Fairy Tale Poem by Guest Writer Chrissa Sandlin

The Land of Never Tell
Don’t open a door, don’t look at a man
(Inspired by the fairy tale, East of the Sun West of the Moon)

by Chrissa Sandlin

I live in the land of Never Tell
Where the richest of secrets
Is the depth of a soul, a man
And to see his full measure
Will soon break the spell.

East of the sun in a Lapland fur
On the borders of the land
I dig my fingers deep
In the snow beyond the snow
West of the moon and his curse.

Witches hide curses in rude boys
Who grown them silent within.
Never Tell is their secret place
In a sacred unfastening, skins,
And girls with golden toys.

Sister wives would know me,
Telling me their shall-nots
Like half-welcome guests,
Lifting the sun to the morn
With patience, wearily.

On our circumscribed quest
We girdle the entire globe
In a fairy tale of kindness
Borrowing our way on
To being kindly kept.

Give me my husband! Bid
My tongue to silent lie
Like my body beside him.
Bear me up, bear me up!
In Never Tell I live.

Fairy Tale Poem

The Wind
by Dorlana Vann

(Inspired by the fairy tale “East of the Sun and West of the Moon

My breath spreads sheets of white snow and dry sand
Robust, invisible wings carry me.
I wave from Summerland to Winterland.

I have whisked every grain and every tree
Helping the heroine, hardly a chore.
Robust, invisible wings carry me.

She told of the witch and of the horror,
“Go east of the sun and west of the moon.”
Helping the heroine, hardly a chore.

She brought golden trinkets to save her groom;
Their love true and worth her dangerous quest.
"Go east of the sun and west of the moon.”

She kept going strong when I stopped to rest;
I learned strength from the heart is stronger than me.
Their love true and worth her dangerous quest.

Gently I glide over the land and sea.
My breath spreads sheets of white snow and dry sand.
I learned strength from the heart is stronger than me.
I wave from Summerland to Winterland.

Review of Sarah Beth Durst's "Ice"

As the fairy tale glides into the modern era, one finds it spun to show different facets of familiar stories. This is true in Sarah Beth Durst’s Ice, which limns the ideas of “East of the Sun, West of the Moon” across the narrative of Cassie, the daughter of a lead researcher in the arctic, as she tries to restore various families, including, perhaps, the animal families within the ecosystems of the planet. Cassie’s dedication to polar bears is a brilliant fire beneath the story and Ms. Durst’s depiction of the rigors and hazards of research was a fascinating component of the story.

While some plot twists seem telegraphed from the beginning, others will take your breath away with their unexpected threats and beauty. Ms. Durst’s underwater scenes and her ice scenes are both beautiful and interesting (especially to this reader, who spends her entire time in a climate where ice comes from the freezer, not the sky). The idea of an ecological balance that extends further than the physical and into the metaphysical creates a framework delicate enough to support Cassie’s changing priorities without making them feel heavy-handed. One aspect that I didn’t expect was the way that Ms. Durst didn’t have Cassie earn her way through her eventual quest to save her husband through the typical favor system of older fairy tales. Instead, Cassie’s own will to keep going and her knowledge of the world through which she moved provided her with the strength and ingenuity to move forward.

The ideas of love and sacrifice between generations were moving, which helped to balance out the minefield of the idea of a forced marriage. This part of the story did keep me a little on edge, with the idea that the princely husband would have to act always out of a devotional love that kept the character at a slight remove and made Cassie’s eventual warming up to him something that happened more behind the scenes that otherwise. In keeping with the author’s nimbleness in this situation, the transposition of villains and allies kept me on my toes. I’m glad to have had the chance to read this version of one of my favorite fairy tales.

Merry reading,
Chrissa

The book for this month's review was purchased by SFT.

Fairy Tale Movie Review: The Polar Bear King

If you can get past the cheesiness, The Polar Bear King (1991), based on the Norwegian folk tale, “East of the Sun and West of the Moon,” has a lot to offer. The fairy tale is often compared to “Beauty and the Beast,” so I thought I would use Beauty and Beast for my review of the movie.

Beauty:
Filmed in Scandanavia, the Winterland scenery was a wonderful land complete with gorgeous wolves and white snow. The costumes were spectacular; I especially loved the evil witch’s tall two-coned head piece. It was a perfect fairy tale: a princess, true-love, jealous sisters, an evil witch, a cool castle, magic potions and a curse. And I loved that the princess actually recued the prince.

Beast:
I didn’t like nor did I have any sympathy for the polar bear/king. He sounded awful (as the bear) and was not very handsome (as the bear or as a human) and even a bit violent. At times, the dialogue, the acting, and the narrator’s lines were "Oh please..." cheesy and made me laugh (and not in a good way). Even though the leisure pace added to the mood, it was a bit too slow for me. However, it was worth waiting for witch's castle scene, because of the cool castle and the witch's potion tower. One of the things that bothered me the most was what the queen/mother-in-law did to save the children; it seemed a bit cruel.

Overall, I did like it because of the costumes, scenery, sets, and especially the wicked witch.