This week, I read from the Japanese Fairy Tale anthology (since I read some African folk
tales during week 7 and wanted to switch things up). Here are my thoughts on some of these lovely stories:
The Maiden with the Wooden Helmet
 |
The stonecutter and the mountain
spirit. Courtesy of Laura Gibbs. Source:
UnTextbook. |
This story is very sad and sweet. I think it could be more detailed if told from the point of view of the maiden, as she undergoes great tragedy and sorrow only to find great beauty and happiness. There's great emotional potential when the story is told from her perspective, since the story has other main characters, but mostly revolves around her trials.
The Stonecutter
I like the idea of and the detail in this story. My thoughts for retelling are: what if this story was told from an animal's point of view? For example, a small mouse is content with his life in the fields, but then meets a mouse who lives in a barn and wishes that for himself. He receives his wish, then happens on a house-dwelling mouse. He wishes for that lifestyle, but when he finally gets it, he is terrorized by the house cat. He wishes to be the cat; he wishes to be the cat's owner. He understands the problems of humans, and finally wishes to be a simple mouse again. I want to keep the moral intact: that the grass is always greener on the other side and if you can't be content where you are, you might never be content.
I love this sweet story (though it has a foul ending for the man's wife). I was thinking of reframing it as an Ellen-type TV show, where a host interviews the heroic man and discusses the sparrow princess' repayment of him (kind of like those clickbait articles you see with headlines like "He saved her life. You'll never believe what happened next."). It could be a great way to get the man and the princess' voices in the story and have them each give their perspective. I would have to invent a name for each character, and would dwell on the greedy wife far less than the original story does.
Bibliography: The Pink Fairy Book by Andrew Lang. Web source.
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