Reading Notes: More English Fairy Tales, Part A
For this weeks readings, I have chosen "More English Fairy Tales", written by Joseph Jacobs (link above). These stories come from a book that was a sequel to Jacobs other book titled "English Fairy Tales", and both were written in the 1890's. Part A has a total of 7 single page stories, so for this assignment I have chosen two to focus on.
The first story I chose was titled "The Golden Ball". This story is about two daughters who met a man who gave each of them a gold ball. If one of the girls was to lose her ball, she would be hanged. One girl lost her ball when she threw it and it rolled into someone else's house, so she was taken to be hanged. Her lover said he would go retrieve the ball, but when he did, an old woman said he must stay in the house for three nights to get the ball back. He stayed for the three nights and had to fight giants and boggers each night, but he finally got the ball back. Right before the girl was about to be hanged, her lover came and rescued her. They lived happily ever after. Overall, I did like this story, but since it was written a long time ago, it had some old time language in it, which made it a little more difficult to read. But I did like that it had a happy ending.
The next story I chose was titled "The Old Witch". This story is about two girls who lived with their parents. One girl wanted to go find work in the town, so she did, but no one wanted her. She kept going farther and farther away from home. She met bread who begged to be taken out of the oven, a cow who begged to be milked, a tree who begged to have the fruit taken off its branches, and finally she met a witch. The witch gave the girl work by making her clean the house, but telling her to never look up the chimney. One day she did look up the chimney and down came a bag of money. She did this many times and then decided to head home. On her way home, the witch started following her, so the tree she helped earlier agreed to hide her. Then the girl found the cow, and the cow agreed to hide her. Next, the girl found the oven and the oven hid her. The oven then trapped the witch inside and the girl went home. The sister decided to do the same as her sister, but instead did not help any of the creatures that her sister did, so the creatures did not help her when the witch came chasing after her. Overall, I did like this story, although I did find it repetitive. I wish it hadn't been as repetitive as it was, but I did like the details and the length.
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