There are several stories that attempt to explain the loss of the Library of Alexandria. Some stories are very romantic and would have us believe that the library is intact but hidden beneath the sands, waiting for an intrepid librarian/explorer to find it and reveal its knowledge to the modern world.
#FairytaleTuesday: The Singing Bone
Okay! So this is a relatively short story that has just an unbelievable number of variations and adaptations. I'll be using the Grimm story in this entry but we will discuss some of the variations because they are important to the conversation. Having said that, there are surprisingly few images of this variation so I included the entire story instead.
#FairytaleTuesday: Death and the Goose Boy
In reading the story, it's wildly obvious that this is a Christian allegory. And while I immediately understood the reference to "Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," I was a little thrown as to who the Goose Boy actually was. I mean, I may know an absurd amount when it comes to mythology and folklore but the Bible has never been an area of focus for me. So my first thought was that it was about King David, of "David and Goliath" fame.
#FairytaleTuesday: Little Red Cap
The basic theme of all of these stories, however, is that little girls that stray from the path will find themselves at the mercy of a Big Bad Wolf (or another vicious beastie). And no, in the Western versions we're not talking about actual wolves. IT'S A METAPHOR, PEOPLE!
#FolkloreThursday: The Many Layers of Santa Claus
As I noted at the top, this post in no way covers the entirety of Santa-related mythology. This is a big story and it has more branches than I could ever hope to cover. But I wanted to give y'all an idea of just how expansive and old this legend is.
#FairytaleTuesday: The Three Ravens
this story has been told in a number of ways and the basic gist is pretty much always the same: a varying number of older brothers get turned into birds of some kind (usually swans, geese, ducks, or ravens) by a female family member that wants them to just go away and and so the clever and devoted little sister must search them out and break their curse. There are some variations that don't include the brothers turning into birds, like the North African story "Udea and Her Seven Brothers," but even that involves assistance from ravens and pigeons.
#FairytaleTuesday: Mother Holle
Mother Holle is a little like Baba Yaga in that she has a fearsome visage and she may offer help or hindrance, depending on how she feels about you. Unlike Baba Yaga, however, Mother Holle's motivations are much simpler: she really just wants someone to fluff her bed every morning.
#FolkloreThursday: The Snow Child
The basic plot that is common to all of the stories is that a husband has been away from his wife for a long absence. Upon returning, he finds that she has mysteriously had a son. The length of the husband's absence makes it virtually impossible for him to be the father. When questioned, the wife gives a divine explanation for the boy, generally to the effect that she ingested frozen water in some form and thus became pregnant with a miraculous snow child. Other versions omitted the snow, had rather longer absences, and way wilder explanations for the bonus mystery child.
#FairytaleTuesday: The Little Mouse, the Little Bird and the Sausage
...this weird little story appeared in every single edition (seven in total) that was published during the Grimm's lifetimes and while it's not necessarily "violent," it's a bit like "The Journey of the Straw, the Coal, and the Bean" except that none of the little group survives.
#FolkloreThursday: Hans Trapp, The Cannibalistic Christmas Scarecrow
My guess is that it was children who began this folkloric game of telephone, because it's almost always the children. They hear a story, it begins to morph, they grow up, they repeat the story to their children, perhaps with a little spice added, and on it goes. Because children, then as now, seem to like to make any urban legend as gruesome as possible and one-up their friends, eventually we end up with a Christmas-themed scarecrow that eats kids.
