By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
In some ways Scandinavia’s answer to the tale of Aladdin and the Magic Lamp, ‘The Tinder Box’ was one of Hans Christian Andersen’s first fairy tales. ‘The Tinder Box’ contains a number of common fairy-tale tropes: the magic helper with the ability to grant wishes, the ‘rags to riches’ motif, a witch, and a beautiful princess trapped in a castle.
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle enjoys a new translation of the classic fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm
Snow White, Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretel, and Rumpelstiltskin: these names are among those we meet during our earliest years, with the stories they summon never leaving our psyches. Others are better-known under other titles now, at least in the English-speaking world: Little Red-Cap as Little Red Riding-Hood, Ashypet as Cinderella, Briar-Rose as Sleeping Beauty. But the stories are as familiar.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
First published in 1819, ‘Rip Van Winkle’ is one of the most famous pieces of writing by Washington Irving, whose contribution to American literature was considerable. ‘Rip Van Winkle’ has become a byword for the idea of falling asleep and waking up to find the familiar world around us has changed.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Published in 1836 in Danish, ‘Thumbelina’ or ‘Tommelise’ is one of Hans Christian Andersen’s most popular fairy stories. Before he became famous throughout Europe and went to stay (and outstay his welcome) at Dickens’s house, Andersen was busy writing some of the most familiar fairy tales in European literature.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘The King of Colchester’s Daughters’, also known by the title ‘The Three Heads in the Well’, is one of England’s oldest native fairy tales. Sharing some plot similarities with more famous tales such as Cinderella and Charles Perrault’s ‘Diamonds and Toads’, it is a tale in which kindness is rewarded and selfishness is punished, as in all good fairy stories. Below, we offer a summary of ‘The Three Heads in the Well’, along with some notes towards an analysis of this old tale about the King of Colchester and his very different daughters.