Steve Shilstone's Blog, page 28

Amzo, mother of

Lorelei Lo, mother of

Lovey, mother of

Ambergold, mother of

Lady May, who had one son and no daughters, but her twin brother was the father of

the lively triplets, Wun, Tuu and Thrii

Hans Christian Andersen wrote quite a good long fairy tale and called it The Snow Queen. Andrew Lang included a version of it in his Pink Fairy Book. The story begins in the Pink Fairy Book as follows:

There was once a dreadfully wicked hobgoblin. One day he was in capital spirits because he had made a looking-glass which reflected everything that was good and beautiful in such a way that it dwindled almost to nothing, but anything that was bad and ugly stood out very clearly and looked much worse.

Now in my nice red volume of Hans Andersen’s Fairy Tales, the story opens like this:

Listen! We are beginning our story! When we arrive at the end of it we shall, it is hoped, know more than we know now. There was once a magician! a wicked magician!! a most wicked magician!!! Great was his delight at having constructed a mirror possessing this peculiarity, viz., that everything good and beautiful, when reflected in it, shrank up almost to nothing, whilst those things that were ugly and useless were magnified, and made to appear ten times worse than before.

You can probably guess which one I think is the best.

This cover will be joining its 4 siblings over there on the right after the publication of The Blue Hills on July 10 by Wild Child Publishing (http://www.wildchildpublishing.com).

Speaking of giants and beanstalks, in Walt Disney’s version of the story, Willie the Giant does not growl terribly:

‘Fe, fi, fa-fo-fum,

I smell the blood of an Englishman.

Be he alive or be he dead,

I’ll grind his bones to make my bread.’

No. He sings instead:

‘Fe, fi, fo, fum,

He, hi, ho, hum,

I’m a most amazing guy.

A most amazing guy am I.’

No blood or bone grinding to be found. I had the record of this story when I was young and I loved it, particularly Goofy’s song about:

‘Turkey, lobster, sweet potato pie,

pancakes piled up ’til they reach the sky,

wawa wawa wawa wawa wawa wawa wawaaaaaa

I’m gonna eat and eat and eat and eat and eat until I die.’

Oh, yes, and I remember when the singing harp softly sang:

‘In his right vest pocket you’ll find the key.

In his right vest pocket, go carefully.’

Rhymes from stories seem to stubbornly stick in the brain, don’t they?

I wandered through Andrew Lang’s Red Fairy Book the other day and came across the tale of ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’. Now, it so happens that when I was growing up, the Giant recited:

‘Fe fi fo fum,

I smell the blood of an Englishman.

Be he alive or be he dead,

I’ll grind his bones to make my bread.’

But here, in Andrew Lang’s Red Fairy Book, the giant says:

‘Fe, fa, fi-fo-fum,

I smell the breath of an Englishman.

Let him be alive or let him be dead,

I’ll grind his bones to make my bread.’

I like the ‘fa’. I think I’ll include it from now on, and it does make more sense that the Giant could smell Jack’s breath easier than Jack’s blood, especially if Jack had been eating onions or garlic. Right? And because it sounds more Gigantic to me, I’ll keep ‘be he’ over ‘let him be’. And how a helpful Fairy flew into the Jack story in the Red Fairy Book, I’ll never know.

When Ambergold was the Queeeeen

no sadder monarch had been seeeeen.

She suffered woe

on top of woe,

yet sheltered hope uncommon keeeeen.

Is there any creature dimmer than a darbeast flooce?

Its brain is a particle of no apparent use.

It waddles all day

in a random way

and at night just stands there like an empty-headed moose.

Oh, what a creature is Dak the Jroon!

He controls the rise of the great Ledgemoon.

His gray storm eyes

can mesmerize

or whip the wide sea to a roaring typhoon!

A beautiful witch-maiden explains the powers of a precious gold ring in ‘The Dragon of the North’, a fairy tale in Andrew Lang’s Yellow Fairy Book, which I read eagerly a long, long time ago.

She says: “If I put the ring on the little finger of my left hand, then I can fly like a bird through the air wherever I wish to go. If I put it on the third finger of my left hand I am invisible, and I can see everything that passes around me, though no one can see me. If I put the ring on the middle finger of my left hand, then neither fire nor water nor any sharp weapon can hurt me. If I put it on the forefinger of my left hand, then I can with its help produce whatever I wish. I can in a single moment build houses or anything I desire. Finally, as long as I wear the ring on the thumb of my left hand, that hand is so strong that it can break down rocks and walls.”

A ring like that could definitely come in handy.

I was 8 years old when I read this comic book story by Dick Moores in 1952. And what a great story it was. I mean, look, I’m posting about it 60 years later! An old car bought by Goofy is possessed by the spirit of its creator, who was cheated out of his invention way back in the early 1900s. Ghostly possession, historical flashback, it’s a real page turner, all between the covers of a Mickey Mouse comic book. Good stories can and do show up in all kinds of places.