New Book: Once Upon a Time: Red's Untold Tale by Wendy Toliver

Once Upon a Time: Red's Untold Tale by Wendy Toliver was also released this week. This is a novel inspired by ABC's Once Upon a Time TV series. With season 5 starting this weekend--and can I just say SEASON 5, never saw that coming when this series was announced 6+ years ago--the show is still going strong. This book has a gorgeous cover.

Book description:

Red is 16 and lives with Granny in a cottage in the village, where boarding up the house and hiding during Wolfstime is a means of survival. Red help's Granny with Granny's baked good business, catering as well as door-to-door sales.

Red has a constant internal battle between her wild side and her strict, overprotective upbringing, and the issue of "control" as she discovers she has a hot temper when the "mean girls" push her too far. ("When we learn to control it, we needn't fear it," Rumpelstiltskin says in the series.) She has flashbacks to her 13th year when she received her cloak and the nickname "Red."

Plagued by nightmares she doesn't understand and a temper she can't control, Red struggles to save Granny's troubled business and to nurture her budding romance with Peter, even as the betrayal of her classmates awakens the wolf within.

Fairy Tales in Advertising: TV2: Once Upon a Time

TV2: Fairy Tale Books

So Season 4 of Once Upon a Time (ABC/USA) starts up tomorrow. Who knew it would be such a hit when it started four years ago? I didn't. So for a quiet Saturday post, I thought I would share this special edition of Fairy Tales in Advertising post and show you how TV2 promoted the series in New Zealand for the start of Season 2.

Of course, here in the southern U.S. where I live and the kudzo grows, we get billboards that look rather like this sometimes quite naturally. :) But I love it!

Campaign info from Ads of the World:

Advertising Agency: Contagion, New Zealand
Executive Creative Director: Bridget Taylor
Art Director: Daniel Walton
Associate Creative Director / Copywriter: Verity Dookia
Designer: Phila Lagaluga
Account Manager: Emma Woods
Production: Bootleg
Published: April 2013

Fairy Tale Highlights of the American Folklore Society's 2014 Annual Meeting

The American Folklore Society's Annual Meeting is coming soon and the deadline to register at a discounted rate is August 31st. The Society's 2014 annual meeting will be held November 5-8 at the Santa Fe Convention Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico. My own attendance is still undecided but I highly recommend attending as well as becoming a member of AFS if you are not already.

I've pulled the fairy tale related papers from the 56 page program. There is always plenty to hear and see at the meeting but highlighting fairy tale discussions is SurLaLune's purpose. Looking through the papers, you can see a definite influence of ABC's Once Upon a Time and others on the current scholarship. I REALLY want to hear these papers, too, so now I get to see if the personal budget and schedule will accommodate me!

01-05
Channeling Wonder I: Televising Fairy-Tale Genders
Sponsored by the Folk Narrative Section and the Women's Section
See also 02-05

Claudia M. Schwabe (Utah State University), chair
8:00 Kirstian Lezubski (University of Winnipeg), The Power to Revolutionize the World, or
Absolute Gender Apocalypse? Queering the New Fairy-Tale Feminine in Revolutionary Girl Utena
8:30 Shuli Barzilai (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Catherine Breillat's Rescripting of
Charles Perrault's "Bluebeard"
9:00 Brittany Warman (The Ohio State University), Hearing Her Song: Examining (Feminist?)
Messages in the "Briar Rose" Episode of the Japanese Anime Grimms' Fairy Tale Classics
9:30 Patricia Sawin (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill), Things Walt Disney Didn't Tell
Us (But at Which Rodgers and Hammerstein at Least Hinted): The 1965 Made-for-TV Musical
Cinderella

02-05
Channeling Wonder II: Fairy-Tale (Un)Realities on Television
Sponsored by the Folk Narrative Section
See also 01-05

Pauline Greenhill (University of Winnipeg), chair
10:15 Jodi McDavid (Cape Breton University), Worlds Within Worlds: Depicting Fairy-tale
Superheroes in Children's Television
10:45 John Rieder (University of Hawai‘i, Manoa), The Fairy Tale and the Commercial:
Fractured Fairy Tales
11:15 Claudia M. Schwabe (Utah State University), Magic Realism in Grimm and Once Upon a
Time
11:45 Cristina Bacchilega (University of Hawai‘i, Manoa), The Fairy Tale and the Commercial:
The Italian Carosello

04-02
At the Crossroads of Folk Narrative, TV, and Gender

Jeana S. Jorgensen (Butler University), chair
8:00 Kim Snowden (University of British Columbia), "What's In the Basket Little Girl?":
Reading Buffy as Little Red Riding Hood
8:30 Linda Lee (University of Pennsylvania), Rehabilitating the Child-Stealing Witch:
Motherhood and Magic in ABC's Once Upon a Time
9:00 Jeana S. Jorgensen (Butler University), Gendering Lost Girl: Transforming Fairy-Tale and
Legend Intertexts in TV
9:30 Cristina Bacchilega (University of Hawai‘i), discussant

04-06
Theory II

Shandi Lynne Wagner (Wayne State University), chair
8:00 Anne Arundel Locker-Thaddeus (Texas A&M University), Comparison in a Crowded
Field: Choosing a Folk Narrative Analysis Technique
8:30 John Laudun (University of Louisiana), Counting Tales: Towards a Computational Model
of Narrative
9:00 Valdimar Tr. Hafstein (University of Iceland), Andersen and the Grimms: Authors,
Editors, Folk
9:30 Shandi Lynne Wagner (Wayne State University), The Intersection of Folklore and Fairy
Tale in the Ghostly Little Red Riding Hood of Elizabeth Gaskell's "Curious, If True" (1860)

06-07
New Scholarship on German and Russian Folk-Tale Studies

Jeanmarie Rouhier-Willoughby (University of Kentucky) and Linda Worley (University of
Kentucky), chairs
2:00 Ann Schmiesing (University of Colorado, Boulder), Disability and Able-Bodiedness in the
Grimms' Fairy Tales
2:20 Veronica Muskheli (University of Washington, Seattle), Unsettling Representation of the
Forest in Northern Russian Memorates
2:40 Zora Kadyrbekova (McGill University), Human-Animal Relationships in Russian Fairy
Tales
3:00 Qinna Shen (Miami University of Ohio), Little "Red" Riding Hood and Soviet Influence on
DEFA Fairy-Tale Films
3:20 Izabela Zdun (McGill University), The Fairy Tale Genre in Lyudmila Petrushevskaya's
Works: The Interplay between Literature and Folklore

06-13
Shakespeare and Spenser: Early Modern Adaptations of Folklore
Sponsored by the Medieval and Early Modern Folklore Section

Kerry Kaleba (independent), chair
2:00 Charlotte Artese (Agnes Scott College), "Like the Old Tale": Shakespeare as Folktale
Adapter
2:30 Sara Cleto (The Ohio State University), "Love, and Be Silent": Fairy Tale Conventions in
Shakespeare's King Lear
3:00 Joshua Commander (California State University, Stanislaus), The Hollow Christ, His
Brittle Glory, and His Sour Cross : An Examination of The Hollow Crown's Representation of
Shakespeare's Richard of Bordeaux as a Counterfeit of Christ
3:30 Amber N. Slaven (University of Louisiana, Lafayette), Continually at the Crossroads? The
Overlapping Liminality of Redcrosse Knight as a Fairy Changeling

08-17
Remapping 19th-Century Fairy Tales

Jennifer Schacker (University of Guelph), chair
10:15 Nancy Canepa (Dartmouth College), The Many Lives of Giambattista Basile's Neapolitan
Cunto
10:45 Christine A. Jones (University of Utah), Victorian Perrault, or the Birth of a Fairy
Godfather
11:15 Molly Clark Hillard (University of Seattle), Fairy Tales and Revolutions: Charles
Dickens's Bleak House
11:45 Jennifer Schacker (University of Guelph), Stage Folk: T. Crofton Croker's "Daniel O'
Rourke" at the Crossroads of Scholarship and Popular Culture

09-06
Diamond Session: At the Crossroads of Tales and Computers: Visualizing Fairy-Tale
Wonder through Filmographies and Computational Folkloristics

Jill T. Rudy (Brigham Young University), chair
2:00 Pauline Greenhill (University of Winnipeg), The International Fairy-Tale Filmography
(IFTF): Collaborating to Create a Digital Humanities Research Resource
2:10 Kendra Magnus-Johnston (University of Manitoba), Fairy Tales on TV: Archival
Methodologies for a Fairy-tale Teleography
2:20 Jill T. Rudy (Brigham Young University), Visualizing Fairy Tales on Television, or,
Everything Old is ATU Again
2:30 Madeleine Dresden (Brigham Young University), Glass Slippers and Small Screens: Rags
to Riches and the American Dream
2:40 discussion
3:00 Megan Armknecht (Brigham Young University), "Fractured Fairy Tales" and Rocky and
Bullwinkle for a Cold War Generation
3:10 Jessie Riddle (Brigham Young University), Red Hoods and Gold Locks: Motifs and Mash
Ups in Fairy-Tale Land
3:20 Kristy Stewart (Brigham Young University), Lost in the Genres: Hansel and Gretel across
TV Production Types

Grimm DVDs on Sale

Grimm: Season 1 and Grimm: Season 2 have both dropped in price significantly over the weekend, probably since the third season just ended and is available for preorder at Grimm: Season 3. The prices are fluctuating but are standing at about 20-30% less than their usual prices on Amazon.

Gypsy just wrote a fun post about the Grimm season finale over on Once Upon a Blog which made me smile.

That's the thing about the little show that could we call Grimm. It makes me smile. On paper, it makes no sense to me--I don't do the horror elements personally and detective shows are stale even if I watch a few.

But I will admit here that Grimm pleases me on so many more levels than Once Upon a Time, namely because they do their research on fairy tales and other folklore to inspire them. I see those quotes at the beginning of each episode and it makes me happy every time, especially when I recognize it!

I appreciate OUAT but I don't really enjoy it--it irritates me more often than not with its Disney commercialization--but I am thrilled so many people love it. It has been a juggernaut. Yay for it!

I'm not actively watching Grimm each week depending on my time constraints, but when I catch it, I enjoy it. I give it more time than OUAT because I find its storytelling more compelling and less predictable. It feels like an independent film show next to OUAT's major Hollywood studio slickness. I enjoyed Grimm's ending. I groaned at OUAT's ending, even though the media had alerted us it was coming. And, hey, I liked Frozen well enough. I have a niece who adores it. Watching the film become a worldwide phenomenon has been fascinating.

And I am so happy they have all been renewed for a 4th season! Who knew that Grimm and Once Upon a Time would both be seeing 4th seasons! And even CW's Beauty and the Beast--so very loosely based on anything fairy tale or related to the inspiration show--escaped the ax and will see a third season. So the name is out there, too. OUAT Wonderland got the ax but Wonderland was a stretch always. I hope the musical version will be much more successful in the fall or whenever it arrives on our screens.

Now I am tempted to order season 2 for a future marathon viewing. I own season 1 and although I can stream, that is still frustrating at times when watching several episodes at a time. Hmmm...

A Bargain and A Little TV Discussion: Grimm Season 1 on DVD for $19.99

I rarely look at Target ads anymore, but did this week and saw that Grimm: Season One is $19.99 on sale this week at Target. And sure enough, Amazon price matched it this morning, so it is also $19.99 there.

I haven't been writing regular coverage of Grimm or Once Upon a Time or Beauty and the Beast this season due to time constraints--and I don't manage to keep up with watching them very well either--although I try to stay informed with them through TV review sites and such. That said, I have found myself watching all the episodes of Grimm since it returned from hiatus and the show has definitely grown on me more for entertainment purposes although the folklore elements seem to have atrophied. Poor NBC, Grimm is the only show I watch on that network. And they have upped the presence of women on the show which also makes it more enjoyable for me. I am hoping it gets renewed.

 

Once Upon a Time doesn't need my coverage. It has a large, loyal fan base and is, of course, the show I am asked about the most when SurLaLune comes up during my conversations with people in my "real" world. The Season 2 DVDs are already up for preorder, too. This one should be renewed for a third season very easily. I admit I am not a fan of the "evil queen should be lovable to all of us" storytelling. There are consequences for bad behavior--many fairy tales remind us of that!--and whatever the antihero sympathetic motivations offered, she has done some despicable stuff and should not be trusted but kept on a tight leash. Guess I've known too many real people like that to make a hero out of one of them. Has everyone forgotten she put a knife in her own father?

Beauty and the Beast barely resembles its inspiration show and is on the bubble for renewal. Hence the upping of the sexual levels the last few weeks. It looks like a CW show--it's like there is the same set designer for the entire network--which I now know since John and I are regular viewers of Arrow, having forgiven its flaws a while back ourselves. Which I admit is often my criteria for TV watching these days--what shows will give me a few minutes of something to watch with the hubby and chill for a few minutes with him? Arrow and Grimm and Elementary fit that need better than the others.

So which shows are you watching? Or not watching? What's your favorite?

Bargain Price: Once Upon a Time: The Complete First Season

Once Upon a Time: The Complete First Season just dropped to $21.86, 52% off list price, on Amazon. This could go up in a few minutes, hours or days, but this is the lowest I've seen it go in a while if you still "need" this.

Grimm: Season One is $16.99

Grimm: Season One is $16.99 in DVD format at Amazon and Target for the rest of this week.

The Target ad also shows Once Upon a Time: The Complete First Season as $16.99 but it is not listed on the Target site, so Amazon is not price matching, at least not yet. So if you have a gift certificate to either place and didn't get these on your wishlist, these are the lowest prices to date on these sets.

Once Upon a Time Season 2: Less Fairy Tales?

Looks like there will be less and less fairy tale coverage of OUAT. And, yes, reading between the lines is that the focus is really more about Disney characters coming to visit than anything else. Mulan, Captain Hook, all Disney animation. I don't think we will be seeing Jane Eyre. We're more likely to see

 

or Herbie the Love Bug--or wait! Isn't that Emma's car already?

From 'Once Upon a Time' producers pledge intense season 2 by James Hibberd at EW:

Here’s what I find interesting about the characters you’re adding this season. Mulan is a Chinese historical figure. Captain Hook is an early 20th century literary creation and Lancelot is a fifth-century possible historical figure. Those aren’t fairy-tale characters.

KITSIS: Go back and look at the pilot when you see Henry’s book and the book flips [through the pages of illustrations from different stories]. Also the episode with the Mad Hatter when you see all the doors [to other worlds]. If you Tivo-pause those doors there are some that look different than what you might think.

HOROWITZ: Fairy tales are ground zero. They’re the first stories we hear … Will Chewbacca show up in Storybrooke? Probably not, because that’s a Lucasfilm property.

KITSIS: But he’s welcome to!

You play a lot with Disney characters. What’s something you’re not allowed to do?

KITSIS: Cinderella is not going to be doing an 8-ball in a Boogie Nights scene.

But you wouldn’t write that anyway.

HOROWITZ: You get the sense of where the line is and you try to push as far over that as you can without going too far. We want to do cool dark stories, but we don’t want to sully the characters. We had Snow “under a curse” and not behaving as herself, capture and torture a guard with an axe and threaten him. It was very real to what our Snow was doing at the time, but it’s not something traditionally Disney would want to do with that character.

KITSIS: That was our Quentin Tarantino moment.

HOROWITZ: And we had things like the Red Riding Hood episode where she kills her boyfriend and eats him. We’re getting families to watch this, but we were able to get the dark things we wanted to do.

KITSIS: For us it’s about character. Everybody has darkness in them.

Tonight: Once Upon a Time (ABC) Twitter Party

I received the following email for all you Once Upon a Time fans. There's a Twitter Party for the show tonight with the new season starting this Sunday. Isn't it nice when shows keep their time slot?

From ABC Entertainment:

Please join us on September 27th, from 8-9pm EST as we celebrate the return of ABC’s Once Upon a Time with a fun Twitter party hosted by Mom Spark! Fans will have a chance to catch-up with everything they need to know to get ready for the much anticipated season premiere on Sunday, Sept 30th 8/7c with features such as upcoming clips from the show, photos from the first season, and Once Upon a Time trivia games and quizzes! Make sure to join in order to win amazing prizes such as a Visa gift cards and Once Upon a Time tote bags! Be part of the magic by participating in the Once Upon a Time Twitter party and share what you’re most excited about this upcoming season! We will be using the hashtag #OnceParty. For additional info, check out http://bit.ly/OncePartyFS1!

Once Upon a Time Season 2 Trailer

That's the preview for the second season of Once Upon a Time. There's talk of Mulan and Captain Hook and other interesting things. Which also makes me weary, I admit. Is it just me or are most of the best parts of the show independent of the Disney film inspirations? I know I am in the minority and I am grateful the show is a breakout hit since it has people talking and reading fairy tales, too, but I wish I could mash this one up with Grimm, take my favorite parts, add some more and make the show that I would adore.

I am pleased that the ending of last season blew things up and gives us a whole new premise for Season 2 though.

Season 1 has been steadily dropping in price on DVD all week, too, unless it pops up again in price before this post goes live.

Price Drop and Deal on ABC's Once Upon a Time DVD Set

Once Upon a Time: The Complete First Season has dropped to $29.99 on Amazon this week. If you preordered, you should receive a refund if you paid more than that.

Also, there is a way to save more on it through a special deal on ABC TV DVD sets.

Save $10 on Hot New ABC TV Titles

Order two eligible ABC television titles like Once Upon A Time: The Complete First Season 5-Disc DVD or Castle: The Complete Fourth Season 5-Disc DVD to save $10 on your total purchase. Offer ends September 30, 2012.

There are several DVD sets to choose from--my personal pick would be Castle, of course, since there have been a couple of fairy tale inspired episodes from them over the years.

ABC's Once Upon a Time at Comic Con

From 'Once Upon a Time' panel at Comic-Con: Captain Hook is coming! (Watch first-look teaser here) by Sandra Gonzalez:

The Big Revelations:

+ Captain Hook is coming!
+ We will find out the identity of Henry’s father — and Jennifer Morrison knows who it is! “We talked about it early on,” she said. Kitsis’ tease? “I think Goofy is probably going to be Henry’s father,” he joked. “We gotta give Emma more credit here,” Morrison retorted.

+ We will learn the mythical identity of Dr. Whale this season.

+ There’s room for Kristin Bauer van Straten to return as Maleficent! “I didn’t see her body,” said Horowitz.

+ What DOES it mean that “Magic is coming”? “I wonder if we will find that out. I bet you we will have to watch season 2,” said Kitsis. “We don’t know if there’s anything to go back to.” Horowitz added: “Who knows if there’s anything there?”

+ The first few episodes will not disappoint. “I never could have conceived of the brilliance that is the first couple of scripts,” said Goodwin. “I can say that as an audience member it’s exactly what I’d want to see.” Added Kitsis: “The show is not going to change from the one you loved last year…we’re still going to go back and forth and meet new people along the way. “

+ We will find out what happened to Mr. Gold’s son Bae this season.

No comment on the Captain Hook element from me. Moving on...

And here's another preview--you can see Jack and the Beanstalk if you watch carefully:



From 'Once Upon A Time': More season 2 scoops from the executive producers
by Nuzhat Naoreen: (This is the most indepth article if you want to read just one in full.)

The impact of magic on Storybrooke:

KITSIS: “Magic as we know always comes with a price and we are introducing it to a world where it has never been before and I think that’s going to have unpredictable results. It’s going to affect everybody this season because that’s what’s more fun.”

Everyone’s memories returning:

KITSIS “I think the thing that we are really excited about is the fact that not only is magic in Storybrooke but everybody knows who they are. I think that is going to enable us to really dig deeper into the characters, now that they can actually deal with all the issues in their life and their past and their future.”

HOROWITZ: “One of the things that’s interesting to us to explore is this notion that just because the memories have returned does not mean that the past 28 years did not happen. Those memories, the Davids, the Mary Margaret, the Mr. Golds, all those people, who they were existed and what they did actually happened and those are the things that will have to be dealt with.”

And the Season 2 footage screened at Comic Con:



More bits from Comic-Con 2012: 'Once Upon a Time' welcomes Captain Hook and Jack and the Beanstalk:

Who will we meet at the beginning of the episodes come fall? Well, in addition to the purple smoke monster, there were Mulan, Sleeping Beauty and Jack and the Bean Stalk, to name a few.

Although fall seems so far away, rest assured that it won't be too long until the new characters are introduced. "Very early in the season we're going to start to see some of these people join our group," says Horowitz. But the new guys won't take the focus away from the core group. "You are going to meet these people through our characters," says Kitsis. Bonus: Dr. Whale gets a fairytale counterpart.

We'll also meet Henry's father, who may or may not be someone we've seen before. "It might be Sneezy," says Kitsis, who jokes that maybe it's not significant anyway. "His name's Jeff. He lives in a suburb outside of Chicago. It's not a big deal. It was a one-time thing."

One person who does know: Jennifer Morrison. "I think Goofy is probably going to be Henry's father," Kitsis says later on. "You've got to give Emma some more credit here, geez! I just feel like she's got some taste," Morrison replies.

And here's video of the actual panel:

Season Rankings for Fairy Tale Shows

With the fall/winter tv seasons behind us, we can now look at the final rankings for our two fairy tale inspired series this past year. Deadline published the Full 2011-2012 TV Season Series Rankings which shows that Once Upon a Time came in 16th overall of all network shows while Grimm came in at 81. There's more data on the site, of course, but OUAT ended up one of four freshman shows in the top 20. .

Then if you page down to look at Grimm, you will see that the shows that shared its similar ranking on other networks overall were canceled or on the bubble of nearly so. So if it had been on any other network, it may have suffered the same fate but NBC didn't have a good showing overall beyond football and The Voice so the Grimm will stay with us for a while longer at least.

Grimm, along with OUAT, is available for preorder on DVD and Blu Ray, too.

Favorite Adaptations: ABC's Once Upon a Time

Jhane offered a second favorite fairy tale adaptation, one that has inspired many people over the last several months. Coincidentally, the DVDs and Blu Ray sets are now available for preorder. The price hasn't dropped much on Amazon yet, but they will price match if you preorder and you will always get the lowest price listed between now and release date--which is what I always do. The discs are released on August 28th. Now here are Jhane's words:

Another adaptation of fairy tales that I love is ABC's Once Upon A Time TV series.

It is one of the few series I have been watching and I am hooked to it for many reasons. Even before it was shown, I was already interested in it because I really have this fascination about fairy tales, and the series gave more than just that.

The main conflict of the series is that the fairy tales being snatched off of their happy endings, and them being brought and stuck in the modern world by no other than the Evil Queen. And only one person could save them all and bring back their happiness, and it happens to be Snow White and Prince Charming's child - a daughter, actually.

The many reasons I loved it:

For one, it really has a modern take in it, being the fairy tale world and the modern world entangled. What happens in the original fairy tales also happen in the modern world, only on a different yet similar manner. It unfolds differently in the modern world, yet, the conflict is there and much more chaos ensues.

Another is that, I loved how they connected the different fairy tales making it seem that all of these tales happened in one setting and time. Like how Snow White and Red Riding Hood became the best of friends; how Cinderella became friends with Snow White and Prince Charming; how Rumpelstiltskin seems to be omnipresent; and among others.

There is also a different take yet wonderful version of the tales, you would actually like to think that the real tales happened that way. Like [SPOILER ALERT!] how Prince Charming and Snow White actually met because of the latter's thieving scheme; how Grumpy the dwarf was actually named Dreamy at first but was turned into Grumpy because of loving a fairy - that could never happen; how Red Riding Hood was actually the wolf her town feared; how Rumpelstiltskin became that powerful because of his desire to protect his child; how Belle fell into the hands of the Beast (who happens to be Rumpelstiltskin); how the Evil Queen became that evil after having her heart broken and blaming it to Snow White, who revealed her secret to her evil mother; and among others.

Also, I love how the story revolves around Snow White and Prince Charming (in the modern world, Mary Margaret Blanchard and James), and true love, like how every fairy tale should.

And also, the morals each episode give that make you think more and make you appreciate the tales more. And along with that is your excitement for each new episode to come, and you just wonder what would happen to your favorite fairy tale, how they would connect it to the current plot, and how different yet wonderful it would be.

And lastly, it gives you the feeling that fairy tales are really for everyone, for the children or the teens or the adults, for the females or the males; to just everyone who appreciates it and who has the belief that fairy tales are there to give us hope, that anything is possible, that magic is everywhere, and that love is the most powerful magic of all :)

I am Jhane from the Philippines.

ABC's 'Once Upon A Time' Renewed

Highlights from ABC Keeps Fairy Tale Alive: 'Once Upon A Time' Renewed by MICHAEL HINMAN:

It shouldn't be too much of a surprise, but just in case you're one of those fans that don't believe something until it's official -- then well, it's official: "Once Upon a Time" will be back for a second season.

ABC officially renewed the show Thursday along with a dozen other non-genre shows. making it clear that we'll get to see fantasy at least for a little while longer on the Disney channel.

"Once" is actually ABC's highest-rated new show, and is No. 6 on the network's schedule with a 5.8 rating/9 share, according to Fast National average overnight ratings from The Nielsen Co. It's the top-rated genre program, and is ranked No. 6 among new shows overall behind four CBS shows -- "Person of Interest," "Unforgettable," "2 Broke Girls" and "Rob," and Fox's "The X-Factor."

I know many readers here are relieved that this is official along with a renewal of Grimm. The fairy tale shows survived their freshman year!

Fairy Tales in Stitches: Wicked Witch Wear

Here is another cross stitch pattern for today, Wicked Witch Wear. I took one look at this and thought of ABC's OUAT, especially that cape/cloak. Yes, it uses some Halloween stereotypes but there is some humor and fun here, too, that are more reminiscent of Snow White's Wicked Witch. This one is still in print and avaiable through sellers like 123stitch.

A Little Bit of Snow White History

Since the publishing of the article 'Once Upon a Time's' Ginnifer Goodwin talks fairy tales, plus first look at Sunday's episode in the Los Angeles Times a few days ago, fairy tale enthusiasts have been discussing the article online. After all, while we get a lot of material about the inspiration behind NBC's Grimm, the fairy tale research for ABC's Once Upon a Time has been rather sketchy with the implication that the creators haven't looked much beyond the Disney versions and dimestore versions of the tales. And the article doesn't do much to allay that fear since Godwin comes across as more knowledgable than the creators with her personal research although I will allow for media spin on that one. (Kudos to Godwin, I'm a bigger fan after reading the article.)

Here's the most talked about element of the article to date:

You surely did a lot of research prior to jumping into the role. What did you consider the best interpretation of Snow White?

I watched every Snow White movie ever made because I thought I could steal from people. The one I love the best is Elizabeth McGovern starring in Shelley Duvall''s "Faerie Tale Theatre." I think it's by far the best telling of the story. I read all kinds of versions because this is not a story written by the Grimms. This is a story older than anyone could possibly trace. It’s possible that it was based on a real-life story of a princess named Maria Sophia Maragrita. What is bananas to me about this is I called the creators before we began the show and was like, “I love that you named her Mary Margaret after the woman who could have possibly been the inspiration for Snow White,” and they were like, “What are you talking about?” I was like, you can find online — but most of the pages you have to get translated because they’re in Russian or something — but I had said that Mary Margaret was clearly named after Maria Sophia Margarita. And they were like, “No, seriously, what are you talking about?”

My first thought upon reading this? That I needed to rewatch Shelley Duvall's Snow White. Then I thought, uh oh, the questions are going to come about Maria Sophia Margaretha Catharina von Erthal. And the nets have lit up with it somewhat in the past few days. I don't have links. To be honest, I barely have had time to sleep the past few weeks, but I'm giving myself a break and taking a few minutes to write about this.

And since I did compile, edit and do some translating for a collection with about 40 Snow White stories in it, the aptly named Sleeping Beauties: Sleeping Beauty and Snow White Tales From Around the World, I will chime in.

First of all, there are actually two different historical figures who have been chosen as inspiration for Snow White, the first is Margarete von Waldeck and the second is Maria Sophia Margaretha Catharina von Erthal. There is a nice short Mental Floss article about both:

Margarete von Waldeck

Back in the mid 1500s, there was a beautiful girl named Margarete von Waldeck who lived in a mining town called (…wait for it…) Waldeck, a small community in northwestern Germany. Children worked in the mines there, so you can see where retelling of the tale eventually morphed the children into small men over the years. Possibly due to problems with her father’s new wife, Margarete moved out of Waldeck when she was about 17 years old, headed for Brussels. When she got there, her beauty attracted the attention of Philip II of Spain. Apparently someone didn’t care for the idea of Philip marrying Margarete, and she fell gravely ill. Most people thought she was poisoned, and her handwriting in her last will and testament was shaky enough to make most people think she had developed tremors, a sign of poisoning. This Snow White never got her prince – she died from the mysterious illness when she was just 21. To this day, no one knows who poisoned Margarete, but we can rule out one suspect: her stepmother was already dead.

Maria Sophia Margaretha Catharina von Erthal

Behind door number two, we have Maria Sophia Margaretha Catharina von Erthal, to be known as Maria from here on out. Born in 1729, Maria grew up in a castle in Lohr, Germany. The castle is a museum today, and if you visit, you’ll be able to look into a certain famous mirror. It’s believed that Maria’s father, Prince Philipp Christoph von Erthal, gave the looking glass to his second wife as a gift. Sounding a little familiar? Maria’s outlook under her stepmother wasn’t quite so bleak – there was no huntsman seeking internal organs for proof of Maria’s death – but scholars think it wasn’t an easy existence. “Presumably the hard reality of life for Maria Sophia under this woman was recast as a fairy story by the Brothers Grimm,” Dr. Karlheinz Bartels, a Snow White scholar, has said. Oh, and Maria’s story boasts “dwarves” in a fashion similar to Margarethe’s: it’s said that only smaller-statured men were able to fit in the nearby mine tunnels of Bieber.

And here's another more in depth article about Maria Sophia Margaretha Catharina von Erthal at Once upon a time, Snow White lived in Bavaria.

Nice that they both have forms of Margaret for their names, right? So OUAT is safe either way although the name appears to be happy coincidence on the tv show's part.

But in the end, the chances of either of these women actually being the source story are very slim, especially due to dates and then the working of elements to fit the story. Not that there might not have been some influence either way--the tale could have influenced the historical accounts, too, after all--but in the end we have no concrete proof beyond coincidence of some elements--mostly the girls being of noble birth and having difficult family lives--combined with the hope for tourism dollars. That's the problem with history. It's really so nebulous.

But it is always dangerous to assign fairy tales to actual historical personages. Bluebeard is notorious for this and the proponents act as if only the nobility killed their wives in times past when they seek source stories and personages from Gilles de Rais to Henry VIII are offered up as the inspiration. Unfortunately, there have been wife killers throughout history. And there have been (step)mothers seeking to kill their (step)daughters throughout history, too. (Remember that the Grimms were notorious for making deadly mothers over into stepmothers out of devotion to their own mother, to oversimplify things.)

But if you want some interesting early twists on the Snow White tale, I'll share this from my introduction to Sleeping Beauties:

While the Grimms story is now the most commonly disseminated version in print, several variations come from Italy, including The Young Slave and The Crystal Casket. The former appears in Giambattista Basile’s Il Pentamerone, first published in 1634. Neither tale is a direct antecedent, but both contain many of the motifs and plot devices found in the German Snow White and its variants collected by the brothers. There are no dwarfs in the Italian versions. Gangs of robbers, fairies or religious figures usually provide temporary safe haven to the young girl instead. There are several tales from Italy and Greece of this variety, many of which are included in this collection.

Another interesting variant, Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree, comes from Scotland. In this tale, the mother seeks to kill her beautiful daughter. The father deceives his wife and sends his daughter to another king to be married. Despite these precautions, the mother murders her but her devoted husband refuses to bury her. Eventually he marries again and his second wife revives the first wife. She offers to leave but the king chooses to keep both wives who become friends. The second wife later kills the wicked mother during another murder attempt. Then the king and his two wives live happily ever after together. Since polygamy wasn’t common in Scottish history, scholars speculate that the tale traveled there from a country in which the practice was more accepted.

This Scottish tale bears a strong resemblance to The Lay of Eliduc by Marie de France first recorded in the late 12th century. The lay is a Christianized version of the story with Eliduc as the king. In this version he doesn’t keep both wives. His first wife enters a nunnery instead of living in a plural marriage. Eventually Eliduc and his beloved wife enter into holy orders, too. At first reading, the lay appears unrelated to the version of the tale that is so well-loved today, but its relationship to the less popular variants is obvious upon closer inspection.

And you can read about more variants as well as the full text of the tales mentioned above on SurLaLune's site, of course.