The Wonderful Birch
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The Wonderful Birch
The Wonderful Birch (russian: Чудесная берёза) is a Finnish/Russian fairy tale. A variant on Cinderella, it is Aarne–Thompson folktale type 510A, the persecuted heroine. It makes use of shapeshifting motifs. Andrew Lang included it in '' The Red Fairy Book''. Synopsis A peasant woman meets a witch, who threatens to transform her if she does something; she does not do it, but the witch turns her into a sheep anyway. The witch assumes the form of the peasant woman and goes home to her husband. After a time, she bears him a daughter. The witch pets and pampers her own daughter, and ill-treats her stepdaughter, the peasant's daughter by his sheep-wife. The witch-stepmother tells her husband to slaughter the sheep before it runs away. He agrees, but her stepdaughter hears and runs to the sheep, lamenting. Her mother tells her not to eat anything made from her body but bury the bones. She does so, and a birch tree grows on the grave. The king gives a festival, inv ...
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The Red Fairy Book-124
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the most frequently used word in the English language; studies and analyses of texts have found it to account for seven percent of all printed English-language words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which combined in Middle English and now has a single form used with pronouns of any gender. The word can be used with both singular and plural nouns, and with a noun that starts with any letter. This is different from many other languages, which have different forms of the definite article for different genders or numbers. Pronunciation In most dialects, "the" is pronounced as (with the voiced dental fricative followed by a schwa) when followed by a consonant sound, and as (homophone of pronoun ''thee'') when followed by a ...
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Fair, Brown And Trembling
Fair, Brown and Trembling is an Irish fairy tale collected by Jeremiah Curtin in ''Myths and Folk-lore of Ireland'' and Joseph Jacobs in his ''Celtic Fairy Tales''. It is Aarne-Thompson type 510A. Other tales of this type include ''Cinderella'', ''Finette Cendron'', '' The Golden Slipper'', ''Katie Woodencloak'', ''Rushen Coatie'', ''The Sharp Grey Sheep'', '' The Story of Tam and Cam'', and ''The Wonderful Birch''. Synopsis King Hugh Cùrucha had three daughters: Fair, Brown and Trembling. Since Trembling was the most beautiful, her older sisters made her stay at home, for fear that she would marry before them. After seven years, the son of the king of Emania fell in love with Fair. A henwife told Trembling she should go to church; when she objected that she had no suitable dress, the henwife gave her one, a horse, a honey-finger, and a honey-bird and told her to leave as soon as Mass was done. She obeyed, and got away before any man came near her. After two more times, t ...
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Witchcraft In Fairy Tales
Witchcraft traditionally means the use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others. A practitioner is a witch. In medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually women who were believed to have used malevolent magic against their own community, and often to have communed with evil beings. It was thought witchcraft could be thwarted by protective magic or counter-magic, which could be provided by cunning folk or folk healers. Suspected witches were also intimidated, banished, attacked or killed. Often they would be formally prosecuted and punished, if found guilty or simply believed to be guilty. European witch-hunts and witch trials in the early modern period led to tens of thousands of executions. In some regions, many of those accused of witchcraft were folk healers or midwives. European belief in witchcraft gradually dwindled during and after the Age of Enlightenment. Contemporary cultures that believe in magic and the supern ...
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Fiction About Shapeshifting
Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying individuals, events, or places that are imaginary, or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent with history, fact, or plausibility. In a traditional narrow sense, "fiction" refers to written narratives in prose often referring specifically to novels, novellas, and short stories. More broadly, however, fiction encompasses imaginary narratives expressed in any medium, including not just writings but also live theatrical performances, films, television programs, radio dramas, comics, role-playing games, and video games. Definition Typically, the fictionality of a work is publicly marketed and so the audience expects the work to deviate in some ways from the real world rather than presenting, for instance, only factually accurate portrayals or characters who are actual people. Because fiction is generally understood to not fully adhere to the real world, the themes and co ...
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Russian Fairy Tales
''Russian Fairy Tales'' (russian: Народные русские сказки, variously translated; English titles include also ''Russian Folk Tales'') is a collection of nearly 600 fairy and folktales, collected and published by Alexander Afanasyev between 1855 and 1863.Alexander Afanasyev. Russian Fairy Tale — K. Soldatenkov and N. Shchepkin, 1855—1863. — Vol. 1—8 His literary work was explicitly modeled after ''Grimm's Fairy Tales''. Vladimir Propp drew heavily on this collection for his analyses in his '' Morphology of the Folktale''. Fairy tales Some of the tales included in these volumes: * The Death of Koschei the Immortal * Vasilisa the Beautiful * Vasilisa the Priest's Daughter * Father Frost * Sister Alenushka, Brother Ivanushka * The Frog Princess * Vasilii the Unlucky * The White Duck * The Princess Who Never Smiled * The Wicked Sisters * The Twelve Dancing Princesses * The Magic Swan Geese * The Feather of Finist the Falcon * Tsarevitch Ivan, the F ...
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Finnish Fairy Tales
Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language Finnish ( endonym: or ) is a Uralic language of the Finnic branch, spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. Finnish is one of the two official languages of Finland (the other being Swedis ..., the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also * Finish (other) * Finland (other) * Suomi (other) * {{disambiguation Language and nationality disambiguation pages ...
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The Witch In The Stone Boat
"The Witch in the Stone Boat" ( is, Skessan á steinnökkvanum 'the giantess in the stone boat') is an Icelandic folktale, originally collected by Jón Árnason (1864), translated into English in Andrew Lang's fairy tale collection ''The Yellow Fairy Book'' (1894). The antagonist is a giantess (''skessa''; elsewhere called troll-woman, and revealed to be the sister of a three-headed giant), though rendered as "witch" by Lang, who shape-shifts and assumes the place of a queen, while having the true queen imprisoned. It has been categorized as a subtype of ATU 462, " The Outcast Queens and the Ogress Queen". Textual notes "Skessan á steinnökkvanum" (literally 'The ' iantessin the stone boat'),). was a selection in Jón Árnason's folktale/fairy tale collection, ''Íslenzkar Þjóðsögur og Æfintýri'' Vol. 2 (1862–64). It was later translated into German as "''Die Riesin in dem Steinboote''" ('The giantess in the stone-boat') by in ''Isländische Märchen'' (1884), ...
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The White And The Black Bride
"The White Bride and the Black One" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, tale number 135. It is Aarne-Thompson type 403A.D.L. Ashliman,The Grimm Brothers' Children's and Household Tales Other tales of this type include '' The Three Little Men in the Wood'', '' Brother and Sister'', ''Bushy Bride'', and '' The Enchanted Wreath''. Synopsis A woman and her daughter are cutting fodder when the Lord comes up to them and asks the way to the village. The woman and the daughter refuse to help, and the woman's stepdaughter offers to show him. In return, the others turn black and ugly, but the stepdaughter is granted three wishes: beauty, an everlasting purse of gold, and to go to Heaven upon her death. Her brother Reginer, a coachman to the king, asks for a portrait of her, and hangs it in his room. The king sees it and resolves to marry her. Her brother sends for her, and the stepmother and stepsister come too. The stepmother enchants the coachman so he is half-bli ...
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The Three Little Men In The Wood
"The Three Little Men in the Wood" or "The Three Little Gnomes in the Forest" (german: Die drei Männlein im Walde) is a German fairy tale collected in 1812 by the Brothers Grimm in ''Grimm's Fairy Tales'' (KHM 13). Andrew Lang included it in '' The Red Fairy Book'' (1890) as "The Three Dwarfs," and a version of the tale appears in '' A Book of Dwarfs'' (1964) by Ruth Manning-Sanders. It is Aarne-Thompson type 403B ("The Black and the White Bride"), with an episode of type 480 ("The Kind and the Unkind Girls"). Origin The tale was published by the Brothers Grimm in the first edition of ''Kinder- und Hausmärchen'' in 1812. Their source was Wilhelm Grimm's friend and future wife Dortchen Wild (1795–1867). The second edition was expanded with material provided by the story teller Dorothea Viehmann (1755–1815) and by Amalie Hassenpflug (1800–1871). Synopsis A woman offers her hand in marriage to a widower: in return, her daughter would wash and drink water, and the man's da ...
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The Golden Slipper
The Golden Slipper (russian: Золотой башмачок) is a Russian fairy tale collected by Alexander Afanasyev in '' Narodnye russkie skazki''. It is Aarne-Thompson type 510A, the persecuted heroine. Synopsis An old man brought back two fish from the market for his daughters. The older one ate hers, but the younger asked her fish what to do with it. It told her to put it in water, and it might repay her; she puts it in the well. The old woman, their mother, loved her older daughter and hated her younger. She dressed up the older to take to Mass, and ordered the younger to husk two bushels of rye while they were gone. She wept beside the well. The fish gave her fine clothing and sent her off, husking the rye while she was gone. The mother came back talking of the beauty they had seen at Mass. She took the older daughter again, leaving the younger to husk three measures of barley and the younger went to Mass again with the fish's aid. A king's son saw her and caug ...
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The Child Who Came From An Egg
The Child who came from an Egg or The Egg-Born Princess ( et, Munast sündinud kuningatütar) is an Estonian fairy tale, collected by Dr. Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald in ''Eestirahwa Ennemuistesed jutud''. Synopsis A queen told an old woman that she had two griefs: a new one, that her husband was at war, and an old one, that they had no children. She gave her a basket with an egg: the queen was to put it somewhere warm. In three months, it would break and let out a doll. She was to let it alone, and then it would become a baby girl. She would have a baby of her own, a son, and she was to put the girl with him and show them both to the king, and then raise the son herself but entrust the daughter to a nurse. Furthermore, she must invite this woman to the christening by throwing a wild goose feather into the air. The queen obeyed exactly. When the christening arrived, a dazzlingly beautiful woman came in a cream-colored carriage, and was dressed like the sun. She decreed ...
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Finette Cendron
Finette Cendron (meaning in English, ''Cunning Cinders'') is a French literary fairy tale written by Madame d'Aulnoy. It combines Aarne-Thompson types 327A and 510A. Other tales of 510A type include "Cinderella", " Katie Woodencloak", " Fair, Brown and Trembling", "The Sharp Grey Sheep", " Rushen Coatie", or " The Wonderful Birch". Synopsis A king and queen lost their kingdom and sold all they had brought with them, until they were poor. The queen resolved that she could make nets, with which the king could catch birds and fish to support them. As for their three daughters, they were useless; the king should take them somewhere and leave them there. Their youngest, Finette, heard this and went to her fairy godmother. She became tired on the way and sat down to cry. A jennet appeared before her, and she begged it to carry her to her godmother. Her godmother gave her a ball of thread that, if she tied to the house door, would lead her back, and a bag with gold and silver dr ...
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