Storytelling Week 13: Prince Fredrick Diaries

Dear Diary,

Being a prince rules (get it?) so hard.  Seriously, it is so awesome.  I get to boss people around and make everyone do everything I need for me.  I'm not even writing this myself right now!  My personal assistant, more like servant, Heinrich is writing all of this.  The poor chump.  Sucks to suck!  It's not my fault I was born into royalty and live in the lap of luxury and riches.  Anything I want, I get.  I would say the world is my oyster and I its pearl, but pearls are for commoners and far too below me.  Gross.  But we need commoners to do everything for us and to be the cogs in the machinery of the kingdom.  I can't wait to be king.  Until then, I will continue causing mischief and tormenting the castle's servants.

-Prince Fredrick

Dear Diary,

UghGh the castle is SO boring today!  All of the servants are too busy to be bothered by any of the pranks I've played on them and Heinrich is helping my parents today and not me.  What does he expect me to do all day?!  I've had to do EVERYTHING myself today!  I can't even believe I'm writing this with my own hand today.  It is just awful.  I guess I'll go take my horse out and roam around the kingdom until I find something to do.  Maybe something, anything, remotely interesting will happen and I can make Heinrich write it for me when I get back.

-Prince Fredrick

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Well, that was a total bust.  This kingdom blows.  Where are all the young people and fun things?  And other nobles?  I swear everyone here is a commoner.  I did meet this super spiteful fairy today.  She told me she was going to turn me into a frog for my terrible behavior and personality.  She told me I was selfish and arrogant, and that I need to be humble and generous.  She told me I would stay that way until a princess takes me out of the spring that I will have to live in, lets me eat from her plate, and sleep upon her bed for three nights in a row.  As if.  Crazy fairy.  She doesn't even know me!  I am the best and everyone loves me!  Even if she were to turn me into a frog, it's not like I would be one for very long.  Ugh, I am just so annoyed with her.  Maybe I can find her again tomorrow and find a way to throw her into the pillory.  That will show her!

Goodnight,
-Prince Fredrick

Dear Diary,
My life is over.  I am a disgusting, slimy, and probably wart-ridden frog.  GROSS.  And to make it all worse, Heinrich didn't know who I was since I didn't tell him what happened yesterday, and he almost killed me!  When I get changed back, he is going to get it.  How dare he try to kill me!  So now I am in the disgusting spring not too far from the castle.  How could anyone live like this?  It's vile.  Hopefully some girl will find me soon and change me back so I can destroy that stupid fairy.

-Prince Fredrick

Dear Diary,
Today, after several months of me not finding a princess, a young girl was playing with her ball close to the spring.  She had been throwing it high up into the air and catching it.  She threw it way too high the last time and was unable to catch it so it rolled right into the spring and almost hit me in the head.  Rude.  I heard her crying like a big baby so I asked her what was wrong even though it was clearly obvious.  So I made a deal with her that if I swam down and got her stupid ball for her, she would have to let me live with her, and eat off her plate, and sleep on her bed.  The silly girl believed it.  She agreed so I went down to get the ball.  When I gave it back to her, she ran away!  Um, miss, that was not what we agreed to. I will find her and make her keep her word.

Goodnight
-Prince Fredrick

Dear Diary,
I found the girl's house.  She closed the door in my face initially, but her father told her she had to keep her promise.  Then, she made me hop everywhere, as if I hadn't done enough of that already.  Whatever, I have one night down and only two to go. But since I left once it was light outside, I am going to sleep all day since she snored the whole night.  How can someone as lovely as she is make such a terrible noise?  The nerve of some people, I swear.

Good day
-Prince Fredrick

Dear Diary,
I went again to the girl's house for the second night in a row.  This girl needs some serious nose strips to help with that snoring; it's so unbecoming.  Luckily I was able to mostly sleep through it last night.

-Prince Fredrick

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Well, I'm off to my last night!  Hopefully when light breaks tomorrow I will be back to my devilishly handsome self and won't ever have to hear this girl's snoring again.  She has started to grow on me a bit.  She's quite beautiful and very interesting.  Maybe will be friends.

Goodnight,
-Prince Fredrick

Dear Diary,
I couldn't sleep again last night.  Not because of her snoring, but because I actually like her.  When I woke up, I was human again and she was staring at me in awe.  I told her the whole story and proposed, and she said yes!  Sweet and loyal Heinrich came and brought the eight-horse coach.  He actually missed me and I surprisingly missed him too!  And all the other castle workers!  I can't wait to see them and introduce them to my beautiful fiancée!

-Prince Fredrick

                              Image: Illustration by Walter Crane (1912) in the un-textbook

Author's note:
This is from the Frog Prince story from the Fairy Tales by the Brothers Grimm LibriVox unit.  I was familiar with the frog prince story, but not this one.  I always knew it as the princesses trying to find her prince after he has been turned into a frog by a wicked witch for some reason that I can't remember.  The princess has to kiss all the frogs until she finds her prince.  In this story, the princess had it so easy.  She wasn't even looking for a prince.  She was by a spring one day and playing with a ball.  It accidentally rolls into the spring, but it is too deep for her to see and she starts to cry at her loss.  The frog - the prince who had been turned into a frog by a fairy for an unknown reason - offers to swim down to get it for her on the condition that she take him home and let him eat off her plate and sleep on her bed for three nights in a row.  That's it.  That sounds like a much better deal than kissing a bunch of frogs.  In the original story, there isn't an explanation as to why the prince was turned into a frog.  I thought it would be fun to give him some back story and give a reason to why he is being punished.  It's very similar to Beauty and the Beast but the prince is the only thing that is changed. Because I wrote it from his point of view, I didn't really keep too close to the original but I think the message is still the same: be nice and help others.

Bibliography:
The Frog Prince  from the Fairy Tales by the Brothers Grimm (LibriVox),
translated by Marian Edwards, with illustrations by Anning Bell (1912).

Week 13 Essay: Grimm But Not Grim

I read the LibriVox Brothers Grimm unit this week and I really enjoyed reading all of the different stories.   I was surprised that they all had fairly happy endings.  I'm used to most of the stories, especially the ones that Disney uses, to end rather tragically and not so happily as most of these stories did.  These definitely seem to be more kid friendly than some of the other ones that we've read in past units.  I don't think some of the past stories would be good for bedtime haha.  I also really liked that most of the stories focused more on mercy rather than justice.  There were some deaths but for the most part it was a different punishment - either having to marry someone they didn't want to or giving their child to an enchantress.  I definitely needed some happy endings this week!
I was pretty surprised by the ending of The Twelve Dancing Princesses .  The king doesn't understand how his daughters' shoes have holes in them every morning when they are locked in their room at night.  He has princes try to find out and if they fail after three nights, they are beheaded.  He even beheaded his own son!  He promises that whoever finds out will be king when he dies.  The old soldier finds out and then he picks what daughter he wants to marry and then he becomes king.  It was just so random to me.  Especially since so many princes were beheaded and the only punishment his daughters get is that one of them has to marry the soldier.  It's not much of a punishment compared to getting beheaded.  I was a little sad for the underground princes though.  I wonder what the soldier did to the trap door and if the other sisters were able to see their princes.

                                                       Image source: wikipedia

                                                 Illustration by R. Anning Bell

Reading Diary Week 13: Grimm (LibriVox)

Grimm (LibriVox)

Part A:

The Frog Prince:
I don't remember the full details of the original, but I really liked this version!  I would much rather let a frog eat from my plate and sleep on my pillow for three nights than have to kiss several ones before finding the prince. I just wonder how old she must have been to get married since she was crying over losing a ball.

Rapunzel
What is a rampion (rapunzel)?  I know it's something edible but I was just wondering what exactly.
This version was pretty dark at certain points: the prince going blind and Rapunzel living in the desert, but I really liked the ending how her tears cure the prince's eyes.  I was also wondering how she had twins and how long they had gone without seeing each other.

Briar Rose
Is this where the superstition of unlucky 13 comes from since the 13th fairy was the evil fairy? I was surprised that this is practically the exact same as the Disney version, other than a few minor details.  I really like that this version had the prince and Briar Rose as complete strangers.  It just sounds so crazy!

Part B:

The Twelve Huntsmen
Oh this is such a cute story!  The ending was not what I was expecting at all.  "Someone who had just found an old key did not require a new one."  How sweet!  I feel like so many of the love stories we've read end in some tragic death so this was a nice surprise!

The Twelve Dancing Princesses
This was quite an odd story.  It just ended kind of suddenly with the soldier picking which of the twelve sisters would be his wife when he became king.