Fairy-tale author Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić (1874-1938) has been called the "Croatian Anderson", or more recently the "Croatian Tolkien", and twice nominated for a Nobel, in the 1930s, before she committed suicide. Her most famous fairy-tale collection, Croatian Tales of Long Ago (1916), was recently adapted as a flash animation, some of which can be viewed online (flash, pop-ups) in an award-winning site. The original book in English translation (1923) at Internet Archive includes some cool artwork.
posted by stbalbach on Sep 25, 2009 - 9 comments

Fallen Princesses : Dina Goldstein explores what life might have been like for Rapunzel, Snow White, and others after happily-ever-after. (via)
posted by divabat on Jun 14, 2009 - 24 comments

The Path is a new independent horror-game inspired by the original Little Red Riding Hood stories, being developed by Tale of Tales (previously). The website is fun to explore, and the blog has many links to (and interviews with) their inspirations. They've also interviewed some other game designers. [via]
posted by empath on Mar 2, 2009 - 4 comments

Have a Minoto game to make a snow day bright. [more inside]
posted by melissa may on Dec 20, 2008 - 9 comments

Something for a kid you know, or your own inner child. Speakaboos offers online stories with the written word below the illustrations, as if read from a book: fables, nursery rhymes, fairy tales, folk tales, lullabies. You can watch the stories without registering. You will have to sign-up (for free) for the future function of recording your own "that will allow kids and parents to record their own voices reading (or singing!) their favorite story, song, or nursery rhyme." Christmas stories. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye on Dec 15, 2008 - 10 comments

Once Upon a Time - a filmed fairy tale starring baby monkeys lost in frightening trees, a witch, crocodiles, a tiger, a "popotamus" and a lion, and even a "tremendously very bad mammoth." (In French, English subtitles)
posted by madamjujujive on Nov 16, 2008 - 12 comments

FairyTaleFilter: SurLaLune Fairy Tales features 49 annotated fairy tales, including their histories, similar tales across cultures, modern interpretations and over 1,500 illustrations, 1,600 folktales & fairy tales from around the world in more than 40 full-text eBooks. Fairy Tale timeline. l Women Children's Book Illustrators l The Evolution of the Illustrated Children's Book l Some really beautiful free graphics and clipart from Grandma's Graphics. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye on Oct 1, 2008 - 11 comments

Over 2000 classic tales and fables including Aesop's Fables, Bulfinch's Mythology, Indian "Why" Stories, tales by Oscar Wilde, Beatrix Potter, Rudyard Kipling, Louisa May Alcott, L. Frank Baum and Harriet Beecher Stowe and stories about Abraham Lincoln, Robin Hood and Baron Munchausen. And more! The folk and fairytale collection is particularly rich, with hundreds of stories from all over the world.
posted by Kattullus on Apr 1, 2008 - 15 comments

Les plumes du dragon. A storybook in French by Andrej and Olga Dugin. [Via MONSTER BRAINS.]
posted by homunculus on Dec 20, 2007 - 11 comments

The Hans Christian Andersen Digital Collections of the Odense City Museums includes his drawings, papercuts, picture books and collage screens as well as portraits of him and people he knew, manuscripts, pictures of his study and more. If you wish to read his fairytales might I suggest the illustrated Oxford Complete Edition Fairy Tales And Other Stories from 1914.
posted by Kattullus on Sep 7, 2007 - 7 comments

Yes, that is indeed Mick Jagger playing a Chinese emperor. And those are, in fact, Edward James Olmos, Bud Cort, and Barbara Hershey heading up the supporting cast of "The Nightingale," a particularly odd episode of Shelley Duvall's ludicrously star-studded Faerie Tale Theatre. Throughout its early '80s run, the show used dozens of prominent actors to perform the fairy tale standards, including Klaus Kinski and Susan Sarandon in a virtual remake of the Cocteau "Beauty and the Beast;" Paul Reubens, James Coburn, Carl Reiner, and Vincent Schiavelli in "Pinnochio;" Helen Mirren and Brian Dennehy in "The Little Mermaid;" and James Earl Jones and Leonard Nimoy in a Tim Burton-directed "Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp." The list goes on and on.
posted by Iridic on Sep 5, 2007 - 34 comments

Pan's Labyrinth the new movie by director Guillermo del Toro (Devil's Backbone) is a fairy tale for grownups. Certainly not a new idea, stories like Lord of the Rings and the Chronicles of Narnia have elements that appeal to adults, but Pan's Labyrinth is perhaps unique in that it's not at all suitable for children.
posted by grapefruitmoon on Jan 28, 2007 - 162 comments

Journal of Mythic Arts - an online journal for the exploration of myth, folklore, and fairy tales, and their use in contemporary art. A smattering from the archives: Shape-Shifters; Old Wives' Tales; Wolf's Heart.
posted by Wolfdog on Aug 12, 2006 - 10 comments

The Toymaker offers over 40 free paper toys and pretties you can print out (PDFs) and make yourself, as well as "Stories to be Told by Firelight" - online versions of author/illustrator Marilyn Scott Waters' children's stories and lots of other fun goodies. For people who have kids, people who know kids, people who are kids, and people who love papercraft, illustration, toys, and tales. [more...]
posted by taz on Jul 24, 2006 - 18 comments

Traditional Russian fairytales with beautiful illustrations depicting scenes from the stories.
posted by gregb1007 on Feb 23, 2005 - 9 comments

The mystery of Stefan Mart and the 'Tales of the Nations'. "The Tales of Nations" was not an ordinary book that you could buy in a book store, and it's mysterious narrator/illustrator disappeared into the darkness of Hitler's Germany, seemingly without a trace. Learn the background, read the stories, and view all 150 fabulous colour illustrations — "small in size, but strong in expression, each a microcosm packed with action, each a feast for the eyes like a beautifully set jewel".
posted by taz on Jan 9, 2005 - 20 comments

Japanese fairy tales. In English, illustrated.
posted by Wolfdog on Dec 19, 2004 - 7 comments

Little Red Riding Hood's wayward past revealed: "Once upon a time, (the story) was a seduction tale. An engraving accompanying the first published version of the story, in Paris in 1697, shows a girl in her déshabille, lying in bed beneath a wolf. According to the plot, she has just stripped out of her clothes, and a moment later the tale will end with her death in the beast’s jaws — no salvation, no redemption. Any reader of the day would have immediately understood the message: In the French slang, when a girl lost her virginity it was said that 'elle avoit vû le loup' — she’d seen the wolf."
posted by feelinglistless on Sep 19, 2004 - 32 comments

Fable ...There once was a boy with a mind of his own. Alone in a dangerous world, his destiny, the paths of good and evil... Built like a children's book with tabs that you toggle, choose your path in this gothic tale. The site is a beautifully designed promo for the upcoming xbox game release, but worth a visit for the illustrations and execution alone. (caveats: flash site that opens in a pop-up window, contains sound.)
posted by madamjujujive on Aug 3, 2003 - 11 comments

Amy Bender writes modern fairy tales. Whether these stories are magical realism, irrealism, or just plain crazy, is this a continuing trend in fiction?
posted by son_of_minya on May 21, 2003 - 19 comments

"Theriantropic harridan, what elephantine denticles permeate your oral orifice!" Minikin Incarnadine Cowl-Titivated Gamine adduced. From Fairy Tales for the Erudite, for those of you who enjoy a good story where the twain exist evermore in felicity and Elysium.
posted by iconomy on Jan 6, 2003 - 12 comments

Rumplestiltskin gets torn in half, Cinderella's stepsisters get their eyes pecked out, and Snow White's stepmother dances in red hot iron shoes until she dies from exhaustion. These are the original endings to the non-sweetened, and sometimes unsavory, fairy tales collected or written by by reclusive librarians Jacob and Wilhelm, better know as The Brothers Grimm. Their first book, Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Childrens' and Household Tales) was published in 1812. Several more books, mostly of folk tales collected from willing relatives and friends, followed, some containing bizarre and disturbing stories with less than happy endings. As the National Geographic Grimm site puts it, "Looking for a sweet, soothing tale to waft you toward dreamland? Look somewhere else. The stories collected by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in the early 1800s serve up life as generations of central Europeans knew it—capricious and often cruel." Check out the strange 1960 Mp3s and RealAudio files of some Grimm tales.
posted by iconomy on Oct 29, 2002 - 26 comments