Disabled Tales (2024)

15/09/2023

After the Black Death, sheep farming replaced crop farming due to lack of labourers.

Ba Ba Black Sheep was originally about the surviving (but starving) labourers left without work, and the last line was:

'But none for the little boy who cries down the lane.’

[Image description: Illustration of Baa Baa Black Sheep with three bags of wool.]

📖 Disease and History: From Ancient Times to Covid-19 by Frederick F Cartwright and Michael Biddiss.
🖼️ Illustration from Mother Goose Melody (first published c. 1765) - wiki commons.

14/09/2023

Thanks to the timely appearances of a magic wishing ring, a sword that (on request) beheads everyone but its owner, a cloak of invisibility, & boots that take the wearer wherever they want to go, an unremarkable man becomes 'King of the Golden Mountains'...!

[Image description: Black and white illustration of wedding where the heads of all the guests are being cut of by a magic sword held by the king of the golden mountains.]

🖼️ George Cruikshank - 1876 - wiki commons.
📖 The King of the Golden Mountains (Grimm and Grimm).

13/09/2023

‘there was a man we used to climb,
with a labyrinth of thoughts,
that we would touch the sky.’

Metamorphosis by Salim Yakubu Akko:

https://www.disabledtales.co.uk/poetry/metamorphosis-by-salim-yakubu-akko - link in bio.

[Image description: A large tree in the middle of green woodland. Large white text reads: Metamorphosis. Smaller text reads: Discussing disabled characters in fairy tales and folklore.]

13/09/2023

A prince set off to challenge God's rule in a flying ship. But God sent in a swarm of gnats & one on them stung him. The poison went to the prince's brain & sent him mad.

All the people laughed at how the once great prince was defeated by a single, tiny gnat.

[Image description: Cover of The Wicked Prince by Hans Christian Andersen showing a ship flying through clouds.]

📖 The Wicked Prince by Hans Christian Andersen
🖼️ Cover art for Media Galaxy 2015 e-book edition of The Wicked Prince.

12/09/2023

The aspidochelone is a sea creature so large it would be mistaken for an island.

Its turtle-like back often featured rocky outcrops, trees & valleys. It would rise to the surface & wait, enticing sailors onto its "shores" & then drag them under water.

[Image description: Manuscript illustration of a whale-like creature with a ship upon its back, with sailors panicking as the whale dives. The whale's mouth is open and fish swim into it's mouth. This is because the aspidochelone was believed to emit a sweet smell that lured fish to it.]

🖼️ An Aspidochelone from a French manuscript, c. 1270. J. Paul Getty Museum - wiki commons.

11/09/2023

Although often called Cinderella's Ugly Stepsisters, the Brothers Grimm described them with 'beautiful features but proud, nasty & wicked hearts'.

The youngest sister is said to have 'a little sympathy in her heart' but the older sister refuses any compromise.

[Image description: Cinderella crouching on the floor in dirty clothes as she helps her two stepsisters get ready for the ball.]

🖼️ The second illustration of the 1865 edition of Cinderella. It appears on page 4 - Wiki Commons.
📖 The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm: The complete first edition - translated by Jack Zipes.

10/09/2023

's***f the monster out of your
mouth and tell him about the
remnants of the rain'.

'What To Say To The Boy That Asks For The Remnants of Rain' by Salim Yakubu Akko.

https://www.disabledtales.co.uk/poetry/what-to-say-to-the-boy-that-asks-for-the-remnants-of-rain-by-salim-yakubu-akko - link in bio.

[Image description: A large tree in the middle of green woodland. Large white text reads: What to Say to the Boy that Asks for the Remnants of Rain. Smaller text reads: Discussing disabled characters in fairy tales and folklore.]

10/09/2023

Chicken Little is a folktale about a chick who thinks the sky is falling. ‘The sky is falling’ has itself become an idiom meaning a paranoid, absurd or unfounded conviction that a catastrophe is imminent... 🐣

[Image description:
Two, old looking pages from Chicken Little. One illustration shows Chicken Little entering the gentleman’s garden through a gap in a fence. The second illustration shows her running away from a rose-bush.

The text reads: ‘Did you ever hear of Chicken Little, how she disturbed the whole neighbourhood by her foolish alarm? Well, Chicken Little was running about in a gentleman’s garden, where she had no business to be: she ran under a rose-bush, and a leaf fell on her tail; so she was dreadfully frightened, and ran away to Hen Pen.’]

📖 The first two pages of The Remarkable Story of Chicken Little by J. G. Chandler (1840) - Wikimedia.

09/09/2023

Sea monsters on maps in the 16th and 17th C illustrate some of the creatures believed to live at sea. There was a theory that every land animal had its sea-living equivalent. For example, the sea-pig! 🌊🐷

[Image description: Illustration of a sea-pig. It has a fish-like tale and scales, a pig-like snout and ears, and boar-like tusks. It has spikes along its back and webbed feet.]

🖼 Olaus Magnus’s 1539 Carta Marina (Public Domain).

08/09/2023

Fairies, trolls, natural omens and... maternal failure... were ways people tried to understand disability.

Natural phenomena were perceived as omens of anomalous births. Or the child’s disfigurement was seen to reflect the mother’s immorality.

[Image description: Illustration of monstrous births and omens in the Nuremberg Chronicle. Pictures show a lightning storm and a rainbow above drawings of a child with two heads, and another child with four arms and legs.]

🖼 Illustrations from the Nuremberg Chronicle, by Hartmann Schedel (1440-1514) - wiki commons.

07/09/2023

"That's the answer." She sighed.
"But, what was the question?"

The Potion Taster by Bill Tope:

https://www.disabledtales.co.uk/poetry/the-potion-taster-by-bill-tope - link in bio.

[Image description: A large tree in the middle of green woodland. Large white text reads: The Potion Taster. Smaller text reads: Discussing disabled characters in fairy tales and folklore.]

07/09/2023

In several Grimm tales, a woman gives birth to multiple babies & is accused (often by other women) of adultery.

The accusers then have multiple children of their own (as many as 365 in one day!) & learn that multiple births does NOT mean multiple fathers...

[Image description:
Scan of original copy of Deutsche Sagen by Grimm and Grimm showing the opening to the tale 'As Many Children as There Are Days in the Year'.
Original text reads:
578.
So viel Kinder, als Tag’ im Jahr.
Becherer thüring. Chronik S. 294 295.
Rheinischer Antiquarius S. 876. 885.
Eine Meile vom Haag liegt Loosduynen (Leusden) ein kleines Dorf, in dessen Kirche man noch heu-']

🖼️ 📖 Deutsche Sagen, Grimm and Grimm, 1818: https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Deutsche_Sagen_(Br%C3%BCder_Grimm,_Band_2)

06/09/2023

A girl is given a magic pot that cooks sweet porridge on command. When the girl is out, her mother sets the pot cooking but forgets how to stop it.

The whole town fills with porridge until the girl returns, stops the pot & the residents eat their way back home!

[Image description: Illustration showing the town's residents eating their way back to the town through a mound of porridge. The roofs of various buildings poke out of the top of the porridge mound.]

🖼️ 1909 illustration by Otto Ubbelohde.
📖 Sweet Porridge - Grimm and Grimm

05/09/2023

In Ancient Rome, Augury was the practice of interpreting bird behaviour to divine good & ill omens. This was called ‘Taking the auspices’.

The word auspice derives from the Latin for ‘one who looks at birds.’

[Image description: Black and white illustration of Romulus looking through an eyepiece at the sky, watching the birds fly above.]

🖼️ Romulus Consulting the Augury by John Leech - wiki art.

04/09/2023

'A scintillating castle haunts my vision'.

Megrim (A Migraine is a fairy tale) by Amy Bennett-Zendzian:

https://www.disabledtales.co.uk/poetry/megrim-a-migraine-is-a-fairy-tale-by-amy-bennett-zendzian - link in bio.

[Image description: A large tree in the middle of green woodland. Large white text reads: Megrim (A Migraine Is A Fairy Tale). Smaller text reads: Discussing disabled characters in fairy tales and folklore.]

04/09/2023

In a cavern full of candles, each representing a person’s life, Death’s godson sees his own small candle and begs death to take another's life instead.

Death pretends to agree, then suddenly extinguishes the small candle, watching as his godson drops dead...

[Image description: Illustration showing Godson and Death standing in the glow of hundreds of candles.]

🖼 Art by Heinrich Lefler (1905).
📖 Godfather Death, Grimm and Grimm.

03/09/2023

The Vanishing Hitchhiker legend, in which a hitchhiker suddenly vanishes without trace, was first recorded in 1602.

A farmer & priest give a maid a lift home. She predicts the year will bring a good harvest, but war & pestilence, too. Then she disappears...

[Image description: Photo of an out of focus car approaching down a foggy road with its headlights on. A similarly out of focus figure stands at the side of the road, an arm raised as though to flag down the oncoming car.]

📖 The earliest recording of the Vanishing Hitchhiker legend from 1602, written by Joen Petri Klint.
📸 Thanks to for making this photo available on

02/09/2023

The story goes that fairies taught foxes to ring these bell-shaped flowers when a fox hunt was nearby as they’d make a magical noise and warn other foxes of the danger. 🦊

[Image description: A purple foxglove with a tall stem. The flowers on the lower half have opened, showing bell shaped flowers. The buds towards the top of the stem are closed. Drops of dew hang from the buds and the open petals.]

01/09/2023

'Light shone through the tall and ageing trees'.

The Autumn Witch by Wendy Hess - art and poetry:

https://www.disabledtales.co.uk/art/the-autumn-witch-by-wendy-hess - link in bio.

[Image descriptions:
1. A large tree in the middle of green woodland. Large white text reads: The Autumn Witch. Smaller text reads: Discussing disabled characters in fairy tales and folklore.
2. Digital artwork showing the silhouette of a woman with orange autumn leaves in her hair and diamonds of light on her cheek like a tear track. She is standing in the dappled green light of a forest looking towards an opening through which streams a white, glowing light. A full moon hangs in the sky overhead.

01/09/2023

The six brothers in 'The Six Swans' rely on their sister, the princess, to save them from a curse & restore them to their human form. She succeeds, but does not have time to fully complete her task & as a result the youngest brother keeps one swan's wing.

[Image description: Oil painting of a prince wearing a winged crown. He has a swan's wing in lace of his human arm and he stands with it folded against his body.]

🖼️ The Prince by Steven Kenny: https://stevenkenny.com
📖 The Six Swans - Grimm and Grimm.

31/08/2023

In Ireland, a talking tree may try and help a person look for a leprechaun's gold… the only trouble being that it normally doesn’t know where the gold is!

[Image description: Tree trunk that looks like it has eyes, nose and mouth.]

🖼️ Wiki commons.

30/08/2023

Yarrow is associated with wound healing and blooms between April and October. Its Latin name, Achillea millefolium, derives from the stories of Achilles healing his warriors' wounds on the battlefield using yarrow.

[Image description: Illustration of yarrow. White flowers grow in tight clusters on a long stem with feathered, fern-like leaves.]

🖼️ Illustration of Achillea millefolium - wikicommons.

29/08/2023

'They motioned at her from the corners, for out of all the creeping things spiders know the most about loneliness'.

The Importance of Gray by Emmie Christie is a short story full of the beauty of colour & sound!

https://www.disabledtales.co.uk/fiction/importance-of-gray-by-emmie-christie - link in bio.

[Image description: A large tree in the middle of green woodland. Large white text reads: The Importance of Gray. Smaller text reads: Discussing disabled characters in fairy tales and folklore.]

29/08/2023

"she was of divine stock not of men, in the fore part a lion, in the hinder a serpent, and in the midst a goat, breathing forth in terrible wise the might of blazing fire."

[Image description: Plate showing a chimera with the head of lion and a goat's head growing out of her back.]

📖 Description of the Chimera (Homer, Iliad 6.180–182).
🖼️ Chimera. Apulian red-figure dish, ca. 350-340 BC - WikiCommons.

28/08/2023

Just some unconcerned merpeople admiring their own beauty while a whale eats a ship...

[Image description: A 1570 map of the West Coast of North America. It shows two whale-like monsters attacking a ship, while two merpeople ignore the attack, instead admiring their own reflections in mirrors.]

🗺 Abraham Ortelius, "Indiae Orientalis Insularumque Adiacientium Typus,” Theatrum orbis terrarum (Antwerp: Apud Aegid, Coppenium Diesth, 1570).

27/08/2023

The farmer thinks his dog, Sultan, is too old & toothless to work. A wolf pretends to steal the farmer's child so Sultan can rescue the baby. This persuades the farmer to keep Sultan.

The wolf wants one of the farmer's sheep in return but the loyal Sultan refuses.

[Image description: Cover illustration for Old Sultan by Jacob Grimm. It shows a large dog standing protectively over a baby and a wolf howling in the background.]

📖 "Old Sultan" by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm.
🖼️ Image found as cover art on GoodReads

25/08/2023

'Sometimes you glimpse your worst possibility,
then it simply tiptoes along'.

Read 'The last time I saw my grandmother' by Marie-Louise Eyres here:

https://www.disabledtales.co.uk/poetry/the-last-time-i-saw-my-grandmother-by-marie-louise-eyres - link in bio.

[Image description: A large tree in the middle of green woodland. Large white text reads: The Last Time I Saw My Grandmother. Smaller text reads: Discussing disabled characters in fairy tales and folklore.]

25/08/2023

Melusine punished for the actions of unfaithful men...

She takes revenge on her father for breaking a promise to her mother & is cursed to be half serpent every Saturday.

When Melusine's husband breaks a promise, too, she becomes fully serpent (or dragon!) 🐉

[Image description: Melusine discovered in her half human, half serpent form. She is bathing in a tub, human from the waist up, snake from the waist down. In this illustration, she is shown to have dragon-like wings protruding from her human back.]

🖼️ Melusine's secret discovered, from Le Roman de Mélusine by Jean d'Arras, ca 1450–1500. Bibliothèque nationale de France.

24/08/2023

Fairy tales rely on our interpretation of colour...

Would you have different expectations of a story called Golden Beard, rather than Blue Beard? 🧔

What assumptions might we make about a woman with excessively long blue hair in a tower? 🧙‍♀️

[Image descriptions:
1: Illustration of a man with a large blue beard holding a sword over a woman. Two men are running towards him.
2: Illustration of a golden haired woman leaning out of a tall tower. Her long hair trails all the way down to the floor.]

🖼️ Bluebeard illustration by Guillon for an edition of the tales by Charles Perrault published in Paris in the late 19th century.
🖼️ Rapunzel illustration by Paul Hey (1867–1952).

23/08/2023

A wicked stepmother sends her stepdaughter out in winter to find strawberries in the snow... Luckily, the stepdaughter meets three little men willing to help her.

A story where disability is NOT used as a marker of evil!

[Image description: Illustration of a woman in a wintry woods. Small red strawberries contrast with the white snow on the ground. Behind her, three little men stand in the doorway of a cottage.]

🖼️ Arthur Rackham, 1917. Illustration for 'The Three Little Men in the Woods'. Wiki Commons.

22/08/2023

'The neighbors never see him, or at least
pretend they don’t.'

In this wonderful poem, Marie-Louise Eyres compares illness to the presence of a resident dragon. Read it in full here:

https://www.disabledtales.co.uk/poetry/resident-dragon-by-marie-louise-eyres - link in bio!

21/08/2023

Medusa, Scylla, Lamia, Chimera, & the Sphinx - so many monsters of Greek Mythology are female.

They are barriers for the male heroes to pass, defeat or outsmart. This speaks to a male fear of female power, with men dominating women who don't conform.

[Image description: An ancient mosaic of Bellerophon killing the Chimera.]

🖼️ Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

20/08/2023

A stepmother wants her own daughter to swap places with her stepdaughter, who has married a prince.

The daughter only has one eye. The stepmother casts a spell to make her look like her stepsister and they become identical, but for the missing eye.

[Image description: Illustration of Little Sister greeting a young deer in a door way to a woodland cottage. The deer is her younger brother under another of their stepmother's spells. In the background, they are watched by a member of the royal hunting party.]

📖 Little Brother and Little Sister (Grimm and Grimm).
🖼️ Brother and Sister, illustration by Heinrich Leutemann or Carl Offterdinger (Wiki commons).

19/08/2023

'The difference between the people below and me, the Girl King, is they don’t sequester themselves to a tower.'

Read J. Moniz's take on the fairy tale tower in her powerful story, All Hail the Girl King:

https://www.disabledtales.co.uk/fiction/all-hail-the-girl-king-by-j-moniz - link in bio!

[Image description: A large tree in the middle of green woodland. Large white text reads: All Hail the Girl King. Smaller text reads: Discussing disabled characters in fairy tales and folklore.]

19/08/2023

The Madness of Mis'

Overcome with grief, Mis transforms herself into the ultimate 'wild woman', fleeing to the mountains where she stays, living out her anger, loss & grief with her whole body.

[Image description: Woman with sticks and leaves in her tangled hair, face stained from crying, covered in dirt and fur, raven’s feathers sprouting from her back.]

🖼️ The Madness of Mis https://paintingmommy.wordpress.com/2021/05/19/the-madness-of-mis/ via .

.

18/08/2023

In The Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heugh, a queen turns her stepdaughter into a dragon. 🐉

When her brother returns, he doesn't fight the dragon. Instead, he kisses it and this restores her to her human form.

The queen is subsequently turned into a toad. 🐸

[Image description: Illustration of the prince with the dragonish princess as she begins to turn human again.]

🖼️ Childe Wynd thrice kisses the laidly worm, John D. Batten, 1890.

17/08/2023

Seven league boots allow the wearer to move, you guessed it, seven leagues with each step! 🥾

Little Thumbling steals these boots from an ogre. When he puts them on, they shrink to fit him & he uses them to make his family's fortune.

[Image description: Hop-o'-My-Thumb stealing the Seven-league boots from the sleeping Ogre.]

16/08/2023

'She was famously successful in her Trickery of Luring Children into the Forest by pretending to be a Rabbit, thus earning their trust.'

The Clever Witch: artwork by Wendy Hess!

See full image here: https://www.disabledtales.co.uk/art/the-clever-witch-by-wendy-hess - link in bio.

[Image descriptions:
1: A large tree in the middle of green woodland. Large white text reads: The Clever Witch. Smaller text reads: Discussing disabled characters in fairy tales and folklore.
2: Digital artwork that shows a grey-brown rabbit with long, sharp claws. She appears to be standing upright, framed by an arch of green leaves through which a night’s sky and full moon are visible.]

16/08/2023

The ichthyocentaur:

This merman-like creature seems to combine the extinct ichthyosaur and the mythical centaur. He is depicted to be a mixture of human, horse, and fish with musical prowess! 🧜‍♂️🎻

[Image description: Illustration of an ichthyocentaur from a 16th C map. He has the torso of a man playing the viol. His lower half is snake and lizard-like, but with a red mane along its back. He has claws with long talons and a long scaly tale which ends with red hair like a horse's tale. ]

🖼️🗺️ Flemish cartographer Abraham Ortelius, first published in 1570. (British Library and the University of Chicago Press.)

11/08/2023

In the 1698 French tale, The Green Serpent, a princess is cursed to be the ugliest woman alive. A prince is cursed to be a hideous dragon. 🐉

As in many monstrous bridegroom tales, they fall in love, break the wicked fairy's spell & become beautiful.

[Image description: Illustration showing the princess looking aghast at the hideous dragon in the bridal bed.]

🖼️ 1785 - Internet Archive Book Images.

📖 'Le Serpentin Vert' in New Tales, or Fairies in Fashion (Contes Nouveaux ou Les Fées à la Mode) by Marie Catherine d'Aulnoy.

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