R.I.P. Dear Little Mermaid

I bring you sad news today.

Shiloh Pepin, the brave little girl born with Mermaid Syndrome and known the world over as 'the real-life little mermaid', passed on away on Friday, October 23rd at age 10, from complications of a cold and resulting pneumonia.

Rather than go into details about her condition I will just celebrate her bravery against incredibly odds and mourn her passing. She was courageous and happy and touched many people in her short life, encouraging others to live well and enjoy life. Many other children with life threatening illnesses and great disabilities reached out to her and thanked her for her example and joy. She will be greatly missed.

Her funeral is set for tomorrow (Wednesday) and she will rest next to the stillborn sister she never knew.

For those who haven't heard Shiloh's story or understand the complications of sirenomelia here are some links HERE, HERE and HERE. Here's her FACEBOOK PAGE and one of many tribute VIDEOS.

Rest in peace little one. The world is a better place for you having been here.

The Science of Fairy Tales (Series) - The Little Mermaid's Voice

Ever wondered just how the Little Mermaid would have sounded, if you'd had the chance to hear her before she lost her voice? Well, there's a new underwater opera that may give us a good idea, beyond scientific sound experiments and singing whales.

The opera, which debuted and performed in May at the Queer Up North festival in Manchester, starred LA Soprano Juliana Snapper. She played a post-human creature surviving in a largely aquatic post-apocalyptic landscape, singing underwater, literally, using a technique she's perfected, for much of the performance.

How, you ask?

Here's her answer, quoted from TimesOnline:

“It’s not that different from singing operatically on land,” claims Snapper... “It uses the same basic process of compressing the air, creating a stream of soundwaves and allowing that to go into the water, with a little bit more care because at the end of the phrase you don’t want to pull any water in.” And how do you not do that? “You monkey with your throat a little bit. Underwater you really want to be able to shut that door.”

The pressure changes are the worst, “especially within the first 30ft or so. The oxygen in your lungs has compressed, so you can be down at the bottom and taking in air, but if I don’t sing on the way up with a lungful of air, then the lungs will burst because as the air decompresses, it gets bigger, so it will pop the balloon.”

OK, so I'm sure there's a whole slew of anatomical differences that would change the way this works for a mermaid. I'm guessing whales would have a better understanding of how to compress and decompress your lungs without damaging them as you sink and rise, yet even aquatic mammals require air to live while, traditionally, mermaids don't so either way we're not getting the whole story on how this would work.

But how about the sound? What would the singing really sound like?

Those of you in my generation would have grown up hearing the news from National Geographic that whale songs had been recorded for the very first time. I still remember the floppy little record my father got as part of the magazine. We played it over and over, marveling at how eerily beautiful these underwater songs were. You can hear some for yourself HERE.

But a mermaid is no whale. They're traditionally much closer to humans in size and vocal capacity. So do we have any idea of how a mermaid would sound underwater?

Again from Juliana's interview with TimesOnline:

Sound behaves quite differently in water than in air — Snapper describes the “airless” sound of a voice filtered through water as “like a humming and mewling”. The bubbles she produces have their own character. “The vocal melody is complicated by the percussive sound of the bubbles. If the bubbles are smaller or larger, then the percussive sounds will come more or less rapidly and they all have pitches attached to them. Sometimes you have a kind of second melody over the voice.” But does it sound like singing? “It does. I think it sounds like singing.”

You can read the whole article about the opera and Juliana's process HERE.

We'll return to The Little Mermaid in a future Science of Fairy Tales post, to discuss scientific possibilities behind another part of the story.

NOTE: Illustrations are by Jeannie Harbour and Gennady Spirin. Click on the images to be taken to more information and works. Photos are of Juliana Snapper in underwater vocal performance. To be taken to her website, click on the images.

The Science of Fairy Tales - Hamelin's Rat Problem Then & Now

From English Fairy Tales Illustrated by John D. Batten

It's true.

Hamelin still has need of a Pied Piper from time to time - the most recent being in December just last year.

From luxique.com travel 'zine on December 19, 2008:

Officials in the town of Hamelin in northern Germany have expressed alarm at a surge in the rat population much like the Great Plague in 1284 on which the tale is based.

“Rats usually come in packs of 20 to 30 but these can expand up to 200 or 300 and that what’s happened in Hamelin,” said Rolf Schmidt, who works for a pest control service in the town north of Hanover.

The town, which has 58,000 inhabitants, has added teams of rat-catchers to try to contain the new plague.

You can find the rest of the article HERE.

So what else about the tale is based in fact?

The Pied Piper by Chris Rawlins

From Wikipedia (which present multiple theories, all suggesting that there is likely some factual story behind the legend):

"Among the various interpretations, reference to the colonization of East Europe starting from Low Germany is the most plausible one: The "Children of Hameln" would have been in those days citizens willing to emigrate being recruited by landowners to settle in Moravia, East Prussia, Pomerania or in the Teutonic Land. It is assumed that in past times all people of a town were referred to as "children of the town" or "town children" as is frequently done today. The "Legend of the children’s Exodus" was later connected to the "Legend of expelling the rats". This most certainly refers to the rat plagues being a great threat in the medieval milling town and the more or less successful professional rat catchers."

You can read the rest of the theories and more about the tale HERE or read about the facts behind the fairy tale at "How Stuff Works" (which I recommend) HERE.

Here's a lovely claymation version of the Robert Browning poem, shown below in three parts:

There are also a few novels based on The Pied Piper tale but my favorite, though chilling, is "Breath" by Donna Jo Napoli. Her well researched story puts a number of events happening in 1284 into a plausible story, giving the tale an even more sobering weight. While the book is YA, I recommend it to more mature readers as the subject matter is rather weighty in dealing with plagues, illness and the resulting societal chaos. A wonderful medieval book - complete with grit.

The Science of Fairy Tales (Series) - Awakened From Coma By A Kiss

So this whole guy wakes girl with a kiss thing works! At least, it happened in this case, in January of this year:Emma Ray suffered a heart attack and never regained consciousness, falling into a coma. After a period of two weeks in which doctors and husband tried everything they could think of her desperate husband asked his comatose wife for a kiss.

From the news article:

'What happened next was beyond my wildest dreams,' he said. 'She turned her head towards mine, puckered up her lips and gave me a little kiss.

'I couldn't believe it. My heart felt like it was going to leap from my chest - it suddenly felt like a huge weight had been lifted.'

It should be noted, this was the second kiss her husband gave her. The first was actually the 'kiss of life' when she suffered the heart attack in a shopping center and collapsed. When doctors were finally able to start her heart and it wasn't possible to'wake' her, they warned her husband, Andrew Ray, that her condition might be permanent.

Thankfully, their story has a happy ending.

But things are still not easy. When Emma's heart stopped her brain was deprived of oxygen, resulting in damage which is still being worked through. Short term memory loss and the inability to walk without assistance are constant reminders of the incident. Her grateful husband and family, however, are just glad she's with them.

Bless you all, Ray family, and thank you for sharing your heartwarming story.

When it comes to the tale from which Emma earned her new nickname however, I wonder: although I've read retellings where Beauty has to cope with time passing and must reacquaint herself with the kingdom, has anyone ever considered Beauty dealing with internal damage from what the curse put her through?

You can read the rest of the amazing 'real life Sleeping Beauty' story HERE.
Note: The above painting is by Thomas Ralph Spence. You can find more information on him HERE.

The Science of Fairy Tales (Series) - Blowing Down Houses of Straw, Sticks & Bricks

Although we all know how powerful the wind can be in the form of cyclones, hurricanes and tornadoes it still seems a little ludicrous to contemplate houses being blown down by a wolf. But maybe we didn't have all the information on the wolf's circumstances.


Maybe he just put his gassy stomach and heartburn to good use!

Take a look at what a bad combination of gases can do when channeled through this snout, er, cannon:


Let's just hope Big Bad doesn't get 'wind' of this. I like my brick house just fine as it is, thank you!

To get Big Bad's side of the story I recommend : "The True Story of The 3 Little Pigs" (as told to Jon Scieszka)NOTE: The lovely 'Big Bad' drawing above is by artist Caroline Trevella. Click on the image or HERE to go to her website and see more enchanting illustrations.

The Science of Fairy Tales - New Series at Once Upon A Blog...

I thought I'd start a fun new series:

'The Science of Fairy Tales'.

(No, it's not based on the book above - I just like that there's a science program that teaches scientific method and exploration in a fairy tale setting. Click on the image above to learn more about it.)

I've collected quite a few pieces of information on scientific facts and theories that are relevant to fairy tales - enough that I have around 10 or so to start - so I thought I'd start a general series and add to it every so often as things appear in the news or are dug up out of my archives.

The first one will appear in a couple of days, then a few more next week, just to get things rolling. If you have any tid-bits you'd like to add to this series, please feel free to email me (see the sidebar for the address) and I'll add it.

For today, I thought I'd show you something I found called, funnily enough, "ILLUSTRATED STUDIES IN SCIENCE AND FAIRYTALES" by Julia Y. (a.k.a. DumpsterDivinE on Etsy).

You can click on the images to get a closer look and read her text.
Here's the blurb about these drawings from her WEBSITE:

"Rana Regulus Demutatio" is the first installment in the series "Illustrated Studies in Science & Fairytales." The title is the latin term for "Frog Prince Transformation" and it is the first accurate documentation of the internal processes involved when a frog transforms into a handsome prince.

Are we grossed out yet? Completely - and completely fascinated too. More please!

While the new series on Once Upon A Blog... will actually scientifically based facts, theories and stories relating to fairy tales, I couldn't help pop in the "Rana Regulus Demutatio" for you. Somehow I have a feeling some (demented?) scientist, somewhere, is experimenting to see if frogs can transform/be transformed... (runs off to grab a pencil and start scribbling a new story)

And while we're on the subject of The Frog Prince (or, more correctly The Frog King or Iron Henry), here are two of my favorite retellings: "Fair Peril" by Nancy Springer and "Water Song" by Suzanne Weyn. Click on the book covers to be taken to more information about each.

NOTE: You can find the rest of the images from JuliaY's book HERE and see her awesome website HERE.