Jacob's Fariy Tales

I read on sacred-texts.com

• The Rose Tree
• Mr. Vinegar
• Henny-Penny
• Lazy Jack

Summary: The Rose Tree

In this story, there was a young girl who had been from her father's first marriage and he had remarried and had a son. However the girls step-mother hated the girl so she chopped off her head and then tried to make soup from her organs to feed to her father and brother. This caused her brother to not eat and he went and burried her under the Rose Tree. He would sit and cry everyday over the tree until one day it bloomed. There was a white bird that came and sat in the tree, it went to a shoe makers and sang of the sad tale, the man loved it so much he gave the bird the shoes he had been working on to hear it again. The bird took the shoes and did the same with a watchmaker and a millstone cutter. Then went back to the home of the family. Knocking on the house with the millstone the stepmother believed it was thunder so the father and son ran out to see, the shoes and watch were dropped at their feet. They showed the step mother what the thunder hand given them and next time the heard the thunder she ran outside to see if it had a gift for her. The millstone was droped on her head and she died.

My Reaction: I liked these stories a lot more than the Grimm stories. Their plots seemed less crazy and murderous. I wanted to read all of these stories for hours.

Potential Problems: They do tend to address murder and beatings as good revenge for those who are better than you are do something stupid.

Recommendations: These are fun, they could be used in drama classes as practice and such, but I don't know if I would use them in the class room until the kids are a little older than elementary school.