Batgrl (Book Data Kept Elsewhere)’s Reviews > The Red Fairy Book > Status Update

So the part where Brynhild goes from loving Sigurd to angry that there's been a marriage mix-up to wanting to kill Sigurd - yeah, that's kind of a leap of craziness. Getting someone else to do it via poisoned wolf flesh is an example of the crazy. Proper way - put on your big girl armor and kill him yourself.

So Sigurd marries the wrong person, and helps someone else cheat and marry Brynhild, and only later does the forgetfulness spell wear off but then he does the Suffering Silently Thing. I'd like him a lot better if he'd complain a little. Oh and everyone gets a Curse thanks to the gold, or the ring, or both. This is why this is the stuff of opera.

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.

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.