February 7, 2009

All Kinds o' Fur.

Yeeeeah I finally decided what story I'm going to craft for my kids! *faint* Now I just have to get busy illustrating & illuminating like a mad monk locked in a cell.

Anyway, the story I finally chose to mock up for my kids is Allerleirauh or All Kinds of Fur, or Catskin (english variant). The original story more or less is as such:

A king promises to his dying wife that he won't remarry until he finds a woman as beautiful as he is. This turns problematic when he realizes that the only woman equal to his wife's beauty is his daughter. The daughter does NOT want to marry her father, so she wishes for three dresses: one of gold, one of silver, and one white, and a coat made of samples of furs from all the animals in the kingdom. When the father gives her the dresses, she takes them and a golden ring and flees to the woods.

There in the woods she sleeps until a king from another kingdom finds her. She pleads with him and he eventually lets her stay in his castle to work in the kitchen as a maid.


Kay Nielsen, "Catskin"


It came time for that king to be married, so he has a ball. All Kinds Of Fur wants to attend the ball, so she sneaks out wearing the golden dress. The king fall in love with her and when the dance is over, she escapes and returns to the kitchen, trading in her gold dress for her coat of all furs. The next night the king has another ball and All Kinds of Fur attends, wearing the silver gown. She dances with the king and when the ball is over, she returns to the kitchen wearing her fur, and drops her golden ring in the soup for the king. The final ball All Kinds of Fur attends the ball wearing the white gown. The king slips the golden ring onto All Kinds of Fur's hand while she isn't paying attention and has the ball go on for a little longer...so that when All Kinds of Fur tries to escape again, she doesn't have time to change and tries to cover herself with her furs.

The ruse fails and the king finds her out; they get married and live happily ever after.

I think it's a nice story. It's not too involved and not too horrible, I can take out the whole...uh, incest part. I think it'll be pretty familiar, it's rather similar to Cinderella and a few other stories. I think it'll serve at least most of my purposes pretty well--I mean, the whole point of this IS to entertain, no? So hopefully my Little Heathens in Training will enjoy it.

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