to be shocked to my very core by Jack and the Beanstalk?

[BroccoliSpears]

So. Jack sells cow for beans. Grows a beanstalk. Goes up the beanstalk and steals a load of the Giant's stuff. Kills the giant and lives happily ever after? Jack's mum is thrilled because they'll "never be poor again".

And the moral of the story, children, is that if someone else has something you want, you just take it from them and lamp them if they try and stop you. If the person you are stealing from is different in some way, they definitely deserve it.

And I was so pleased when someone gave dd some traditional fairy tales for her birthday. Will now consign this one to the back of the bookshelf.

------
(Please note that I am not actually shocked to my very core. I just thought that would make a more interesting thread title on a dull Sunday evening).

[amytheearwaxbanisher]

if you give much thought to most fairy tales they are all a bit strange

[LittleBella]

LOL. Have you seen that film which puts the Giants point of view? Where the descendent of the original Jack goes to Giantland and realises that his ancestor was in fact a thief and scoundrel?

[bran]

All fairy tales are morally dubious, which is why they are popular with children and continue to be handed down the generations. You rarely hear a child clamouring to be told another Aesop's fable do you?

What was the fairy tale in the first series of Desperate Housewives, the one that the psycotically controlling mother who was heading up the drama club had decided to change the ending of?

[FAQ]

but hang on a minute surely one could argue that it was self defence? Didn't the giant want to EAT Jack???

[deanychip]

we get worried about goldielocks.....the greedy bitch, id have called the police immediately had i been the mummy bear quite frankly.

[BroccoliSpears]

NO FAQ!! In dd's book the giant's only crime is to be a bit grumpy and hungry. He eats his supper then goes to sleep! He eats cake and jelly and pies, but no people.

AND Mrs Giant even helps Jack hide from the grumpy giant. In return Jack kills her husband and loots her inheritance.

[amytheearwaxbanisher]

yes but he was breaking and entering

[quint]

do you think maybe ou're reading too much into this!!!!!!

[melpomene]

I agree entirely - it is a dubious moral, but you have to take these things with a pinch of salt. We saw a pantomime version in which the giant had a cold and Jack climbed up the beanstalk to give him medicine - somehow that didn't have the same ring to it as the original story, though.

One story that I hate is the princess and the pea. Moral: It's a good thing to be so over-sensitive that you complain to your hosts about the tiniest imperfection.

I also find it somewhat incongruous that in our version of the three little pigs, the pig with the house of pigs dances happily at the end and doesn't appear to care at all that his brothers have died...

[mablemurple]

In the version I know the giant had stolen the golden egg laying hen and the magic harp from Jack's family in the first place!

[melpomene]

house of bricks

[FAQ]

what no

Fee! Fie! Foe! Fum!??
I smell the blood of an Englishman.
Be he 'live, or be he dead,
I'll grind his bones to make my bread.

!!!

[ChukkyPig]

Who says

"fe fi fo fum
i smell the bood of an englishman"

?

Apart from neil innes (sort of)...

[ChukkyPig]

x-post!

[Teuch]

See in my version of Jack and The Beanstalk, the giant eats boys on toast as his favourite meal, and of course the famous 'fe fi fo fum, I smell the blood of an englishman. Be he alive or be he dead, I'll grind his bones to make my bread'

I must admit, t'was a bit gruesome...

[FAQ]

here

[Olihan]

I always thought the Elves and the Shoemaker wasn't thought through by whoever wrote it.

Poor shoemaker (because he doesn't sell any shoes therefore his shoes must be rubbish), handy eleves make him fab shoes which he sells for loadsa money.

Elves then leave. So shoemaker has to make his own shoes again, which must still be rubbish because elves didn't give him lessons so he's just going to end up in the same position when his money runs out.

No logic or morals, these fairy tale writers .

[NotQuiteCockney]

Ah, but the giant wasn't really human. It's like people getting upset about the rights of non-white people, or women ... it's not like they actually count, actually matter.

[flubdub]

What about Snow White? Living in a house with 7 men - dirty cow.

[PortBlacksandResident]

Sounds like Broccolli's book took out the "scarey bit" for children but kept in the other bit of violence.

Now I'M reading too much into it.

Hate it when Nursery Rhymes and Fairy Stories are modernised and sanitised. As a child my fave was a story called the Travelling Companion in which the strange man helping a boy on a series of adventures turns out to be the corpse that he saved from mutilation earlier in the story. I loved that story.

[MrsCarrot]

he did say he was going to grind his bones to make his bread though, I reckon I'd have nipped off with the golden goose without too much moral angst.

[ChukkyPig]

PB&R it sounds like a heart-warming tale

In our house there was a nursery rhyme book and my favourite rhyme was one that was, looking back on it, extremely unpleasant about welsh people. Oh dear.

[choccypig]

Teuch

Dies your version go:

"beans and butter and boys on toast?"
"no" said his wife "its toasted cheese"

and a bit later,
"Jack chopped and chopped till his arms were sore,
He chopped until he could chop no more"

That's all I can remember from my childhood, I so want to get that book again.

[ChukkyPig]

I'm hungry for cheese on toast now.

And disturbed that I seem to have developed a near-as-dammit named alter ego!

[Washersaurus]

I must admit I was a bit disappointed when I borrowed a copy of Jack and the Beanstalk from the library recently for DS1 and the giant shouted "Fe fi fo fum, watch out now, here I come"