Insights into The Six Swans (ATU -450): "Why you should embrace stinging nettles" by Richard Fisher

 

BBC News published an interesting article about stinging nettles with an emphasis on using them for clothing. Remind anyone of fairy tales like the The Six Swans and Wild Swans by Hans Christian Andersen, as well as the other tales of type ATU 450? 

Here's a short excerpt to the article which you can read in full at:  "Why you should embrace stinging nettles" by Richard Fisher (17th May 2022)

Given the nettle's ubiquity and utility, people have collected and cultivated the plant for centuries. Archaeological digs in the UK show that as far back as the Bronze Age, people used a subspecies of the plant to make their clothing, realising its easily accessible stems could make for soft, strong textiles.

Over the centuries, the nettle has been entwined with folklore and stories. In Hans Christian Anderson's tale The Wild Swans, a princess must silently – and painfully – knit 11 nettle shirts to save 11 of her brothers, who have been turned into swans by their evil stepmother. 

Nettles are also associated with Norse legend – specifically stories of Thor, and his companion Loki, the latter of whom supposedly invented a fishing net made from nettle yarn to catch salmon. The plant, however, has yet to appear in a storyline in the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise.

New Book: A Wild Swan: And Other Tales by Michael Cunningham

A Wild Swan: And Other Tales by Michael Cunningham was released in November 2015 but just now entered my radar. It is chock full of short, dark retellings of classic fairy tales from Rapunzel to Rumpelstiltskin. Of course, the title story is drawn from The Wild Swans, Hans Christian Andersen's version of The Six Swans.

Book description:

Fairy tales for our times from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Hours

A poisoned apple and a monkey's paw with the power to change fate; a girl whose extraordinarily long hair causes catastrophe; a man with one human arm and one swan's wing; and a house deep in the forest, constructed of gumdrops and gingerbread, vanilla frosting and boiled sugar. In A Wild Swan and Other Tales, the people and the talismans of lands far, far away―the mythic figures of our childhoods and the source of so much of our wonder―are transformed by Michael Cunningham into stories of sublime revelation.

Here are the moments that our fairy tales forgot or deliberately concealed: the years after a spell is broken, the rapturous instant of a miracle unexpectedly realized, or the fate of a prince only half cured of a curse. The Beast stands ahead of you in line at the convenience store, buying smokes and a Slim Jim, his devouring smile aimed at the cashier. A malformed little man with a knack for minor acts of wizardry goes to disastrous lengths to procure a child. A loutish and lazy Jack prefers living in his mother's basement to getting a job, until the day he trades a cow for a handful of magic beans.

Reimagined by one of the most gifted storytellers of his generation, and exquisitely illustrated by Yuko Shimizu, rarely have our bedtime stories been this dark, this perverse, or this true.

New Book: The Wild Swans by Jackie Morris

The Wild Swans by Jackie Morris is a new release, an extended retelling of Andersen's tale. Morris has offered a book like this before with her East of the Sun, West of the Moon. I haven't seen this new book yet, but I own East of the Sun, West of the Moon. The format is smaller than an average picture book with mostly small illustrations. They are beautiful. I have some sample pages below.


Book description:

This very beautiful and lyrical extended version of the fairy tale 'The Wild Swans' by Hans Christian Andersen is the much anticipated companion to East of the Sun, West of the Moon. With strong characterization of the heroine and also with more rounded characterisation of the wicked stepmother than in the original version, and with delicate watercolor paintings throughout, this is both a wonderful story and delightful gift. Beautifully presented in a jacketed edition with foiled title.

You can click on the images to see them larger.

New Book: Spinning Starlight by R.C. Lewis

Spinning Starlight by R.C. Lewis is released this month. And wow! It's science fiction. Using Wild Swans as inspiration. That's new! I am excited about this one.

Book description:

Sixteen-year-old heiress and paparazzi darling Liddi Jantzen hates the spotlight. But as the only daughter in the most powerful tech family in the galaxy, it's hard to escape it. So when a group of men shows up at her house uninvited, she assumes it's just the usual media-grubs. That is, until shots are fired.

Liddi escapes, only to be pulled into an interplanetary conspiracy more complex than she ever could have imagined. Her older brothers have been caught as well, trapped in the conduits between the planets. And when their captor implants a device in Liddi's vocal cords to monitor her speech, their lives are in her hands: One word, and her brothers are dead.

Desperate to save her family from a desolate future, Liddi travels to another world, where she meets the one person who might have the skills to help her bring her eight brothers home-a handsome dignitary named Tiav. But without her voice, Liddi must use every bit of her strength and wit to convince Tiav that her mission is true. With the tenuous balance of the planets deeply intertwined with her brothers' survival, just how much is Liddi willing to sacrifice to bring them back?
Haunting and mesmerizing, this retelling of Hans Christian Andersen's The Wild Swans fuses all the heart of the classic tale with a stunning, imaginative world in which a star-crossed family fights for its very survival.

New Release: Dearest (The Woodcutter Sisters) by Alethea Kontis

(US/UK Links)

Dearest (The Woodcutter Sisters) by Alethea Kontis is released in the US tommorrow. It will be released officially in the UK on 3/1/15 at Dearest (Woodcutter Sisters) (UK Link). This is the third book in the series and eagerly anticipated by many series fans. I think I am happiest that it is primarily a Six Swans/Wild Swans retelling.

Book description:

Readers met the Woodcutter sisters (named after the days of the week) in Enchanted and Hero. In this delightful third book, Alethea Kontis weaves together some fine-feathered fairy tales to focus on Friday Woodcutter, the kind and loving seamstress. When Friday stumbles upon seven sleeping brothers in her sister Sunday’s palace, she takes one look at Tristan and knows he’s her future. But the brothers are cursed to be swans by day. Can Friday’s unique magic somehow break the spell?

Little Golden Books Fairy Tales Library

It's the holidays and the challenge of getting gifts for ten nephews, nieces, and godchildren has arrived again. It's always hampered with the fact that three of those children's birthdays also fall within five weeks of the holiday so I have to consider those gifts when choosing the others.

I like to give books, being an aunt and godmother to several readers, but choosing books for all of them is also challenging. And with my personal passions, I like to share fairy tales with the children, too, without boring them. I love picture books for sharing fairy tales and there are many, many wonderful books out there. Again, the challenge of price, individual tastes keeps me from being as lavish as I would like. One of the nieces is receiving the brunt of the fairy tale themed gifts from me this year since she is firmly entrenched in her princess stage of childhood development. She is receiving Enchanted Forest - Children's Game and The Golden Book of Fairy Tales (Golden Classics) for Christmas and birthday this year. But with the recent resurgence of the Golden Books library, I am tempted to add on a few inexpensive titles to their gifts.

I have a great affection for the Little Golden Books because they were the literature of my earliest years. My personal library started with many of the Little Golden Books library and one of my all time favorite childhood books was a Little Golden Book: The Monster at the End of This Book. My love of reading was fostered by owning these books that my parents could afford for me. So when I see those golden spines, I have a happy reaction, even though I don't always consider the illustrations or writing to be the absolute best in some of the titles. But some are great--after all some well known illustrators contributed to the line or got their start there.

I'm seeing Little Golden Books in more places again and they have been printing and reprinting many fairy tales. Many titles are Disney related since Disney has a partnership, but not all are. Since Disney is easy enough to find if you want it, that's not my focus. I want to celebrate the other fairy tales from Little Golden Books, some of them tales that children do not know so well and some that are harder to find in any picture book format, such as Wild Swans and Twelve Dancing Princesses--although there are some beautiful editions of both out there! So here's an easy, inexpensive way to add a fairy tale or two to a child's library for about $4 a pop this season.

And, if these sell well, perhaps Golden will also resurrect titles of years past like Hansel and Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood.

First on the list is The Princess and the Pea (Little Golden Book) illustrated by Jana Christy, pictured at the top of this post.

The Blue Book of Fairy Tales: "Three favorite fairy tales—Rapunzel, Beauty and the Beast, and Toads and Diamonds—are brought beautifully to life in this classic Little Golden Book from 1959, with breathtaking illustrations by the inimitable Gordon Laite." I've ordered this one for myself, too. I never owned it as a child and wish I had!




The Wild Swans (Little Golden Books) illustrated by Gordon Laite



The Three Bears by F. Rojankovsky



Three Little Pigs (Little Golden Book) is based on the Disney animated version.



The Gingerbread Man (Big Little Golden Book) by Nancy Nolte (Author), Richard Scarry (Illustrator)



The Twelve Dancing Princesses (Little Golden Book) by Jane Werner



Cinderella (Little Golden Book) "The original Little Golden Book from the 1940s featuring Walt Disney’s Cinderella is back!" This is a Disney title but it is so retro in appearance that it is fun to look at.



Puss in Boots (Little Golden Book) by Kathryn Jackson



If you like Little Golden Books or know someone who does, this book, Golden Legacy: How Golden Books Won Children's Hearts, Changed Publishing Forever, and Became An American Icon Along the Way (Deluxe Golden Book), may also make a great gift. It's on my wishlist for me!