Monday, May 5, 2014

You Know You're a Fairy Tale Blogger When . . .

Graphic by Gypsy using Dore's illustrations & Debbie's vintage dust jacket project from Confessions of a Plate Addict
(text is the opening lines of Le Chat Botté)

I got tagged in the "You know you're a fairy tale blogger" chain.  So, here goes.
 
I will admit that these might not all be completely true, but I try not to let the truth get in the way of a good story . . .

 You know you're a fairy tale blogger when:

- You sometimes get the urge to shake your fist and shout "Curse you, Disney!"

- You wonder if there are any shades, tones or hues of Andrew Lang you don't own (There’s a Red Fairy Book and a Crimson Fairy Book.  Is there a Scarlet Fairy Book and I missed it?  What about Vermilion?).

 - You not only buy fairy tale related items but items that are only connected by a tangent.  Like a European peasant food cook book so you’d have a sense of what Cinderella ate or an old German card game so you’d know what characters from Grimm’s Fairy Tales might have done in their free time.

- You find yourself recommending obscure folk tales to people who only showed a casual interest in what you blog about.

- You have all your folk tale books organized geographically for easy access.

- You have two favorite fairy tales.  One famous one you grew up with and one you had to discover all on your own.

- You know who Madame d’Aulnoy is.

- You have lively inner debates as to whether certain legends count as fairy tales (for example: King Arthur, Robin Hood and The Pied Piper) and whether you should post about them.

- You sometimes think you know more about the work of writers Alex Flinn, Robin McKinley and Shannon Hale than your local Teen Room librarian does.

- You kick yourself if something fairy tale-ish happens and you didn’t prepare a relevant post about it in time.

- You sometimes get a little peeved that Once Upon a Time keeps using the same old fairy tales everybody knows (Come on, ABC!  Give us something really worth posting about).

- You’re willing to put male pride aside so that you can post about stuff like fairy tale ballets and Ever After High dolls.

- You write long, impassioned posts to try and dispel generalizations about the Brothers Grimm.

- You take being called a fool as a compliment because you know that fools have all the best adventures.

- You sometimes hope that someone will come along and want to trade you magic beans for something.
 
This blog chain started with Kristin at Tales of Faerie.
Then, it got passed to Gypsy at Once Upon a Blog.
Next, it went to Heidi Anne Heiner at the venerable Sur La Lune.
Then, it came to this little ol' Fairy Tale Geek here.
But look out, Tahlia Merrill from Diamonds and Toads and Timeless Tales because "Tag, you're it!"

What is this? From Kristin, of Tales of Faerie:After having a fairy tale blog for years, it really starts to bleed into the rest of your life. Gypsy from Once Upon a Blog and I have been enjoying sharing some of these unique results of our bloggerhood and thought some of you might also have some funny and interesting things to share as well!

10 comments:

  1. Ha! Love this list. I'm not so sure much of that is fictional though... ;) #3 this is 100% true, #9 happens to me every other day, good call on #6 (we'll have to swap notes on those another time!), #8 aaah the overlap zone is irresistible!

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    1. It's the second one that's fictional. I only have The Blue Fairy Book and it's on my kindle (and most of the stories inside are in other books I own). However, I always thought the whole color system for Andrew Lang books was strange and kind of humorous.

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    2. All twelve of Andrew Lang's are available for free from Gutenberg.org in a number of different formats. I haven't read them all, only got as far as Red, but they're on my Kobo, ready when I am!

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  2. I remember reading somewhere that the colors, though they started off with the "common" ones, ended up being "regional" (by country/influence). I'm only vaguely remembering this though - I could be wrong but I do know the collections, especially as they went on, largely stuck to one area of the globe. (I have to say, I actually have them all, several version of blue and red (dover, hard back, etc) but I often get the urge to check to see if I missed any.. and I kinda covet the new Folio versions but on a fairy tale bloggers wage (cough, zero, cough) they're waaay out of my price bracket.

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  3. I...kind of want that European peasant cookbook and old German card game...

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    1. I got the cookbook at a local independent book store. I got the game at Barnes & Noble.

      The cookbook is kind of interesting, especially looking at the recipes from France. There are so many dishes that we think are really fancy cuisine because they're French but it turns out that they're peasant food. Take escargot, for example. People think eating snails is so gourmet, but the book describes how farmers' wives in France would just send their kids out early in the morning to pick snails off the hedgerows so they could fry them up in butter. (I should note that I'm a little bit of a food geek too).

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  4. Yes. I know who Madame D'Aulnoy is. And what's more, *I know how to pronounce her name*. Cause I googled it. Does that make me an Über-Fairy-Tale-Geek?
    And I want a copy of that cookbook, too.

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  5. -Your spouse is a frog prince (or frog tsarevna).
    -Your mailing address is east of the sun and west of the moon.
    Your friends don't take you to the ballet any more because, once too often, you called out, "You call THAT a story!!" --Mary Grace

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    1. Hello, Mary Grace. You know, we really should have invited you to this little game. I thought of it, but I didn't want to interrupt Sagacia and Simplia's good work over at the Lobby.

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  6. So glad I stumbled onto this blog chain! And I completely agree with you about Once Upon a Time.

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