Batgrl (Book Data Kept Elsewhere) > Recent Status Updates

Sigurd finds someone in armor asleep, takes off helm and finds Brynhild, warrior maiden. Which I always thought was the great part, seeing that there aren't many women in armor running about in fair tales.

Lady asleep in a castle surrounded by fire, waiting for a knight to ride through it to waken her - which is also used in Edmund Spenser's Fairie Queene, except there everything is Heavy Allegory.

Sigurd tastes Fafnir's roasted heart and can suddenly understand birds, who are all gossiping that Regin is going to betray him. Which makes you wonder, how truthful are birds anyway?!

Sigurd finds out he has an odd family - three half brothers: Fafnir, a dragon; Otter, who could take the shape of an otter (no surprise there); and Regin, who turns out to be Sigurd's tutor who's telling him about all this.

Every time the story had Prince Percinet my brain would fill in Percocet because I have read too many drug-info articles, and way too many comedians have rif'd on Percocet. However this did make the story even funnier.

"..when she was hungry she had bowls full of sugar-plums, and at least twenty pots of jam." - princess are supposed to be sweet, but there's such a thing as overkill.

Neil Gaiman's very short stories posted online, AV Club story: http://www.avclub.com/articles/read-1...
It's a Blackberry promotion, but I'll be interested to read them anyway.
PDF link to the stories: http://keepmoving.blackberry.com/asse...

When fairy has gotten castle away from evil king: "Don't let us waste time; we must go and harangue the people." - because people need a bit of haranguing after being subjects of an evil king.

Fairy blesses a princess: "...I promise that you shall be richer than your father, and shall live a hundred years, always pretty and happy, without fear of old age and wrinkles." - because there's no modern dating on that fear of age and wrinkles, it's been around a while.

So Jack couldn't manage to do work when with his mother, but for the Giantess and under the threat of being eaten, he suddenly can do all sorts of work. Funny thing, that.

In this version the giant says "I smell the breath of an Englishman." This does not speak well of Jack's breath, or Englishmen in general, since Jack isn't particularly near the giant at the time.

Not only does Jack's mom feel the beans aren't magic, she says they're "scarlet-runners" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarlet_... This mom knows her gardening.

There seem to be a lot of men who can't tell their wives apart from witches who decide to take their places. I'm not going to try and figure out the lesson there.

Best death line so far, by the Norka: "Well, I'm done for now!" Must love a rolling, talking-while-decapitated head.

You know you're fighting a very gentlemanly beast when you both stop to take a short rest. Except this beast takes advantage of the moment to run away, so perhaps they should have gone over the rules.

"During the night the Princess noticed that the Pig had changed into a man." - thus the whole bacon issue is definitely on the backburner.

What if you really loved bacon and yet suddenly are married to an enchanted pig? Would you have to negotiate with the pig over future bacon consumption? ...No, you'd probably have too many other things to worry about.

Why does the King allow the pig to woo his daughter? "...when he heard that the Court and the whole street were full of all the pigs in the world he saw there was no escape, and that he must give his consent."

"The youngest daughter of this King will be married to a pig from the North." - well, at least it's not just any old pig. Princess still has fit, of course.

Beware of the "so I'll just keep you in my jail until your sister shows up and she better be as pretty as you say she is" scenario.

King of the peacocks is human, wears peacock feathers (as do all his human subjects) and drives a cart drawn by peacocks. This seems a weird way to treat your subjects. Hopefully the feathers are naturally molted.

Did I mention that the king, prince and beetle were walking around "arm-in-arm"? Pause a moment to think about the size of that beetle. (Yes, I know, I get stuck on the odd details. But come on, giant beetle wins for being most interesting!)

Random beetle to prince: sure, we hang out in your garden, we know where you live. Plus you took the long way to get to the prince of the peacocks. Humans, so bad at directions, gotta love it. (Totally my version here. If it had been a California beetle I'd mentally have it calling the prince "dude.")

Did I mention that the "kingdom of the may beetles" was my paraphrase for the story's version: Kingdom of the Cockchafer, which could give you all sorts of non beetle ideas. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockchafer

Randomly the princes find the kingdom of the may beetles. But they don't stay because they have to rush off to the kingdom of the peacocks. ...Really wanted to hear more about the beetle kingdom too.

"...her little dog Frisk, who was bright green all over, and had but one ear..." - and oddly the story isn't going to stop and tell us how that happened.

Randomly sometimes kings will pop into woodland cottages and if they find lovely maidens there they immediately propose marriage. ...Actually there're a lot of men immediately proposing in fairy tales, which is deeply weird.

If you've been turned into a fawn going to watch a hunt is probably the stupidest idea you could have.

"I am called," said he, "the Thief of Sloan, and sometimes teh Black Thief from my cap..." - so if everyone knows you as the Thief does that mean you're good at being a thief or bad at it?

So the hen-wife gives marked cards to the Queen so she can beat her stepsons at the game. I definitely don't remember card sharps in past fairytale reads.