Essay: Family Can Be Evil Too

When I was reading the English Fairy Tales unit, a common theme that I noticed was that many of the bad things that were done, were done by family members. This is a hard concept for people to understand. Family is supposed to be the ones who love and protect you more than anyone in the world. It is always harder to hear about family members turning on each other and doing things that you would expect strangers to be able to do, but you would not expect it from family.

In Binnorie, a man falls in love with a woman, until he sees her younger sister. He then decides that he wants the younger one and the older sister feels betrayed by her younger sister. She did not think it was fair since she had seen the man first. The older sister then pushes the younger sister into the millstream of Binnorie. The younger sister tries to beg the older one for help but to no avail. The older sister has too much hatred and jealously towards the younger one for her to ever help save her younger sister's life.

Another example of family members being cruel is in The Rose Tree. In this story, it is the step-mother who does the horrible crime. She is oddly jealous of the girl and so she kills her. This is only part of the horrible things that she does. After she kills the girl, she cooks her and feeds her to the rest of the family. This crime is just too horrible to fathom. The girl trusted her step-mother and the step-mother betrayed her trust.

The last example that I am going to use is not as gruesome as the stories that I have mentioned already. In the story, Cap o' Rushes, the father does not think that one of his daughters loves him as much as he thinks that she should, so he sends her away. He is able to disown one of his own children. I do not think that is how family members should treat each other.

This unit had a way of using the most unlikely people as the villains. By using the family members, I think the stories are more memorable than they would have been by just using strangers as the bad guys. It uses the people that you would never suspect to harm their own family members. It shows that family can be just as cruel, if not more than, strangers.

A family tree. Created by: Dženan Zukić. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Storytelling for Week 11: What's in a Name?

"It feels like these walls are going to close in on me," Isabella thought to herself. She wasn't sure how long she had been trapped in this room. It could be days or it could be weeks. There was no way to tell in here. Either way, it felt like forever. She found that she started to talk to the walls. She had heard about people doing that and it always seemed crazy... until now. The creature only came in every couple of days or so. She had no one to talk to in between. She realized that she needed to hear her own voice but she wasn't sure what to say.

"I guess I'll just start from how I ended up here," she said to the empty space. She realized that she had replayed how it all happened over and over again in her head and she still was in disbelief that this is where she ended up. Everything was going so well.

"Through a misunderstanding, a king decided he wanted to marry me. He believed that I was able to spin five skeins a day and I was not going to tell him that this was untrue so I went with it. I agreed to marry him under certain conditions. He would treat me like royalty for 11 months out of the year, and he followed through with this condition. It was a magical 11 months. The downside was that for the last month of the year, I was to spin five skeins a day or he would kill me." she laughed to herself

It sounds quite violent now that she has had time to think about it. She wasn't sure why she agreed in the first place. He seemed like such a nice guy but the threat of death always hovered over her.

"When it came time for me to spin, I was terrified. I didn't know how I was going to be able to pull this off. I had no experience with spinning fabric. Suddenly, a creature appeared out of the window. He agreed that he would spin the skeins for me everyday but there was one catch... I had to guess his name by the end of the month or I would belong to him forever," she explained to the darkness.

She had been sure that she would have plenty of time. Everything was going so well until it came to the last day of the month and she still had not figured out his name. That was when the creature grabbed her and forced her to this dark room and this is where she is destined to stay for the rest of her life.

"This isn't exactly the happily ever after that I was promised," she cried as she continued to stare at the wall.

Spinning wheel. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Author's note: My story is based off of the story Tom Tit Tot. The original story is about a girl who eats all her mother's pies. Her mother starts singing about how her daughter has eaten five pies and a king approaches her to ask what she is singing. Embarrassed, she says that she is singing about how her daughter can spin five skeins. The king is amazed by this and offers a deal. He wanted to marry her daughter and he would treat her extremely well every year if during the last month of the year, she spins five skeins a day every day. If she does not do this, he will have her killed. When the girl is put into the room to begin, a creature, only referred to as 'that' agrees to help her and spin the skeins for her. The only catch is that she has three chances a day to guess his name, if she does not guess his name then she will become his. On the last day, she is able to guess his name and he flies off never to be seen again. In my version, I wanted to write about what would happen if she was not able to guess his name. The main details in the story I kept, only eliminating the first half of the story. I didn't feel that my version required the background as much as the original story had.
Bibliography: This story is part of the English Fairy Tales (1) unit. Story source: English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs with illustrations by John D. Batten (1890).

Reading Diary A: English Fairy Tales

These are some of my favorite stories from the English Fairy Tales unit.

Tom Tit Tot: This story was one of my favorites. It all started with a huge misunderstanding between a girl and her mom. Her mom was baking pies and the crust on the pies got too hard, so she told the girl to sit them aside and they will come back. The girl thought that the mom meant that if she ate them, then the pies would return but the mom meant that the crust will soften once they are left sitting for a while. The girl ate all the pies and the mother was angry. She was singing about how her daughter had eaten all the pies when a king overheard her and asked what she was singing. She didn’t want to be embarrassed and so she told him that her daughter had spun five items. He decided to marry the girl and let her live well for 11 months, then on the 12th month she must spin five items each night. A creature helped her and told her that if she couldn’t guess his name by the end of the month, then she will be his. She was able to guess his name after her husband overheard the creature say it so she did not have to go with him. I just really liked how it all started as a huge misunderstanding but it also left me wondering if the girl would end up dead the next year because no one would be helping her spin.

Spinning wheel by Enfo. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Cap o’ Rushes: I really enjoyed this story because it does have such a happy ending. A father asked his three daughters how much they loved him. When one daughter told him that she loved him as much as fresh meat loves salt, he sends her away thinking that she does not love him. She begins working for some people as a maid. She didn’t want people to know who she was. They just called her Cap o’ Rushes. The people she’s staying with ask her if she wants to go to a dance. She says she doesn’t but dresses up and goes anyways. She does this a couple of times and tells everyone that she is not feeling well and that’s why she does not go. She finally reveals herself to the Prince that had fallen in love with her and they were to get married. Cap o’ Rushes made them make the food with no salt. Her father attended and when he ate the tasteless meat, he realized that she truly did love him. The ending is so sweet and I like how everything worked out for Cap O’ Rushes. I was just never really sure on why she waited so long to let everyone know that it was her that the prince had fallen in love with.