Since this site is all about fairy tales we want to know; What’s YOUR favorite fairy tale and why? It doesn’t necessarily have to be a tale by the Grimm brothers. Don’t be shy. We’d love to hear what you have to say!
Erstwhile
Fairy Tale Comics Grimm Brothers Folk Tales
Fairy Tales have captured our hearts for generations, appealing to our taste for adventure, horror, and romance. Erstwhile gives the lesser-known Brothers Grimm Tales the spotlight in these delightful comic adaptations.
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I have to pick one? I can’t choose. It’s either Tattercoats or Kate Crackernuts
Hm. I suppose that since “Tam Lin” is technically a ballad and not a fairy tale, then I’ll say “The Snow Queen”. :) I’m ‘also partial to “The Twelve Dancing Princesses.”
The White Cat
http://fairytales4u.com/story/whitecat.htm
Susan
I agree with Eilonwy up there. The Twelve Dancing Princesses has always been a favorite of mine. And if I hadn’t been so daft as to leave my fairy tale books at home when I came to college, I’d have more titles for you. As is, I don’t have any. ^^;
My super-all time favorite fairy tale is “Little Red Riding Hood”, but I’m also fond of “Dog and Sparrow” and “The Buried Moon”.
~*KA*~
I always loved “The Robber’s Bride.” So creepy, but the girl keeps her cool and triumphs in the end.
Iron Henry! (or Iron Heinrich in the original German) one of the lesser known Grimm tales, but a very epic story, long, and good ending, would be perfect for Erstwhile.
Snow White and Rose Red. :D
I loved the stories “Cap ‘o’ Rushes,” “The Bargain Shop,” and “Wild Swans.”
A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
What? Don’t look at me like that. It has faeries in it! It totally counts!
But speaking of things for Erstwhile, didn’t you do one where a guy chooses a wife based on how a girl eats her cheese?
The Black Thief and Knight of the Glen is my most recent favourite. :)
East of the Sun and West of the Moon
Seconded!
Aye!
Absolutely! I’ve always loved East of the Sun, West of the Moon. One of the few stories where the girl has to do the rescuing. :)
The Juniper Tree. Twisted but wonderful, as are most of the old tales.
http://www.authorama.com/grimms-fairy-tales-40.html
I have so many favorite fairy tales!! Especially: The Coat of Many Colors, Snow White and Rose Red, and the Twelve Dancing Princesses.
I quite like Little One-Eye, Little Two-Eyes, and Little Three-Eyes, and the Three Oranges.
I love Little One-Eye, Little Two-Eyes, and Little Three-Eyes, also The Goose girl! Little One-Eye, Little Two-Eyes, and Little Three-Eyes is like a better version of Cinderella.
Beauty and the Beast. Just…anyone coming into loving someone who had the appearance of such a horrid creature was…touching to me. As it was, I felt so horrid for the poor Beast.
I doubt this counts, but I like “Swan Lake” — mainly for Peter Tchaikovsky’s music.
The Emperor’s New Clothes and Puss in Boots.
Ug, that’s a hard one since I grew up on fairy tales. It’s a tie between Sleeping Beauty, All fur (I think that’s the title), Brother and Sister, and East of the Sun and West of the Moon.
I have always loved the story of Snow White and Rose Red.
I love Beauty and the Beast so much that I know the evolutionary history of the story and have read and watched so many variations. Other stories I enjoy include Toads and Diamonds (the one where the one sister gets blessed to speak or cry diamonds while the other sister is given toads). A more modern favorite is The Light Princess.
Bearskin and All-Kinds-Of-Fur are my favorites, but I like what everyone else has put. Pretty much… I like all fairy tales ^^
East of the Sun, West of the Moon! I love it so much!
Can’t think of any others right now, though…
I really like “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” also.
The Wild Swans, Snow White and Rose Red, Sleeping Beauty, among others.
The Little Mermaid, with the original unedited ending because of the extent of her love/sacrifice. Also quite partial to The Girl With No Hands.
I’m just going to make a list and leave it here.
Tam Lin
The Red Shoes
The Girl Without Hands
Bearskin
The Boy Who Drew Cats
Cap O’ Rushes
The One Handed Girl
The Singing Bone
What Came of Picking Flowers
I can’t believe nobody has mentioned Finst the Bright Falcon! It’s always been one of my favorites.
Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Nightingale”!
May favourites are Snow White and Rose Red and Sweetheart Rowland :)
Also The Girl With No Hands!
I think Cap O’ Rushes would be my favourite.
As to why (I’ll try not to spoil it for those that don’t know it):
There’s nobody cruel in it. The heart of the story is about a misunderstanding (and those exist in real life). When things go wrong the main character doesn’t become bitter.
The Red Shoes. I don’t know why, I just love it.
I have always loved the red shoes. I remember watching the ballet with my mother and the story was so beautiful and tragic.
I was always a fan of con game stories, so Puss In Boots was probably my favorite growing up. However, Brave Little Tailor was always the favorite of my brother, and that one’s probably my second favorite.
Hmm…I’d say either the Tinder Box or the Snow Queen :)
Bearskin and The Girl Without Hands
The Little Matchstick Girl
I’d have to say East of the Sun, West of the Moon. There’s a great novel adaptation of the tale that I read once, called ‘North’
Whoopsie, it was called “East”. I misremembered because there is a child born to the North direction of the compass, and she’s the protagonist
The Snow Queen has always been a favorite
I have a lot of favorite stories, but I’m not sure what qualifies one as a “fairy tale”. Is it the inclusion of fantasy elements, is it the fact that it is many years old, or that it has to a certain extent become ingrained in public consciousness, who decides which tales are fables or not?
http://hca.gilead.org.il/sandhill.html
The Story of a Mother
It has always creeped me out, and the ending is quite beautiful.
If I were to pick a Grimm Brother tale then it would probably be the tale of The Frog King. I always was fascinated by that tale though I don’t know why. lol
But if I were to choose absolutely any author and one tale then I dont even have to think more than a second. The Wild Swans by Hans Christian Anderson. I own a book with that story in it depicting beautiful pictures and I love reading the REAL story done by different artists. :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wild_Swans
I love this story too! Have you read Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier? It’s a very moving reworking of the story (and the first book of a fascinating series), I just love that book. The Grimm version is The Six Swans:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Swans
I would actually love to see any of Hans Christian Anderson’s stories here.
Jorinde and Joringel
I liked that the hero not only saves his fiance but also the other women, and takes away the witch’s powers so she can never trap anyone again. :)
Same one I was going to suggest. I always loved this one.
I’ve always been fond of Little One Little Two Little Three Eyes, it’s such a great fairytale :).
East of the Sun, West of the Moon
The 12 Dancing Princesses
are nice stories.
A particular favourite is Beauty and the Beast. I love how in this story, it’s really Beauty who saves the day (and her hero). Also, the story does not involve great deeds of courage or fantastic magic – it’s merely the story of two people getting to know one another and learning to look past differences and illusions to what lies beneath.
But my favouritest story of all time is The Little Mermaid. I like how in this story, the mermaid is the actor of the plot – she saves the prince, goes to the sea witch to get her legs, and in the end makes the choice to spare the prince’s life – at every step, the choices are hers. There are so many layers of complexity in this story. For example, you could interpret this story with the prince as the true ‘villain’ (if there is even one) and not the sea witch. The sea witch keeps her end of the bargain and even gives the mermaid a chance to back out of the deal. If anything, it’s the prince’s blindness, his inability to look beyond the surface and see the true self of the mermaid that results in tragedy for the mermaid.
I might be a biased Dane, but I love H.C. Anderson. A lot of them are quite atypical, since the have very sad endings (Don’t let Disney fool you, the little mermaid commits suicide in the real story!).
I also love East of the Sun and West of the Moon.
My favorite H.C. Anderson fairytales are: “The Wild Swans” (yet another princess saving the day), “The Swine Boy” (poor boy fooling the conceited princess), “The Nightinggale”, “The Ugly Duckling” and “The Story of a Mother”.
He has an amazing way of writing for both young and old, filled with social realism and magic. If you haven’t read any of these stories, try them out. :)
East of the Sun, West of Moon because the girl says the guy instead and through typical female tasks. Take that extreme feminests who say domestic task are degrading to women
Why the fish laughed. I also love the Rumpelstiltskin story, “The Price” by Patricia Briggs from the anthology Silver Birch, Blood Moon. And of course, if you love fairy tales you have to read Ella Enchanted.
The Legend of Teddy Bear, my Father’s version of Old King Cole, Cinderella, The beauty and the Beast (forgive me for not spelling it in French), and a lot of the modern retaling of the classic fairy tales (example the Sister’s Grimm)
The story of the boy who went forth to learn fear (Fairy Tale Theatre with Shelly Duval did it when I was a kid), East of the sun and west of the moon, Clever Elsa and Clever Hans. Also, Momotaro and now I am reading some Korean stories about the Dokkebi. They remind me of the Norwegian troll tales.
My favorite well-known one is “Jack and the Bean-Stalk”. My favorite of the more obscure ones is “How Six Comrades Got On in the World”.
My favorite is definitely The Enchanted Wreath.
I love it because the Prince marries the girl with no greedy motive, like in several other fairy tales. Also, there’s room in the fairy tale for actual real motives and storytelling. I always like to over-play the witch. :P
I love “”The Wild Swans”. There was an old cartoon movie about it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wild_Swans
It’s pretty similar to the fairytale by the brothers Grimm, “The Six Swans”.
I also love Beauty and the Beast in all sorts of retellings. C=
No one has recommended it, so the Sea-Hare.
I too really like “The Twelve Wild Swans” and “Rumpelstiltskin”
But the fairy tail I really love, and must be my favourite must be “East of the Sun, West of the Moon” or “Østenfor Sol og Vestenfor Måne” as it is called in Norwegian C=
The Black Bull of Norway
I’ve recently read a fairy tale called Gwinna, which I really loved. http://www.amazon.com/Gwinna-Barbara-Helen-Berger/dp/039921738X
I always loved the female-centered Tatterhood stories as a child. http://www.amazon.com/Tatterhood-Other-Tales-Johnston-Phelps/dp/0912670509. I also remember having a really beautiful collection of Perrault’s fairy tales, which I liked but was also terrified by Blackbeard.
I also like Maria Morevna, http://www.artrusse.ca/fairytales/morevna.htm
I’ve always liked Mother Hulda and The Traveling Companion for the same reason: they showcase reward for being honest, kind, and industrious.
American Folklore has always been my favorite. Paul Bunyan, Johnny Appleseed, John Henry, and the like.
While I was always strongly partial to the better known Rapunzel and Sleeping Beauty stories, I also discovered Catskin (a.k.a. Allerleirauh, et al) in a fairy tale book I’d had as a child. There was something far more sinister in it, than I’d seen before, and for the longest time I kept thinking that Catskin had married her father who wished to marry her, even after running away from him! It was only later I understood she’d run off to another kingdom, and another king.
There are other tales and fables I’ve grown to love as a parent, including “Tam Lin”, the “Elephant’s Child”, Japanese tales of the kitsune (e.g. Inari), and the Chinese tales “The Boy Who Painted Cats” and “My Lord Bag of Rice” (Tawara Toda).
I really like Deerskin. which is a retelling of Donkeyskin. which has other variations. so here’s the Wiki link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deerskin_(novel)
Since I am Finnish, my favourite fairy tales are Finnish in origin but I also love the Wild Swans. Zacharias Topelius has written two of my favourites – Vattumato (the rasberry worm) and Adalmiinan helmi (Adalmina’s pearl). In the rasberry worm two little girls are picking rasberries in the woods and are lost. They survive the night in the woods because they are provided milk and sandwiches, a big puffy bed and breakfast by the king of the woods. A spell had transformed him as a lowly rasberry worm earlier and the girls helped him to safety so he repaid them with kindness.
Adalmina’s pearl http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AdalmiinanHelmi
tells a story of a princess, who was really beautiful but really prideful and obnoxious. She had received a pearl from her fairy godmother that made her more beautiful, intelligent and rich everyday. One day she lost the pearl and with it her memory. Because of that she learned the value of a pure, loving heart and eventually gets back the pearl and everything that goes with it and marries a prince.
I’m rather fond of Ricky of the Tuft
I really like the Two Brothers and The Poor Boy in the Grave.
(Sweetheart) Rolland, The Juniper/Almond Tree, Rapunzel (she cures her prince’s blindness with her love. that’s sweeter than any romance novel ever written), Allerleirah, Hansel and Grethel, Mother Hulda, The Brother and the Sister, and others more than I can count.