Fairy Tales @ MindSay

I was reading my Grimm's Fairy tales at night again...(yes I do that since no one reads it to me:() and I actually read the one I posted below more than once...it always unnerves me.  I know that a lot of the fairy tales were not even meant to be fairy tales, at least not intended for children.  There are some fairy tales nowadays famous among children, and yet full of sexual references which had been either altered from the original, or there is but we just fail to see it, e.g. Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty...(and they say we of this generation have a dirty mind!). Anyway, I don't want to get into that right now.  This particular story I posted below is pretty straightforward however, that is why  it never fails to stirr me.  But...I couldn't imagine telling this to my child as a bed time story.

Sharing Joy and Sorrow 

There was once a tailor, who was a quarrelsome fellow, and his wife, who was good, industrious, and pious, never could please him. Whatever she did, he was not satisfied, but grumbled and scolded, and knocked her about and beat her. As the authorities at last heard of it, they had him summoned, and put in prison in order to make him better. He was kept for a while on bread and water, and then set free again. He was forced, however, to promise not to beat his wife any more, but to live with her in peace, and share joy and sorrow with her, as married people ought to do. All went on well for a time, but then he fell into his old ways, and was surly and quarrelsome. And because he dared not beat her, he would seize her by the hair and tear it out. The woman escaped from him, and sprang out into the yard, but he ran after her with his yard-measure and scissors, and chased her about, and threw the yard-measure and scissors at her, and whatever else came his way. When he hit her he laughed, and when he missed her, he stormed and swore. This went on so long that the neighbors came to the wife’s assistance. The tailor was again summoned before the magistrates, and reminded of his promise. “Dear gentlemen,” said he, “I have kept my word, I have not beaten her, but have shared joy and sorrow with her.”

“How can that be,” said the judge, “when she continually brings such heavy complaints against you?”

“I have not beaten her, but just because she looked so strange I wanted to comb her hair with my hand; she, however, got away from me, and left me quite spitefully. Then I hurried after her, and in order to bring her back to her duty, I threw at her as a well-meant admonition whatever came readily to hand. I have shared joy and sorrow with her also, for whenever I hit her I was full of joy, and she of sorrow, and if I missed her, then she was joyful, and I sorry.” The judges were not satisfied with this answer, but gave him the reward he deserved.

In response to my last post, a colleague responded, "The firing of Steve Bitterman certainly does make a lot more sense given this added information."

My reply:

Not to me it doesn't. If members of my department had been fired every time they used mockery, ridicule, sarcasm, irony, taunts, snickering, cackling, and belly laughter in response to ideas proposed by other members, we wouldn't have anybody left in the department.

But we're all grown up. We can survive it. We know what is permitted and what occurs in an open forum when people who care passionately about what they teach disagree.

Thank "god," our dean, and the college that we have procedures in place requiring students to write down their complaints and submit them first to the teacher who is the subject of the complaint and inviting the accused faculty to respond in kind.

Much of the world is at war over the myths in "holy" books. People are being bombed and shot for their beliefs and disbeliefs. I don't see how it would be possible for a history teacher to address either the truths or the falsehoods of religious history without using the word "myth."

My students and I aspire to mutual respect, but most of us know that the spontaneity of face-to-face conversation and debate may and will often evoke shock, laughter, irony, incredulity, mockery, jokes, even profanity, and, before we begin, we acknowledge the need for us to forgive one another if and when such responses occur so that we can go on.

Every day students react to my own opinions on many matters in ways for which Bitterman was supposedly fired. I don't cry or feel like crap or leave the room or call my lawyer. Nor do I react that way in our department meetings when colleagues express themselves in spontaneous, natural, emotional, or even satirical ways.

Bitterman was fired because Christian students threatened to sue the college for what he said about the myths of "holy" books, though it is predictable that his supervisors would deny it and say that he was fired for something else. Bitterman, obviously, may also sue.

When several of my students this quarter said the solution to the war in the Mideast was to carpet-nuke the entire country of Iraq and kill all Iraqis there, both fellow students and I expressed our incredulity and disagreement in exactly the same ways that Steve Bitterman did.

Should we be punished for it?

  THE DROP OF WATER


    OF course you know what is meant by a magnifying glass-
one of those round spectacle-glasses that make everything look
a hundred times bigger than it is? When any one takes one of
these and holds it to his eye, and looks at a drop of water
from the pond yonder, he sees above a thousand wonderful
creatures that are otherwise never discerned in the water. But
there they are, and it is no delusion. It almost looks like a
great plateful of spiders jumping about in a crowd. And how
fierce they are! They tear off each other's legs. and arms and
bodies, before and behind; and yet they are merry and joyful
in their way.

    Now, there once was an old man whom all the people called
Kribble-Krabble, for that was his name. He always wanted the
best of everything, and when he could not manage it otherwise,
he did it by magic.

    There he sat one day, and held his magnifying-glass to his
eye, and looked at a drop of water that had been taken out of
a puddle by the ditch. But what a kribbling and krabbling was
there! All the thousands of little creatures hopped and sprang
and tugged at one another, and ate each other up.

    "That is horrible!" said old Kribble-Krabble. "Can one not
persuade them to live in peace and quietness, so that each one
may mind his own business?"

    And he thought it over and over, but it would not do, and
so he had recourse to magic.

    "I must give them color, that they may be seen more
plainly," said he; and he poured something like a little drop
of red wine into the drop of water, but it was witches' blood
from the lobes of the ear, the finest kind, at ninepence a
drop. And now the wonderful little creatures were pink all
over. It looked like a whole town of naked wild men.

    "What have you there?" asked another old magician, who had
no name- and that was the best thing about him.

    "Yes, if you can guess what it is," said Kribble-Krabble,
"I'll make you a present of it."

    But it is not so easy to find out if one does not know.

    And the magician who had no name looked through the
magnifying-glass.

    It looked really like a great town reflected there, in
which all the people were running about without clothes. It
was terrible! But it was still more terrible to see how one
beat and pushed the other, and bit and hacked, and tugged and
mauled him. Those at the top were being pulled down, and those
at the bottom were struggling upwards.

    "Look! look! his leg is longer than mine! Bah! Away with
it! There is one who has a little bruise. It hurts him, but it
shall hurt him still more."

    And they hacked away at him, and they pulled at him, and
ate him up, because of the little bruise. And there was one
sitting as still as any little maiden, and wishing only for
peace and quietness. But now she had to come out, and they
tugged at her, and pulled her about, and ate her up.

    "That's funny!" said the magician.

    "Yes; but what do you think it is?" said Kribble-Krabble.
"Can you find that out?"

    "Why, one can see that easily enough," said the other.
"That's Paris, or some other great city, for they're all
alike. It's a great city!"

    "It's a drop of puddle water!" said Kribble-Krabble.

I have also changed my background i hope its ok lookin.......

Also as most know I believe in Fairies. So I decided to share a little about them!! Enjoy

Ponaturi (New Zealand)

The Maori Ponaturi is a coastal species of Fairies who live in the watery deeps. Their skin has a light greenish color with unnatural phosphorescent radiance. The fingers are long and end with clawlike talons. They can be seen ashore in the dark of night glowing eerily.


Duergar (Great Britain)

The Duergar is a solitary fairy that leads travelers astray with it's flickering torch. There are male and female fairies, but is known to be more of a male species who does this. They are malicious creatures who believe the hills are their home only, wants wants to cause harm, mischief, or death to those who trespass.


Mountain Fairies (China)

Mountain fairies are beautiful, dainty, and irresistable. Popular tales tell of these fairies who shapeshift into humans, and invite mountain travellers to stay with them. They feed the men hemp, and usually they stay for a week. When ready to leave, the fairies do allow them, but upon arriving back to their families, the men grow bored of their family life, and return to the fairies. These fairies are not usually malevolent and are known to be creatures who feed upon the human soul and love, as if in relation to the stories of mermaids.


Wood-Wives/Skoggra (Germany and Sweden)

The petite and beautifully dressed Wood-Wife species and be found in old forests and dense groves. With long claws, they are usually accompanied by violent whirlwinds. It is said that if a branch is twisted until the bark comes off, one Wood-Wife dies in the forest.


Changelings (Great Britain)

Changelings are fairies often described as pale, big-headed, mentally retarded, or deformed human babies. In actuality they are not humans at all. It is known that these fairies loved to play small tricks on humans, by stealing things when their backs were turned, playing music that forces people to dance against their will, or breaking valuable household objects.


Fox Fairy (China)

The Fox-Fairy is considered highly dangerous and held in awe. It was a shapeshifting undead spirit who, in order to live again, would steal love from humans. In order to do such a thing, the Fox-Fairy would change into a wicked young woman, or an old man or scholar. For the female Fox-Fairy, when turned to a woman, it would steal love when it's victim was having an orgasm in sex. Once the love was gone, the victim would feel worthless and waste away into nothing. The Fox-fairy then moves on to another.


Fair Lady (Hungary)

The Fair-Lady is a very powerful fairy that often shapshifts often into a beautiful woman, often naked, a horse, or a long-haired woman dressed in a white dress often who looked like a common housewife. The Fair-Lady travelled through towns, looking for homes to stay in. When a person brought her in, she would cast a spell that left a person struck dumb, without a voice, or worse.