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Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in fairy tale

Since there is a discussion going on outside the heathen community about fairy tale dwarves, due to Disney planning yet another remake, let's discuss fairy tale and mythology dwarves. To us, members of the heathen and pagan communities, myth does not mean fictional, it means religious literature. Most of the Norse myths, and depending on the specific sect, many of the Germanic fairy tales as well, are known as the Lore, meaning religious canon.

The Dwarves of heathen mythology that both some modern heathens and heathens of historical times worship are not humans, they are the residents of Svartalfheim. Svartalfheim means Dark Elf Home. It is generally thought that 'dark' here refers to their underground world rather than to their appearance. The Dwarves appearing small seems to be fairly arbitrary in the Old Norse, just like the size of Giants, who can appear either much larger than the gods or the same size as the gods. Fairy tale era dwarves in German are all seen as small, but fairy tale era elves and fairies are also usually seen as small, and they were not always small in their original depiction in older Lore and literature. In English, the Modern English word Dwarf and the older word Dweorg both referred to small beings who were connected to the earth element, and to small people and living things in general. Like Dwarf, Fairy is another English word that refers to a non human entity but is sometimes used to describe human beings. Let us not confuse them. The English word Giant is yet a third word that refer to a mythological or fairy tale being or could refer to a human being, and even objects can be referred to as giant.

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Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Erin Lale
    Erin Lale says #
    Glad you found the book recommendation useful! Disney and other movie houses seem to be doing a lot of remakes. TV and streaming
  • Anthony Gresham
    Anthony Gresham says #
    The Duergarbok looks interesting. I think I'll add it to my wish list. As for the Disney remakes I enjoyed The Jungle Book and

Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs

b2ap3_thumbnail_turtlebat_land.jpgMy friend Denise Ostler, a.k.a. Merri Beacon, writes tiny stories set in Turtlebat Land that she calls Fairytale Medicine: "funny stories in an enchanted land where empowering events create feelings of peace, freedom and self-worth."

The stories are truly medicine, slipping through the fairy tale portal-template already installed in our brains to open up possibilities for long-sought healing.

All of her stories are wonderful. "From War to Peace" is a lovely dose. It's particularly timely and — guess what? — it features a big dollop of belly-centric wisdom.

The story begins as, once upon a time, a man named Ergo is chronically denying his chronic anger. Confronted by his wife, he storms out of the house, runs through the village and on and on into the forest until he has to stop and sleep.

The story continues:

Ergo awoke the next morning and started marching. When the sun was high in the sky, he walked into a little clearing where a wooden shack was built. A sign hung on the doorpost that read “HEALER”.

I bet he doesn’t get much business, thought Ergo to himself. The thought struck him as being quite funny and he laughed out loud. Pretty soon he was shrieking with laughter until he had tears in his eyes. A man came out the door of the shack and smiled at Ergo who was now rolling on the ground holding his belly. “Help me,” he gasped. “I can’t stop laughing.”

“It’s because you have so many unshed tears,” said the healer. Ergo stopped laughing abruptly and sat confused on the ground. The healer gave Ergo his hand and led him inside, placing Ergo in a big chair covered with blankets. Next to the chair was a huge glass globe sitting on a little table.

“What is that thing?” asked Ergo.

The story continues here.

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Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs

On to Something


I am the letter and you are the hot wax.
I am the needle and you, the dancing midget.
We stuff our mouths – breadcrumbs and magpies.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs

So ... yeah. I was dragged out to see the new "Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters" film last night. Um .... before discussing the film, let's start with a little background on the tale which (very very loosely) forms its foundation.

The original "Hansel and Gretel" was recorded by the stalwart Grimms boys in 1812. Unlike other folk and fairy tales (notably Cinderella), it has few transcultural variations: "Finette Cendron" and "Hop o' My Thumb" and possibly the Baba Yaga tales from Russia. But that's about it. The original oral fable went through a few revisions after it was written down -- religious imagery was added, and the biological mother of Hansel and Gretel became a stepmother, for example -- but it remained popular enough to be adapted into stage productions, live action films, animated films, and numerous children's books. 

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