"Jack and Jill Return to the Hill" A too-late entry to the Sci-Fi Fairy Tales contest held by Super Punch during December 2009. This entry came with a complete story about Jack and Jill in a sci-fi context too. See link for a summary.
Little Red vs Wolves - LOTS of wolves! by woohyun Nam. see more of his work at the link.
Belarus beautiful fairy tale coins - Fairy tale designs include The Stone Flower, The Twelve Months, The Nutcracker, Turandot, Alice in Wonderland, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Thousand and One Nights, Symon the Musician. Simply gorgeous!
Not only has Melissa Sue Stanley been creating Chicken Leg Shacks (see my previous post on these adorable plush chicken legged houses HERE) but she's created a Baba Yaga and story to go with them... AND, if you live close by, you can go see them in person at the Stuff This! - the 3rd Annual Plush Show in Columbus, Ohio. It opens today (December 5th) and runs till the 30th. You can also get a chicken leg shack - or a strawberry monster - of your own from the exhibition through HERE (other fibre/plush artist's work available here too). If you're interested in buying, be quick. They're selling out fast!I should probably have saved this for my "12 Days of [Gifts Before] Christmas" series which starts tomorrow (with giveaway!) but I just couldn't wait... consider it an early bonus!
I simply have to share Melissa Sue's Baba Yaga story (per her various blogs):
Baba Yaga and her chicken shacks: Where did you think chicken shacks come from?She raises them in her garden.They frolic around the blue roses and valerian, and eat healthy amounts of bug legs and children's fingers.In the morning she puts on that old dusty coat and big black boots, and stomps into the chilly yard where they greet her, chirping, and chomping the tiny sharp teeth in their keyholes.The world needs more Baba Yaga.
Isn't that the most adorable bit of creepy ever?
Here's a sketch of her ideas for this great piece - you can see her attention to detail and story very clearly in her notes. I really appreciate that she's been able to handle detail and story without over-complicating the design. Very nice!You can see her blogs HERE and HERE which showcase a lot more of her work and her process and visit her website HERE. She also has an Etsy shop HERE though her chicken shacks aren't listed here yet.
"inspired by Eastern European folklore, by woodland, streams, cold dark nights and woodsmoke."
It's called "Babayaga" and is being made for the Winter season by Pretty Things Beer and Ale Project. They even have a little poem that goes with it:I'm not a beer person (although I love a lot of the label designs people are coming up with these days) but I admit this one makes me curious.
And if you think this is interesting wait till you read about their 'Baby Tree' beer. You can find out more about the beer (and the unusual, creative and fun brewing company) HERE.
"Hansel and Gretel and the Witch " Rough drawing (study for figurine) by Scott Gustafson
A quickie post to point you to an excellent list of witches from fairy tales and other classic literature by Kate Coombs, also known online as "The Book Aunt".
Strega Nona Written & Illustrated by Tomie dePaola
Her list includes Baba Yaga and Strega Nona, as well as some books for both I also recommend. She even includes the awesome story/book called The Talking Eggs that I found only a few years ago. Please note the actual books she recommends for the fairy tales. I can vouch for the illustrations being as lovely as she says.
Here's the fairy tales she includes:
Hansel and Gretel (with the Gingerbread House architect) Snow White (with her stepmother - or mother, if you prefer) Jorinda and Joringel (with The Witch of the Wood that gturns into an Owl...) The Tinderbox or The Blue Light (with an unnamed witch that gets killed) Rapunzel (with Mother Gothel) Vasilissa the Brave (with Baba Yaga) The Fearsome Inn (Jewish folktale) Strega Nona - she's a good one! The Talking Eggs (Grimm's Mother Hulda)
Also mentioned is Heckedy Peg (which is an original fairy tale by Audrey & Don Woods)
Bony Legs Written by Joanna Cole Illustrated by Dirk Zimmer
You can find Kate's blog and timely list of fairy tale witches HERE.
I found this great little article today title "Spooktakular Sonic Surprises" by the Music Director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and, not only did it have a number of pieces I thought extremely appropriate for fairy tale enthusiasts, readers, listeners and writers, but it made me think of a few of my own.
Rather than repeat telling you about the pieces he lists I'll just list them, add a clip courtesy of YouTube and link you to his fun and very readable article. You'll be able to see the others on the list too - all of which will give you an excellent audio selection, Halloween-style, for your ears. :)
The pieces on his list I thought most appropriate for fairy tale people and stories are:
The Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack by Danny Elfman (I couldn't find the music without the vocals but it's fabulous, even without the voices)
Danse Macabre by Camille Saint-Saens
Baba Yaga - The Hut on Fowls' Legs (from "Pictures at an Exhibition") by Modest Mussorkgsky
Funeral March of a Marionette by Charles Gounod (you probably know this piece, even if you don't know the title. I love this one!) I found a darling little stop-motion animation for Funeral March of a Marionette which I thought I'd share:
You can read the short explanations about each, and the rest of the article, HERE.
And here are my additions (off the top of my head - I planned on researching more for you but Halloween duties called sorry!):
In the Hall of the Mountain King (from Peer Gynt) by Edvard Grieg I love Ibsen's Peer Gynt tale (which was actually a play)! It's another suite of music I was exposed to as a young child and I didn't need to be told the story to imagine it. You can hear what's happening just by listening. I wasn't surprised to see Wikipedia mention it being used for Halloween concerts - it was the first piece that came to mind. (I apologize the first notes are cut off - it's the best [straight] played I could find where you could actually hear everything happening. It also goes into the next processional piece which I can't remember the name of sorry.)
L'apprenti sorcier (The Sorcerer's Apprentice) by Paul Dukas I loved this piece and the Goethe story it was based on well before I saw it used in Fantasia. Magical brooms ahead!
The Corpse Bride Theme (combining some pieces from the soundtrack) by Danny Elfman and John August It feels like an air of death or mourning haunts a few of these pieces yet still has a fantastical and hopeful air- especially that lovely piano solo
Midnight from Cinderella(Music for Ballet) by Sergei Prokofiev Ok - I admit I'm a huge Prokofiev fan (His Romeo & Juliet is my favorite) but all those (what I think of as) malevolent notes through the suites and the (what I like too call) "musical resistance" to Cinderella making it away from the ball on time? Delicious for suspense!
Aaaand I have to add another Russian piece: from Stravinsky's Firebird, The Infernal Dance of Kashchei. There are quite a few darker pieces from The Firebird suite but this one definitely fits the fairy-tale-Halloween bill on a number of levels. I found this piece conducted by Stravinsky himself and couldn't resist adding it for you.
That's about all I can think of without pulling out my CDs or doing some research but know I've probably forgotten some obvious ones. If you have fairy tale music favorites that you think would be a great addition to the Halloween playlist here, feel free to chime in!
My son (2 1/2 yrs) has recently discovered - and become obsessed with - Lego. He loves watching the stop-motion animation scenarios people have filmed in their homes so, naturally, I set out to see if I could find some non-violent Lego fairy tales for him to enjoy.
The best one I found was Baba Yaga and Vasilisa, which, seeing as it's turning into Baba Yaga day at Once Upon A Blog, is very appropriate. :) I particularly like how the Chicken Legged Hut was constructed.
And since we're on the subject of Baba Yaga toys, I thought I'd share these plushes I found a while back. The plush chicken leg huts at the head and tail of this post are by Melissa Sue and is available through her Etsy shop HERE. The Baba Yaga plush-with-hut comes from the Here Be Monsters line of plush toys by Toy Vaults HERE.
I also couldn't resist adding this Lego-type creation: The Baba Yaga 2050. It's a futuristic Chicken Leg Cottage (found HERE) and has the following description:
The Baba Yaga 2050 Cottage solves many of the problems humanity will face in the future:
- Scarce resources: your cottage will simply get up and walk (or run!) somewhere better.
- Peak oil: that may look like a huge diesel engine on the back, but I assure you that it's hydrogen powered, and those are hydrogen tanks on the side. Ability to deploy windmill hampered by GW's militaristic attitude to spare parts.
- Overcrowding: stacking is possible, aka the Mimas Hopper-parking solution.
- Zombie Apocalypse: see problem #1
I think you'll agree that it also satisfies the first requirement of the future: awesomeness.
Aaaand now we have the 2nd installment of steampunk Baba Yaga story ideas!
I just found this darling Russian animation that puts Baba Yaga in an unusual situation (don't worry - no Russian language skills required to enjoy this piece!).
Somehow, this film blends Russian and Japanese cultures beautifully, without detracting at all from the Baba Yaga myth.There are a lot of echoes from original Baba Yaga tales in the objects and animals around her but I particularly like the homage to Baba Yaga's 'fire-skull fence' by using the street lights. I won't say any more - you'll just have to watch to see what I mean. :)
I love the character of Baba Yaga. While she certainly is terrifying in many ways, to me she's more enigmatic than anything else. To some extent, if you can figure out the rules you can not only survive and encounter with her, she may actually help you.
There's definitely more to this traditional Russian fairy tale villain than meets the eye. I've read stories where Baba Yaga has sisters, a lover or a child (and in the story I read, yes, she loves her kid - you don't want to come between this Mama and her baby!), all of which seem at odds with the character as she's normally portrayed.
I found an article posted in the first week of October which discusses Baba Yaga as a 'force of nature' and how this would have had an impact on those listening to the story years ago. The focus was different from the usual a) she's mostly evil or b) she the crone in the maid-mother-crone triad.
Here's a couple of excerpts:
When visitors arrive, Baba Yaga asks them if they came of their own accord or were sent. Smart visitors say they were sent. Coming of their own accord puts them in the witch's power; they are consenting to their own doom, so nothing can save them. They must also actively seek entrance by telling the house to turn its door to them. This concept is similar to the idea that a vampire (also an Eastern European legend) can't come into a home unless invited. The danger is one you bring on yourself. Another way ofl ooking at it, though, is that if you want to get something from nature, you have to take chances...
...These stories may have roots in Indo-European tales that passed into both eastern and western folklore. A trinity of Hindu goddesses consists of the Virgin, the Mother, and the Hag, and Baba Yaga is sometimes considered a Slavic version of the Hag. (Sometimes Baba Yaga even has two sisters). The versions about Vasilisa and the boy and girl are similar to the western “Hansel and Gretel,” in that wicked stepmothers send children off to be eaten by witches. And when Baba Yaga detects a victim, she often says, “Foo! Foo! I smell a Russian spirit!” This sounds like “Fee fi fo fum! I smell the blood of an Englishman!” in “Jack and the Beanstalk."
Hunchback Fairy by Endling (additional website HERE)
But some aspects of Baba Yaga tales are uniquely Russian. Siberians placed log cabins on uprooted tree stumps to keep animals away from their food supplies. To remote and imaginative people, tree stumps can easily become chicken legs, and from there Baba Yaga’s horrible home. The doll in the tale of Vasilisa is similar to small household idols that Russians had in pre-Christian times. And a recurring theme is that virtue will protect one, no matter what the danger, whereas, in Western fairy tales, craft prevails. This trust in virtue must have been comforting to people scratching out a marginal existence in a forbidding climate.
The rest of the fascinating article is HERE. The author, Kathleen Murphy (a community college writing tutor) has a writing focused website HERE.
You can find more information about each artist by clicking on the image or on their names. The deviantART artists have some interesting things to say about Baba Yaga too, so make sure you check their comments below the artwork.
And isn't that steampunk Baba Yaga fun? Methinks it won't be long before a steampunk Baba Yaga makes her way into a story... ;)
While we're on the subject, I should mention a book released at the beginning of September titled "Dreaming Anastasia" by Joy Preble. It features Baba Yaga quite prominently and I'm curious to read it (despite the cover which would normally make me ignore it).
Here's the part of the blurb that pertains to Baba Yaga:
In 1918, in a Russian cellar, Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanov was murdered with the rest of her family. Or so history tells us. Thanks to old magics, Anastasia was rescued by the witch Baba Yaga and now spends her days confined in a tiny hut perched on chicken legs. With only the witch and a doll for company, Anastasia writes letters to her family, and waits.
HERE author Joy Preble discusses how she uses Baba Yaga alongside the prominent maternal themes in the book and has her character be much more than the dangerous child-eating witch she's often portrayed as. She also makes use of a matroyshka (Russian nesting doll or Babushka doll, also known as the 'little mother doll'*) as a 'special object' and as a model for the novel's structure, so I'm doubly curious about this one.
*This doll was the key to Vasilissa (also spelled Vasilisa) surviving an encounter with Baba Yaga in one of my favorite fairy tales. It was, appropriately, given to Vasilissa by her mother before passing away and is symbolic of her mother's spirit remaining with her and giving her the strength (and the wits) to do the Baba Yaga's impossible tasks set for her. The real villains of this story, though, are Vasilissa's stepmother and stepsisters - not Baba Yaga. The witch keeps her agreement and gives Vasilissa the fire she needs.. Of course, that's only part of the story. You can read more about it HERE. Which reminds me I should do a post on Vasilisa in her role as the Russian Frog Princess... ;)
Just a little something that popped up today - getting a behind-the-scenes look at what went into creating the villain in the Princess and the Frog.
Have you ever noticed that in fairy tales the greatest villains are the humans? It's not the witches, the Baba Yaga's etc - they're just forces of nature. Dangerous, yes - if you meet a wolf you'd better know how wolves behave in order to survive the encounter - but these individuals are rarely downright evil. It's the humans like Vassilisa's stepmother, scheming to make life miserable (occasionally aiming to kill their family members), that are the truly scary characters in a story. Give these malicious people access to a little magic and, well, let's just say it's a lot harder to escape their clutches.
In Disney's The Princess and the Frog, Dr Facilier is a smooth-talking, scheming, nasty piece of a human, who also happens to be a witch doctor - one who really know his voodoo. Here's a behind-the-scenes look at his creation, courtesy of Cartoon Brew:
