Reading Diary A: Celtic Fairy Tales

Here are my favorites from the first half of the Celtic Fairy Tale unit:

Connla and the Fairy Maiden: I liked this story because it reminded me a bit of The Fairy Bride from the American Indian Fairy Tales unit I read two weeks ago. This time the fairy is a woman and the human desiring to go to the land of the fairies is a man. I wonder why it is that only Connla can see the fairy maiden and no one else can. Maybe it's because he's the only one that has been chosen to go to the immortal paradise. I wish a magical person or creature of some kind would come ask me to run away to a magical place like that (especially Hogwarts). Maybe I'll rewrite this story later this week and make my dreams come true.

The Horned Women: This was a creepy little tale about witches that invade a woman's home and are a nuisance. It seems like one of those scary stories from that children's book series, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. It has the same odd plot and aura of creepiness, without being gruesome. Even the illustration (below) looks like it would fit right in to one of those books. I don't know what I would do if some scary women with horns growing out of their heads invaded my home. Actually, I probably wouldn't have even opened the door. Then again, they could probably just open it with magic

The Horned Witches (John D. Batten)

The Sprightly Tailor: This story proved to be just as creepy as the last and also in the same character as the Stories to Tell in the Dark series. A tailor's lord basically dares him to work in the old church over night for a handsome reward and some giant human-like creature starts crawling out of the floor and talking about how big he is. If that was me in that church, I would have been gone when that giant head popped up; forget the money. Then again, I'm a big scaredy cat so I probably wouldn't have agreed to the bet in the first place. If I'm sleeping by myself, I prefer to have a light on. I hope I don't have a creepy nightmare about this story tonight.

Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree: This story is very similar to Snow White. A queen is jealous of her daughter's beauty because of magical being says Gold-Tree is prettier. This time the ways used to try to kill her are a poison stab (a needle maybe?) and a poisoned drink. The big difference in this version is that Gold-Tree's husband marries after he thinks she's dead and decides to keep both wives whenever the second revives Gold-Tree. That seems a little selfish to me on the prince's part. I could hardly see the two wives being happy about it in real life but the second wife does save Gold-Tree from her mother's plot again so they seem to be handling it fine. If they're okay with it then I don't see the harm.