The Three Little Men in the Wood
Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales
Fairy tales
Books-A-Million
2012
Hardcover
977
For almost two centuries, the stories of magic and myth gathered by the Brothers Grimm have been part of the way children—and adults—learn about the vagaries of the real world. Cinderella, Rapunzel, Snow-White, Hänsel and Gretel, Little Red-Cap (a.k.a. Little Red Riding Hood), and Briar-Rose (a.k.a. Sleeping Beauty) are only a few of more than 200 enchanting characters included here. Lyrically translated and beautifully illustrated, the tales are presented just as Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm originally set them down: bold, primal, just frightening enough, and endlessly engaging.
WrensReads Review:
I have the complete set of the Grimm Fairy-Tales, and there are so many that I haven’t read! They are very short, as one would know, so I have decided to read each one and give them a review. Some are very vulgar, some are very cute and some don’t even make sense. Some of them are well known fairy-tales and some have never been told. Some are fairy-tales we know but are not the same because they have been downplayed for the children.
Have you ever thought to yourself, “If this boot with the hole holds water, I will marry (insert name here)”? Well the man in this story did. A man and another woman both had this significant other’s die. They both have daughters. The man’s daughter tells him the woman wants to marry him. He then decides to marry her after the boot holds water.
The woman is mean to the man’s daughter though with each passing day. She even sends her out into the woods with barely anything to wear in the middle of winter to fetch her strawberries because she has a craving for them!
This is where it gets kind of confusing. She is in the woods and sees three dwarves who let her in her house. But then they are called elves. But then they are called little men. I’m not sure if the author couldn’t decide or wanted to confuse the reader; either way, the three …males decide to give her three gifts because she is so nice: beauty, gold and a king. After she found her step mother’s strawberries (which is a very interesting way to find them, you should read about it), she ran to her and gave her the basketful!
When she gets home she is spilling gold out of her mouth! Her step sister is jealous and leaves to find strawberries in a fur coat. She wasn’t as nice to the three little men/elves/dwarves and they decided to curse her: ugliness, toads, and misery.
So what of the king? Why is the beautiful daughter rinsing yarn in the freezing water? What is the ugly daughter in the beautiful one’s bed? What was that about a barrel of nails and a swan and a river?
This story was very interesting and reminds me of The Fairy’s Mistake by Gail Carson Levine. It teaches the reader about always doing the right thing even if it seems odd, because those who don’t get what is coming to them.
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