The Thirteenth Fairy

[umpteenth-gail.livejournal.com]

I have fallen behind on my reading again, not caught up with the board as I have been laid low with a virus for a week. I'm still weak, but now believe I'll be back at work on Monday.

During one of my fever-dreams, I somehow managed to think of Aunt Agatha as the thirteenth fairy. She was being especially hateful to poor Bertie and someone - a young woman, I think - remarked that she was just like the thirteenth fairy. This is absurd as with her background, Agatha would never have been caught airing her dirty linen in public. But it was just a dream. Sadly, I don't remember how she reacted to the remark and would have loved to. I suppose I was trying to amuse myself by thinking of interesting things when all I could do was lie in bed.

Occasionally I think of her as Aunt Hagatha - another little crossover reference there (Pokemon).

Thinking about the thirteenth fairy especially, more than Hagatha, puts silly ideas into my head. Just how many 'interesting' crossovers does one fandom need?

(mopes off again)

Comments

[toodlepipsigner.livejournal.com]

Awww poor thing *pats* feel better, mtay?

[umpteenth-gail.livejournal.com]

LOL, thank you! I am better, though still weak. But I am still interested in the thirteenth fairy idea. If only I could write fic, I would write it! I feel from what I have read, not just PG but other works, women like Aunt Agatha badly needed to be told what they were really like. I have a theory that she was sold into an arranged marriage, as a woman of her time could not have a life of her own, who knows what she wanted? and became bitter as gall and wormwood as a result. It's an interesting idea. What do we really know about Bertie's relatives? Not much, all things considered.

[toodlepipsigner.livejournal.com]

It is an interesting theory. I confess I know relatively little about the Thirteenth Fairy. What is it?

[thistlethorn.livejournal.com]

Hi. The Thirteenth Fairy is the one who curses Sleeping Beauty at her ceremony of presentation (I suppose it could be described; sort of like a christening party). (See lawnnun's charming story beginning further down in the comments to this post.)

[toodlepipsigner.livejournal.com]

Ah! Just so. The extent of my Sleeping Beauty knowledge is entirely Disney, regretably. Thanks for that ^^, makes more sense now.

[thistlethorn.livejournal.com]

Love your icon. :-)

Disney, while delightful, is definitely not the original Grimm's. :-) The latter are, well, much more *grim*. Cinderella, for example. If I remmember correctly, at the end, her stepmother is sentenced to dance in red-hot iron shoes until she drops dead. And the stepsisters each chop off parts of their feet to make the shoe fit (one the toes, the other the heel) -- in both cases, the Prince brings them back as the blood dripping from the shoes is discovered on the journey to the palace. Grisly, no?

[toodlepipsigner.livejournal.com]

That much about Cinderella I actually knew! Hehe it's so horrid yet delightfully so. I'll have to look into the Grimm's version. Seems more interesting anyway :)
(and, why thank you ^^ MPHG ftw.)

[thistlethorn.livejournal.com]

MPHG!! Yes, definitely FTW. \o/

You can probably find used Grimm's Fairy Tales books on the cheap just about anywhere.

And I agree -- delightfully, *deliciously* horrid. :-)

[chocolate-frapp.livejournal.com]

well I did do a Jeeves and Bertie/ Dr. Who crossover that used Obama's election as a plot device (I know that sounds like a joke but it was good)

[umpteenth-gail.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, I read that! I remember now. It was funny. Crossovers can be wonderful. Transposing people to a time not their own can be clever and funny as well. It gives a fresh take on them.

Do you notice how the Jeeves idea lives on, long after his time? John Wayne's faithful attendant, even Dustin Hoffman's in that comic film, the hilarious robot in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles etc. Then there was the servant in Rupert of Hentzau, the sequel to The Prisoner of Zelda. Jeeves to the life in some ways, at least. Read the book and smile, you'll see what I mean.

[chocolate-frapp.livejournal.com]

oo, you read that? great! I'm glad you liked it. I had fun with it, especially the slashy stuff and the Bertie-speak and the House in joke.

[iambic5.livejournal.com]

Where is this? I kind of desperately want to read it.

[chocolate-frapp.livejournal.com]

here:

http://chocolate-frapp.livejournal.com/2008/11/22/

[iambic5.livejournal.com]

Hee! That is good. And of course Jeeves can figure out how to use the TARDIS, like, immediately.

[chocolate-frapp.livejournal.com]

thank you!

I'll come back to this later.

[lawnnun.livejournal.com]

The day Bertie Wooster was born, all the churchbells rang on their own, and the gentler beasts forgot to fear humans for one golden hour. A dozen fairies were gathered to bless him. They made him beautiful, graceful, and sweet-tempered. They gave him the gift of song, they gave him gentleness and courage, and they made him fleet of foot and pure of heart. Every possible princely gift was his with eleven fairy kisses on his tiny, wide-eyed face, and the last and least of them waited patiently for his chance to bestow intellect, the one thing his fellows had missed.

No one was expecting the thirteenth fairy. She hadn't been seen for so long that everyone had supposed she was dead up in her bone-white tower. Naturally, no one had dared to check, and all were shocked when she came in, her bleached, tissue-thin bat wings folded tight against her back. She had come to give her gift, and by all fairy law, none of them could stop her. Truthfully, none of them could stop her whether there was a rule about it or not, for she was a being of fearful power. So piqued was she at not having been invited, despite everyone pointing out that no one had even known she was alive to attend, she cursed the child, whose naturally sunny temperament had dissolved into piercing howls almost as soon as she appeared. She said that in his sixteenth year he would prick his finger on a spindle and die, and vanished in a puff of acrid smoke that just made the poor child cry louder, barely drowning out the collective gasp of shock. No one had expected a death curse. Such a thing simply wasn't done, and the king and queen stared in helpless shock.

The local fairies were predominantly beast fey, and Jeeves, the twelfth, was no exception. He had the wings of a raven, and the feathers rustled softly as he went quietly to the cradle and lifted the squalling infant, rocking him gently. "There, there little prince." He murmured. "You shall not die. At least, not before your time." He kissed the baby's forehead. "I cannot undo the thirteenth fairy's curse, for she is older and stronger than I. But I can give you this: not death, but sleep, from which only the first kiss of true love shall wake you."

Re: I'll come back to this later.

[thistlethorn.livejournal.com]

Aww, that was lovely. Very nicely done. Terrific imagery, there, too!

Re: I'll come back to this later.

[toodlepipsigner.livejournal.com]

Oh! Lovely!
Makes all the more sense to me now, thanks.
And I second that the imagery is phenominal!

Re: I'll come back to this later.

[lawnnun.livejournal.com]

Later, Jeeves pointed out to the bereaved and overprotective royal couple that if they burned every spinning wheel in the kingdom they would cripple their not-insubstantial textile industry, and that to foster the boy somewhere with no access to spinners' tools would be the much more economically simple option. The first fairy was nearly strong enough to counter the thirteenth's power and was also no fool, no matter how silly he looked with his long hare's ears and his air of an aristocratic dilettante, and he pointed out that really, it was only year sixteen that they had to worry about.

He was right, and Jeeves held out his wrists and ankles for the tiny, delicate, almost entirely symbolic chains of iron that would make him a servant of the royal household and of the newborn prince in particular. Sixteen years is no hardship to an immortal being, and he enjoyed watching the prince grow into his gifts. He was beautiful, graceful, and sweet-tempered. He sang like a bird and any instrument sprang to life under his gentle hands, and after a while Jeeves was glad he hadn't had a chance to bestow his gift. True, the prince could be mentally negligible, but his other perfections were so many that Jeeves became sure that a dazzling intellect would only have served to make him vain of them. As it was, he was charming and artless and at least more sensible than the pack of coxcomb courtiers that followed him around getting him into scrapes.

Re: I'll come back to this later.

[umpteenth-gail.livejournal.com]

Oh, how wonderful! Thanks! I'm now cheered up after my first day back at work and it's freezing. That'll teach me to forget to preset the heater for my return home at night. :-)

Now I'm on the fairytale theme, I have started thinking of who else in this world could be likened to fairytale characters, LOL.

AFAIK, Hans Christian Anderson and the Grimm brothers collected all the known traditional fairytales in Europe and surrounds and published them all in their editions. I believe these traditional stories had been told since time immemorial, since long, long before the first printing press (or the first Western printing press, anyway). They survived to be written down for the first time ever when printing arrived and have never been out of print since. Really awe-inspiring, if you think about it. Too easy to take such things for granted.