Swan Sister [antikvár]

by Terri Windling and Ellen Datlow When we were kids, we were told that fairy tales were only for little children—which implies, of course, that we'd lose our interest as we grew up. But we kept on reading fairy tales year after year, and they were just as wonderful as ever. Was there something wrong with us, we wondered, that we were so enchanted by nursery stories? And why, we wondered, were fairy tales considered suitable for little children anyway? Some of the stories we read in the Brothers Grimm volumes seemed grim indeed! There were queens who danced to death in red-hot shoes, wicked witches burned up in ovens, ghostly children weeping blood red tears, and wolves lurking in Granny's nightclothes. Eventually we learned that in previous centuries fairy tales weren't considered children's stories—back then, Vll