I first heard this story told by Suzanne Houston at Heads and Tales Story Café in Ringwood three years ago. She had come across it in Doctors on afternoon television, where it provided the framework for a sad story of Afghani refugees. [You can watch it here.] There are various versions on the net, e.g. this one, but when I tell it I’m afraid I emphasise … Continue reading Silver on the Hearth
So – is it poverty of imagination? Or the ability to see the fairytale world in reality? Sleeping Beauty, too, has a real-life, semi-overgrown castle as her model in Ubbelohde’s world. But then the Grimm stories DO take place in sleepy old Germany… and the interiors in Schmidhammer are just as real… Continue reading Rapunzel’s Tower – not IRL!
Lustschlößchen in Amönau (Hesse, Germany) – template for Rapunzel tower – this, in some ways, is what storytellers do: when they describe some fantastic scene or other they usually have something real in their head. Or do you disagree? Continue reading Rapunzelturm
which is a Frog-King in German and Slav languages… Ubbelohde also chooses real buildings as the models for his fairytale settings. Continue reading Ubbelohde’s Frog Prince
which is also the last picture in the book – see what i mean about the use of green – and the forester/huntsman is wearing the traditional costume, like the hunters in Wilhelm Busch or Bugs Bunny, with the leggings! You can find the book at http://www.digibib.tu-bs.de/view_page.php?page=1&nav=+%3E+&minpage=1&max_page=21&suffix=jpg&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdigisrv-1.biblio.etc.tu-bs.de%2Fdocportal%2Fservlets%2FMCRFileNodeServlet%2FDocPortal_derivate_00000164&offset=0 Continue reading Schmidhammer’s bookcover
What a scary forest! What a scary wolf! What a wonderful green he had available for the whole book! Continue reading Schmidhammer’s Little Red Riding Hood
Schmidhammer is an exciting illustrator of Grimm stories whom I’ve just discovered – and I want to keep quiet about the books he illustrated during WW1. Continue reading Arpad Schmidhammer’s version of The Golden Goose
This is by Victor Vasnetsov, and brings a certain Russian realism to the world of Araby. I haven’t yet read a story from the Arabian Nights which contains a flying carpet. Flying horses, yes, flying carpets, no. I feel I would need to know exactly what kind of carpet it was, and where it was woven, and by whom, before I would trust it. Remember, … Continue reading The Magic Carpet
I’ve already mentioned them on my page on Russian Tales, the knights-errant from Kiev, but here is Viktor Vasnetsov’s painting of the three most famous, whose adventures are told in various byliny: Dobryna Nikitich [the courageous one] is on the left, Alyosha Popovich [the clever one] is on the right, and Ilya of Murom [the honest one] is in the middle. A full-length 1956 film about … Continue reading Bogatyri
Russian Tales have pictures in them that are every bit as bright as the pictures that Ivan Bilibin creates. Indeed, there are few artists whose works fit the tales they illustrate as well as his. These are the pictures I see in my head. These are the pictures I want to get into yours. This picture is the beginning of The Frog Princess. Three princes … Continue reading Skazki
WholeTale 