The Farmer’s Clever Daughter is one of my favorite lesser known tales by the Brother’s Grimm and the story that inspired me to start the Erstwhile series. This story introduces some very rare aspects of fairy tales; a clever, self-sufficient female lead, no magical elements at all to help or hinder her, and very little violence.
As with many fairy tales, the main characters are not given names, which is okay with me. I love to research name meanings for my characters. Velinda’s name is an Ancient Germanic expression meaning “Crafty.” Very fitting for the clever daughter. The king’s name is Lennart which is also Ancient Germanic name and means “Lion strength.” It seemed like a nice strong name for a king.
If you’ve read my other comics, you’ll have noticed big changes in the art and coloring style in this story compared to my other works. I went for a very storybook-ish feel, using a brush pen and no rulers for the line work. I do hope you like it!
Hi! Just wanted to pop in and say that I’m really digging Erstwhile thus far. Your adaption of the Farmer’s Clever Daughter was downright lovely.
DID NOT SEE THAT COMING.
Bravo *clap!clap!clap!* BRAVO
Very sweet. More please!
I’m so happy that you did this fairytale for it is one of my favorites, along with The Small Tooth Dog, Mossycoat, The Black Bull of Norway…but hardly anyone knows them!
I’m really glad that the advert for this story took me straight to the same story it was advertising. Nice job on that. ANd because of that I got to read this great story. Thanks!
Well done! It has been a while since I read Grimm stories and am enjoying this adaptation. Thank you.
This is wonderful! I’m so glad I read it. I’ve always liked your art style, but I really love the way you adapted it for this story.
This is absolutely lovely. I have always liked this story. Thank you for doing such a great job!
This is wonderful! Playing around with the lesser known tales, thank you!
Such a sweet fairy tale I do hope you keep up the lovely work :)
I just wanted to write and tell you how very much I enjoyed this story. As soon as I began reading, I could not stop clicking ‘next’ until I had reached the final page.
The story was mesmerizing, and the art is beautiful and fits the tone of the tale quite well. You should have a hit on your hands. Thank you so much for sharing your talents. :)
This is a nice story, and I love the art, also the fact that there’s an intelligent female role, but what I don’t understand is why she agreed to marry the man who locked up her father and, in general, seems to be a jerk! I know you’re trying to retell stories, not make up new ones, but this seems implausible to me. Velinda obviously isn’t too smart if she marries a man just to show she’s good at solving riddles. Unless, of course, she’s just doing it for the money, which doesn’t say too much about her either.
The thing about this time period is that women were still generally looked upon as property and marriage for women was used more as a strategy than for love. Velinda would have eventually been married off to someone, but the fact that she was able to marry the king would be considered very lucky. It’s not ideal in our day and age, of course.
I was also under the impression that she had some sort of love for the King even before the riddle proposed by him. When he first entered the story (after the blue pages), she looks at him with blush strokes on her cheeks. I also don’t think that feeling died when he locked up her father, just stored away for the moment being.
Also, solving the riddle was the pruice to get her father released from prison. Marrying her was thrown in as an extra.
What I love about this is that while yes Lennart is a jerk as per the fairytale Gina’s given him little quirks of expression that make him a least a tiny bit more likeable – several times he looks a Velinda with such affection (and she back at him) than you can see the love ^_^ it’s very well done.
He isn’t a mere man, he is king. By marrying him she becomes queen, co-ruler of the nation and eventually mother of the next king or queen.
Bravo! I liked it very much!
Now tell me another story! >:3
Beautiful telling of the story. I liked how it was more visual, than wordy, at least in the earlier parts. That is harder to do than using a lot of dialog and narration. new comic on my favorites list.
Great story. Liked it a lot.
This was incredible! it’s one of my favorite stories, and i loved all your details in the drawings.
What a lovely tale! I’m sorry to have never seen it before! I’ve no doubt you translated it into comic format well. :)
I love but i think i have heard this story somewhere but for the life of me i cant remember but i do recognize that it is a brothers Grimm story
That was wonderful!! I wasn’t familiar with the story before, but I’m sure am going to read it now. Thank you for the lovely adaptation.
I love the idea of this project! I really admire the Grimm brothers and have read a few of their stories, unfortunately they are too many, so I haven’t had the chance to read them all. Great work!
Hehe, so cute. ^_^
Funnily enough, I have heard this story before, but set in Akbar’s court in the 1500s! It was an Akbar-Birbal tale, with much the same plot. Now I will always wonder who had the idea first :/
I’ve always loved this story! The version I read was a Lithuanian tale called ‘Clever Manka’