The New Brothers Grimm

Somehow my A Thousand And One fairy tales project has reached Tale #100 today, and to celebrate that I’ve decided to make some new tales explicitly out of old ones, rather than just sort of generally out of old ones.

And so, in The New Brothers Grimm, I take sentences, paragraphs, and fragments of original Brothers Grimm tales, and then re-assemble them into something new.

The First New Tale
The Second New Tale
The Third New Tale
The Fourth New Tale
The Fifth New Tale
The Sixth New Tale
The Seventh New Tale
The Eighth New Tale
The Ninth New Tale
The Tenth New Tale
The Eleventh New Tale
The Twelfth New Tale
The Thirteenth New Tale

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Notes:

1. All of these were made in February and March 2020
2. They were all made using sentences from the Jack Zipes translations used in The Complete Fairy Tales collection, published in 2007 by Vintage.
3. Various minor changes to nouns, tenses, names, etc, were made to keep things consistent.
4. In a similar way to the In The Terminals Of Minraud trilogy of Burroughs cut-ups I made last year.
5. Which I thought might be interesting at the time
6. But which proved not to be interesting at all
7. To anyone
8. But me.

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Tale #93: A circle, whispering time

They built a calendar out of trees and flowers in the meadows around the town.

12 groves in a circle, a new colour blooming each month.

In January, the white of snowdrops
In February, the yellow of daffodils
In March, the green of grey willow
In April, the blue of wisteria
In May, the pink of cherry blossoms
In June, the red of poppies
In July, the honeyed yellow of catkins on sweet chestnut trees
In August, the purple velvet of tufted vetch
In September, the crimson of burnet
In October, the gold of autumn hawkbit
In November, the grey beards clinging to the branches of the clematis trees

Then December comes.

In the silence nothing grows,
but much is buried

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Notes:

1. Written on September 4, 2019
2. And reminiscent of this previous tale – The town, the forest, the past

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If you like the things you've read here please consider subscribing to my patreon or my ko-fi.

Patreon subscribers get not just early access to content and also the occasional gift, but also my eternal gratitude. Which I'm not sure is very useful, but is certainly very real.

(Ko-fi contributors probably only get the gratitude I'm afraid, but please get in touch if you want more).

Thank you!


Tale #92: The Morning Birds Free The Soul, The Night Ones Take Them

It was a commonly held belief that heaven resided in the earth and hell within the air. Crops grew from the ground, while fire and smoke rose upwards.

Worms were believed to be new souls struggling to the surface from heaven, and only with the help of the morning birds could they be pulled free and delivered to the newborns that needed them. A child born in the morning was said to be blessed with a good soul.

Upon death, the body was returned to the ground, so as to be nearer heaven. The bodies of the sinful and the condemned were hoisted up and left on the roofs of houses, so that the evening birds (crows, gulls, owls) could pick clean their bones and take not only their flesh but their souls up into the skies towards damnation.

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Notes:

1. Written on August 8th, 2013

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If you like the things you've read here please consider subscribing to my patreon or my ko-fi.

Patreon subscribers get not just early access to content and also the occasional gift, but also my eternal gratitude. Which I'm not sure is very useful, but is certainly very real.

(Ko-fi contributors probably only get the gratitude I'm afraid, but please get in touch if you want more).

Thank you!


Tale #86: (blue plaque on ruined wall)

On this spot, in 1833, a woman was found with two heads, two hearts, and two names. Each head spoke a different language. Each heart beat at a different rate. Yet both names were the same.

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Notes:

1. Written on September 3rd, 2018

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Support An Accumulation Of Things

If you like the things you've read here please consider subscribing to my patreon or my ko-fi.

Patreon subscribers get not just early access to content and also the occasional gift, but also my eternal gratitude. Which I'm not sure is very useful, but is certainly very real.

(Ko-fi contributors probably only get the gratitude I'm afraid, but please get in touch if you want more).

Thank you!


Tale #77: The Wolf And The Girl

The wolf watched as the girl came near
And the wolf waited as the girl roamed far
And the wolf pounced when her parents came looking

The wolf ate, the girl ate
And away they went together
Blood red lips, teeth as sharp as lies

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Notes:

1. Written on November 3rd, 2016

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Support An Accumulation Of Things

If you like the things you've read here please consider subscribing to my patreon or my ko-fi.

Patreon subscribers get not just early access to content and also the occasional gift, but also my eternal gratitude. Which I'm not sure is very useful, but is certainly very real.

(Ko-fi contributors probably only get the gratitude I'm afraid, but please get in touch if you want more).

Thank you!