The following is a fairytale I read to a child this week. A child. From a book of children’s fairytales. It was as blunt and bizarre as this retelling.
The Three Little Birds. There is a powerful King out riding through the realm with a whole crew of impressive attendants. Three delightful sisters spot them and take turns exclaiming to each other: “I think the King is fabulous”, “well I think the rider on his right is the finest”, “sure but to me the rider on the left is the best”. So in many ways it’s quite neat. The King manages to hear this exchange and bails the three sisters up at the feast that night. “Do you really think I’m great?” He asks the first, and most delightful sister. “Oh yep” she replied. So that settled that and there were 3 weddings without delay. 9 months later the King goes on a hunting trip, the Queen is pregnant, her sisters have turned violently against her and when she gives birth to a lovely boy, and heir to the throne, the sisters take the child and throw him in the river. Hectic turn in the story! You also need to know that immediately after the river throwing, a little bird rose up and sang a spooky song in a human language to the sisters. They were freaked. The King come back, they told him his wife gave birth to a literal dog, “which we chucked in the river”. The King brushed it off and started planning his next hunting trip. Meanwhile a fisherman was down at the river and rescued the helpless child. He and his wife had always wanted a child and they took the babe in. Now, because it’s a fairytale and we need some pattern build up for the morals to hit home, the whole thing is repeated: hunting trip, baby, dodgy sisters, river, haunting bird song and the fisherman’s family growing. The next year it’s all the same except this time it’s a girl, which is called a cat by the inexplicably cruel and false sisters when they explain the whole river thing again to the King. By this stage the King’s had enough - Queen to the dungeon and three kids in the fisherman’s house. Alright that’s the set up for the strange stuff that’s coming. I know, right! The story now slam cuts 15 years into the future, Queen still in the dungeon, kids growing up great, starting to ask some questions though. When the fishermen lets slip that he found them all in the river, the eldest boy goes out into the world to seek his parents. He searches long with little luck, but a mystic old woman kind of helps him at one point by carrying him over a lake. Still, no good finding dad. A year later the second son repeats the search, including cryptic lake lady who knows they’re searching for their father. Finally the daughter heads out to search, she meets the old lady who gives her this totally hectic series of instructions: “take this wand as far as you can along this road until you find a castle, watch out for the big black dog on the road, ignore it. Put the wand down on the castle step, go through the castle into the backyard, you’ll find a fountain with a tree in it and a bird in a cage in the branches. Get the bird, get a cup of fountain water, come back out and get the wand. Then go to the dog, hit it in the face with the wand and come back to me.” The daughter likes the sound of all this and goes for it. On her way back from the castle, before the dog, she finds her brothers, no dramas. Then she swacks the dog with the wand who instantly turns into a handsome prince. All four of them head back to the woman who is pumped. She carried them across the lake a final time then disappears as “she is free”. We don’t know from what and she doesn’t return to the story. They head home to the fishermen’s house, put the caged bird on the wall and the cup of fountain water on a shelf and relax. Except for the middle son who heads out to the forest. He bumps into the King who’s back hunting, again. He loves it. The King notices something about the young man and accepts an invite back to the fish house. Suddenly the bird in the cage starts singing a song that reveals the whole mystery. The King, his three kids, the handsome price and the cup of fountain water all head back to the castle to release the mum who’s been in the dungeon this whole time. She’s super sick after all these years but the cup of water instantly cures her. Brilliant. That’s pretty much the end. Jarring right? I’m going to quote the final line of the story directly as I think it perfectly reflects the blunt intensity of the story. “But the two false sisters were burnt, and the daughter married the prince.” Sleep well my darling.
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AuthorHigh school teacher Archives
September 2023
CategoriesThemes |