From "The Little Mermaid" by Hans Christian Anderson

This story is about a little girl who lives under the sea with her five sisters, her father and her grandmother. She has big dreams and wanted to live on the shore with the humans. She one day rescues a prince who had fallen into the water during a storm. He had no idea that the girl had saved him but she dreamed that one day he would know. She loved him and watched him everyday for years. One day when she spoke to her grandmother about this world above she said "I would give the whole three hundred years I have to live to become for one day a human being and then share in that heavenly world"(224). This line really stood out to me because I thought there are few people that would truly give up everything they had just for one day of something else. We all wish sometimes that our lives were a little different or that we could be someone else but this girl truly would do anything to just live on the shore for one day. She loved the Prince with all of her heart and yet he had no idea she even existed. I think this story is so sweet and loving that the girl truly did watch the boy and watched over him for days.

From "The Rose-Tree" by Joseph Jacobs

When I think of a fairytale I do not typically think of a little girl dying but in this story that is what happens. The little girl is not loved by her stepmother because she is jealous of her beautiful hair. One day the little girl loses the stepmother's money and instead of getting made she asks the little girl to lay her hair down over the stepmother's knee so she can brush it. Instead of brushing it with a comb she asks the little girl to fetch her an axe. With this axe she kills the little girl and cuts our her liver and her heart. For dinner, the stepmother tries to feed her husband and her son the little girl but they refuse to eat it because they say it tasted strange. The brother decides to barry the little girl under a rose-tree and by spring it begins to bloom. A little bird begins to appear there everyday who has a beautiful voice.

The bird begins to fly and travels to the cobbler to sing its beautiful song. "My wicked mother slew me, my dea father ate me, my little brother whom I love sits below, and I sing above stick, stock, stone dead". The cobbler loves the birds song and asks for her to sing again but the bird will only sing if she is given little red shoes. The cobbler gives her the shoes and she leaves to the watchmaker. She sings her song for him and he asks for her to sing it again. She will only sing if he gives her a gold watch with its chain, and so he does and she leave to the stone mill. She sings her song and the men love it. They ask her to sing again and she says only if they put a millstone around her neck. They do as she asks and she heads back to her rose tree. The bird begins to make a sound my hitting the stones on the house. The stepmother believes it is thunder so the little boy goes outside and sees the red shoes at the tree. Then the bird makes the sound again and the father goes outside and sees the watch under the tree. The bird makes the sound one last time and the stepmother goes outside to receive her own gift. The bird then drops the stone on top of her head and the stepmother dies.

This story is about reincarnation which is something many people believe in. The little girl came back as the bird to give her brother and father presents and to kill her stepmother. This story would not be a typical fairytale in most people's eyes but it is a story of revenge. The stepmother got what she deserved and the brother and the father were able to live happily without her.

From "Mr. Fox" by Joseph Jacobs

"Be bold, be bold, not too bold, Lest that your heart's blood should run cold"

This line is written many times during this fairy tale. This tale is not like most and is very dark. Dead bodies and bones are seen my the Lady Mary. She is said to be brave but once she sees bodies she starts to run away. Lady Mary sees Mr. Fox dragging a young woman with a diamond ring on her finger but Mr. Fox could not get the ring off so her cut her hand off. Lady Mary hid and saw all of this happening. This statement of "Be bold, be bold" is stating be strong and not scared. Lady Mary tries to stay strong and works hard to "be bold". At the end Mr. Fox is served justice when Lady Mary and her siblings cut him into pieces. Although this is a horrifying story it still ends in a nice way. It shows that people can get what they have coming for them.

From "Catskin" by Joseph Jacobs

This story has many similar characteristics to the original Cinderella story we all grow up hearing but is also very different. This girl is born to a father whom only wanted a son so he refuses to see her and only wants to marry her off. The young girl receives gifts from men who want to marry her but does not agree and runs away with the dresses. She begins to work in a kitchen at a new castle but is hated by all who work there. All the girl wants is to be loved and so she hears of a ball in the castle and attends it. Her boss tells her she is crazy for even thinking about the ball and tries to hurt her but Catskin is not effected by her strikes. But she attends the ball anyway and wears the gifts that were given to her by the men that wanted to marry her.

The Prince of the castle and Catskin dance the night away. She then leaves the ball without saying goodbye or telling the Prince her name. The Prince refuses to marry anyone else and forces his mother to hold two more balls. He dances with Catskin and the two balls and at the last one he follows her as she leaves and discovers who she is. He tells his mother he will only marry her but she refuses to accept that. He then grows very ill and the doctor tells his mother that he will die if he does not marry the poor helper. They then get married and after many years Catskin reveals to her husband who she really is. The Prince then takes her to her father's castle and asks him if he remembers her. The King says "it is true; I am a hardened sinner. But I would give all my worldly goods if I could but see her once before I die". The family invites the King to live with them and they carry on their days together.

As you can see the story is similar because the girl is hated by those she lives with and runs away from the Prince after a short time of meeting. He only wants her and refuses to marry anyone else. This is a story of love at its finest.

From "Snow White and Her Wicked Stepmother" by Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar

From watching the movie "Snow White" as a child, not most people think about the story aside from being a fairytale. But once looking more deeply into all the hidden meanings in the story it becomes much more than that. The story is about a young girl whose mother dies and her father than marries an evil woman. Without looking into depth of the story most people would assume that the second wife of the King is just another woman, but looking more deeply at the story it becomes obvious that the second wife is the same as the first but just a wicked and jealous version.
The more deeply read into the story, the reader can begin to see that the father or the King "never actually appears in this story at all". But he does a very important presence in the story. He is, in fact, "the voice of the looking glass, the patriarchal voice of judgement that rules the Queen's - and the every woman's - self-evaluation". This story is not a basic fairytale but a story of how women perceive themselves based on the judgement of men. The stepmother always looks at her mirror and asks who is the fairest of them all and the mirror always replies that she is. In this story we see that women are so indulged in what other people think, mainly men, that we forget to live our lives.

From "The Frog King, or Iron Heinrich" By Brothers Grimm

The story of the Frog King is not the typical story of Beauty and the Beast. The "beauty" in the story is a very young girl who loses her ball and promises a frog he can be her companion if he fetches her golden ball for her. After the frog gets her ball she runs away and tries to hide from the frog. The young girl thinks she is safe until the next day when the frog comes to the door. She tells her father that she made a promise to the frog and the father told her a promise is a promise and she must carry it out. The frog begins to demand to eat her food and sleep in her bed. The young girl begins to get very scared and annoyed of the frog and throws it at the wall. "When he fell to the ground, he was no longer a frog, but a prince with beautiful, beaming eyes" (50). He tells her that an evil witch had cast a spell on him and turned him into a frog. Since the girl had made the promise to be his companion, she woke up the next morning and they went to his castle.
This story is similar to the common story because the "beast" has a spell cast on him. But the "beauty" is not nice to the beast and does not care for him like in the typical story. The girl does not even want the frog around and tries to kill it, and that is why he turned back into a prince. This story is not as charming as the others but is still a story about keeping a promise and that love can come from mysterious places.

From "Goldenflower and the Bear" by Chiang Mi

This story is very different from any other Little Red Riding Hood tale I have ever heard. The little girl was not going to see her grandmother, instead the grandmother was to come over and take care of the litte girl, Goldenflower, and her brother. In this version there was no wolf instead it was a bear. "It's the Bear which likes to eat children. Goldenflower calmed and pretended to have seen nothing. But how to deal with this wicked Bear? Her mother had told her that bears were afraid of lice. She grabbed a handful of seeds and took off her brother's hat, pretending to be catching lice in his hair"(20).  Goldenflower was also a very clever little girl and figured out the bear was not her grandmother very quickly.
Goldenflower knew exactly how to handle the situation with the bear and she tricked the bear. The little girl protected her little brother and then later escaped from the bear and protected herself. Unlike other stories this little girl was very smart and was able to confuse the bear and keep herself safe.