fairy tale review - Little Ida's Flowers

Little Ida's Flowers

Little Ida hears a rumor that flowers dance during the night.  Little Ida worries about her dying flowers so she gets up to watch them in the night.  She finds all the flowers from her home dancing about and the flowers from the palace even come to dance.  Ida goes to bed and in the morning she buries her dead flowers with her little Norwegian cousins who shoot arrows.

My thoughts include:

1. How did Hans's brain come up with so many words for this story?
2. I thought about how this was the entertainment in 1835.  I am so happy Hans's fairy tales were not my only source of fiction as a child.
3. Why does the last paragraph introduce the two Norwegian cousins?
4. This fairy tale was long and boring.

fairy tale review - Little Claus and Big Claus

Little Claus and Big Claus

Little Claus tells his horse, plus Big Claus's four horses to giddy up.  Big Claus gets mad and kills Little Claus's only horse.  Little C gets lucky when he gets lost on his way to sell his horse's hide.  So Big Clause comes and knocks dead Little C's already dead grandmother.  Little C gets lucky again so Big C ties him up in a sack, takes him to dump him in the river, but stops at church on the way.  Little C gets lucky one more time when Big C is surprised to see Little C with a herd of cattle.  Big C then asks to be thrown in the river to find his own herd of cattle.  Little Claus lives happily ever after.

Thoughts....

• I like that Little Claus wins out here.
• I'm glad Little Claus got rich every time Big Claus tried to take him out.
• I feel a little bad about the two grandmothers in the story.
• I wonder why Big Claus was so stupid.
• The lesson I choose to learn here is: I'm going to watch out for my grandma and I'm never going to call another man's horse my own, even by accident.

fairy tale review - The Tinder Box

This weekend we bought a big book full of the fairy tales written by Hans Christian Andersen.  We are going to lay on the bed in my room and read at least one every night.  I grew up with fairy tales about the house and lots of stories that we've all heard.  Apparently, I'm not completely familiar with many, many fairy tales.  It made me wonder how many people are.  So for fun, I have decided to give a brief, very brief, review of the fairy tales we read.

The Tinder Box

A soldier chops off an innocent passing witch's head to steal her grandmother's tinder box that was deep inside a hollow tree.  He greedily steals away the copper, silver, and gold.  Then, in the night, he has a dog, that's right, a dog, steal the princess from her room to bring her to him to kiss each night.  The dog trickily tries to protect the soldier from the man-hunt.  In the end, the soldier marries the princess and becomes king.

A few thoughts/questions:

1. Why did he chop of the witch's head?
2. Where was the regiment to which he belonged?
3. Why were the dogs' eyes so big?
4. Why didn't the princess wake up after being drug by  dog to a stranger's house?
5. Why wasn't the king and his army smarter than the dogs?
6. What kind of happy ending is "Soldier kills and cheats his way to become king?"
7. I thought fairy tales were supposed to have happy endings.  It could be argued that this was a happy ending for the soldier.  But, what about the witch?  What about the princess who got tricked?  What about the kingdom who got a lying king?
8. What did Hans mean to teach us with this story?
9. I choose to learn: big eyed dogs will get me in trouble.