Faithful John
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.
A king dies and makes his faithful servant John promise to show his young son the kingdom and all its corners. The only exception was a room that held a picture of a beautiful woman that would make the prince fall madly in love with her and make him do crazy things. The servant did all of this but couldn’t keep the young king from seeing the portrait.
The servant and the king made all the kingdom’s gold into things like tables, chairs, dishes, glasses, bowls, household furniture and so on because the princess has all things in gold (she is called the princess of the Golden Dwelling). They dress as merchants in order to make himself quite unrecognizable.
After some events, they are on their way back to the kingdom when the faithful servant John hears three ravens discussing some interesting things about his king:
1. When they reach land a chestnut horse will leap forward to meet him, and the prince will want to mount it, but if he does that, it will run away with him, and rise up in the air with him, and he will never see his maiden more.
2. When they go into the castle together, a wrought bridal garment will be lying there in a dish, and looking as if it were woven of gold and silver; it is, however, nothing but sulphur and pitch, and if he put it on, it will burn him to the very bone and marrow
3. After the wedding, when the dancing begins and the young queen is dancing, she will suddenly turn pale and fall down as if dead, and if someone does not lift her up and draw three drops of blood from her right breast and spit them out again, she will die.
There are many consequences to all these things if someone tries to stop them. Will John take on the consequences? Will he die? Is there a way to bring him back? Will they live happily ever after?
The end of this story is very weird and I am not sure it should be read to kids. It is as graphic as stories like The Three Little Pigs or Little Red Riding Hood. I leave that up to the parents.
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