Folktale Week
An Instagram challenge.
For 7 days in November of 2018 illustrators made art inspired by specific prompts. I chose to illustrate some of my favorite Grimm tales! (Day 3 is coming soon)
Day 1: Forest
The Robber Bridegroom as translated by Jack Zipes in The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm: The Complete First Edition. A father wants to marry his daughter off to a rich suitor but she has a bad feeling and refuses to go to his home in the dark wood. The suitor assures her he will wrap the trees in red ribbons so she can find her way home. He isn't there when she arrives and an old woman warns her to hide. She watches he and his robber friends kill her grandmother. She sneaks home and the next time he visits recounts the murder, producing her grandmother's ringed finger as proof.
Day 2: Magic
The Hand with the Knife. In this tale a girl must cut peat from a bog daily for her cruel family. Her admirer, an elf, lends her a magic knife so she can cut the peat faster but she must return it to his outstretched hand each day. Her brothers catch on and chop off the elf's hand with his own knife. You can read a translation of the story here.
Day 4: Ghost
Another illustration from Jack Zipes' translation of Little Brother and Little Sister from The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm: The Complete First Edition. In this translation the brother is turned into a doe and the sister, eventually killed, by a witch. After death, the sister returns for three nights as a ghost to feed her newborn baby and say goodbye to the doe.
Day 5: Insect
The Queen Bee. A son goes out into the world, gains magical transformative powers and helps out some bees (among other animals). He hears of a King offering the hand of his youngest daughter if the suitor can pick her out from her two identical sisters. The boy learns that the youngest ate honey before falling asleep and the Queen Bee offers her help. Check out this translation of the tale.
Day 6: Mirror
The Summer and the Winter Garden is a version of the classic Beauty and The Beast. The Beast has a summer garden growing in winter and makes a trade with a traveling man. He can take the rose to his daughter but he must eventually forfeit her to the Beast. While she's imprisoned the Beast gives the girl a magic mirror where she sees her father wilting from sadness in his home at having lost her. You can read a translation of the tale here.
Day 7: Animal
The White Snake. (One of my very favorite Grimm Tales!) A servant opens a dish for the King and finds a white snake. When he eats from it he gains the ability to understand the language of animals which he uses to overcome a number of obstacles and win the hand of his eventual wife. Here is one version of the tale.