Witches in Fairytales: Styles Brainstorm
Topic: My storybook will be about witches from different fairytale/legends
from around the world. My goal is to find four witches from 4 different
fairytales. One story that I would like to write about is the story of a
Russian witch named Baba Yaga. Another
story I would like to include is the English fairytale of The Old Witch. I do
not think I will have too much trouble finding more stories about witches. My
only concern is that some of the stories I found were more recent folklore stories
(I found some from the 70s) that I may not be able to use.
Possible Styles:
Story Time: I like the idea of having a babysitter telling
the kids that she is babysitting stories about the witches. When she first
arrives to the house, the kids are running wild and misbehaving. Most of the
witch stories that I found involved naughty children and had some type of
lesson at the end of them. The babysitter could use the witch stories as a way
to scare the children into behaving.
Travel: I could create a character who is studying the
folklore of witches. In order to learn more about these witches, he travels to
each country/ place of origin and have one of the locals there tell him the
stories about their famous withes.
Witch Convention: I also like the idea of all of the witches
from different stories gathering together at a “witch convention.” At this
convention, the witches can swap their stories. The witches could tell the
stories from their point of views. Maybe the original stories were all one big misunderstanding
and the children or adults in the story are the real villains and not the
witches.
Fairytale Children: Like the “witch convention” idea, I could
have the fairytale heroes/ heroines come together and tell their stories of
escape from these witches.
Fairytale Academy: This idea is similar to the story time
idea. The framework could be that the boys and girls that attend a school in a fairytale
land have to give a report on witches. The children could tell the story of
these witches in the form of a research project/presentation for their class.
Bibliography:
Baba Yaga, from Old Peter's Russian Tales, by Arthur Ransome,
[1916], at sacred-texts.com
The Old Witch, from More English Fairy Tales, by Joseph
Jacobs, at sacred-texts.com
I'm loving these ideas! I also love witches, so that's probably why I'm so enthusiastic about your storybook project already (haha).
ReplyDeleteThe babysitting storybook idea you have sounds like it would be told in a frametale fashion and would make the storybook easy to follow. The stories would also be extremely relevant to the situation!
The traveler storybook also sounds interesting because each culture has their different views on witches and their own special flavor of witchy folk tales. If you could convey that 'flavor' into your writing, it would make this storybook especially good.
The witch convention sounds hilarious and original - I really like it. Having witches compare their wands and brooms as they swap tales... this storybook has tons of potential.
The Fairytale children is probably the most morbid out of the ideas you have, but in no way does that make it bad! Not only would it be original, but I'm curious to see how you would portray the children after having narrowly escaped the clutches of a witches' talons.
Fairytale academy sounds like fun as well, with fairy children reporting on famous witches (maybe some of the witches could be their idols?) Alternatively, you could make it to where one (or more) of the famous witches talked about is actually a professor at the school!
Good luck with which one you choose! I'm really curious to see where you're going to take this project!