Fairy Tales

Today at my aunt's house I read many fairy tales. When one sits down and reads (almost) a whole book of Grimm's fairy tales, there is a lot of repetition involved. For instance:

- They seem to like to turn people into birds, don't they? Especially large groups of brothers, whose sister must save them by not speaking for a number of years.

- There certainly are a lot of witches or beasts or villains who ask for a bride or a child in exchange for mercy or riches. I'm glad I haven't run across any.

- WHAT'S WITH THIS YOUNGEST CHILD THING!?!?! We Eldest Children can't help that we're born first! Why are the youngest - usually either the youngest daughter of 3, 6, 7, or 12 daughters- nearly always the prettiest, kindest, and sweetest of the lot? And why is the youngest son (again, usually of 3, 6, 7, or 12 brothers) nearly always the luckiest, the humblest, the bravest? Come on! There are a lot of good morals in fairy tales, such as "Share what you have and a weird dwarf guy won't cause you to cut your arm off" and "Use your brains and the witch won't kill you," and "Fight the dragon and you'll win the princess," but "Be the youngest, and fortune will smile upon you"!?

I feel very discouraged. Is there no hope for me? There are very few exceptions, and it's kind of depressing me. ;) What on earth did the Grimm brothers have against older daughters and sons? All fairy tale, legend, and myth writers, for that matter. I think we older siblings need a club, or something.

But even so: I. LOVE. FAIRY TALES. Now that I'm in a fairy tale mood I'm going to head over to SurLaLune Fairy Tales and see if they have an annotated version for any of the good 'uns I read today. : )