Tag Archives: fairy tales

The Lion

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The Huntsmen was one of those stories that I wrote because the general concept wouldn’t stop nagging at me: how did the princess of the original tale, collected by the Grimm brothers back in the early 19th century, manage to find eleven women who looked just like her?  (It was only after I finished the story that I remembered that the majority of people at the time had no access to corrective lenses, so many people would have been too nearsighted to tell the difference.) And why go to so much effort just to get an unfaithful lover back?

I was so focused on those questions that I more or less ignored the other oddity of the tale – the sudden, never explained entrance of a talking lion. But as I shuffled the lion to the side, he started nagging at me too.

This is the result.

It’s an example of how very often, when writing one story, another one appears. At least in my case.

 

The Huntsmen

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The third issue of Truancy is out, and with it, the second part of my short story, “The Huntsmen,” a retelling of “The Twelve Huntsmen,” a tale originally collected by the Brothers Grimm in the early 19th century.

As a kid, I loved the story because it featured girls Doing Things – cross dressing, tricking lions, hunting, tricking adults – all great stuff.  It took me years to realize just how weird the story is, even apart from the cross-dressing, and to find myself asking questions. A lot of questions. Which turned into several short stories, with at least one more coming up in Daily Science Fiction next year, and this one:

Part one.

Part two