week 12 reading notes: english fairy tales - part a

 "The Rose Tree" link to story

• A man was married twice and had one children for each wife. One of his children is a girl from the first wife whom everyone loves except for her stepmother. The stepmother ends up killing the girl with an axe out of jealousy and wickedness. She then makes dinner out of the girl's body organs and serves them to her family for dinner. The father notices its strange taste and the brother refuses to eat it. He somehow knows his half-sister is dead because he takes her bones and buries her under a rose tree, where he cried everyday. The rose tree ends up blooming in the spring where a white bird sits on it. The bird sings a beautiful song that is admired by nearby laborers. These workers give her certain items in exchange to hear the bird sing the song. After the birds collects items, it goes back to the home of the family. Using the items, the bird sort of tricks the family and kills the stepmother. 

"Binnorie" link to story

• A king has two daughters. The eldest daughter forms a relationship with Sir William, but after awhile, he becomes interested in the younger daughter due to her beauty. This angers the older daughter and she plots to get rid of her sister. Going forward her wicked intentions, the older daughter shoves her sister into a rushing river stream. The young sister tries to save herself by offering William back to her older sister, but the cruel sister lets her down. As the younger daughter flows down the stream, she is discovered by a miller's daughter; when they pull her from the river, they find that she has drowned. At the same time she's pulled onto the bank, in all her beauty, a famous harper traveling by sees this and acknowledges her beauty. Many days later, he comes back to her buried body and builds a harp out of her golden hair and breast-bone. He goes to the king's castle in Binnorie to play in the castle hall. While he is singing, the harp he made begins to sing, which stuns everyone. Eventually, the song reveals the wicked truth about the oldest daughter and what she did. Then, the harp broke itself and that was it.

A white bird standing on the ground. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Bibliography: These stories are from English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs.