Part 27 (2/2)
Once the roar had subsided, a giant head emerged from the darkness.
”Run!” someone screamed. ”Run! It's a dragon!”
But it was not a dragon, of course. It was Eddie.
On top of Eddie's head sat the three ravens.
”Sorry to intrude,” said the first raven.
”But this guy was lost,” said the second.
Everyone around the bonfire stared at the talking birds, perched atop the head of the most enormous, foulest-smelling beast they could have ever imagined.
”He was looking for you,” the third raven explained.
”Looking for us?” Jack asked.
”He's been looking for you for weeks now,” the second raven said.
”Why?” demanded Jill. ”Is everything all right?”
”Oh, I think so,” said the first raven. ”I think he just has some questions he'd like to ask you.”
So everyone sat around the bonfire as the sun rose in the east, trying to define the word in for Eddie, and deciding who was smellier, Eddie or Fred. Not that they knew who Fred was. The queen put the frog on her knee. The boys from the village sat beside Elsie and her little sister. And Jack and Jill had their arms around each other's shoulders.
Perched far up above in a pine tree, the three ravens looked down upon the scene.
The third raven said, ”Okay, I have a question. What happens next? To Jack and Jill?”
”Don't you know?” scoffed the second. ”You see the future as well as we do.”
”Yes,” said the third. ”But the future is very large, and it's hard to keep track of everything.”
”When they grow up, they will share the throne of Marchen,” said the second raven.
”But they'll marry other people,” the first interjected.
”Right. And Eddie will lead their armies.”
”Not that that they ever fight a war,” said the first. ”Who would want to fight Eddie?”
”True. And they will govern by the light of the Seeing Gla.s.s.”
”Which just means,” explained the first, ”that they'll read the inscription from time to time, to remind themselves.”
”Exactly. And they will be the greatest and wisest rulers in the history of the kingdom of Marchen.”
”And,” added the first raven, ”they will live happily ever after.”
The three ravens sat in silence for a while, watching Jack and Jill-who were stronger than giants, more beautiful than mermaids, cleverer than goblins, and fast-friends with a giant, fire-breathing salamander.
Finally, the third raven asked, ”The end?”
And the second raven said, ”The end.”
And the first raven said, ”The end.”
And it is, indeed,
Where Do These Stories Come From?
Sometimes kids ask me where I get my ideas. My answer is always the same: I steal them. Every writer steals, and writers who work in folk traditions steal liberally. But we don't just steal.
For hundreds of generations, writers and storytellers have taken the threads of older tales and have rewoven them into new garments-new garments that reflect our hands and our visions, and that fit the children we know and care for. All writers do this, even today. We who write in folk traditions are just a little more transparent about it.
My first book, A Tale Dark & Grimm, took its inspiration from the tales of the Brothers Grimm, and I was, in that book, often quite faithful to those awesome (and b.l.o.o.d.y) stories-just as the Brothers Grimm were often (but not always) quite faithful in retelling the stories that they collected. I am far less faithful to my sources in In a Gla.s.s Grimmly. This is because many of these tales are Kunstmarchen, or ”original” fairy tales-tales that were invented by a known author, like Hans Christian Andersen or Christina Rossetti. And what better way to be faithful to invented stories than inventing my own? So the plot, the themes, and the architecture of In a Gla.s.s Grimmly are wholly mine, as they were in A Tale Dark & Grimm. But this time, most of the chapters are wholly mine, too, with a wink and a nod here and there to those awesome story-weavers who came before me.
My chapter ”The Wis.h.i.+ng Well” is based on ”The Frog King or Iron Heinrich,” collected by the Brothers Grimm. It is the most faithful retelling in the book. The name of the kingdom, Marchen, is actually the German word for ”fairy tales”-though ”fairy tales” is a bad translation. Really it just means ”stories you tell around your house if you want to scare the bejeezus out of everybody.” The details about tears on water waking the stars, and the stars granting wishes, were also used in my first book, A Tale Dark & Grimm. Those details comes from the Grimm tale ”The Seven Ravens.”
The chapter ”The Wonderful Mother” is based, loosely, on Hans Christian Andersen's ”The Emperor's New Clothes.”
”Jack and Jill and the Beanstalk” is inspired by Joseph Jacobs's story ”Jack and the Beanstalk,” though I've changed just about everything in it. The chant ”Marie had a little lamb” is a riff on the Mother Goose rhyme ”Mary had a little lamb.” (Sorry to belabor the obvious here.) Jack's rhyme about jumping over the candlestick is also from Mother Goose.
”The Giant Killer” is based, very loosely, on Joseph Jacobs's ”Jack the Giant Killer.” The setting and situations are quite different, but the tests, and Jill's ultimate solution, were suggested by Jacobs's text.
”Where You'll Never Cry No More” is inspired by Scottish and Irish legends of the water nixie, though no specific tales were drawn upon. Just my messed up imagination. The beginning of that chapter, when Jack and Jill fall from the sky and then down the hill, and Jack breaks his head open, is my homage to the Mother Goose rhyme ”Jack and Jill.”
”Goblin Market” is inspired by Christina Rossetti's brilliant poem of the same name, which I really wish I had written. The fruit sellers' chant is lifted directly from her poem.
”The Gray Valley” is original, though the three ravens, whom you might remember from A Tale Dark & Grimm, come from the Grimm tale ”Faithful Johannes.”
”Death or the Lady” is inspired by three sources. The first is Frank Stockton's original story, ”The Lady or the Tiger,” first published in 1882. It is unforgettable and highly recommended-but better for adults than kids. The second is the Jewish folk tale ”The Grand Inquisitor,” collected by Nina Jaffe and Steve Zeitlin in While Standing on One Foot: Puzzle Stories and Wisdom Tales from the Jewish Tradition; this story also appears in Nathan Ausubel's A Treasury of Jewish Folklore. The third source, where I first heard the riddle with the slips of paper and the casket, is a puzzler from the NPR show Car Talk-which was called ”The Lady or the Tiger.”
”The Descent” and ”Eidechse von Feuer, der Menschenfleischfressende” are original. Jack's mumbling about all the king's horses and all the king's men is a reference to the Mother Goose rhyme ”Humpty Dumpty.” I must thank Chiara Frigeni for her help with my, shall we say, ”creative” use of German in coming up with Eddie's full name.
The chapters ”The Others” and ”Face to Face” are also original. When Jack and Jill start into the kingdom of Marchen, I quote the Mother Goose verse, ”Home again, home again, jiggedy jig.” The rhyme ”Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?” is from the Grimms' ”Snow White.” The rest of the mirror rhymes are invented. The Others' punishment, and the fact that they unwittingly choose it themselves, is drawn from the Grimm tale ”The Three Woodsmen.”
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