#danish fairytale

[have-you-heard-this-fairy-tale]

[marine-indie-gal]

Inktober 2024 Day 21: The Ugly Duckling

Another Fairytale, this Time from Hans Christian Andersen (in which that the Story itself was based on his Childhood Life that came to inspire Many Other "Ugly Duckling" inspired stories like Rudolph or Dumbo).

The Long-Lost Swan Cygnet was born to a Duck Family but he wasn't loved by his own Foster Family since his Parents & Siblings mocked him for being Too Different, even Other Animals would mock him as well.

The Poor Baby was all lost & alone after his Duck Family abandoned him, he was so broken in Sadness as he wandered all by himself. However, as he woke up & found himself older, he found himself all Beautiful as he realized that he had been a Swan this whole time when he discovered his own kind, he reunited with his Biological Family after all of these Years (even his own Foster Siblings couldn't believe it).

The Ugly Duckling (c) Hans Christian Andersen

[z2z-gaming-and-random-art-ai]

The Ugly Duckling

[the-evil-clergyman]

Illustrations from Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales by Kay Nielsen (1924)

[flowerytale]

Hans Christian Andersen, from The Little Mermaid

[random-brushstrokes]

Hans Nikolaj Hansen (Danish, 1853–1923) - The young woman passing the Blide-Bro

[fairytale-poll]

WINNER ANNOUNCEMENT POST!!!!!!!

The finals are over, so it's time to announce the winners for the Little Merpoll!

As always, thank you to everyone who participated! If you submitted characters and/or propaganda, if you reblogged the polls, even if you just voted, it was a pleasure having you! I've done fairytales poll before this & hope to continue for a while after this, and it's been a pleasure having you guys along for the ride!

Now, for our 5 winners.

The first winner to announce is the winner of the Mod's Choice poll! The Mod's choice poll is the "least important" of all the polls, as it has the least amount of contestants (this one had the last of any of the previous Mod's Choice polls) and are nominated simply based on which ones I like, but it holds a special place in my heart regardless.

This time, the winner was Sayaka Miki from Puella Magi Madoka Magica, who was also notable for being the runner-up for the Loser's Bracket. While I'm not as big of a fan of Madoka Magica as I used to be, I still love Sayaka, so it was delightful for her to do so well in the Mod's Choice poll & almost win the Loser's Bracket. Congratulations Sayaka and Sayaka fans!

But while Sayaka was the runner-up for the Loser's Bracket, she was not the actual Loser's Bracket winner. That honor goes to Mira from Dimension 20: Neverafter. While I haven't ever listened to Dimension 20, I was pretty about to see her take the win. After one Dimension 20 character won Red Riding Poll, no character from it ranked at all in Cinderpoll or in the main tournament for Little Merpoll, which is why I was glad to see Dimension 20 make a comeback for this Loser's Bracket. Mira's design is pretty cool, too, I love the pirate look. Congratulations for the win!

NOW, onto the MAIN TOURNAMENT WINNERS...

For our two bronze-place winners it's The Little Mermaid from the original Hans Christian Andersen fairytale & Ariel from Disney's The Little Mermaid 1989! To my surprise, it was actually the first time both the original fairytale and the Disney adaptation ranked! Honestly, these are some pretty good ones to rank, too. The original fairytale is a great read (and super short, so if anyone hasn't read it already, you should go do so) being both beautiful and poignantly tragic. Whereas the Disney adaptation holds up surprisingly well and is a beautiful piece of animation. Congratulations to these two bronze-place winners!

For the runner-up of the tournament is Bug from Starship by Team Starkid! I know that Team Starkid is very popular in certain parts of the Internet & the Starship itself did very well, but even then it felt like Bug was an underdog going up against giants like Disney, Studio Ghibli, and the original fairytale the tournament is based on, so I have to congratulate this guy for getting so far regardless! Good job, and I hope your fans are happy for you getting the silver!

Now, finally, the moment of truth-- the winner of the Little Merpoll, the certified best Little Mermaid as voted by Tumblr--

CONGRATULATIONS TO PONYO FROM STUDIO GHIBLI'S PONYO!

I watched this movie for the first time during the course of the tournament and it is truly a breathtaking marvel of animation, one of the best visuals I've ever seen for a movie ever. I will quote the propaganda submitted for Ponyo and say this little ham-loving girl deserved the win simply for the fact that there is no force more powerful than 5-year-old girls!!!

Our next tournament will be Best/Worst Modern Fairytale Adaptations. I'll open submissions up after a short hiatus, as I am in midst finals & will be graduating soon, which will take up most of my time in the next 2 weeks. See you for the next tournament at the end of May!

[homeisaplaceinthehills]

Den lille Havfrue København, 2008

shop | flickr

[sassafrasmoonshine]

Kay Nielsen (Danish, 1886-1957) • The Story of a Mother from Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales • London: Hodder and Stoughton, Ltd. • 1914

[have-you-read-this-short-fiction]

[thiziri]

Princess Anne, Crown Princess Victoria, Crown Prince Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands and Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark, during a dinner to celebrate King Harald's & Queen Sonja's 25th wedding anniversary, on 28 August 1993.

[atalantethewaldfee]

Fairytales

I kind of noticed a big misunderstanding of German fairytales.

There are two kinds of fairytales.

The folk fairytale:

This are your classic fairytales, born from a thousand years of oral history. Most of the Brother Grimm's fairytales are folk fairytales. Folk fairytales end well for the Heros and terrible for the villains (example: snow white- the evil queen is forced to dance in hot iron shoes till she dies, in snow whites Wedding)

It plays in an unknown land and in an unknown time. (starting phrase of fairytales in German : For langer, langer Zeit, in einem weiteren entfernten Land [A long, long time ago, in a far away land]) and features stereotypical characters like 'big bad wolf' and 'beatiful princess'.

It often uses magical numbers like...

7 (seven dwarves behind seven mountains, 7 ravens, seven flys killed' at once, seven Kids(?)/ little goats)

3 (three taskes, three ways to kill Snow White, three Balls in 'Aschenputtel' (German Cinderella))(examples for this are a little hard to explain in few words because they're so specific)

13 (thirteen fairies in sleeping beauty)

These stories are often uses to explain morals or rules of survival. (Don't abuse your Kids/ step Kids, don't just Run into the woods, don't let strangers into the House)

The Art fairytale:

This fairytales was written by an author and is Not meant to explain a rule or bring hope.

Most of these are very tragic. The little Mermaid (from Hans Christian Andersen) would be a good example.

Others would be 'The Steadfast Tin Soldier'(also from Hans Christian Andersen) or the 'girl with the matches' (ALSO from Hans Christian Andersen)(goodnes he wrote a lot of these, this poor man's mental health really was bad)(Spoiler: the solider and the girl die)

Hans Christian Andersen wrote 156 Art fairytales. Remember: they all endet badly! I think the guy set in Stone what an Art fairytales is?!? I did Not know that? I Just wanted to teach about fairytales, I did NOT want to learn about this man's tragic live.

Like this are two books, full of fairytales (mostly Art fairytales) from the guy.

TWO books.

And the title reads ' Die schönsten Haus- und Weihnachtsmärchen' (The Most beautiful home and Christmas fairytales)

Beautiful fairytales my ass. The guy kust did therapy but as written stories. I mean, he wrote Snow Queen, which kind of ends well? But that doesn't really make it better.

So before I end this, to mull over Hans mental health:

Fairytales are not the only type of German folk Story. They are a very specific Type, that follows specific rules. Other types follows other rules.

Not every German folk Story ist a fairytale. And other very old Stories can end badly, but then it's not a fairytale. Not a folk one at least. But maybe it's danish and actually from this depressed Gay Poet that seems to have written all the Art fairytales of my childhood. Further more, there are many folk fairytales that do not come from Germany, but those also follow These rules more or less. (There are also a lot of different versions of the same fairytale all over Europe)

[gennsoup]

"One must not mind slight inconveniences when one wishes to look well."

Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid

[phosphorus-noodles]

suggestion for if you pick up a language course: songs!

find a song you like the sound and story/premise of, then learn how to sing a few lines from it! it's wonderfully fun to learn, and can be a bit more forgiving with pronunciation since singing distorts words artistically and intentionally. it's also a great way to find a sense of pride, since it's a pre-determined quantity that you can proud of making progress on! plus, it lets you explore a new range of music you might not have tried out beforehand

I've changed my mind I'm learning Swedish so I can sing Caramelldansen.

[the-evil-clergyman]

Illustrations from The Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen by Kay Nielsen (1924)

[hapalopus]

What the hell did I just read 😃

You think you got this fairytale figured out. Okay, so the old fisherman promised his kid to the merman, so they gotta figure out how to get the son back from the merman. But then the kid frees himself from the merman with the help of the merman's imprisoned talking horse? And a lion?? And the merman magic gave the kid supernatural strength and golden hair down to his ankles too btw. So the merman chases them on land and they kill him with fire and you're like, oh, okay, so now the kid has killed the merman and he's gonna go back to his parents right? Happy ending?

But then the talking horse is like "you have to go to the castle and get a job, I'll live in the forest in the meantime, trust me, I have a plan" and the kid is like 👍 Okay, I trust you talking horse. The lion is just hanging out in the background. So he gets a job in the stable and the horse is like "no that's a bad job, be bad at your job so they'll fire you," which the kid then does, but then the cook takes pity on him and gives him a job instead. But the horse is still like "no, that's a bad job, get fired again," which the kid does, but then the gardener hires him instead. And the horse is like "perfect. Okay. When you're out in the garden the princess will come by and ask for a bouquet. You have to woo her." And you, the reader, think you've finally figured out where this story is going.

But then the narrator mentions that oh, btw, this whole time Hans with the Golden Hair has been hiding his hair under a cap and telling everyone that he can't take off his hat because he has scabies. The princess takes a liking to him in spite of this, but everyone starts calling him Scabies Hans and makes fun of the princess for liking him. Their romance slowly blossoms. And then war breaks out and everyone who can't participate wants to go look at the battle, including Scabies Hans. But the only horse available is a three-legged horse that no one likes. So Scabies Hans rides out to the talking horse, and the talking horse is like "I have a sword and a suit of armor here, take off that ugly peasant clothing, we're gonna give you a glow-up, then you can ride me into battle." The lion is there too.

So Hans with the Golden Hair rides the talking horse into battle (the lion is also there) and right when the battle seems lost the horse says "blow at your sword's hilt" and Hans the the Golden Hair does so, and a phantom army appears and the enemy is forced to retreat. Everyone wants to know who this mysterious golden-haired stranger with a talking horse and a magic sword and a phantom army (and a lion) is but Hans is shy, so he runs back to the forest, drops the handsome knight act, puts on his cap and goes back to being Scabies Hans. This happens three times. But the third time the king is like "I've had enough of this handsome guy doing favors for us, I want you to trap him" which they try to do, but Hans escapes with just a stab wound in the leg. He hobbles back to the princess and is like "yeah, the three-legged horse kicked me so now my leg is bleeding" and the princess is like "oh you poor little Scabies Hans, here, take my handkerchief and bandage your leg." But the king knows that the mysterious stranger got stabbed in the leg, so he asks for every man in the country with a stabbed leg to report to the castle. And you, the reader, have finally figured out that this is actually a very convoluted genderbent Cinderella story.

Men across the country stab themselves in the leg to get the kingdom and the princess' hand in marriage, but the king doesn't recognize any of their stab wounds. Finally they realize that Scabies Hans is the only leg-stabbed guy in the country who hasn't been checked out yet, so Scabies Hans goes to the king. He is ordered to take off his cap. He keeps insisting that nooo he has scabies, it's embarrassing, please don't make him take off his cap. So they force his cap off at sword-point. And his golden locks fall all the way down to his ankles. And the king realizes that Scabies Hans is actually Hans with the Golden Hair. And then he marries the princess and gets half the kingdom.

BUT THE STORY ISN'T OVER YET

Hans goes back to the forest where the talking horse and the lion are hanging out and he tells them what happened. They get moved to the stables and are very happy and Hans talks to the horse every day. And one day the horse says "Hans, we've had a great time you and I, lots of great memories, loved hanging out with you and killing all those soldiers with our phantom army. I made you king and got you a bangin wife. Can you do me a favor in return? Please decapitate me." And Hans (understandably) is like "No I don't want to decapitate you???" But the horse instists that Hans has to cut off its head and tail and place the head at the tail end and the tail at the head end. And eventually Hans agrees. And wouldn't you know it, the horse was a handsome prince who had been turned into a horse! And it turns out the not-horse is actually their heir to the throne that Hans was just given! The king is very upset, but the not-horse says "Don't worry dad, I don't wanna be king, I just didn't wanna be a horse anymore." They all lived happily ever after. Including the lion.