Top 5 Wednesday – Favorite Retellings

This week I could give you a hundred of retellings I want to read, but somehow I only read a few. I guess I’ll have to make it my goal for the next year 😀 especially since I’ve already bought some of these books.

Here are my Top 5 choices for this week’s theme:

5

Grimm Diaries Prequels #1-6 by Cameron Jace – yes, I know there are more of these and that there’s an actual book after (It’s on my TRB list and I already have it so…), but I really enjoyed these prequels. The author manages to give these stories some twist, some fresh look and I enjoyed reading them. I can’t say I liked all the stories, but I still enjoyed the set.

4

Enchanted by Alethea Konti – Oh I know I already mentioned this book last week, but I liked it 😀 I can’t help it, you know, so here it is again. It’s also another series that I want to continue reading. Enchanted is a retelling of a princess and a frog tale, where Sunday meets her frog, kisses him and then the story actually starts – with her falling hopelessly for him and with both of them finding out about their past.

Grimm Fairy Tales episode 9

I know I’m posting this late (again), but to be honest – I suffer from a strong case of autumn laziness at the moment. It’s good I’m not joining anything like NaNoWriMo because I would fail miserably ;). By the way – I hope everyone is doing great with their writing. I really envy you guys. Good luck!

Now, since I’ve missed two Sunday posts already, I’m thinking about taking a break with these posts. I will post the 10th episode next week and I’m going to stop it for a month. So December will be Grimm-free. I will find something else to write about then. I hope you won’t be mad at me, but I think it’s better to take a break rather than write something boring.

Now back to the Grimm tales – in this episode there are four rather short tales I didn’t know and one that I liked as a child.

Fairytale by t1na

In today’s episode:

1. The Heavenly Marriage
2. The Three Languages
3. Clever Elsie
4. The Tailor in Heaven
5. The Magic Table, the Gold-Donkey, and the Club in the Sack

The Heavenly Marriage

This is basically a story about a man who found his faith. A nice tale, but with a standard depressing ending. At least from my point of view it is depressing because I don’t like people dying, no matter what awaits them after death.

Still, it’s a lovely tale about faith and people’s good nature. Even though this man didn’t know anything about God etc he still felt at home when he came to church.

Grimm Fairy Tales episode 8

This week has a mix of stories that just got into my top 10 favorite Grimm tales and the ones that made no sense.

Fairytale by t1na

In today’s episode:

1. The Little Old Lady
2. The Devil With the Three Golden Hairs
3. The Louse and the Flea
4. The Girl Without Hands
5. Clever Hans

I’m afraid I will spoil every other tale for you. The first one is very short and it’s hard to get to the point without telling too much. The third and fifth tales were one of the WTF-just-happened tales and even though I will tell you what happened, maybe you should just read them and tell me that they actually do make sense.

The Little Old Lady

Let’s start with a rather peaceful tale from the “Children’s legends” section. The old lady is a story of a woman who lived for very long and had seen many of her friends and family die. When the last person she loved passed away she was very depressed. One day when she was walking through town she heard church bells calling for mass. She was surprised because it wasn’t the time for it.

When she goes into the church she sees everyone who she loved and cared for and who passed away. She also sees a scene of something that might have happened if some of those people haven’t died when they did.

Grimm Fairy Tales episode 7

Today we’ve got a tale about a certain little girl in a pretty recognizable red hood among the five chosen ones.

Fairytale by t1na

In today’s episode:

1. The Blessed Virgin’s Little Glass
2. The Seven Ravens
3. Little Red Cap
4. Town Musicians of Bremen
5. The Singing Bone

This episode will be a short one. I have little time to write this today and the stories I read didn’t leave me with much to tell either.

The Blessed Virgin’s Little Glass

The first story this week is a really short one. Barely few sentences telling us about a man, whose wagon got stuck and Mary, who wanted to help in exchange for some wine to drink. Since the man didn’t have a glass, Mary gave him a flower to put the wine in and she drunk from that flower.

To sum it up, everyone got what they needed, everyone went on happy and a flower got a new name. At least the story says so, but I never heard of a flower called Mary’s glass.

Moral: Help others and they will help you.