what happened to her sons if she could only have a daughter as white as snow and as red as blood. A troll hag told her that she would have a daughter, but the hag would have her sons as soon as the baby was baptized. Soon the queen gave birth to a daughter. She christened "Snow-white and Rosy-red," but as the hag promised, all her brothers were turned into wild ducks and flew away. Snow-white and Rosy-red was often sad, and one day the queen asked her why; she said that everyone else had brothers and sisters, but she had none. So the queen told her about her brothers. She set out and, after three years, found the cottage where he ...
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