The atlas

Gio Jincharadze

Gio Jincharadze The Atlas of Fairy Tales © Gio Jincharadze © Virgam Virtual Publishers Tbilisi 2015 www.bookart.ge

The story revolves around a girl called Little Red Riding Hood. The girl walks through the woods to deliver food to her sickly grandmother. She had the order from her mother to stay strictly on the path.

A mean wolf wants to eat the girl and the food in the basket. He secretly stalks her behind trees. He approaches Little Red Riding Hood and she naïvely tells him where she is going. He suggests that the girl pick some flowers; which she does. In the meantime; he goes to the grandmother’s house and gains entry by pretending to be the girl. He swallows the grandmother whole and waits for the girl, disguised as the grandma.

When the girl arrives, she notices that her grandmother looks very strange. Little Red then says, “What a deep voice you have!” (“The better to greet you with”), “Goodness, what big eyes you have!” (“The better to see you with”), “And what big hands you have!” (“The better to hug/grab you with”), and lastly, “What a big mouth you have” (“The better to eat you with!”), at which point the wolf jumps out of bed, and eats her up too. Then he falls asleep.

A woodcutter comes to the rescue and with his axe cuts open the sleeping wolf. Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother emerge unharmed. They then fill the wolf’s body with heavy stones. The wolf awakens and tries to flee, but the stones cause him to collapse and die.

Hansel and Gretel are children of a woodcutter. When a great famine settles over the land, the woodcutter’s second wife decides to take the children into the woods and abandon them there, they eat too much. Hansel sneaks out of the house and gathers many white pebbles.

The next day, the family walks deep into the woods and Hansel lays a trail of white pebbles. The children wait for the moon to rise before following the pebbles back home. They return home safely. Once again the stepmother orders her husband to take the children farther into the woods. Hansel takes a slice of bread and leaves a trail of bread crumbs to follow.

However, after they are once again abandoned, the children find that birds have eaten the crumbs. After days of wandering, they discover a large cottage built of gingerbread and cakes with window panes of clear sugar. The children begin to eat the rooftop of the candy house. A hideous old hag emerges and lures them inside. Unaware that their hostess is a bloodthirsty witch to cook and eat them.

The witch locks Hansel in a cage. The witch force-feeds Hansel regularly to fatten him up, but he cleverly offers a bone and the witch feels it, thinking it is his finger. Due to her blindness, she is thinking Hansel is still too thin to eat. The witch grows impatient and decides to eat Hansel anyway.

The witch prepares the oven, but decides to kill Gretel as well. She coaxes Gretel to open the oven and prods her to lean over in front of it to see if the fire is hot enough. Gretel pretends that she does not understand what she is being told to do. Infuriated, the witch demonstrates and Gretel instantly shoves her into the oven. Gretel frees Hansel from the cage and the pair discover a vase full of treasure.A swan ferries them across an expanse of water and at home they find their father; his wife died from unknown causes. With the witch’s wealth that they found, they all live happily ever after.

Jack is a young boy living with his widowed mother and a cow who is their only source of income. Jack’s mother has told Jack take the cow to the market to be sold. On the way, he meets an old man who offers “magic beans” in exchange for the cow and Jack makes the trade.

When he arrives home without any money, his mother becomes furious, throws the beans on the ground and sends Jack to bed.

A gigantic beanstalk grows overnight which Jack climbs to a land high in the sky. There he comes to a house or a castle that is the home of a giant. He asks at the door for food and the giant’s wife takes him in. When the giant returns, he senses that a human is nearby: Fee-fi-fo-fum!

I smell the blood of an Englishman, Be he alive, or be he dead, I’ll grind his bones to make my bread.[3] Jack is hidden by the giant’s wife and he overhears the giant counting money. When the giant sleeps, he steals a bag of gold coins and makes his escape down the beanstalk.

Jack returns up the beanstalk twice more. Each time he is helped by the wife, although she grows increasingly suspicious of him. He learns of other treasures and steals them when the giant sleeps: first a goose that lays golden eggs (the most common variant is a hen; compare the idiom “to kill the goose that laid the golden eggs.”), then a harp that plays by itself. However, the giant is woken when Jack leaves the house with the harp. The giant chases him down the beanstalk and Jack calls to his mother for an axe. Before the giant reaches the ground, Jack cuts down the beanstalk, causing the giant to fall to his death. Jack and his mother then live happily ever after with their riches that Jack stole from the giant.

The first little pig builds a house of straw, but a wolf blows it down and eats him. The second pig builds a house of furze sticks, which the wolf also blows down and eats him. Each exchange between wolf and pig features ringing proverbial phrases, namely: “Little pig, little Pig, let me come in.”

“No, no, not by the hair on my chinny chin chin.”

“Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house in..”[3] The third pig builds a house of bricks. The wolf fails to blow down the house. He then attempts to trick the pig out of the house by asking to meet him at various places, but he is outwitted each time. Finally, the wolf resolves to come down the chimney, whereupon the pig catches the wolf in a cauldron of boiling water, slams the lid on, then cooks and eats him. In another version the first and second little pigs run to their brother’s house and after the wolf goes down the chimney he runs away and never goes back to eat the three little pigs, who all survive.

The story uses the literary rule of three, expressed in this case as a “contrasting three”, as the third pig’s brick house turns out to be the only one which is adequate to withstand the wolf.[4] Variations of the tale appeared in Uncle Remus: His Songs and Sayings in 1881. The story also made an appearance in Nights with Uncle Remus in 1883, both by Joel Chandler Harris, in which the pigs were replaced by Brer Rabbit. Andrew Lang included it in “The Green Fairy Book”, published in 1892, but did not cite his source. In contrast to Jacobs’s version, which left the pigs nameless, Lang’s retelling cast the pigs as Browny, Whitey, and Blacky. It also set itself apart by exploring each pig’s character and detailing interaction between them. The antagonist of this version is a fox, not a wolf. The pig’s house is made either of mud, cabbage, or brick.

There Blacky, the third pig, rescues his brother and sister from the fox’s den after killing the fox.

Bluebeard is a wealthy aristocrat, feared and shunned because of his ugly, blue beard. He has been married several times, but no one knows what became of his wives. When Bluebeard visits one of his neighbours and asks to marry one of his two daughters, the girls were terrified. Eventually he persuades younger sister to marry him. She goes to live with him in his castle.

Bluebeard announces that he must leave the country for a while; he gives all the keys of the château to his wife, telling her they open the doors to rooms which contain his treasures. He also gives her the key to one small room beneath the castle, stressing to her that she must not enter this room under any circumstances. Immediately, she is overcome with the desire to see what the forbidden room holds; and, takes the key to the room.

The wife immediately discovers the room’s horrible secret: its floor is awash with blood and the murdered bodies of her husband’s former wives hang from hooks on the walls. Horrified, she drops the key into the pool of blood. She flees the room, but the blood staining the key will not wash off. Bluebeard returns home unexpectedly, noticing the blood on the key.

In a blind rage, he threatens to behead her on the spot, but she implores him to give her a quarter of an hour. He consents, so she locks herself in the highest tower. While Bluebeard, sword in hand, tries to break down the door, the sisters wait for their two brothers to arrive. At the last moment, as Bluebeard is about to deliver the fatal blow, the brothers break into the castle; and, as he attempts to flee, they kill him. He leaves no heirs but his wife, who inherits all his great fortune. All of Bluebeard’s dead wives are buried and she uses part of his fortune for a dowry to marry off her sister, another part for her brothers’ captains’ commissions, and the rest to marry a worthy gentleman who makes her forget her horrible encounter with Bluebeard.

A lonely couple, who want a child, live next to a walled garden belonging to an evil witch named Dame Gothel. The wife, experiencing the cravings associated with the arrival of her long-awaited pregnancy, notices a rapunzel plant growing in the garden and longs for it, desperate to the point of death. One night, her husband breaks into the garden to get some for her. She makes a salad out of it and eats it. It tastes so good that she longs for more. So her husband goes to get some for her a second time.

As he scales the wall to return home, Dame Gothel catches him and accuses him of theft. He begs for mercy, and she agrees to be lenient, and allows him to take all he wants, on condition that the baby be given to her at birth. Desperate, he agrees. When the baby is born, Dame Gothel takes her to raise as her own and names her Rapunzel. She grows up to be the most beautiful child in the world with long golden hair. When she reaches her twelfth year, Dame Gothel shuts her away in a tower in the middle of the woods, with neither stairs nor a door, and only one room and one window.

When she visits her, she stands beneath the tower and calls out: Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair, so that I may climb the golden stair.

Upon hearing these words, Rapunzel would wrap her long, fair hair around a hook beside the window, dropping it down to Dame Gothel, who would then climb up it to Rapunzel’s tower room.

One day, a prince rides through the forest and hears Rapunzel singing from the tower. He searches for her and discovers the tower, but is naturally unable to enter it. He returns often, and one day sees Dame Gothel visit, and thus learns how to gain access to Rapunzel. When Dame Gothel leaves, he bids Rapunzel let her hair down. When she does so, he climbs up, makes her acquaintance, and eventually asks her to marry him. She agrees.

Together they plan a means of escape, wherein he will come each night and bring Rapunzel a piece of silk, which she will gradually weave into a ladder. Before the plan can come to fruition, however, she foolishly gives the prince away. She innocently says why it is easier for her to draw up the prince than her. In anger, she cuts off Rapunzel’s hair and casts her out into the wilderness to fend for herself.

When the prince calls that night, Dame Gothel lets the severed hair down to haul him up. He finds himself staring at her instead of Rapunzel, who is nowhere to be found. When she tells him in anger that he will never see Rapunzel again, he leaps from the tower in despair and is blinded by the thorns below.

For months, he wanders through the wastelands of the country and eventually comes to the wilderness where Rapunzel now lives with the twins she has given birth to, a boy and a girl. One day, as she sings, he hears her voice again, and they are reunited. When they fall into each other’s arms, her tears immediately restore his sight. He leads her and their children to his kingdom, where they live happily ever after.

At the christening of a king and queen’s long-wished-for child, seven good fairies are invited to be godmothers to the infant princess. The fairies attend the banquet at the palace. Laid before them is a golden casket containing gold jeweled utensils. Soon after, another and evil fairy enters the palace and is seated without a golden casket. This eighth fairy is overlooked because she has been within a tower for many years and everyone believes her to be dead. Six of the other seven fairies then offer their gifts to the infant princess. The eighth and evil fairy is very angry and, as her gift, enchants the infant princess so that she will prick her hand on a spindle of a spinning wheel and die. One and good fairy, who hasn’t yet given her gift, attempts to reverse the evil fairy’s curse.

Instead of dying, the Princess will fall into a deep sleep for 100 years and be awakened by a kiss from a prince.

One day, the Princess comes upon an old woman, spinning with her spindle.

The princess pricks her finger on the spindle and the curse is fulfilled.

The good fairy sees that the Princess will awaken to distress when she finds herself alone, so the fairy puts everyone in the castle to sleep, also summons a forest of trees, brambles and thorns that spring up around the castle.

A hundred years pass and a prince spies the hidden castle. The prince then braves the tall trees, brambles and thorns which part at his approach, and enters the castle. Struck by the radiant beauty before him, he falls on his knees before her. The enchantment comes to an end by a kiss Meanwhile, the rest of the castle awakens. The prince and princess walk to the hall of mirrors to dine and are later married by the chaplain in the castle chapel.

Every year, a king’s apple tree is robbed of one golden apple. He sets his sons to watch, the youngest stays awake and sees that the thief is a golden bird.

King decides he must have the bird. He sends three sons, to capture the golden bird. The sons each meet a talking fox, who gives them advice: to choose a bad inn over a brightly lit one. The third son obeys the fox, so the fox advises him to take the bird in its wooden cage from the castle in which it lives, instead the golden cage next to it. But he disobeys, resulting in his capture. He is sent after the golden horse as a condition for sparing his life. The fox advises him to use a leather saddle rather than a golden one, but he fails. He is sent after the princess from the golden castle. The fox advises him not to let her say farewell to her parents, but he disobeys, and the princess’s father orders him to remove a hill as the price of his life.The fox removes it, and then, he advises the prince how to keep all the things he has won. It then asks the prince to shoot it and cut off its head. Prince refuses, it warns him against sitting on the edge of wells.He finds that his brothers, are to be hanged and buys their liberty. When he sits on a well’s edge, they push him in. However the bird, the horse, and the princess all grieve for the prince. The fox rescues the prince.

When he returns to his father’s castle dressed in a beggar’s cloak, the bird, the horse, and the princess all recognize him and become cheerful again.

Finally, the third son cuts off the fox’s head and feet at the creature’s request. The fox is revealed to be a man, the brother of the princess.

Third and youngest son of a miller receiving his inheritance—a cat. At first, the youngest son laments, as the eldest brother gains the mill, and the middle brother gets the mules.

The cat, requests and receives a pair of boots.

Determined to make his master’s fortune, the cat bags a rabbit in the forest and presents it to the king as a gift from his master, the fictional Marquis of Carabas.One day, the king decides to take a drive with his daughter. The cat persuades his master to remove his clothes and enter the river which their carriage passes. As the royal coach nears, the cat begins calling for help in great dis-

tress. When the king stops to investigate, the cat tells him that his master the Marquis has been bathing in the river and robbed of his clothing. The king has the young man brought from the river, dressed in a splendid suit of clothes, and seated in the coach with his daughter, who falls in love with him at once.The cat hurries ahead of the coach, ordering the country folk along the road to tell the king that the land belongs to the “Marquis of Carabas�, saying that if they do not he will cut them into mincemeat. The cat then happens upon a castle inhabited by an ogre who is capable of transforming himself into a number of creatures. The ogre displays his ability by changing into a lion, frightening the cat, who then tricks the ogre into changing into a mouse. The cat then pounces upon the mouse and devours it. The king arrives at the castle that formerly belonged to the ogre, and, impressed with the bogus Marquis and his estate, gives the lad the princess in marriage. Thereafter, the cat enjoys life as a great lord who runs after mice only for his own amusement.

A poor soldier returning home from war.

He meets a witch, who asks him to climb into a hollow tree to retrieve a magic tinderbox. The witch gives the man permission to take anything he finds inside the chambers, but he must return the tinderbox. In the tree, he finds three chambers filled with precious coins guarded by three monstrous dogs, “one with eyes the size of teacups”, who guards a vault filled with pennies, one with “eyes the size of supper-plates”, who guards a vault filled with silver, and one with eyes “the size of windmills”, who guards a vault filled with gold. He fills his pockets with money, finds the tinderbox, and returns to the witch. When she demands the tinderbox without giving a reason, the soldier lops off her head with his sword. He makes many friends, and lives in a magnificent apartment. He learns of a princess kept in a tower after a prophecy foretold her marriage to a common soldier. Eventually, the soldier’s money is depleted and he is forced to live in a dark attic. He strikes the tinderbox to light the room, and one of the dogs appears before him. The soldier then discovers he can summon all three dogs and order them to bring him money from their subterranean dwelling.

He strikes the tinderbox and sends the dog to bring princes to his apartment. The following morning, the princess tells her parents she has had a strange dream and relates the night’s adventure.

Eventually, her whereabouts are discovered and the soldier is sentenced to death.On the day of execution, the soldier sends a boy for his tinderbox, and, at the scaffold, asks to have a last smoke. He then strikes the tinderbox and the three monstrous dogs appear. They toss the judge and the councilors, the King and Queen into the air.

All are dashed to pieces when they fall to earth. The soldier and the princess are united, and the dogs join the wedding feast.

The boy had a bull named Tsikara. His stepmother wanted to get rid of Tsikara, she pretended to be ill, and told her husband that only cure was to eat Tsikaras heart and liver. so that a boy would be so unheppy and sad that would die. Husband was very sad to hear that but at the end he decided to do as his wife was asking. Tsikara and a boy discovered about fathers plan and escaped from home. Tsikara rushed with boy and the stepmother riding on a huge pig would pursuit them. Tsikara told the boy to throw back a mirror, so immediately a horrible sea appeared to stop the pig and a stepmother but the pig with the stepmother managed to swim across anyway to continue chase. Tsikara asked the boy: turn around and look back, is it coming again?’, ‘far away from us something size of a fly is coming, - he answered. It was stepmother and a pig again so Tsikara asked the boy to throw back a comb this time, and immediately a huge forest appeared, which was very thick so very hard to go through it, but a pig cut the trees using tusks and went on. Once again Tsikara and a boy were under a threat of being caught by stepmother and a hideous pig, this time the boy threw back an oilstone and a vast rocks appared between Tsikara and a stepmother. The pig began cutting steps into the rock, but when it was on a half way it slipped and disappeared in the depth of the rocks.

Tsikara took the boy in the field where there was sky high poplar tree, and gave him two pipes, one for emergency and one for happiness. So if a boywas be in a trouble he would play an emergency pipe and Tsikara would know that the boy was to be rescued. And if the boy was happy he could play a happiness pipe and it would bring him food and happiness.

After dissipating the wealth left to him by his father, Sinbad goes to sea to repair his fortune. He sets ashore on what appears to be an island, but this island proves to be a gigantic sleeping whale on which trees have taken root ever since the world was young. Awakened by a fire kindled by the sailors, the whale dives into the depths, the ship departs without Sinbad, and Sinbad is saved by the chance of a passing wooden trough sent

by the grace of Allah. He is washed ashore on a densely wooded island.

While exploring the deserted island he comes across one of the king’s grooms. When Sinbad helps save the King’s mare from being drowned by a sea horse, the groom brings Sinbad to the king. The king befriends Sinbad and so he rises in the king’s favour and becomes a trusted courtier. Sinbad gives the king his goods and in return the king gives him rich presents. Sinbad sells these presents for a great profit. Sinbad returns to Baghdad where he resumes a life of ease and pleasure.