tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950999049789394042.post1854641853546116874..comments2024-03-27T06:42:26.250-07:00Comments on Seven Miles of Steel Thistles: Realism and FairytalesKatherine Langrishhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12529700103932422873noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950999049789394042.post-51016636106591513362010-09-20T12:18:22.184-07:002010-09-20T12:18:22.184-07:00Pen, so did I!Pen, so did I!Katherine Langrishhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12529700103932422873noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950999049789394042.post-41226435649296612772010-09-19T04:00:30.086-07:002010-09-19T04:00:30.086-07:00Loved this post Katherine. You have a wonderful wa...Loved this post Katherine. You have a wonderful way with words and have managed to capture the magic of stories and the inspiration and imagination they provided us in childhood and beyond). <br /><br />I remember we had a few big wardrobes in our house when I was a child. I remember hoping and checking and checking again, just in case I could find the way into Narnia.Penhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06605428306080473273noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950999049789394042.post-31563503389956970432010-09-14T00:43:17.184-07:002010-09-14T00:43:17.184-07:00Thanks for your comments and kind words! It's...Thanks for your comments and kind words! It's interesting to hear about the old book that influenced you so. The French and German fairytales are so well known to to British children, but the stories of our own isles are relatively unfamiliar to them. I have a number of wonderful nineteenth century collections of British fairytales, but most of them haven't found their way into popular children's culture. When I was small, it was still fairly common to read about Jack the Giant Killer, and Ainsel, and Dame Habbetrot, but I doubt if that is still the case.Katherine Langrishhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12529700103932422873noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950999049789394042.post-56185532145414378532010-09-13T15:09:05.784-07:002010-09-13T15:09:05.784-07:00In Tolkein's essay "on fairytales" h...In Tolkein's essay "on fairytales" he notes that few if any of what we consider fairy tales contain either fairies or any other beings of similar status (elves, sprites, pixies, boggles, hobs, etc). What they share is a mix of a morality tale with a fantastic element or unexpected premise.<br /><br />My strongest connection to "fairy tales" was actually through Ladybird books, not the Peter and Jane type, but the fairy tales with their beautiful and quite realistic looking pictures. I still have a good number and although they are in a poor condition they are still regularly read to my kids, the favourites being the maagic porridge pot and of course the three billy goats gruff.<br /><br />I was also influenced by "The Folk Tales of Northumberland and Durham", a beautiful book that I can thank my mother for. Both my brother and I sneaked it out of her book shelf and read it without the other knowing, so it was a surprise to us to find out that we each knew the same stories! I think Mum knew that we were borrowing it, although we were both very goo at putting it back when we were finished with it.<br /><br />Here the stories definitely were fairy stories, peopled with malignant elves, duergar and the like as well as witches and wyrms (to true dragons in the North Country, but a good number of wyrms!) <br /><br />Loved Troll Fell btw; sorry to say that I've not read your other books. Troll Fell was bought for one of my teenaged children, unfortunately I don't think they ever read it. Kind of the reverse situation of the above - I'm sneaking books away from my kids now!Grufflinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14511179687822995915noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950999049789394042.post-31278158150855173292010-09-13T10:40:42.442-07:002010-09-13T10:40:42.442-07:00*blush*....*blush*....Katherine Langrishhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12529700103932422873noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950999049789394042.post-31316444873725012742010-09-13T08:59:41.184-07:002010-09-13T08:59:41.184-07:00Wonderful post! I love Alison Lurie's essays o...Wonderful post! I love Alison Lurie's essays on fiarytales in Don't Tell the Grown-ups and that one especially but yours almost as good.<br />AmandaAmanda Craighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16084524858700628043noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950999049789394042.post-57467355307290514272010-09-13T02:42:13.626-07:002010-09-13T02:42:13.626-07:00I'm with Cassandra! A terrific post...I'm with Cassandra! A terrific post...adelehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15826710558292792068noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950999049789394042.post-46729378729712617702010-09-13T00:29:49.851-07:002010-09-13T00:29:49.851-07:00Cathrin, that's a moving and a wonderful tribu...Cathrin, that's a moving and a wonderful tribute to your aunt. People who make the world enchanted for us deserve such accolades. Thankyou for sharing your memories of her with us.<br /><br />Cassandra, thanks - and Catdownunder, I quite agree!Katherine Langrishhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12529700103932422873noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950999049789394042.post-26812074812317151912010-09-12T23:35:25.153-07:002010-09-12T23:35:25.153-07:00Absolutely brilliant post!Absolutely brilliant post!Cassandrahttp://www.cassandrgolds.com.aunoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950999049789394042.post-17550787520123011032010-09-12T18:36:01.009-07:002010-09-12T18:36:01.009-07:00Thanks for the wonderful post and the idea of read...Thanks for the wonderful post and the idea of reading Alison Lurie, which I haven't done. I am a firm believer in fairy tale power. My childhood would have been bereft of hope were it not for fairy tales and my old maid aunt who, and I'm still not sure she wasn't, seemed like a fairy godmother to me. She taught me stories, poems and songs. She gave me a safe place to be when she could, and even her house was an enchanted place to me. To this day I can't read Beatrix Potter without thinking that my long dead aunt knew Peter Rabbit personally. Stories, especially of the fairy tale kind, are essential to human health and happiness.<br />I'm getting off my soapbox now.Cathrinhttp://www.cathrinhagey.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950999049789394042.post-80755068851103719032010-09-12T14:46:30.783-07:002010-09-12T14:46:30.783-07:00Fascinating, not least because a young friend aske...Fascinating, not least because a young friend asked me something this past weekend which relates closely to this and I putting out a blog request for her. Of course, if we really had the Enid Blyton sort of adventure, it would not be a pleasant experience at all.catdownunderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06959328192182156574noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950999049789394042.post-4232218686618869152010-09-12T14:33:15.792-07:002010-09-12T14:33:15.792-07:00Elizabeth, it's such a wonderful and insightfu...Elizabeth, it's such a wonderful and insightful essay by Alison Lurie - I feel rather like a magpie stealing the shiny bits from other writers' nests, but it rang so very true to me. <br /><br />Amy and Claire, thanks -<br /><br />Jo - brilliant! there must be so many of us who longed to solve mysteries.Of course I also longed to get into Narnia; but I knew I never would.<br /><br />Sigh...Katherine Langrishhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12529700103932422873noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950999049789394042.post-71055385179346011582010-09-12T14:23:20.731-07:002010-09-12T14:23:20.731-07:00I was so in love with Enid Blyton's tales of c...I was so in love with Enid Blyton's tales of children solving mysteries that I remember at the age of eleven dressing up as a man (five o'clock shadow, trousers, jacket and I think a bowler hat) and shadowing a neighbor as he innocently walked his dog, endeavoring to find out if there was anything criminal going on in the neighborhood. Holidays always fell flat -there being no jewelry heist or smuggling that I could discover, but still I hoped.Jo Treggiarihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02417288480274268189noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950999049789394042.post-91997305953318726302010-09-12T12:14:39.569-07:002010-09-12T12:14:39.569-07:00What a wonderful post! Thanks Katherine.What a wonderful post! Thanks Katherine.Claire Deanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12466995265143493376noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950999049789394042.post-59140257237975421002010-09-12T09:13:02.844-07:002010-09-12T09:13:02.844-07:00What a great point. Fairy tales are much more real...What a great point. Fairy tales are much more realistic, than, for example Nancy Drew :)Amyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18102250492155489672noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4950999049789394042.post-50400677691639745152010-09-12T08:00:38.774-07:002010-09-12T08:00:38.774-07:00"As we suspected, the fairy tales had been ri..."As we suspected, the fairy tales had been right all along – the world was full of hostile, stupid giants and perilous castles and people who abandoned their children in the nearest forest." <- That is fantastic. <br /><br />I grew up in the 1990s with Enid Blyton (through her books, to clarify, not through some oddly necromantic experiment) and I'm fairly sure she did me no harm! <br /><br />Enjoyed this post a lot. Fairytales are too often maligned as troublesome wisps of times gone by that permeate without invitation into the modern world.Elizabethhttp://pressedposies.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.com