Week 12 Reading: English Fairy Tales Part A

 Here are a couple of my favorite readings and notes on them from this section!

A Rose Bush because I am not really sure if a Rose Tree is actually a thing. Sonal Gupta on Unsplash

Tom Tit Tot: This story is described as being similar to Rumpelstiltskin but I do not recall knowing that story so this will be completely new to me! So is the thing spinning the skeins a rat or like a weird creature? The picture makes it look like a tiny human with a rat tail which kind of grosses me out. I don't really know how I'd change this story so I will just recap for future reference for myself. Mom bakes pie too long, daughter eats all five, mom sings about daughter eating all five, king overhears. Mom changes the song to say daughter sews 5 skeins, the king is impressed and marries daughter with a deal that she will sew 5 skeins every night for one month or she dies. Little rat creature does it for her the whole month and if she doesn't guess his name in that month she is the rat creature thing's to keep. King overhears rat thing say its name on the last day and tells wife about it not knowing rat thing has been helping her. She guesses name and the rat thing runs away.

The Rose Tree: Okay, I am loving the intro for this. Getting like scary stories in the dark vibes. A wicked stepmother kills the stepdaughter with an ax and feeds her to her dad. The little brother buries his sister under a tree and in the Spring that tree blossoms. The sister turns into a bird and sings a creepy song to many people in shops, gaining things of value. She makes it sound like it is thundering with a stone and drops gifts for her father and brother. When the stepmother walks out to see if the "thunder" brought her a gift, the stepdaughter/bird drops a stone on the stepmother's head and she dies. That's karma!

Binnorie: I wanted to take notes because this is also supposed to be a crime story. I am now thinking I could write my own crime story and just use these two as inspiration. Two sisters meet a man named Sir William who falls in love with the older sister. The younger sister was very beautiful and instead fell for her, forgetting the older sister. This angered the older sister so she pushed the younger into a river and she drowned. A father and daughter pulled her out but it was too late. A harpist passed and saw the body, remembering her beautiful face. When he returned, only her bones and hair remained. He made a harp out of her breast bone which just seems gross but okay. He brought the harp to the castle where the younger daughter's parents, sister, and Sir William were. The harp started playing itself and sang a song that revealed what the older sister had done. The harp then broke and never played again. It may be fun to do a trial about the aftermath and what happened to the sister?