Glimm Frairy Tares

At Barnes and Noble tonight I picked up a book of Grimm's Fairy Tales done as newspaper style comics. These were the original tales, mind you, the ones where Cinderella's evil stepsisters cut their toes and heels off with a knife in order to fit in the shoes, and where Red Riding Hood got eaten by the wolf along with Granny. Some of those stories are so random that I can only imagine them being told by a slurring drunkard. Take, for instance, the story of One Eye, Two Eyes and Three Eyes, presented here as it was no doubt originally told:

Ok, ok, ok. So... ok. So there's this girl. No! There's this three girls an' they've got eyes, right? Only see, they... um... ok, so one of the girls has one eye... and not another one... and one of the girls has two eyes, and oneofthegirlshasthreeeyes. *Burp* Ok, ok, so... right... so the girl with two eyes is made fun of because she's got two eyes, and not one or three. And... um... they don't feed her. Or they feed her scraps. Right, they feed her scraps. And um... OH! There's a GOAT! And there's an old lady... and when the girl sings to the goat... it... um... makes... food. Anhersistersdonlikeit. So... um... they kill it. The goat. They kill the goat, right? Only she buries the heart. The girl. The one with the two eyes. She buries the goats heart. The old lady told her to, and um... it turns into... a tree. A goat tree. NO! A GOLD tree! *Hic* Only the tree don't like the sisters. Cuz they been mean an killedthegoat. An... OH! A Knight says, I want a stick from the tree... an if someone gives me one I'll marry them. If it's a girl. If a girl gives me a stick I'll marry her. An she'll be my... um... girl knight. Right. An she does, an they get married, and she flips the sisters the V.

The various Princes and Knights and Kings and such in these stories crack me up. Marriage is just something they offer up to anyone that does them a favor, or even happens to be sprawled unconscious in their path. They must have rooms full of wives.

"I'll marry you if you give me a golden apple."
"I'll marry you if you wear this shoe I found in the gutter."
"Are you going to finish that waffle? I'll marry you if you give me half."

When did girls get the idea that marrying a prince was something to aspire to. As far as I can tell, you don't need charm and grace and beauty. You need something shiny and maybe a piece of candy.