There are some wonderful stories in here – I’m kinda wishing Barbara G. Walker, a talented feminist writer with a prodigious output of research and spiritual encyclopedias, had called this terrific book something other than Feminist Fairy Tales. But it was published in 1996, when it was still very important for us to re-claim our heritage.
Most fairy tales did start out one way, and ended up another, as the patriarchy got hold of the old myths (as also happened repeatedly with the Goddess, in a variety of cultures). So here, thanks to Barbara, Aladdin has become Ala Dean, a very smart little girl who figures everything out. And The Three Pinks is about 3 garden fairies who like to paint all the flowers pink, and the gardener, whose last name is Wolf, hates those pink flowers, and tries to destroy the fairy bower.
Jill and the Beanroot is one of my favorites – Jill has to go down, not up, to find her treasure. You can almost imagine what Prince Gimme and the Fairy of the Forest is about. And wait til you read The Frog Princess.
Barbara is such a good writer, and all these stories are written in different styles with different voices. What a treat! I spaced them out, so I’d have time to savor the yummy details. This book is an oldy but a goody!