Diamonds And Toads
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Diamonds and Toads or Toads and Diamonds is a French
fairy tale A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale, fairy story, household tale, magic tale, or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic, enchantments, and mythical or fanciful bei ...
by
Charles Perrault Charles Perrault ( , , ; 12 January 162816 May 1703) was a French author and member of the Académie Française. He laid the foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale, with his works derived from earlier folk tales, published in his ...
, and titled by him "Les Fées" or "The Fairies".
Andrew Lang Andrew Lang (31 March 1844 – 20 July 1912) was a Scottish poet, novelist, literary critic, and contributor to the field of anthropology. He is best known as a folkloristics, collector of folklore, folk and fairy tales. The Andrew Lang lectur ...
included it in '' The Blue Fairy Book''. It was illustrated by Laura Valentine in ''Aunt Louisa's nursery favourite''. In his source, as in '' Mother Hulda'', the kind girl was the stepdaughter, not the other daughter. The change was apparently to decrease the similarity to ''
Cinderella "Cinderella", or "The Little Glass Slipper", is a Folklore, folk tale with thousands of variants that are told throughout the world.Dundes, Alan. Cinderella, a Casebook. Madison, Wis: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988. The protagonist is a you ...
''. It is Aarne-Thompson tale 480, the kind and the unkind girls. Others of this type include ''
Shita-kiri Suzume , translated literally into "Tongue-Cut Sparrow", is a traditional Japanese fable telling of a kind old man, his avaricious wife and an injured sparrow. The story explores the effects of greed, friendship and jealousy on the characters. Andrew La ...
'', '' Frau Holle or Mrs.Holle'', ''
The Three Heads in the Well The Three Heads in the Well is a fairy tale collected by Joseph Jacobs in ''English Fairy Tales''. It is Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index, Aarne-Thompson-Uther tale type ATU 480, The Spinning-Woman by the Spring, The Kind and Unkind Girls. Others of ...
'', '' Father Frost'', ''
The Three Little Men in the Wood "The Three Little Men in the Wood" or "The Three Little Gnomes in the Forest" () is a German fairy tale collected in 1812 by the Brothers Grimm in ''Grimms' Fairy Tales, Grimm's Fairy Tales'' (KHM 13). Andrew Lang included it in ''The Red Fairy Bo ...
'', '' The Enchanted Wreath'', '' The Old Witch'', and '' The Two Caskets''. Literary variants include '' The Three Fairies'' and '' Aurore and Aimée''.


Summary

A bad-tempered widow has two daughters; her older daughter is disagreeable and proud, but looks and behaves like her mother, and is therefore her favorite child; her younger daughter is sweet, courteous, and beautiful, but resembles her late father. Jealous and bitter, the widow and her favourite daughter abuse and mistreat the younger girl. One day while drawing water from the well, an old woman asks the younger girl for a drink of water. The girl politely consents and after giving it, she finds that the woman is a
fairy A fairy (also called fay, fae, fae folk, fey, fair folk, or faerie) is a type of mythical being or legendary creature, generally described as anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic, found in the folklore of multiple European cultures (including Cel ...
, who had disguised as a crone to test the character of mortals. As the girl is so kind and compassionate toward her, the fairy blesses her with a jewel or
flower Flowers, also known as blooms and blossoms, are the reproductive structures of flowering plants ( angiosperms). Typically, they are structured in four circular levels, called whorls, around the end of a stalk. These whorls include: calyx, m ...
falling from her mouth whenever she speaks. Upon arriving home and explaining why she had taken so long to her mother, the widow is delighted at the sight of gems and flowers falling out the girl's mouth, and desires that her favored eldest daughter must have the same gift as well. The elder girl protests, but the widow forcibly sends her to the well. The girl sets off but the fairy appears as a fine
princess Princess is a title used by a female member of a regnant monarch's family or by a female ruler of a principality. The male equivalent is a prince (from Latin '' princeps'', meaning principal citizen). Most often, the term has been used for ...
, and requests that the girl draw her a drink from the well. The elder daughter speaks rudely to the fairy and insults her. The fairy decrees that, as punishment for her despicable attitude, either a
toad Toad (also known as a hoptoad) is a common name for certain frogs, especially of the family Bufonidae, that are characterized by dry, leathery skin, short legs, and large bumps covering the parotoid glands. In popular culture (folk taxonomy ...
or a
snake Snakes are elongated limbless reptiles of the suborder Serpentes (). Cladistically squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales much like other members of the group. Many species of snakes have s ...
would fall from the rude girl's mouth whenever she speaks. When the girl arrives home, she tells her story to her mother and toads and vipers fall from her mouth with each word. The widow, in a fury, drives her younger daughter out of the house. In the woods, she met a king's son, who falls in love with and marries her. In time, the widow is sickened by her older daughter, and drives her out, and she dies alone and miserable in the woods.


Commentary

The idea of having jewels fall from a virtuous person is a motif found in various other tales, as in the Italian '' Biancabella and the Snake''.Iona and Peter Opie, ''The Classic Fairy Tales'', p 98


Adaptations

*Dempsey, Lydia, "The Wishing Well: A Children's Ballet (A Composer's Perspective)" (2016). ''Honors Projects''. 217. https://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/honorsprojects/217 *Levine, Gail Carson “ The Fairy’s Mistake”. ''The Princess Tales.'' Harper Collins, 1999. ISBN 9780060280604 *Ortberg, Daniel Mallory. ‘Diamonds and Toads’.  ''The Toast,'' 5 June 2014''.'' https://the-toast.net/2014/06/05/diamonds-toads/ *Pitts, Jessi, "Diamonds and Toads: An Adaptation of Charles Perrault’s Les Fées" (2019). ''Honors Projects''. 118. https://cedar.wwu.edu/wwu_honors/118/ *Tomlinson, Heather. Toads and Diamonds. Henry Holt and Co, 2010. ISBN 9780805089684


In Popular Culture

In the film, '' Uncut Gems,'' students at a high school perform a stage version of the story. An animated version known as "The Fairy" appeared in an episode of '' Let's Go Luna!''. The story was featured in the "Respect" episode of '' Adventures from the Book of Virtues''.


Gallery

Image:Valentine,_Laura_-_Aunt_Louisa's_Nursery_Favourite_-_0007.jpg, The younger daughter and the fairy. Image:Valentine, Laura - Aunt Louisa's Nursery Favourite - 0009.jpg, The younger daughter and her mother: the gift., alt=The younger daughter and her mother : the gift. Image:Valentine, Laura - Aunt Louisa's Nursery Favourite - 0011.jpg, The elder daughter and the fairy. Image:Valentine,_Laura_-_Aunt_Louisa's_Nursery_Favourite_-_0012.jpg, The elder daughter and her mother: the curse., alt=The elder daughter and her mother : the curse. Image:Valentine,_Laura_-_Aunt_Louisa's_Nursery_Favourite_-_0014.jpg, The younger daughter in the wood with the prince. Image:Valentine,_Laura_-_Aunt_Louisa's_Nursery_Favourite_-_0016.jpg, The elder daughter alone in the wood.


See also

* Frau Holle * Jennifer Murdley's Toad * Kallo and the Goblins * The Honest Woodman *
The Months ''The Months'' may refer to * an instructive poem by Sara Coleridge * The Months (fairy tale) – one of the stories in the '' Pentamerone'' * a set of landscape paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder Pieter Bruegel (also Brueghel or Breughe ...
* True and Untrue * Youngest sibling *
Cinderella "Cinderella", or "The Little Glass Slipper", is a Folklore, folk tale with thousands of variants that are told throughout the world.Dundes, Alan. Cinderella, a Casebook. Madison, Wis: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988. The protagonist is a you ...
* Father Frost (fairy tale) * Heungbu and Nolbu


References


Bibliography

Koehler, Julie, "Kind Girls, Evil Sisters, And Wise Women: Coded Gender Discourse In Literary Fairy Tales By German Women In The 19th Century" (2016). Wayne State University Dissertations. Paper 1402. Martin, Laura.  ‘The Kind and the Unkind Girls’. 533 -535.  ''The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales: Volume 2: G-''P.  Greenwood Press, 2007. Opie, Iona and Peter. ''The Classic Fairy Tales'' 98-102. Oxford University Press, 1974. Roberts, Warren E.  ''The Tale of the Kind and Unkind Girls: AA-TH 480 and Related Tales.'' Wayne State University Press 1994. Sur La Lune.  ‘Diamonds and Toads.’ https://www.surlalunefairytales.com/a-g/diamonds-toads/diamonds-toads-tale.html Zipes, Jack. '' ''‘Rewards and Punishments for Good and Bad Girls,’ 543- 574.  ''The Great Fairy Tale Tradition from Straparola and Basile to the Brothers Grimm''.   W.W. Norton, 2001.


External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Diamonds And Toads Works by Charles Perrault Fairy tales about shapeshifting Fictional frogs French fairy tales Fairy tales about fairies Fairy tales about magic Fairy tales about sisters ATU 460-499 ATU 480 The Kind and the Unkind Girls