Out of the blue, I remembered Andrew Lang's Yellow Fairy Book. I read many of the color fairy tale books as a child, but I remember this one as my favorite of all of Lang's books. And my favorite story of my favorite color fairy tale book was The Glass Mountain. It has gold and glass, and a beautiful princess and a brave boy and even resurrection ... it has everything.The link here is from the University of Virginia.
19 comments:
How's it going,
Great site you have here. I have a college blog myself. We need to stick together. There is not that many of us out there. We should do a link exchange. Let me know if this is cool.
Jason
COLLEGEtickr.com
nice story..
Please post more stories. Really made my day..
I love Glass Mountain tales. They're almost like Holy Grail stories - not everyone can ascend, but if they do, there's always something amazing, magical, or fulfilling at the top. It is always worth the attempt!
Its Fantasitc
I don't think I've read the original Glass Mountain, but I have read Gail Carson Levine's humorous short story version of it. Oh, and I don't mind the word verification at all. So many sites have it, and I'm more than happy to help them keep spammers and viruses out :-)
nice
I could be described nothing less than a faerie freak and I adore fairytales. I found your blog when clicking on the "blogs of note" to see what it was, and I am so happy that I did. Though I can't guarantee my husband is going to be thrilled with you when I come up with yet another list of books to purchase. ;) Just kidding. I think he'll be equally excited for me. Thank you for taking the time to share your knowledge in this area with others. I look forward to learning and to being inspired. Blessings.
As a child I read fairy tales all the time and loved them. I now read mysteries but maybe should check out some of my old loves.
“Glass Mountain” was a great story. To me, it definitely had the typical fairy tale theme. There is a beautiful girl locked in a tower that needs a charming brave man to come fight and save her. This fairy tale was easy for me to be able to paint the pictures in my head as I was reading along with it. The descriptions and choice of words were fascinating. I think my favorite part of this fairy tale was the boy really taking over control of the eagle. Also, I was happy and surprised to hear at the end that all of the previous men who attempted to go up the glass mountain were now rising back to life because the eagle’s blood was shed. I do find it interesting that another blogger mentioned that the Glass Mountain tales were similar to Holy Grail stories. I wouldn’t have come up with this connection on my own, however when I sit back and think about it, I can definitely see where they are coming from with that comment. I am a fan myself of Holy Grail stories. I find them suspenseful and entertaining.
Colleen B.
“Glass Mountain” was a great story. To me, it definitely had the typical fairy tale theme. There is a beautiful girl locked in a tower that needs a charming brave man to come fight and save her. This fairy tale was easy for me to be able to paint the pictures in my head as I was reading along with it. The descriptions and choice of words were fascinating. I think my favorite part of this fairy tale was the boy really taking over control of the eagle. Also, I was happy and surprised to hear at the end that all of the previous men who attempted to go up the glass mountain were now rising back to life because the eagle’s blood was shed. I do find it interesting that another blogger mentioned that the Glass Mountain tales were similar to Holy Grail stories. I wouldn’t have come up with this connection on my own, however when I sit back and think about it, I can definitely see where they are coming from with that comment. I am a fan myself of Holy Grail stories. I find them suspenseful and entertaining.
Colleen B.
I was struck by the prevalence of the golden apple in this tale. I had developed some interest for a time in Celtic folklore, and indeed a fellow bloggers comment that this tale is reminiscent of holy grail quests is astute. The island which is often associated with King Arthur and other grail seeking variants is called Avalon, which means the isle of golden apples. Avalon was where King Arthur was taken to be “resurrected” from near death to good health by the sisters of Morgan.
It’s roots are traced to the sun God Apollo, Avalon is said to be a derivative of Apollo, which makes sense as Apollo favored the golden fruit and gave the golden apple status as food of the God. The golden apple pops up in all types of mythic literature, the Norse consider golden apples symbolic of resurrection. Seems believable that the author of the Glass Mountain was aware of this.
Melissa L.
I also thought Glass Mountain was a very good story, and without Sam’s comment comparing to Holy Grail would have never put the two together. But they do seem to have a lot of similarities, and it was a good paring. I liked it because it has the basic principles that I like in Fairy Tales, with the Damsel in distress and needed to be saved by the daring hero. And now after reading some of the other posts from people and their thoughts on it I’m thinking that I missed some things about the story that could make it even more interesting, and I’m going to reread and see if I get some of the aspects of the Tales as the others had.
John J
I remember that I use to love The Glass Mountain as a child. Reading it now, though, I don’t have such a fond opinion of it. My main problem is with the princess. She is flawed because of how she lets a countless number of men (and their poor horses) die trying to reach her. I don’t understand why this was the only way she could find a worthy husband. If this woman was a worthy character, she would have gone down the glass mountain and stopped all the carnage. She may not have had a choice in the matter, but the story does not say. What I do not like is how the princess watched so many deaths for seven years, knowing that they were caused by a desire for her. It does not forebode well for the boy that married her.
Yes, I know that I am being very critical. I guess I am in the mood to criticize the way female characters are badly portrayed in some of these stories.
Throughout the story, I was drawn to some clear religious imagery.
The beginning of the fairy tale starts out with a sort of opposite version of the Tree of Knowledge as depicted in the Bible; with this tree, you're glorified and rewarded for plucking the apple, not banished.
And then, of course, there is the young boy's ascension up the mountain, despite great physical toils and bodily risk, where untold riches and seemingly spiritual fulfillment awaits him. If that isn't a metaphor for resurrection then I don't know what is.
By the by, this was a great story.
As soon as this story started I thought it was a story from a cartoon I watched as a child but sadly it is not. The story I was thinking of had a fruit tree in which a woman ate the fruit and it gave her youthfulness and I thought this was where that story was going. The apples from the tree did heal the boy’s wounds and saved him from the dragon so it is magical fruit. I loved that the boy came up with his own idea to get up the mountain. Clearly, what the many men before him tried was not working, and that is pretty sad that so many men died or were injured doing the same thing the guy before him did. If it did not work for fifty people previous I think it is time for something new, something crazy, like oh I don’t know a lynx’s claws! I also found it interesting that the boy put the apple peel on his arm, did he know the apple had healing powers or was he just being weird?
I really enjoyed "Glass Mountain." Like Colleen said, it resembles the classic theme of fairy tales, where there is a beautiful princess that needs to be saved by a handsome prince. In this tale, however, the person that saves her is just a boy, not a man or even a prince. I think it's refreshing that this tale used a normal boy as the hero, instead of a prince or handsome man. It shows that a normal, everyday "Joe" can win over the beauty. I also liked how the tale had undertones that referenced the Bible. The glass mountain could be viewed as the journey or path you must conquer to reach heaven (the golden castle). The apple-tree could also be seen as a reference to the Bible like in the Garden of Eden. However, in this tale, the apple is a source of healing, but the apple tree in the Garden of Eden is forbidden. Lastly, I liked how the knights that attempted to save the princess, but lost their lives along the way were resurrected at the end.
Whitney M.
For those noticing religious imagery, I would associate the golden apple tree more closely with the "tree of life" than the tree of the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil." Also, the Bible never identifies the type of tree/fruit of either tree, so I'm honestly curious where the idea that the apple was the forbidden fruit came from. Why not a peach?
Also, this story vaguely reminded me of the Greek legend of Prometheus, who supposedly chained to a cliff where every day a giant eagle came to feast on his continually regenerating liver. This was his punishment for bringing fire to man. The Greeks sure were fun.
Aside from that, I love Lang's writing style, I mean, can you honestly tell me what book wouldn't be improved if it ended with
"The blood of the eagle has restored all the people below to life. All those who have perished on this mountain are awakening up to-day, as it were from a sleep, and are mounting their horses, and the whole population are gazing on this unheard-of wonder with joy and amazement.'"
I'll tell you one thing, Curious George's adventures would be a lot more interesting.
This story was fascinating for me. The one aspect of it that I really liked was that the prince had to earn his right to see the princess through hard work, intelligence, and suffering. A lot of fairy tale heroes are heroes because they are born into it; they are born a prince. They do not really do anything to earn their status. However, in this story we have a mere "schoolboy" who is no stranger to hard work becoming a prince and marrying the beautiful princess. He does what many royal princes cannot, he outdoes the knight in golden armor. I just think this is a story that reinforces hard work and intellignce. Also it tells us that someone can improve their life through hard work. The other interesting thing is that the blood of the eagle restores all of those who falied. Maybe this a metaphor for hard work can help others as well. Once you have succeeded you can help others as well.
Heather V.
I loved this story! When I first began reading it I thought it was like another version of Rapunzel. The golden mountain was symbolic of Rapunzel’s golden hair and climbing the glass mountain was like the tower. After I had read it I found it very intriguing. The fact that the apples were magical and that by killing the eagle everyone who had died was restored was fascinating to me. I hadn’t expected it at all. I felt it was a cross between the classic fairy tale outline but added yet some new and clever ideas. It was a short story though I felt that there could have been more added about how they met. Maybe they could add how it was not to come back down to earth and live in the castle permanently. It would be interesting to hear about her family and what she thought when a man had finally accomplished the mountain.
Kayla P.
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