Heidi

[bobquasit]

I'm re-reading Johanna Spyri's Heidi. I hadn't read it in perhaps seven or eight years, and I'd forgotten quite a bit of it. It's still amazingly readable, charming, and evocative.

One thing that sort of blew my mind were the verses that Heidi used to teach Peter the goatherd the ABCs. It's ripe for parody. Interestingly, different translations render extremely different versions of the verses. But in every case, the point comes through that the verses are extremely threatening; the joke is that they scare the poop out of Peter.

I have an urge to write a parody of the whole thing, but I will spare you.

Argh...just a couple of verses...

If you do not learn the A B C
A savage beating there will be.

If D E F is not learned to-day
Soon in the grave your mutilated carcass will lay.

Okay, I can stop now. I hope.

Did people really use those sort of verses to teach children? I suppose they must have, or they wouldn't have been included in the book.

Comments

[oldwolf.livejournal.com]

All fairy tales have their dark edges.

3 pigs
Red Riding Hood
Hansel & Gretel

[bobquasit.livejournal.com]

Oh, sure; by all accounts the original versions were very dark. Take Sleeping Beauty, for example. In the original, the prince didn't kiss her.

And then there's the ending of Cinderella, in which the prince forces the stepmother and stepsisters to put on metal shoes that have been heated red-hot and dance until they die.

[oldwolf.livejournal.com]

I'd love copies of the originals.

Oh, and yer icon reminded me. They're filming The Watchmen and Wolverine as we speak.

[bobquasit.livejournal.com]

The original fairy tales are probably available online, I would think. I mean, they can't be copyrighted any more, right? :D

They're finally filming The Watchmen? Poor Alan Moore. Although who knows, maybe for once Hollywood won't screw things up...nah, they'll probably produce it with all the integrity and quality they devoted to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. :(

[oldwolf.livejournal.com]

I saw a pic on Yahoo a few days ago. I wonder if IMDB has anything on it???

[klyfix.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I looked up the Wikipedia article on "Sleeping Beauty" figuring the wake-up would be like in that one Roddenberry pilot "Genesis II" in which it is noted that one way of reviving a person from cryosleep would never by approved by the higher-ups and when Dylan Hunt actually awakes and isn't quite functioning he tells the woman attending to "show him that she cares," wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more. :) Didn't expect the really darned icky real way, nope, did not.