 |
| Reproduced with permission from World Weaver Press. |
Christina Ruth Johnson, “The Stolen
Heart”
What
led you to write a fairy tale about winter? In other words, why this anthology?
I have always been
fascinated by the mythos of winter and, when this anthology was proposed,
realized how few fairy tales have a stereotypical winter setting (cold, snowy,
etc.). There are a handful of tales which one assumes take place in a wintry land,
such as East of the Sun and West of the Moon since it features a
polar bear, but almost none I could think of in which the setting of winter
performs like a character itself. I was eager to explore this concept and bring
a winter fairy tale to life.
What
do you like the most and the least about winter?
What I like most about the
winter season are the vacations away from 80-degrees-one-day-ice-storm-the-next
Texas to go snow-skiing in Colorado with my family. These trips do not happen
as often as they used to, and I look forward to them even more because of that.
Besides skiing, what I love most is the warmth found in wintertime: the warmth
of staying inside with a book and hot chocolate, curled up in PJs and blankets
when the world outside is cold and frozen (and, if you’re in Texas, perhaps
thundersleeting). What do I like least? Inept drivers on icy roads.
What
is your favorite classic fairy tale and why?
My favorite classic fairy
tale is the Norwegian story “East of
the Sun and West of the Moon” (Asbjørnsen and Moe). I of
course love it for the heroine, who is lovely and intrepid and clever, and who
gets to save the prince this time around. I also love it because of its
history. This story is an eerily close retelling of the ancient myth “Eros and Psyche” (“eerily” because it
is so many hundreds of years removed from the original), but with the wonderful
addition of a polar bear, which the heroine gets to ride, and an evil
troll princess as the antagonist in place of Aphrodite (make of that what you
will). There are helpful old women bearing golden gifts, personified winds that
carry the heroine to the uttermost north, and an impossible castle in an
impossible place. What more could you want in a fairy tale?
What led you to write a fairy tale about winter? In other words, why this anthology?
Living in Edmonton,
Canada, has a way of shaping all your stories to fit with the fantastic, fairy
tale-like, near perpetual Winter that envelops the city for most of the year;
like living in the realm of the White Witch from The Lion, The Witch and The
Wardrobe, or stepping into Hans Christian Anderson's: 'The Snow Queen'.
Experiencing that every day, I thought it might be nice to come up with a story
that explains why we living in this modern fairy tale landscape have to get up
half an hour early to dig our cars out from under a nightly avalanche of
snow...just a different way of looking at, and explaining Winter, which is,
ultimately what all fairy tales are about; different ways of explaining the
world around us.
What
do you like the most and the least about winter?
The best part of Winter is
late night walks as the snow falls lightly around; when the cold has chased
most other people and cars and animals away and you feel like you have the
whole world to yourself. Luckily, living in Edmonton, I get plenty of chances
to do this and as an Irishman, I'm always reminded of Joyce's final line in The
Dead: ..."the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly
falling, like the descent of their last end, on all the living and the
dead". Also hot apple cider... The worst part is rather more obvious; the
cold. It gets to -40 Celsius here in Edmonton, and your more or less
confined to the inside of buildings- people can get a little stir crazy.
What
is your favorite classic fairy tale and why?
My favorite fairy
tales growing up were always traditional Irish ones--“Cú Chulainn and the
Hound” (where the Irish hero of legends gets his name by slaying an enormous
hound with his hurl (sort of like a big wooden hockey
stick) and sliotar (ball), or the “Salmon of Knowledge”-- where our hero
burns his thumb while cooking a fish containing wisdom, sucks his thumb, and
becomes wise. I used to have a great book with a huge picture of the salmon,
glittering with reds, greens and purples- even now I swear I can taste the
salmon from that picture. I think my Mum liked me reading that one too, because
it made me stop complaining about having fish for supper.
Anna Salonen, “A Heart of Winter”
What
led you to write a fairy tale about winter? In other words, why this anthology?
We have long, cold winters in Finland, and many Finnish fairy tales are
set in winter, so I thought I’d write one of my own. Winter is beautiful and
magical, but also merciless and cruel. There’s no reasoning with it. Winter has
a cold heart. I tried to capture that in my story.
What
do you like the most and the least about winter?
I love the bright, snowy days when it’s cold, but not too cold for a walk
in the woods or sledding, and the clear winter nights when the moon is so
bright that you can see for miles. I don’t like the slushy, wet days when
the skies are grey and the roads are slippery and it feels like spring will
never come.
What
is your favorite classic fairy tale and why?
It’s hard to pick just one, but “The Six Swans” from
Grimm’s Fairy Tales is a favorite.
It’s very dark, and I like that the princess saves her brothers, not the other
way around.
Stay tuned for my review of Frozen Fairy Tales in the not too distant future.
No comments:
Post a Comment