The Fairy Tale Re-Draw: Riddles, Frogs and Keys!

Once upon a time, there was a girl with a head full of dreams and a soul sprinkled with stars.

To her, everything was magical. Every corner of the world around her held possibility, and she wanted to spend her life exploring and uncovering as many stories as she could.

Of course, reality attempted to set in around those dreams, erecting cool, iron-grey barriers at every interval possible to drag her back to the confines of normality. But, as every true dreamer knows, imagination is a gift that cannot be contained or limited.

And so, with eyes that sparkled defiantly, she continued to dream.

She searches for stories from every corner of the world; loses herself in the pages of musty old books, and drowns in the dulcet tones of a story teller recounting a long-forgotten tale from their childhood. She sits with them, her fingers creating magic of their own with the pictures they create and the words they craft.

She wants to share these tales with you, so they can never be lost in the deep, dark tunnels and passages of time.

Are you sitting comfortably?

It’s time to begin….

For my Inktober theme back in 2018, I chose to focus on Fairy Tales. I chose 31 from a trusty collection I had, illustrated them and uploaded one a day for the month of October. I loved the challenge, and I loved sharing the stories even more. But I’ll admit, I don’t think those pieces were showcasing my work at its best as an artist, or as a writer, and so I’ve devoted the month of May 2020 to re-working them all, re-telling the tales, and publishing a zine to mark the project.

If you’d like to know more about the project, make sure you’re following this blog and my Instagram, as that’s where you’ll be able to see the supplies I’m using, get behind-the-scenes information, and where you’ll know first-hand when the zine will be coming out! If you’re interested in seeing the originals for each piece, they are always uploaded with the new illustrations, so you’ll find them over on my Instagram too! I’ve made a handy Highlight for all of this, so it won’t be hard to find!

These blog posts will be a way for you to learn more about the fairy tales themselves. Some of them will be very well-known to you, and I’m willing to bet that a few of you could recite some of them in your sleep. But others are a tad more obscure, and if you want to know more about them, this is the right place.

As always, I’ll have links to my sources throughout the post. The beauty of fairy tales and folklore is that it inspires so many people from across the world, so there is no shortage of podcasts to listen to or articles to read, and I want to highlight the amazing work of the people creating them as much as I can throughout this project.

The Queen of Riddles

Also known as ‘The Riddle’, this is originally a German fairy tale that sat at number 22 in the collection curated by the Brothers Grimm. It features a Prince who, eager to experience excitement and adventure, embarks on a quest with his servant and, naturally, has his plans thwarted by a cast of colourful characters. If you’d like to read the full version by the Brothers Grimm, you can find it here. There is also a re-telling by Andrew Lang that you can read here, or in his compilation The Green Fairy Book, first published in 1892.

If you like fairy tales with a bit of action and adventure, as well as romance in the form of hearts being won over by a smidge of cunning and intelligence, then this one is likely to be for you. I chose it because I loved the inclusion of the riddle; it serves as a reminder that being able to think outside the box and look at the world around you in your own unique way is just as valuable as sticking to conventions. Well…that and the fact that the thumbnail for this piece came to me so quickly and I couldn’t resist sketching it!

The Frog Prince

I’m sure you’ve all heard of this particular tale one way or another at some point in your lives. Not to be confused with The Frog Princess, The Frog Prince features a spoilt princess and a very determined, but slightly unlucky, prince. Also known as 'The Iron Henry’, it is famously the first tale in the Grimm Brothers’ collection because they treasured the beauty of the ancient story. It’s short and sweet, and teaches us a valuable lesson about appreciation, kindness and things not always being what they seem.

There are so many adaptations and different versions of this tale, both old and new, and it is closely related to other stories from different cultures around the world. There is an extremely entertaining film from 1988 that might amuse you, and this adaptation by Robert Coover that was published in The New Yorker a few years ago is a really fun read!

The Seven Wives of Bluebeard

Thanks to Charles Perrault, we have a version of this twisted tale that has survived centuries. The Seven Wives of Bluebeard is about a man who kills his wives for disobeying him, and if you want to listen to a fantastic reading of it I’d highly recommend the Tales Podcast. You can also read a good translation of it here. It’s not for the faint-hearted: at the end of the day, Bluebeard is abusive and revels in torturing and killing his wives. Our protagonist’s only discretion is her curiosity, and clearly she had a right to be cautious. I included it because I love the debate this fairy tale sparks amongst readers; is it too adult to be included in certain collections? Is it a necessary lesson to teach young adults? Where exactly does the line between right and wrong blur, if at all?

Perhaps you’d like to let me know your thoughts in the comments - I’d love to hear what you think.

Make sure you come back in 3 days time for the next installment, and check out my Instagram for my DAILY uploads!