Week 12 Reading Diary A

This week I chose to read the Celtic Fairy Tales unit. The stories are taken from Celtic Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs with illustrations by John D. Batten (1892). Here are a few of my favorite stories from the first half of the reading.

Connla and the Fairy Maiden 

Fairy Queen

Found on One Vibration

• Connla meets a woman from "the plains of the ever-living" who is very mysterious and talks about living without sin or sadness. The woman falls in love with him and begs him to come with him to the Land of Pleasure. Connla's father cannot see her, but can hear her and was worried so he summons his wizard. The wizard shot spells toward the place where her voice came from. She disappeared and no longer spoke, but left an apple for Connla. For a month, he would eat nothing but that apple, which never ran out. Then, at the end of the month, she spoke to Connla again and bade him to come with her. The king once again summoned the wizard, but the wizard could not stop Connla's want to be with the maiden. She once again asked him to join her on her crystal canoe and travel to the land where only wives and maidens dwell, a land of joy. Connla simply could not resist anymore and he hopped into her canoe. The two glided away into the ocean together and were never seen again. 

The Horned Women

• A rich family was chilling when all of a sudden there was a knock at the door. They asked who was there and was answered with, "I am the witch of the one horn." She opened the door and entered a small woman with a horn on her head and a handful of wool in her hand. She began carding the wool furiously. Then, another knock came and when the lady of the house opened the door, another witch, this one with 2 horns, entered the house. She came in with a spinning wheel and went to work spinning the wool. Knocks kept coming and women with horns kept entering. They spun and sang together, but did not talk to the lady of the house. The lady tried to get up and cry for help, but couldn't move or make a sound. The witches had put a spell on her.
• They told her to make them a cake. She tried, but could not find anything to make the cake with. They gave her a sieve and told her to use it to fetch water, but the water fell through. She knelt by the well and cried until a mysterious voice told her to use the dirt to plug up the sieve and carry water. She did so and was told by the voice that when she gets to the North side of the house, she must shout, "The mountain of the Fenian women and the sky over it is all on fire" three times. She did this and the witches screeched and fled the house back to their home. 
• The spirit of the well then taught the lady how to protect her house from the witches should they return. First, she took the water that she'd used to clean her children's feet and sprinkled it outside of the door. Then, she took the cake that the witches had made with the blood of the sleeping children while she was gone and broke up the cake. She put pieces of it in each person's mouth and they were restored. Then, she took the cloth they had woven and placed it half in and half out of the chest with the padlock. Last, she took a giant crossbeam and placed it over the door, effectively blocking it. 
• The witches returned and bade her to let them in. She refused, so they told the feet water to let them in, but it said it could not because it was scattered about. Angrily, they turned to the cake and told it to let them in. It replied that it could not because it was broken up in the mouths of the sleeping children. The witches left with great frustration and their cries filled the air as they left, cursing the spirit of the well. The woman and the house were left in peace and she kept a memento of that night above her mantle as generations lived happily in that house for 500 years. 

Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree

Divorce Changes Your Stepchildren’s Soul and Yours, Too!

Ann Taintor Image, found on The Evil Stepmother Speaks

• There was a king whose wife was named Silver-Tree and a daughter named Gold-Tree. One day they went to a glen where they happened upon a trout. Silver-Tree asked the trout if she was the most beautiful queen in the world. It told her no, her daughter was. Silver-Tree was incredibly angry and vowed to never feel better again until she had eaten the heart and liver of her daughter. When she told her husband that she would be healed of her "illness" if she could eat these things, he instead married his daughter off to a wealthy prince and procured the heart and liver of a goat. She ate them happily and a year later she returned to the glen. She gain asked the trout if she was the most beautiful queen of all, and he again told her no, her daughter Gold-Tree was the most beautiful of all. She laughed and told him that it had been a year since she had been alive and he told her that Gold-Tree was alive and well, and living with a wealthy prince.
• Silver-Tree stormed off and ordered that the royal ship be prepared for her so she could go see her daughter whom she had not seen in so long. It was done and she set off. When Gold-Tree found out, she told her servants to help her for her mother would surely kill her. They locked her in a room that no one could get in or out of without the key. When Silver-Tree arrived, she called out for Gold-Tree who said, "sorry, i'm locked in this room. I guess we can't hang out." Silver-Tree then asked her if she would slip her pinky finger through the key-hole so that she may kiss it. Gold-Tree did so and was immediately struck with a poisoned needle. She fell down dead and Silver-Tree returned home. When the prince found his dead wife, he cried and cried. He loved her so much and she was just too beautiful to bury so he locked her away in a special room that only he had the key to. He moved on and remarried. 
• One day, while he was out, his new wife happened upon the key (which he had forgotten that morning) and opened the door to the mysterious room. She was stunned to find the most beautiful woman she'd ever seen lying there. She shook her, and tried desperately to wake her before noticing the needle in her little finger. She pulled it out, and Gold-Tree was restored back to life and beauty. The wife then showed her husband that Gold-Tree was alive and well and offered to leave. The husband was giddy, but told her that he did not want to lose her either so they both became his wives. 
• Silver-Tree again found herself in the glen and asked the trout, "Troutie, bonny little fellow, am not I the most beautiful queen in the world?" To which it replied, "No, Gold-Tree is." She told him she had poisoned her and that she'd been long dead, but he assured Silver-Tree that her daughter was very much alive. Once again, Silver-Tree set off to "see" her daughter. Gold-Tree was terrified, but her new sister-wife assured her that she would be safe. They went down to the dock to meet Silver-Tree together. The evil queen stepped off of the ship, goblet in hand, and said that she had a special drink for Gold-Tree, a present. The second wife stepped in and told Silver-Tree that it was customary in their country for the presenter of a drink to take the first sip. Silver-Tree raised the cup to her lips and the second wife went up and struck it, forcing some of the liquid to go down her throat. Silver-Tree immediately fell down dead and her corpse was sent back home where it was buried. The prince and the two wives lived happily ever after.