Once upon a time...
500 New Fairytales Discovered in Germany
I think this is awesome. The story linked from the article (The Turnip Princess) doesn't completely make sense (I wonder if part of the narrative is missing?), but I'll definitely want to check these out when the translations are released. Honestly, this is the first time I've wished I'd learned to read German. This article says there is some overlap with more familiar collections, but also some that are not collected in other places. Exciting!
This reminds me that I've been wanting to reread some of the fairy tales I already know, and to read more of the ones I don't. Also? It's been way too long since I went full nerd on a new (to me) mythology. Any recommendations? A lot of us go through a good bit of the Greco/Roman stories, but what other mythology have you read that you'd suggest? And, if you're a fairy tale reader, what's your favorite? I honestly don't know what my favorite traditional fairy tale is -- that's why I want to reread them. It occured to me when Disney's Beauty and the Beast was rereleased that I couldn't actually remember the source material. My favorite fairy tales are actually adaptations of fairy tales: 1) things based on Beauty and the Beast and 2) Sondheim's Into the Woods. For the former, Cocteau's 1946 La Belle et la Bête left a lasting impression (I think Beast's human face at the end is a nice touch); Disney's Beauty and the Beast (which, in my opinion, gets Beast's human form TOTALLY WRONG) is, hands down, my favorite Disney movie; and my beloved Gargoyles (also, surprisingly, Disney) is, at the very least, Beauty and the Beast adjacent, even going so far as to put Elisa Maza in Belle's dress for part of an episode. Yeah, it was corny. And by corny, I mean awesome.
Into the Woods mashes up and fractures Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, Rapunzel, and Cinderella (and features amusing cameos by a couple of other recognizable fairy tales). I wonder how long it wil be before people start to fracture these new fairy tales.