First off - to all you lovely people out there who may or may not be reading - read Erstwhile . It's my new favorite webcomic, updated three times weekly and illustrating some of the Grimms' less well-known tales. It starts with a deliciously amusing 'The Clever Farmer's Daughter', then there is a short little interlude of a riddle-tale, and at the moment 'Maid Maleen' is being done. The art is fabulous and the retellings are both true to the story and inventive.
Survival Guide - Continued. The Knowing of Animals Part One.
In the land of the fairy tale it is enormously important to know your animals and other creatures. Let us start with amphibians. The Frog and the Toad. If a Toad offers you a favor or hops out of the mouth of your significant other or comes into your bathroom while you are doing your ablutions and sits on your chest - this is not a good thing. Remember herein one important fact, and remember this fact very well: Toads Are Evil.
Always.
Without exception.
However - if a frog offers you a favor, asks for a kiss or requests that you don't kill it - listen because almost 100% of the time, Frogs are enchanted good guys. Good. Right? Got it? Frogs = Good. Toads = Bad.
Let us go over a couple of plausible scenarios:
#1 Your father is trying to decide on an original way to split his property. He gathers you and your siblings together, takes out enough feathers for all of you and instructs you to each follow a feather and where it lands to buy a roll of silk cloth fine enough to thread through the eye of a needle/a dog small enough to sit in the palm of his hand/an honest politician or some other such impossible feat. You are unlucky enough to get the feather that pretty much takes a nose-dive for the ground. As you bemoan your fate, a small frog hops up and offers to help. Do you:
A. Presume that this offer will have some sort of eventual price not unlike the going rate for golden balls and shoo the frog away.
B. Scream and squish it into green Kermit-jelly.
C. Accept the help because firstly, you're the youngest, secondly your feather seems to have doomed you to failure which obviously means you will succeed and lastly it's a talking frog. It's magic.
The correct response is C - accept the help. In this case the frog will answer your every wish until your father requests you to bring him an impossibly talented spouse, at which point the frog itself will show up in a ridiculous carriage, make a fairy laugh and then turn into the prerequisitely gorgeous specimen of humanity all enchanted animals always turn into. While A shows a certain nous for fairy-tale lore, in this case since you're on a quest you should always accept help from animals who offer it. And B? Never harm an animal in a fairy tale unless it's actively trying to eat you. Fairy tales are like the ULTIMATE SPCA environments. People who hurt animals die horrible horrible deaths.
2# You are having your evening bath to relax and soak away the cares of a day of gold spinning/weaving/emroidery or Giant killing. You have recently acquired a new parent of the gentle sex and possibly lost some siblings. While you are bathing, three toads jump in the bath and settle on your skin, do you:
A. Scream and squish them like Mr Toad should have been squished in an automobile accident considering flippers can't manipulate gas pedals.
B. Ignore them, they'll turn into flowers anyway.
C. Ask them for a favour, there's three of them after all.
The correct response is B. The toads are part of an evil spell cast by your step-mother/father in an attempt to rob you of your talents and beauty and steal your inheritance. However, because you are so very very awesome, the toads will turn into roses (or your flower of choice). Option C shows some innovation on your part - as yes, 3 is a magic number in fairy-tales. However toads are evil, so the inherent evil of the animal outweighs the magic of the number. As for A - yes, toads are evil. However please recall that you are not allowed to kill animals in the fairy story. Not even evil ones unless it's a dragon and this is your quest to start with. Small relatively helpless animals should not be slain under any circumstances.
#3. You have a special significant other, but every time she speaks, spiders snakes and toads hop out of her mouth. Do you:
A. Try to find her pretty sister, because she's bound to be spewing gold.
B. Burn her at the stake as a witch.
C. Ask her for her father's magic ring since she's probably related to the king of snakes... or toads... or something...
The correct response is A. Spewing toads or snakes or both is a sign of a black heart, and also a sign that you picked up the wrong daughter. Go looking and you'll find a lovely maiden with a lucrative if rather annoying case of the golden hiccups. B is a rather harsh response and could push you into villain status, always rather dangerous in a fairytale. C only works if the woman has shed a snake skin. If there are toads involved, it never works at all. Toads are always bad. Remember this.
Mark your answers and remember the tips! Toads = bad, frogs = good.
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