Three guesses

A safe fairyland is untrue to all worlds. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

I’ve been reading Tolkien, and thinking about stories and mythic journeys (more on that another time), and puzzles and codes (more on that too), and macrocosms and microcosms.  And the confluence of all of these has steered me creatively towards reworking a fairy tale.

I love a good fairy tale, but don’t be fooled, it’s not all magic wands and princess dresses out there in fairyland.  There are plenty of nasty little blighters with sharp teeth and even sharper wits lying in wait for our unsuspecting characters. But there are also lessons to be learned, fortunes to be made, and hopefully some happy endings, too.  

Fairy and folk tales give us plenty to work with.  I’ve previously penned a flash fic based on a particularly disturbing old story. My vignette takes place entirely on The Stairs which lead down into a very dark place:   

I tread down the stairs, cautiously, testing each one’s soundness before transferring my full weight.  Each step groans a slow warning to me.  It’s dark down there.  I reach the edge of the light, then dip my slippered toe into the pool of darkness.  It rises to my calf, then my knees, then my thighs, with each downward step, closing around me in its silky depth, swirling and enfolding my fine skirts.

I bet you want to know what she finds at the bottom, right?

I’ve also written a conte merveilleux of my own invention. It adopts the shape, style and symbolism of an old folk tale, and weaves together elements of faerie with a love story.  Delivering sweetness and heartbreak in less than 1200 words, Sweet Apple is one of my favourite pieces of writing.

For my next piece, there are so many stories to choose from, and so little time! The source story needs to have enough inherent complexity to permit a meaningful reworking, but enough simplicity to allow the original elements to remain intact.  For a while I was thinking about the two girls, one kind and one mean-spirited, who encounter an old lady by the well. The kind sister is rewarded with roses and pearls falling from her mouth whenever she speaks, but the unkind sister has toads and snails dropping out of hers. 

That’s not all of the story, because their mother is horrible too. (Family dysfunction 101). All is not lost though, because a prince just happens to be riding his horse through the forest at exactly the right time (!). There are plenty of gender stereotypes to chew over in a re-telling, but the most delicious temptation lies in the hilarious story possibilities for things-falling-out-of-people’s-mouths.  

But there is another story I keep returning to, like a task that must be completed by dawn. I’ve spun it round and round in my mind, and it has cast off fine filaments that have burrowed into my imagination and taken root.  As a child, I never liked this story. There was always something deeply unsettling about it.  As an adult, I recognise the themes of manipulation, deception, and greed, and it strikes me as a thoroughly modern tale. It deserves a more thorough telling, which examines the motivations and actions of all its characters and provides a resolution for each one of them, regardless of their position in the social hierarchy.  But since my denouement leans heavily on the original fairy tale, I’ll keep its name to myself, and leave you to guess which story it is.