Friday, October 29, 2010

Fairy Tale Fridays: The Juniper Tree

Special Thanks to my Personal Faery Friend for the Button Art: Ye Olde Faery Shoppe 

This week's selection for Fairy Tale Fridays is The Juniper Tree by The Brothers Grimm . . . a tale that may just be perfect for the season of spook!

The tale begins with a plot that we have heard before . . . a happy couple that is unable to have children.  Thanks to a juniper tree and a cut to the finger, the much wanted blessing arrives.  Unfortunately, the new mother dies a "delighted" death.  The father eventually remarries, the new wife bears another child, now resulting in two children . . . an elder son and a younger daughter.  As time goes by, the wife finds that she detests the boy and in an act of rage, decapitates the step-child.  She covers up her crime by making her daughter feel the blame . . .  and from there, I encourage you to read the remainder of the story to discover the ending on your own!

The Juniper Tree is a tale that starts out with a bit of blood, moves almost immediately to violence and gore, and ends with a bang . . . or crash, to be more exact!  I can't really tell you if I enjoyed it or hated it.  It's a tale that is disturbing and leaves me thinking violent crimes against children have sadly been around for a long time.  Justice may have been served, but I am still left saddened and feeling uncomfortable by the final word.  Since I simply cannot think of anything else, I guess I will just leave you with two final words . . .

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Do you have any other thoughts to add about this tale?  Any recommendations on additional spooky tales to celebrate the weekend?

UPCOMING TALES:
Friday, November 5th:  Fairy Tale Food & Fun (more details to come!)
Friday, November 12th:  "The Tale of the Three Brothers" from The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling
Friday, November 19th:  The Ear of Corn by The Brothers Grimm
Friday, November 26th:  FTF Thanksgiving Break!


3 comments:

  1. This was definitely a good one for Halloween weekend - very disturbing and quite creepy!

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  2. Another great Fairy Tale Fridays post. I am ashamed to say I've never heard of The Juniper Tree, so this post was super interesting for me.

    To give you the heads-up, I won't be around nearly as much as I would like to be. I know I said I wasn't, but I am participating in NaNoWriMo in November. It's all because if I do my 50,000 words, I get 50% off of this cool writing software...and it's really cool. :)

    I'll see you on Twitter for sure and Facebook, but it will be a quick in and out thing. December will be back to normal though.

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  3. lisa :) . . . Very much agreed!!

    J. Kaye . . . Good luck this month!!! I can't wait to hear if you get to take advantage of that deal!!! And, I'm glad you found this one interesting!

    ReplyDelete

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