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Illustrated by Eric Kincaid and Eric Rowe
Adapted by Lucy Kincaid
ISBN 0 86112 138 4 © Brimax Rights Ltd 1982 Published by Brimax Books, Cambridge, England 1982 Printed in Hong Kong |
This collection of retold fairy tales was published by Brimax Books in 1982 as part of the 'Cast a Spell' series, a series of four books featuring fairy tales adapted by Lucy Kincaid and illustrated by Eric Kincaid and Eric Rowe. See series list.
The cover of Fantasy Tales shows green circles radiating out from a white centre above a collection of characters from the stories within: A giant with snow on his hat carrying a man in his hand, a mischievous Puck, small blue figures representing Jack Frost and a water nixie, and the central figure of a wizard, with staff and outstretched hand. Below them are whorls of pink, perhaps representing the casting of a spell, and pouring over to the back cover where we see a man standing at the top of a ridge with his back to us, looking off into the distance. This cover format (radiating circles and whorls with characters from the collection) is repeated across the other covers in the series.
The endpapers show a grassy shoreline with lakes or inlets and gentle hills, and a barren, windswept tree, below a fantastical cloudscape featuring a man with pennant and sword, a prince on a steed, a medieval princess with high headdress (hennin), castles, mountains, and a bearded giant. As the endpapers of the other books in this series are borrowed from previous works, it's likely these endpapers were also printed in a previous collection.
The loose endpaper and title page illustration is shared across all four books in the series. The double-page spread shows a misty forest at night, with a Tudor homestead in a meadow in the distance, and tiny doors in the trunks and roots of the trees.
The title pages note that some of these stories also appear in Witches Goblins Ogres and Fantasy (WGOF); Wizards Giants Trolls and Magic (WGTM); and Tales of Magic and Enchantment (TME), all published by Brimax Books. I've marked the stories I've identified as appearing in identical form in the previous works below.
The six stories collected here are:
- The Water Nixie
- Icy Fingers
- French Puck (WGTM)
- The Boastful Tailor (WGTM)
- The Two Wizards (WGTM)
- Angry Fairies
No sources are given for the adaptations, but I've identified most of these, as outlined below.
The Water Nixie
The first story in this collection is clearly an adaptation of the Grimms' tale 79*, "The Water Nixie". I found it amusing that in this version the tale starts by telling us the Water Nixie "is a sprite who likes to play tricks on children", but then we see the Water Nixie enslave them, which made the earlier description feel very weak! I suspect that description, and details of the Water Nixie making them do her "chores", were intended to soften the nasty reality of their magical enslavement.
Rather than a well, in this adaptation the children ("a little boy and his sister") have fallen into a stream that has put them into the Water Nixie's power, and they make their escape when she "decided to go out for a whole day" (rather than to attend church). When she returns sooner than expected and chases them, "The only thing the little girl had in her pocket was a hairbrush which she threw on to the ground behind them. It turned into a hill of bristles so scratchy and so menacing it would have stopped the bravest knight." The boy similarly uses a comb to create spikes, and finally they throw a mirror that creates a slippery hill.
"The Water Nixie" is classified as tale type 313**, "The Magic Flight", but it's interesting that there is no explanation for the magic. The brush, comb, and mirror appear to be objects the children happened to have upon them and it's unclear why they suddenly gain magical properties to aid the children in their flight.
I liked the artistic depiction of the Water Nixie – somewhat octopus-like with her tentacles and clothing, and very athletic!
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| Detail from illustrations for "The Water Nixie" |
Icy Fingers
"Icy Fingers" is a variant of the Russian folktale known as "Father Frost", which appears as "The Story of King Frost" in Andrew Lang's Yellow Fairy Book (1894), although it's not clear if Lang's story was Kincaid's source. In copies I've seen of the Russian tale (and in Lang's version) the two girls are step-sisters, but in Kincaid's adaptation the girl who wins Frost's favour is a servant girl.
The story didn't make a lot of sense to me because at the beginning we were told that "the servant girl did all the work. ... [she] worked from dawn till dusk, caring for the animals and working in the fields but she never complained." Yet one day the farmer's wife decided "I cannot bear the sight of you any longer. Go out into the fields and never come back!" It made me wonder who was going to do all the work.
Like in other versions of this tale, the cast out girl is approached by a frost figure (in this case Jack Frost) who keeps asking if she is warm when she is freezing to death. She keeps bravely saying yes, which impresses him into offering her riches. I liked the description in this version that "Jack Frost was so touched by her courage that his heart melted and he could not torment her any longer." Of course, the spoiled daughter is sent out to gain the same riches but, being spoiled, points out the obvious when asked if she is warm: "How stupid you are," she said. "Look at my hands and feet and see how cold they are!" And she and her mother meet a frozen end.
I liked the vibrant red and orange colours in the image of the spoiled girl looking outraged at Jack Frost's 'stupidity':
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| Detail from illustrations for "A French Puck" |
French Puck
This story is an adaptation of "A French Puck", probably from the version that appeared in Andrew Lang's Lilac Fairy book (1910).
In this tale, a mischievous French Puck decides to play a prank on "Jeanne" and "Jules", who are about to be married. When Jeanne bemoans having forgotten to buy thread for her wedding clothes, Puck puts the perfect thread in her way. The dressmaker sews Jeanne a beautiful dress with Puck's thread and – woops-a-daisy – Puck's magic thread disappears on the day, which leaves the bride in her petticoat! The illustration perfectly captures the moment that Jeanne's dress falls into a puddle on the floor.
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| Detail from illustrations for "A French Puck" |
I liked how Kincaid's adaptation made sense of the curious guest searching for the thread by explaining that it was the dressmaker, also embarrassed – in this case that her work might be maligned. I always enjoy Kincaid's fresh endings, too: "The mystery was never explained, but then nobody had seen French Puck, had they?"
The Boastful Tailor
"The Boastful Tailor" is an adaptation of the Grimms' tale 183*, "The Giant and the Tailor" (not to be confused with the more familiar Grimms' story of a tailor and a giant, tale 20, "The Valiant/Gallant/Brave Little Tailor").
In this story, the tailor boasts not of killing flies, but of pretty much anything else that enters his head – "[h]e even boasted to himself", as Kincaid says – and his boasting is his downfall. When he falls into the dubious employment of a giant (that will only give him days as wages), he scares the giant by boasting that he can achieve great things. The giant lies awake at night worrying how to be rid of him, which results in more boasting that ends in the tailor being flung into the air and never being seen again, "much to the giant's relief."
I like how Kincaid and Rowe draw scale. It took me a moment to realise what the white stuff on the giant's hat was – snow!
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Detail from illustrations for "The Boastful Tailor"
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Occasionally in their illustrations you get a near photorealistic illustration (in this case of the giant's head as he lays unsleeping) – they're not often pretty, but they are impressive!
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| Detail from illustrations for "The Boastful Tailor" |
One minor note – in my copy of this book, there is a printing error that results in a few missing letters at the right edge of the column of text on the last page of the story, but it was easy enough to figure out the words by context.
The Two Wizards
This adaptation appears to be some kind of variant of tale type 325**, "The Magician and His Pupil". Although in this case the younger man is not a pupil of the older wizard, the tale features the same elements of a transformation flight and contest, a family member selling the young man as a horse, etc. I have not been able to identify the possible source of Kincaid's adaptation, so I'd love to know if anyone else can.
In Kincaid's adaptation, a young man with two older brothers teaches himself to be a wizard. The young wizard, Bertram, decides to have some fun so he asks his brothers to sell him as a horse to the king. The king gives them twelve of his best elephants in exchange for Bertram, disguised as a white stallion, so when Bertram the stallion runs off the king's wizard goes in pursuit. They each change into different animals, Bertram to escape, the king's wizard to pursue. At one point Bertram disguises himself as a draught piece on the board his brothers are playing on.
I really enjoyed the conclusion to this adaptation. Instead of one wizard besting the other, Kincaid writes that "It was quite obvious that neither wizard was going to win the contest, so they changed themselves back into their own shapes and sat down to talk things over." Death by combat replaced with a sensible chat – a wonderful ending!
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| Two wizards talk things over: detail from illustrations for "Two Wizards" |
Angry Fairies
I can't yet find any source for this tale, which is about a farmer's wife who angers a group of fairies when she beats the dust out of her kitchen rugs over top of the flowers they were sheltered in. They swear revenge and come back that night intending to lift the farmer's house off its foundations and carry it to the nearby bog. The tapping noise of the fairies loosening the foundations eventually wakes up Mr and Mrs Burrows, and they are bumped around the room as the house is lifted into the sky. The house is suddenly dropped to the ground when morning comes too soon, as the fairies are required by their king to return by daybreak. The story concludes:
"Apart from one or two bruises and some broken plates there was no real damage done. The farmer and his wife never did find out what had really happened that night, or why it had happened and perhaps it was just as well."
It was a funny little tale, which highlights the importance of not getting on the wrong side of the little folk. I enjoyed this picture, which makes Mr Burrows look like a spacefarer in zero gravity:
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| Illustration from "Angry Fairies" |
Summary
This was another fun collection of tales retold by Lucy Kincaid and illustrated by Eric Kincaid and Eric Rowe. As with other titles in this series, there don't appear to be many copies of this title available online, but since the stories are repeated from other collections those might be easier to find. Witches Goblins Ogres and Fantasy (WGOF) and Wizards Giants Trolls and Magic (WGTM) are both available for reading at the Open Library (Internet Archive).
Footnotes
* Grimm's tale numbers are the numbers of the fairy tales collected in Kinder- und Hausmärchen (KHM). The numbers range from KHM 1 (The Frog Prince/King) to KHM 210 (The Hazel Branch). The numbers are based on the 1857 edition of Kinder- und Hausmärchen, which is divided into 2 volumes. The original Kinder- und Hausmärchen was first published as two separate volumes (Vol. 1 in 1812 with 86 stories) and Vol 2. in 1815 with 70 stories). The 1857 edition was the seventh edition, much expanded, and with changes to the tales. This is the edition that most English translations are based upon and is the quintessential "Grimm's Fairy Tales".
** Tale types are a way of classifying fairy tales and folk tales that have the same characteristics. For more information, see Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index (Wikipedia).
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