Cat and Mouse in Partnership , Our Lady's Child , The Story of the Youth who went forth to Learn about Fear by the Brothers Grimm

A Fairy tale Treat 

From the complete illustrated fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm

2.Cat and Mouse in Partnership

A certain cat and a mouse play house. They hid a pot of fat away for the winter. The cat  becomes hungry and lies to the mouse about going to a christening where she is the godmother of the little kitty that's been born. The mouse gives her leave. The cat goes to the pot and licks the top of the fat off. Later the mouse asks her what they  named the kitty. Top-off she answers. This the cat does two more times with the same lie that she's been made grandmother again. The other two kitty's names then are half-done and all gone. When winter comes the mouse sees the pot is empty and understands what's happened . He's vexed at the cat and the cat eats him. verily that is the way of the world  

I like this story and how it ends. It's fun to tell to friends  The ending gets them every time. The last sentence , I guess, gives the moral of the story. A cat and a mouse can't be friends. The strong will always take advantage of the weak or rule over the weak. 

3.Our Lady's Child

Hard by in a great forest a woodcutter and his wife and their only child, a beautiful daughter but they could not care for her so then the Mother Mary comes and offers to take the child and raise her as her own. The child grows up in heaven and one day the Mother leaves on a journey and gives the child the keys to the 13 doors of heaven. She may look through all the doors except the 13Th. But the child breaks her promise and opens the 13th door . When the Mother returns she asks the girl three times if she opened the 13th door. 3 times the girl denied /lied that she did not. So the mother banished her to earth and took her voice. The girl is eventually taken in by a King . Who marries her and makes her his Queen. The Queen then has a son and the Mother comes again and asks her if she opened the door. Again she denies so the Mother takes her son. The people in the kingdom believe she's a man eater when they realize  the son is missing but because the King loved her he protected her. The Queen then had another son and the Mother came again and the Queen denied it again and lost her second son. and again the king protected her. One day the Queen had another child, a daughter. The Mother game again and showed her how happy her two sons were and said if she confesses she could have her two sons and her daughter. The Queen denied and the Mother took her daughter. This time the King could not protect her and she would be burned at the stake and at the stake is where the Queen confessed to opening the 13th door  and the Mother descended from heaven and gave the Queen her children, untied her tongue and gave her happiness for her whole life.

This is my favorite story so far. The lesson is 'he who repents his sin and acknowledges it, is forgiven"

I prefer honesty above anything. The Queen  should have been honest from the start. She had three chances and lied every time then she had more chances and still lied. She couldn't even tell the truth for the sake of her children but did for herself. Being honest isn't easy, it's hard at times but it's better for your own peace of mind.

The Frog-King, or Iron Henry by The Brothers Grimm

A Fairytale Treat

From the complete illustrated fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm

I've read some of Grimm's tales before and  I've bought the book recently. Actually I didn't buy it, my little brother(  the irritating bug) and I bought it so we co-own it. I don't think reviewing the whole book would do the different tales justice so I'll do it separately. It's worth it. We all love or loved fairy tales.

The Frog-King or Iron Henry is where The Princess and The frog is derived from (I think). . I'm basing this solely on the fact that there's a princess and a frog in this story. It's the first story from the book( my edition).

"In old times when wishing still helped one,

The story is written really fairy-tale like(like fairy tales are ) and five pages long and illustrated with one picture of the princess taking the frog up the stairs.

This is the tale of a beautiful Princess, whose more radiant than the sun itself. One day she goes off to play with her golden ball. She drops the ball into a fountain. She cries and wishes she had her ball back. So then the Frog appears and promises the Princess her ball back and in return the Princess will take him, the Frog, to her castle, she will allow him to eat with her and sleep in her bed. The Princess thinking the frog couldn't possibly get her ball back agrees. The frog retrieves her ball and the Princess was so happy she then runs home forgetting the Frog. At dinner with her father, the King, they hear some one knocking at the door.

"Princess! youngest Princess!

"Open the door for me!

"Dost thou not know what thou saidst to me

'"yesterday by the cool waters of the fountain?
"Princess,youngest princess!
"Open the door for me!'

The King hears this and asks the Princess what it's all about. After she explains he tells her to keep her promise to the frog. So she reluctantly gets the frog. She had promised to let the frog eat from her plate. this She  does . she hates this. She had also promised to let the Frog sleep in her bed, so she again reluctantly takes the Frog upstairs to her room. In the Princess and the Frog we know, the Frog turns into a Prince after he's kissed by the Princess. According to Grimm the Frog turns when the Princess throws him against a wall. Preferable and much more amusing. The prince then tells he's tale and then returns to his kingdom. Happily ever after.

It's a really nice tale and different. It's called the Frog-King because well the Frog is the king. Iron Henry is and alternative title. In the story the Prince is brought back to his kingdom by his most faithful servant, Henry. When the Prince was turned into a frog Henry had three iron bars placed around his heart, which broke one by one when the prince turned back in to prince. 

There a lot of use of what I''ll call old English, a lot of doth, saidst, thou etc. I'm guessing the moral of the story is that you should keep your promises .Hope you enjoyed this tale .

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