Monday, April 14, 2008

Magic Fairy Tales

Every one of us have grown up hearing and loving the tales about Magic and Fairies. If not the ones about Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, then the tales from Panchatantra or about dragons and Knights of Romanian Legends. As a child my aunt used to tell me the story of the three little pigs and about "Huffing and puffing and blowing the house down". I remember getting frightened for the pigs everytime the wolf huffed and puffed, even when I knew the end of the story. Later when I discovered the world of words, I got an old fairy tales book, which would send me dreaming about kicking the dragon's butt and swimming with Ariel. The tales from Panchatantra from my granny was a source of great entertainment too.

I still Love the Fairy tales but now they always make me just that little bit sad.
Do you know that the Grimms Fairy Tales and the Panchatantra and the 1001 Stories of Scherezade and all the children's stories of yore are stories for adults and mostly have sad endings. :-(

Little Mermaid was my most favourite story from childhood, when Ariel and her Prince live happily ever after, it used to give me great satisfaction. But the original version of the Grimm's Fairy Tales ends with the Prince falling in love with another princess, and Ariel commiting suicide.

In the Three little Pigs, the first two pigs are killed by the big bad wolf, before it is killed by the clever third pig.
While I rue my lost innocence in having read the original versions and knowing the sad endings too, it makes me happy to see that the pessimistic views of the original authors have changed to make the stories so much more joyful for the children of today.

PS: Was seeing Shrek yesterday, all the three parts. Wow! its so cool...I loved every minute of it.,despite seeing it god knows how many times... :-)

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