The Art Fairy

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica Mother Goose is a:
”Fictitious old woman, reputedly the source of the body of traditional children’s songs and verses known as nursery rhymes. Often pictured as a beak-nosed, sharp-chinned old woman riding on the back of a flying gander, she was first associated with nursery rhymes in Mother Goose’s Melody (1781), published by the successors of John Newbery. The name apparently derived from the title of Charles Perrault’s collection of fairy tales Ma Mère l’oye (1697; “My Mother Goose”). The persistent rumor that Mother Goose was an actual Boston woman is false.”

According to the Mother Goose Society (Yes there really is a Mother Goose society.)
“Who was Mother Goose? Many she’s and he’s—different writers—in different times. The term has been traced to Loret’s 1650 La Muse Historique in which appeared the line, Comme un conte de la Mere Oye (“Like a Mother Goose story”). Two French Queen Berthas have been conjectured as a “Mother Goose” but there is no traceable evidence that either was the reference in Loret’s remarks.

In 1697 Charles Perrault used the phrase in a published collection of eight fairy tales which included “The Sleeping Beauty,” “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Cinderella,” “Bluebeard,” and others. Although the book was titled, (translated from French) Histories and Tales of Long Ago, with Morals, the frontispiece showed an old woman spinning and telling stories, with a placard on the page which bore the words Contes de la Mere l’Oye (Tales of My Mother the Goose). Perrault thereby set the stage for the name to become a household word.” (or is that a household bird? Honk. Honk)
Mothergoose.com adds:
“Most of the tales included in any Mother Goose collection–and there are many such collections now–originated in the distant past as folk stories told to children. If there were an actual mother goose, she might well have been an 8th Century noblewoman named Bertrada II of Laon who, in 740, married Pepin the Short, King of the Franks, and in 742 bore his son Charles, immortalized as Charlemagne, the de facto founder of the Holy Roman Empire. Bertrada, who was a patroness of children and provided her over-achieving son his only education, was known as Berte aux grand pied, or Bertha Greatfoot, or Queen Goosefoot.

Whatever Bertrada’s role, by the mid-17th Century a mythical Mother Goose–mère l’oye–was widely acknowledged by French peasants and nobility alike as a fairy birdmother who told charming tales to children. Some of these stories were set down in print as early as 1637 in Giambattista Basile’s Italian collection of stories entitled The Pentamerone; others can be traced to another Italian, Giovanni Francesco Straparola, whose 73 folktales collected in Facetious Nights (1550-1554) were a source for plays by both Shakespeare and Molière.”

Did I mention I collect antique Fairytale books? Many of them, from the late 18th and 19th century, have stories that would curdle your blood! Walt Disney, a personal hero, took original themes and story lines from these folktales and sanitized and civilized them into the ‘Family Friendly’ movies we know today. I’m going to post some of those original stories here and just be forewarned they can be pretty unsettling and are certainly not your average bedtime story.

It’ll start with this one, paraphrased, from Old, Old Fairy Tales collected and edited by Mrs. Valentine. Circa 1870

The Beautiful Red Dancing Slippers

Once up on a time a little girl was sad. She was sad because her mother was dying. She sat outside the cottage on the stoop with her head in her hands feeling very, very sorry for herself. A kind neighbor brought soup and bits of bread but her mother could not eat it. The little girl sighed, she was not hungry either. Why did her mother have to be so sick? She watched the village children laughing and running in the square but she could not join their fun because she was told to stay still and wait. Why did she have to stay still and wait all the day? Day after day, while her friends played? She could hear their happy voices calling to each other. They never called her name anymore. They knew she had to stay still and wait. Wait! Wait! Wait!

Wait for her mother to die. But her mother didn’t die, she just coughed and coughed. The cottage was dark and smelled like the bitter potion next to her mother’s bed. The little girl didn’t like the smell it made her sad. She tried to think of other smells- the soft, squishy mud where the stream trickled over the bright green shoots and bees hummed looking for flowers. The little girl thought she did smell that warm, sunny place for just a moment, but then the bitter smell through the open cottage door made her sad again. She wished she could dance. She loved to dance. But she couldn’t dance she had to stay still and wait. The little girl wished and wished and wished, three times, that she had a beautiful pair of red dancing slippers so she wouldn’t be sad.  The crooked, old crone, who made the children laugh walked slowly past her cottage. The little girl thought she would like to throw a pebble at the crooked, old crone. But just when she thought how that would feel, the crooked, old crone turned her wrinkly face her way and stared out with beady, bird eyes. The little girl didn’t like the crooked old crone and thought about the beautiful red dancing slippers.

Her mother coughed and coughed all night. The little girl laid still and quiet in the darkness. She wished and wished and wished again, three times, that she had a beautiful pair of red dancing slippers. In the morning her mother was very pale and the kind neighbor told the little girl to go outside and stay still and wait. The little girl went to the cottage stoop to stay still and wait. On the stop was a tattered shawl. The tattered shawl the crooked, old crone wore. The little girl pushed it off the stoop so she could stay still and wait. Out of the tattered shawl fell a beautiful pair of red dancing slippers. The excited little girl put the slippers on her feet. Her feet started to dance. They danced her away from the stoop and out into the lane. The little girl danced past the village children laughing and running in the square. They stopped to watch her wondering why she was not on the stoop. They knew she had to stay still and wait. Why was she dancing? The little girl danced joyfully through the village until she was so tired she danced home again. The kind neighbor was weeping on the cottage stoop. The little girl knew her mother was dead and wanted to kiss her check good-bye. She tried to take off the beautiful pair of red dancing slippers, but they would not come off. Her tired feet just kept on dancing. The kind neighbor told her to stop dancing and be sad. The little girl was sad but her feet would not stop dancing.

The village people all came to the cottage and told the little girl to take off the beautiful red dancing slippers. But the slippers would not come off and her feet would not stop dancing. The little girl started to cry already missing her dead mother. But the village people could not see her tears because her feet were dancing faster and faster.  The little girl danced behind her mother’s wooden coffin as it went into the church. The little girl danced down the church aisle and out the arch into the graveyard behind her dead mother’s wooden coffin. Her feet were so very tired but they would not stop dancing. She tore at the beautiful red dancing slippers but they would not come off her feet. All the villagers shook their heads saying the little girl was very naughty to dance when her mother was dead. But she could not stop. The sun set and the village went to sleep but the little girl was still dancing. Her feet were bloody now in the beautiful red dancing slippers and her tears blinded her eyes but her feet kept dancing- Farther and farther into the night the little girl danced and danced until she could dance no more. Her little body lay still and cold as a dark figure came out of the forest. The crooked, old crone slipped the beautiful red dancing slippers from the little girl’s bloody feet. As the crooked old crone wrapped the beautiful red dancing slippers in her tattered shawl she smiled.