Cultural or updated versions of faery tales

noir_blood

So for one of my lit classes, I have to compare a Grimm or 'standard' version of a faery tale with a cultural variant of it. Problem is, that except for the Disney versions of faery tales, I'm having a hard time coming up with any.

Can you guys throw out some? If they are in the written medium so much the better.

Iroh

noir_blood wrote: »

So for one of my lit classes, I have to compare a Grimm or 'standard' version of a faery tale with a cultural variant of it. Problem is, that except for the Disney versions of faery tales, I'm having a hard time coming up with any.

Can you guys throw out some? If they are in the written medium so much the better.

Bill Willingham's Fables might be a good lead, but it's not so much a retelling of those stories as it is a comic that happens to feature familiar characters.

noir_blood

Yeah, I definately thought of that, but unfortunately it's a bit too broad. Awesome comic though.

Kipling

There is tons of source material adapted from Grimm.

The Simpsons has ripped off multiple Grimm stories in the Halloween episodes.
Superwhy on PBS, and practically every other children show does this as well. There are also like 50 different Cinderella's on Amazon. Find one at the city library.

Pâté de Foie Gras by Isaac Asimov would be high class.

squeefish

The Rose and the Beast by Francesca Lia Block might be interesting to look at. From what I remember of her work, she usually puts a feminist spin on fairytales.

Kyougu

Wicked comes to mind right away.

Elin

Enchanted - Orson Scott Card (Russian Sleeping Beauty)
The Fire Rose - Mercedes Lackey (Modern Beauty and the Beast)
The Serpents Shadow - Mercedes Lackey (Modern Snow White)

Mercedes Lackey actually has an entire series of updated fairy tales, those two are my favorite. There are a tone of fantasy authors who use fairy tales, they're a great base. If you're looking for other cultures myths that parallel Grimm, they're out there but I can't think of any off the top of my head. I'll come back and edit if I do.

Quid

Kyougu wrote: »

Wicked comes to mind right away.

This was my thought too.

NightDragon

Gregory Maguire has written a few stories that are based off of classic fairy tales, but he's written them in a more historical/realistic context. May be something like what you're looking for.

"Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister" = Cinderella
"Mirror Mirror" = Snow White

And etc. He's the one who wrote Wicked, too.

AresProphet

Neil Gaiman rewrote Snow White. "Snow, Glass, Apples" from Smoke & Mirrors.

It's, uh, interesting

bone daddy

Book of Lost Things

see317

I'm fairly certain that Wishbone did some classic fairy tales at one point or other.

Bliss 101

Do variants that predate the "classic" version count? Charles Perrault's rather bleak version of Little Red Riding Hood comes to mind.

Hypatia

There's a series of books edited by Windling and Datlow chock full of short stories of alternate takes on fairy tales: (I gave up on linking halfway through this list)

Snow White, Blood Red, Black Thorn, White Rose, Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears, etc

Other options include:
Beauty: A retelling of the story of Beauty and the Beast, Outlaws of Sherwood (Robin Hood retelling), Spindle's End (Sleeping Beauty retelling) all by Robin McKinley
Dragon of the Lost Sea and that whole series by Lawrence Yep (Retelling of some of the Chinese fairy tales like the Monkey King)
The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by A. Wolf (3 little pigs story, children's book)
Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes (4 retellings of various stories like Little Red Riding Hood, 3 little pigs, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Goldilocks)
Almost every Sword and the Sorceress anthology book edited by Marion Zimmer Bradley has at least 1 short story in it that's a retelling of a fairy tale
Mercedes Lackey's stuff like the Fire Rose, etc, people have already mentioned those

For King Arthur stuff, all the Avalon Books by Marion Zimmer Bradley, the Crystal Cave stuff by Mary Stewart, the Once and Future King by T.H. White, The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay

Grislo

Could you maybe define what your prof means by 'cultural variant'? While there are a lot of good suggestions in this thread, I wouldn't call most of them cultural variants.

Some books you might find interesting, depending on the type of paper you're writing:

Aarne, Antti. The Types of the Folktale: A classification and Bibliography.

Lüthi, Max. The European Folktale: Form and Nature.

Olrik, Axel. ‘Epic Laws of Folk Narrative’.

Propp, Vladimir. Morphology of the Folktale.

You could just go with a book focusing specifically on variations on one well know story. I think Maria Tatar has done a book on Bluebeard, for example (she's done some decent stuff on the Grimms, and on fairy tales in general as well, like editing a few Norton anthologies that might be worth checking out as they'll have variations on stories)

Newres

Iroh wrote: »

noir_blood wrote: »

So for one of my lit classes, I have to compare a Grimm or 'standard' version of a faery tale with a cultural variant of it. Problem is, that except for the Disney versions of faery tales, I'm having a hard time coming up with any.

Can you guys throw out some? If they are in the written medium so much the better.

Bill Willingham's Fables might be a good lead, but it's not so much a retelling of those stories as it is a comic that happens to feature familiar characters.

There is that Fable retelling of the 1001 Nights though, called 1001 Nights of Snowfall where some of the stories might fit what you are looking for as they are mostly self contained.

MoSiAc

I haven't seen the movie but isn't that Grimm Brothers flick like about him actually being a part of most the tales he wrote?

Would that work?

Tach

Can I suggest "The Brothers Grimm" film by Terry Gilliam? Some interesting stuff in there.

noir_blood

Hey guys, we got more details on the assignment;

We can only pick from a number of stories. Those are;

Hansel and Gretel
Little Mermaid
Ant and the Grasshopper
Princess and the Pea
The Tortoise and the Hare
Puss in Boots
City Mouse and Farm mouse
Little Red Riding Hood
Emperor's new Clothes
Three little pigs
Rumpelstiltskin
Three gruff goats
Rapunzel
Cinderella
Goldilocks
Snow White
Chicken Little
Frog Prince
Jack and the Beanstalk
Pied Piper

I have emailed her to see if I can use other mediums, but the paper she handed out said we must read and annotate a culturalta variant. By that she means it can either be a different/modern take, or it can be and old take from another country. She uses Lon Po Po as eexample of a cultural variant of Little Red Riding Hood

Since the assignment is due next Thursday, Big books are probably out. I would rather find something easily accessible in the internet/library.

Fendall

I second the Neil Gaimans Snow, Glass, Apples. Its only a short story so you should be able to plow through it prety quick. It also deals with paedophiles, vampires and necrophiliacs. So good subject matter for a class assignment.

noir_blood

Fendall wrote: »

I second the Neil Gaimans Snow, Glass, Apples. Its only a short story so you should be able to plow through it prety quick. It also deals with paedophiles, vampires and necrophiliacs. So good subject matter for a class assignment.

Awesome, it looks like it's easily accessible online, so yep, that's the one I'm going for. Thanks all, I wouldn't have found it without PA!

Quid

noir_blood wrote: »

Puss in Boots

Would Maurice and his Amazing Rodents count for this?

Edit: Whoops, you already picked and Gaiman's always a good choice.

corcorigan

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The comic, not the godawful movie.