Although they did not know it, Kay and Gerda had actually been reunited in the dungeon where the robot rabbits were kept. While the Snow Rabbit showed Kay his masterpiece, Gerda and her friends, who had sneaked in through an open window, waited in a rafter above the room. She thought she could see Kay walking between the rows of robot rabbits, but he was so far away. Also, he was wearing rabbit ears and a fuzzy tail.

“Now!” she cried, giving the signal. Just as they had discussed, all three girls grabbed a chain hanging from the ceiling and swung down to the floor below. But they were interrupted by the robots, who began firing lasers wildly in every direction. Kay and the Snow Rabbit jumped to the floor, and the girls fell to the ground in a heap. Meanwhile, quite a few lasers broke through the dungeon walls, and when the intoxicating scent of bacon wafted by, the robots all began to file out into the world. By the time everyone inside stood up again, the robots were gone.

For a long time, they just stared at each other.

Then they screamed at each other.

Then they decided to follow the robots. However, the robots had a substantial lead, and by the time the Snow Rabbit and the kids found them, it was too late. The rabbits had found a new master.

Standing before the sea of robots was a donkey. “Don’t steal all the bacon!” the donkey said. “Instead, we will give it back.”

And one by one, the robots rabbits turned down their ears and turned off their lasers.

At that point, the Snow Rabbit knew he had lost them, just like he had lost his mirror.

“How about pizza?” he asked, and he, Kay, Gerda, and the girls walked off into the snow.

The End.

Source: The Snow Queen, Hans Christian Andersen.

Kay’s disappearance did not sit well with his good friend, Gerda.

Back at home, Gerda  wished that Kay were dead. The sparrows, the swans, and even one squirrel (but not the others) told her she was being unreasonable, but she persisted in wishing upon her friend a number of gory ends.

After a while, she got tired of sitting around and wishing and decided to set off in search of Kay. She left that very night, and it was not because of what the sparrows and the swans and the squirrel might say, no matter what you think. Though it is worth noting that they were asleep when she left.

Of course, night is not really the best time for a little girl to travel, and she was soon beset upon by robbers. Luckily she did not have much of value on her to steal, and even more luckily, one of the few things she did have on her person was a samurai sword. She quickly dispatched the robbers, and was surprised to hear someone clapping behind her.

Behind her stood another girl, dressed like the robbers, who held her own samurai sword. Before Gerda knew it, she was engaged in a very close match, but just as she was sure her very life was about to flash before her eyes, the girl stopped. And laughed. She explained then that while she had enjoyed the fight, she had never really intended to kill gerda. Then she asked if she could join her on her quest.

Gerda agreed, and they set off together

She told the robber girl about Kay, and the other girl, to her relief, did not suggest she refrain from killing him. They traveled together quite peacefully after that, until they came to a beautiful palace. Inside, they were told, was a princess about their same age.

So they went to visit the princess and spent some time talking to her and combing her hair. The princess had only brothers, so she was glad of the female company, even if Gerda and the robber girl were not particularly pleasant. However, it also seemed as though the little princess had a secret, and the third time she excused herself from their teatime, the girls followed her down to the dungeon, where they found her tending to a robotic rabbit with red glowing eyes.

“We must have that!” the robber girl decided, and Gerda agreed.

So they demanded the rabbit, and the princess refused and began to cry. They argued until they realized the rabbit had gone, and they put aside their differences to follow it together. The journey was long and unpleasant, but they finally trackexd thr rabbit to another dungeon.

And in that dungeon were dozens of robot rabbits, all with glowing red eyes.

The End. For now…

Source: The Snow Queen, Hans Christian Andersen.

And of course, this was no ordinary mirror. It was a racist mirror.

When the mirror broke and shards were scattered all about, people began to feel terrible and mean and no one could figure out why.
Which is how the fight between Gerda and Kay got started.

They were having a perfectly nice time throwing vegetables at passing cars when suddenly they both began to feel mean and uncomfortable. They started fighting over nothing things, and finally, Gerda gave up on their game and went home. Which makes what Kay did later more understandable if not excuseable. He was, after all, very bored.

That night, a white rabbit with red eyes appeared just outside his window.

“Are you like a snow bunny?” Kay asked, for the rabbit was indeed hopping around in the snow, in a very menacing way.

“I am the great snow rabbit!” He said, and spat on the ground. “I am very powerful, very wicked. And great”

Once that was settled, the rabbit inquired whether Kay wanted to participate in devious and evil acts. Kay agreed readily, and after some time tripping people inthe street and stealing candy from the weaker looking children, the snow rabbit revealed to Kay his terrible plan. You see, the rabbit had been very saddened by the loss of his racist mirror, and he had begun a project to distract himself.

Down in the snow rabbit’s basement, Kay found, were one hundred rabbit robots with metal fangs and red lasers for eyes.
Kay saw immediately what he was doing.

“But once you have taken over the world and claimed all the Bacon for yourself,” he asked, ” what will you do?”

” Oh, you will see,” the snow rabbit promised, and he rubbed his paws together in a menacing way. “You will see.”

The End. For now…

Source: The Snow Queen, Hans Christian Andersen.

“I’m Old Slipslide,” he introduced himself. “And I look forward to having you as my wife.”

“Old Slipslide? That sounds sort of dirty,” she said.

“Dirty? How so?” he asked.

“Nevermind,” she replied, “What’s all this wife business?”

And Old Slipslide explained, slowly and patiently, that by darting into his underwater home, the girl had consented to be his wife. And he was very glad she had, for she had the cutest little nose he ever did see. He assured her that there was no escape, and then shuffled off to prepare dinner.

At first, she scoffed at his promise, and made for the door, the window, and the interesting catapult device he used every day to go out and get the paper. But sure enough, everything was locked with a combination she had to admit, after many tries, she just could not figure out. And eventually, she got sort of comfortable living at the bottom of a wave pool. Old Slipslide turned out to be a pretty good cook, and his idea of marriage was apparently watching movies together while eating dinner.

But from time to time, she saw faces she recognized in the newspaper — her old sweetheart’s, or her father’s, and she realized she very much missed her old life. But how was she going to escape?

After ruling out any real escape plans, she tried something simple. She made comments, left notes, sang songs, all around the same general theme: I miss my dad, and this house is so stuffy, maybe we could open a window every once in a while? Finally, Old Slipslide obliged by opening a window, and the girl darted out and swam to the surface before he realized what was happening.

Back home, she was received warmly indeed by her father and her former sweetheart, whom she immediately agreed to marry even though she supposed she was technically still married to Old Slipslide. But she didn’t worry about it, because she was so very happy to have her old life back.

For a little while, anyway.

After a few months, she found that she was a little annoyed by her new fiancee, she missed having her own space, and she even sort of missed Old Slipslide. Her sweetheart was not a good cook, as it turned out, and loved to have romantic evenings dancing in the moonlight, which was nice at first, but had gotten old really fast. However, she was happy to be with her father again, and she did not really miss living underwater or being held captive.

The solution presented itself to her all at once. During a particularly bad bout of dancing atop the water slide, she asked her sweetheart to pause while she scribbled off a note: “Come see me if you’re ever on the outside”.

She taped the note to his jacket and immediately shoved him down the slide. He flew off in a spectacular manner and landed in the middle of the wave pool.

She smiled, and then she waited.

The End.

Source: Old Rinkrank, Brothers Grimm

Nine months later, she turned up at his door with a baby girl. He inquired, as politely as he could in his mostly shocked and somewhat suspicious state, but neither the mermaid nor the baby could provide a particularly helpful answer.

Left alone with the mermaid’s baby, the man did the only thing he could think of: he built a cottage to keep her in, and on top of it built a great plastic structure with water streaming down it. When the neighborhood kids begged to have a ride on it, he realized that the thing he had built to keep his daughter safe was, in fact, a water slide. And an excellent one, at that.

For years, the neighborhood children annoyed him. They always wanted to ride on the waterslide, or see the waterslide, or throw someone bothersome down the waterslide. But that was nothing, he realized later, compared to what they annoyed him about later.

You see, his daughter had grown to be very pretty indeed, and though she only rarely went out, she attracted more male attention than her father was comfortable with. Finally, he was forced to deal with the situation in the most logical way he could think of: he declared that no boy could date his daughter unless he managed to climb to the top of the water slide while the water was on.

For a while, the arrangement worked out quite nicely: any number of intrepid suitors declared at the foot of the slide how they intended to brave the slide and capture the heart of the girl, and then inevitably plunged to the ground after only a few steps.

It was a very good slide.

However, eventually, the thing he feared most happened: his daughter favored one of the young men, and arranged, behind her father’s back, to help him make his way up the water slide.

She reached out for his hand at the appointed time and place, and he very nearly made it. But when he finally managed to grab her hand, he slipped in the water and flew down the slide, dragging the girl with him. At some point, their hands broke apart, and she gained so much momentum that she flew into the air, over the water park and into the wave pool, where she disappeared in a giant gurgle.

Her father was none too pleased with the suitor who had done her in, however unintentionally.

Meanwhile, the girl sank further and deeper into the wave pool than she would have thought possible, and when she finally hit the bottom, she found herself face to face with an old man who seemed to have scales and the body of an octopus.

“Welcome home,” the creature said, and grinned.

The End. For now…

Source: Old Rinkrank, Brothers Grimm

You see, after years of watching horror movies, enduring less than sensitive pranks at the hands of his older brothers, and once even encountering a saber tooth tiger just outside his house, he could not remember ever feeling what he would describe as scared.

So he bade his sweetheart goodbye (for now) and he and Jim (the saber tooth tiger, who agreed to be his pet after the boy had failed to be impressed by his long sharp teeth) left early one morning.

They traveled for a long time before they met anyone, but just after nightfall they encountered a pale young man, and the boy offered to share his beans and hot dogs with him. The pale man agreed to sit by the fire with him and Jim, but declined to eat anything.

Later that night, however, the boy awoke to find his guest crouching over him, fangs bared and ready to bite.

“I’m very disappointed,” he said. But he was not afraid. He gathered his things, and he and Jim left.

They traveled through the night, but it was more difficult. Shadows kept passing over their vision, and creaks and groans seemed to echo. At one point, a great hairy beast leaped out in front of Jim, and stood up to his full height.

He was a werewolf, he explained, and hungry during the full moon. The boy explained that the moon was not full, and so he should be able to go on his way. He was not afraid.

Finally, as day broke, he and Jim found themselves walking past a graveyard, where, incidentally, the dead had begun to walk. Several were lurching right towards them, saying something that sounded suspiciously like “Rain.” He pulled out his umbrella and walked on. He was not afraid.

At this point, however, he did feel rather defeated. Declaring the entire thing a failure, he and Jim headed home. The first thing they did, of course, was visit his sweetheart. But there was a surprise awaiting them at her house.

During his absence, the vampire, the werewolf, and even one of the zombies had made their way to his village and were currently courting sweetheart. To make things worse, she wasn’t exactly resisting their advances. In fact, she was smiling.

Suddenly, the thought occurred to him that she might even prefer the vampire, the werewolf, or the zombie to him. What if she didn’t want to be his sweetheart anymore? Something he’d never felt before gripped him, and he went down on one knee before her and promised her all manner of extravagant things  if she would only remain his own sweetheart. She agreed, and it was only later, after he’d thoroughly taunted  his supernatural rivals, that he thought back to the moment he thought he might lose her, and realized he had finally learned the meaning of fear.

The End

Source: The Story of a Boy Who Went Forth to Learn Fear, Brothers Grimm

Now, the house the mice lived in had no mirrors or other reflective surfaces, and for good reason: the two sons had no idea they were mice. Long ago, their father had decided he would really rather be human, so they lived as humans, the boys would marry humans, and, hopefully, their children would be more human than mouse.

So the brothers went out and gnawed on their sunflowers until they fell. The older brother’s flower fell, luckily, just towards the house of the very girl he had been wooing. He immediately went over and spent a long time convincing her to be his bride.

The younger brother, however, found his flower pointing toward the woods, and he walked for a very long time before he found anyone at all. When he finally did, it was in a quiet little cabin under a lovely willow tree. She had a pleasant voice , and readily agreed to be his bride.

Also, she was a mouse.

He fretted about that a little on the way home, but reasoned that his dad was a mouse, and wouldn’t mind so much.

He was, of course, mistaken, and he was very worried indeed when he made his way back to the cabin. As a test, his father had instructed him to have his mouse weave a sample of the finest cloth ever for him.

He was even more worried when he explained the situation to his mouse, and she simply handed him a piece of cheese. It was a delicious piece of cheese, surely, but not at all what his father had requested.

So he did all he could of to do, and took his bride home, thinking to win his father over with her grace, beauty, and adorable whiskers.

But just as the pair were approaching the house, something surprising happened.

His father flew into such a rage that he physically attacked the little mouse, knocking her backwards into a pond. Without thinking, the son jumped into the water and swam after his bride. As he pulled her back to the shore, he got the greatest shock of his life: he was clearly a mouse, and not a man at all. Years of prejudice against mice  and identity issues finally made sense to him.

He left  his house, married the mouse, and they lived happily ever after.

The End

Source: The Mouse Bride, Finnish fairy tale

Fortune followed the crunching tearing gnawing sounds until finally, the Terrible Monster appeared in his view. But when he saw the beast, Fortune stopped, surprised.

Because the monster looked, well, pleasant. Sort of like a large monkey with a nice round face and cute fuzzy ears. Certainly nicer than Stupid Fanny and her Stupid Face.

But then the monster roared and howled and banged its fists against the ground.

And then it spoke.

“Hi,” it said. “Would you like a biscuit?”

And just like that, Fortune collected three biscuits. He stayed the afternoon, drinking tea with the Terrible Monster and talking about the kingdom. As they spoke, the Monster mentioned the meercat on the boat, saying in passing that if he were to hand anyone the oar, that anyone would be stuck rowing the boat, and the meercat would be free to go.

Fortune thanked the Monster for his hospitality, and then went on his way. He stayed quiet on the boat, but once he was safe on the shore, he told the meercat the secret he had learned.

And then he went home, and found Fanny.

Now, at this point, Fortune was furious with Fanny. Maybe he’d gotten lucky with the Terrible Monster, but still, he had never been so inconvenienced in his life. And so, since Fortune was a liar as well as an arrogant jerk, he told Fanny that there was a great treasure at the foot of the mountain, and a meercat in a boat could help her find it. And so, since Fanny was greedy as well as unpleasant, she set out the very next day to find it.

By the following night, as expected, Fortune found Fanny steering the boat back and forth across the lake, looking very, very angry. She cursed at him until her voice got hoarse, and then Fortune left her there and went home.

For several days, Fortune was very happy, knowing that Fanny who had inconvenienced him so was ceaselessly rowing back and forth across the lake. He didn’t even miss her.

Well, not all the time, anyway.

But one morning, when he woke up facing an angry dwarf from inside a glass coffin, he began to suspect she might be back.

Later, he learned that she had figured out the trick, and handed the oar to a hapless delivery elf. Then she returned to wage the biggest prank war the kingdom had ever seen.

Now, sometime during that war, Fortune realized he didn’t want to live without Fanny, even if she was forever hiding spindles among his belongings or putting his picture on polar bear love match websites. And it occurred to Fanny that maybe she wouldn’t mind being married to Fortune after all.

And the rest of the kingdom rejoiced, because they couldn’t imagine anyone as horrible as Fortune or Fanny finding love anywhere else.

The End.

Source: The Devil and the Three Golden Hairs, Brothers Grimm

For a long time, no one but the boy (whom they called Fortune) and his parents took the prophecy very seriously. The king and queen especially, repeatedly assured their daughter that there was no good reason she should have to marry Fortune, who was growing up to be very arrogant and obnoxious. However, the Princess Fanny, who wasn’t the most pleasant girl around either, worried more and more as she got older. Maybe her parents didn’t actually expect her to marry Fortune, but the other kids could talk about nothing else, and Fortune himself treated her as though they’d been married for years.

So as her sixteenth birthday drew near, the Princess summoned Fortune, and told him that if he was really to marry her, he would have to go to the giant treacherous mountain that bordered the kingdom, and steal three biscuits from the Terrible Monster that lived atop it.

Fortune vowed he would bring them to her, smacked her on her rear end, and took off.

Truly, the journey was long. And hard. And tiring. After walking about half the day, Fortune collapsed next to a lake. He quickly ate all the food he had brought for the journey, and drank all his water. Then, he fell asleep and did not wake until it was dark out.

On the lake, a light glowed faintly.

Finally, boat drew near him, steered by the largest meercat he’d ever seen. On the way across the lake, Fortune tried to make friendly conversation, but no matter what he said, the meercat only complained in a high pitched voice about his lot. He’d been rowing for years, he said, back and forth and back forth. Whenever he tried to leave, his feet would refuse to move.

Finally, Fortune just said “Sucks for you,” and was pushed off the boat near the shore.

The journey up the mountain was longer and harder than anything Fortune had ever done, and by the time he reached the top, he hated Princess Fanny. Quite a lot.

There was a cave atop the mountain, and from the cave came the most fearsome noise Fortune had ever heard: the crunching of bones, the slurping of blood, a deep satisfactory sigh. Hoping that the noise meant the beast had only just eaten, Fortune entered the cave.

The End…For Now

Source: The Devil and the Three Golden Hairs, Brothers Grimm

The situation became so desperate that the man resorted to asking anyone who walked by to help him out with the window. The first passer by to agree was a tall, broad shouldered polar bear, who happened to be very good indeed at fixing windows.

“Thank you, kind bear!” the man said when he was done. “Is there anything I can do for you in return?”

Yes, there was, the bear answered. And then he demanded the man’s youngest daughter for his wife.

When she was informed, tearfully, by her father about the arrangement, she just shrugged and agreed to go.

At this point, the narrator feels obligated to share with you certain information: the two elder daughters were dancers, famous throughout their town for their skill. And their younger sister, the one who agreed to go with the polar bear, was always their choreographer.

This is important because as soon as the girl reached her new home, she found a large crowd of bears waiting to be instructed in dancing. You see, the polar bears had long been at war with the penguins, and it had been decided centuries ago that the only way to resolve the conflict would be through a dance off.

The time for the dance off was drawing near, and the bears had no dance.

And so, the girl thought up a dance, and spent her days and some of her nights teaching it to the bears and having them run through the routine again and again. After some time, she discovered that she was actually quite happy living among the bears.

However, she still longed to see her family. When she thought to discuss her wishes with the bear, he agreed, but gave her one stipulation: she was not to tell her mother about the dance off, or the penguins.

And so the girl went home, and was received with much happiness and many hugs. She stayed up long into the night with her family, and before the sun came up, she told her mother about the dance off. And the penguins.

“That’s silly,” her mother said. “Polar bears live at the North Pole, and penguins at the South Pole. How can they dance against each other?”

The bear was cross indeed when he heard that the girl had told her mother, and what her mother had said.

“Now that that’s been pointed out to us, we will have to travel east of the sun and west of the moon, to where the penguins live.”

It was a very long journey, and the girl became worried that not all of the bears would make it. Every single one was vital for the routine.

Luckily, every bear survived the trip, and they danced their hardest and their fastest, and their routine looked even better than the choreographer could have imagined.

However, they did lose to the penguins. Penguins are fantastic dancers.

The End

Source: East of the Sun and West of the Moon, Asbjornsen and Moe