10 Awesome Fairy Tale Characters:
I was raised by people who were both really into fairytales and my father was a storyteller so I grew up hearing, reading, and watching more than my fair share of fairy-tale-based things. I’ve never quite gotten over the awesomeness of stories, and I own way too many collections of them to this day.
So while this is by no means a complete list, these are some of the characters that have left a very vivid and unique impression on me. If you haven’t read about all of them already, I’d definitely suggest doing so. You won’t regret it!
Tatterhood – Norse. Born riding a spoon and carrying a donkey, she is a headstrong, ugly firstborn sister character who kills trolls and eventually ends up beautiful as well as happily married.
Scheherazade – Persian/Arabic. Very clever woman who manages to keep her crazy king of a husband from killing her by telling him awesome stories.
Kate Crackernuts – Scottish. Another less attractive sister character who ends up happy by using her brain and stopping fairies from dancing with a prince and making him sick. Eventually she lives happily ever after with said prince.
Baba Yaga – Russian. She is a very complicated and wise witchy woman who flies around a giant pestle and lives in a cabin built on chicken legs and surrounded by skulls on pikes. I like that she’s not always bad, but she’s not really a character you could actually say was good.
Bluebeard – French. A very creepy man who has one room in his house that his wife is forbidden to visit, but he gives her a key to it anyway. She visits the room and it ends well for her, but the story is pretty disturbing. Very enjoyable though.
Rumplestiltskin – German. An absolutely creepy little man who can change straw into gold and sing chilling little ditties in the dark of the forest. There’s just something really fascinating albeit wrong about this guy.
Puss in Boots – French. A talking con artist of a cat that is cleverer than all the humans he deals with. I really don’t like the way he turned out in the Shrek filmes, but I love this character.
The Happy Prince – English. A beautiful golden statue gives up pieces of himself for people in need and very sad things happen because it’s a fairy tale by Oscar Wilde. All kidding aside, this is a lovely story. Just please keep a box of tissues with you at all times.
Anansi – African. A very trickster spider who ends up in all kinds of trouble, but gets out of it due to either his quick wits or his smart wife’s advice depending on the tale you read.
Elsa – Swedish. From “Elsa and the Evil Wizard.” She is able to defeat a wizard by pretending not to understand anything he ever says.
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Who’s on your list?
I think I need to learn more about Puss in Boots :) FAB post.
ReplyDeleteI think I need to read more fairy tales! I'm not familiar with some of these characters.
ReplyDeleteScore! Cat on the list, I am happy.
ReplyDeleteOh man! Anansi! I have always hated spiders, but I loved Anansi. I had a book of tales involving Anansi. It might still be floating around somewhere...hmmm...
ReplyDeleteI think my favorite is Cap o' Rushes. She's basically a Cinderella character, except instead of sitting around waiting for a fairy godmother to fix things for her, she puts on a disguise, woos the prince, and teaches her father a lesson about how to listen to metaphors.
ReplyDeletePlus, I love the dialect style in Andrew Lang's version of the story. It has a great, folksy voice to it.