John Weinstock

Fairytales John Weinstock

Regine Normann (1867-1939) grew up in a remote Norwegian fishing village above the Arctic Circle, where the natural world presented stark and powerful contrasts-stormy, sunless winters and idyllic, midnight-sun summers. Later, as a teacher in the capital city, Oslo, she would tell her students compelling folktales that were grounded in her youth. She ultimately re-shaped these oral forms into two books of highly-praised fairytales that earned Normann the title, "Norway's Fairytale Queen."Everyone knows the Brothers Grimm tale, "Little Red Riding Hood," in which a naive little girl is almost eaten by a wolf in grandmother's clothes, but is saved by a hunter who kills the wolf. When, however, Regine Normann collects and re-shapes folktales, a very different fairytale hero emerges. The clever youngest daughter outwits the giant who slew her two sisters. She not only reattaches their severed heads, but tricks the giant of Blue Mountain into carrying all three of them, one by one, together with all his riches, back to their joyful parents at home. Her final trick-one of the giant's female corpses positioned as a willing bride-so infuriates the giant that he explodes into fragments of stone. Shaped by a penetrating female consciousness, Normann's fairytales reconfigure the fairytale hero and redefine the hero's journey.