Mary’s Comments (group member since Mar 30, 2015)

Mary’s comments from the Once Upon a Time... group.

Lisa wrote: "Mary, I agree that a scullery maid would not be pleasant, but she was already doing that job plus more as well as being verbally abused by her step family, which is why I personally would prefer to..."

A lot of fairy tale scullery maids are verbally abused by the other servants, and sometimes physically as well.

The only job she could get would be scullery maid. We know because in the variants where the heroine does run away, that's what she gets. It's not a pleasant job.

Cheryl wrote: "Mentioned in the bibliography are:

The Irish Cinderlad
Cendrillon: A Caribbean Cinderella
The Orphan: A Cinderella Story from Greece

And thanks is giv..."

I read the first two of those. Both are good.

The Illustrated Version has a bit less of editing that was done on it.

I think the original version was the better of the two, albeit not by much.

Unfortunately, I knew so many of the myths going in that I have no idea how someone without the knowledge would react.

Cheryl wrote: "I read this years ago, when my son, now an adult, read and enjoyed it. He warns me that if I read it with you I need to get past the first quarter, past the three Fates, before giving up on it.

I ..."

The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite explains why: there are three goddesses who are immune to Aphrodite. (There are lots of versions online, if you're interested in detail.)

One little problem I had was with Athena having demigod children. Admittedly it did get explain eventually, but it rung a false note until then.

Book wyrms don't like to lose their hoards.

Ah, a book wyrm!

Cheryl wrote: "Hm. I'm done now. I have to say, not my cup of tea."

'Fraid I have to say the same.

If not, there's several on Gutenberg.

Probably a very small kingdom. After all, it's perfectly easy, in fairytale land, for a princess to walk to another kingdom and get a job as a scullery maid.

One does note that the king vanishes from the story after the marriage. One would think he would ask for more gold.

Some retellings have him marry her off to his son instead. A non-entity would be better than the king, to be sure.

The Three Aunts managed it better. Imagine the human contact when everyone thinks you're the queen's auntie.

It's an interesting tale with a lot of interesting variants. . .

There are versions where she goes, Cinderella like, to the ball for three times with his help.