Reading Notes: Brothers Grimm (Librivox), Part B

I enjoyed Part B of this unit a lot. The stories were ones most people had probably never heard of and were not typical fairytales. Even the one that involves princesses was very different from other princess fairytales.

The Twelve Huntsmen

I thought this story was so beautiful and the ending was amazing! I did have a lot of questions throughout the story, though, like why did she need 11 body doubles and then dressed them up like men? There was never a good reason given for why that was the route the princess chose to check up on the prince. Also what happened to the prince's new bride? Was she just super cool with the prince divorcing her for his huntsman/former lover (who is a woman)? Also how did the lion just know they were women? Was it a smell thing? I would love to maybe give some clarification to these things or maybe write the story from the point of view of the new bride. That would be interesting.

The Twelve Dancing Princesses

This story also had a really interesting premise! I mean princesses that secretly dance at night is super cool! Also this story has a Barbie movie, so it earns bonus points from me. The only problem I had was the ending because it seemed very rushed and I really didn't expect the soldier to choose a daughter or at least a little more after he chose one. The entire story had so much description and reasoning behind everything else that to have the soldier solve the mystery, decide to marry the oldest sister, and then the end seemed really short. I would definitely work on making the story a little more concise and changing what happens to the girls in the end. Also is the place they go to dance outside the realm of reality or is there a king somewhere wondering why his twelve sons always have holes in their shoes? Maybe I'd tell the story from their perspective.

(Barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses. Photo from The Movie DB)

Bibliography. Fairy Tales by the Brothers Grimm, an audiobook recording available at LibriVox based on a Project Gutenberg publication. Links to readings