Week 13 Reading B: English Fairytales


This image depicts Molly Whuppie. Image


Henny-Penny: An acorn falls from a tree and hits Henny Penny on the head.  Henny Penny believes that the sky is falling and proceeds to journey the king and share her news. Along the way, Henny Penny acquires a group of characters who want to tell the king as well. Before they reach the king, they run into Foxy Loxy. Foxy Loxy offers to show a "short cut" to the king's palace and the group follows. Foxy Loxy eats the group and no one shares news with the king.

Molly Whuppie: Molly Whuppie is a female trickster, an underdog who outsmarts her adversary, the giant. The story describes how she internalizes the sad abandonment by her parents and becomes resilient, willing to take on and complete the three quests set by the king. She seizes on he opportunity to secure a better place for herself and her sisters. It is this sense of having control over one’s actions, of having the power to change one’s station in life that makes this story precious. We see in the Molly Whuppie story perhaps the story of our society; today, there still remains a great divide between the few who are wealthy and the masses who are not. Through modern media, we are increasing confronted with stories of innocent victims of life’s tragedies who are left to fend for themselves. Some will survive, some will not.

Mr Fox: The story is about a fair maiden named Lady Mary who has two brothers and a lot of lovers, where the most valiant of them, Mr. Fox was a mysterious man that Mary cared for alone more than the others, so much so, she agreed to marry him. When discussing the place where they would live, he discussed the castle, but did not ask anyone she knew to come see it. Shortly before the wedding, Mr. Fox was out on business and she decided to visit his castle, finally she found it. After going through a gate, doorway, up the stairs there was a final warning written, but because she felt she was brave, Mary continued on, finding many bloody skeletons of young ladies! Witnessing Mr. Fox bringing in an unconscious young lady, she witnessed him kill her with a sword! She escaped, but was still in the marriage contract with him, telling him that she had bad dreams and explained it to him, showing him a ring that she found even though he denied it. The story ends with her brothers drawing their swords cutting him into a thousand pieces.

Johnny-Cake A boy watches a johnny-cake as it is baking, when suddenly the johnny-cake jumps out of the oven and rolls out of the house!  The boy calls to his mom and dad, who are working outside, that their johnny-cake has escaped!  The three of them pursue Johnny-cake, but end up being too slow.  Johnny-cake continues running and challenges other creatures, including well-diggers, ditch diggers, a bear, and a wolf to outrun him.  All of them are no match for the arrogant Johnny-cake.  Finally Johnny-cake approaches a sly fox and exclaims, for the last time, that he can outrun him.  The fox responds, "I can't quite hear you, Johnny-cake, won't you come a little closer?"  Johnny repeats himself and the fox says, "You can, can you?"  And the fox snaps Johnny-cake in his sharp teeth.

Mr Miacca:

The Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heugh: In the Kingdom of Northumbria, a kind king in Bamburgh Castle takes a beautiful but cruel witch as his queen after his wife's death. The King's son, Childe Wynd, has gone across the sea and the witch, jealous of the beauty of the king’s daughter, Princess Margaret, and quick to take advantage of Wynd’s absence, turns her into a dragon. Later in the story, the prince returns and, instead of fighting the dragon, kisses it, restoring the princess to her natural form. He then turns the witch-queen into a toad and becomes king.

The Ass, The Table and the Stick: In this folktale a boy works for a year and is given a magic donkey. A man tricks him out of it, so he works for another year and is given a magic table. The same man tricks him out of this. For his next job, the boy gets a magic stick. This helps him get his ass and table back, as well as to marry his true love… but in a rather cruel way. This makes readers wonder whether he deserved all the magical help!

Fairy Ointment: 

Bibliography: Joseph Jacobs, English Fairytales. Un-Textbook

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