About Chinese swan T-shirts, dragons fulfilling the wishes of fairies and the Bohun we deserved – review of the book “Harde Tales”

Fairy tales more or less accompany us from an early age, and for many they are even the first meeting with fantasy. It happens that we come back to them also in adulthood – be it out of sentiment or in order to introduce a younger generation to their world. The SQN publishing house in its new publication from the Harda series once again invites you to the fairy-tale themes we know from childhood, but in a completely new and definitely intended for adult readers version.

Although I did not have the opportunity to read the previously published anthology entitled The Hard Horde , I knew about the fact that I would reach for Harde fairy tales from the moment their announcement was announced. I am a huge fan of the original texts of the Brothers Grimm, so I looked hopefully for texts created, among others by my favorite Polish writers. I was not disappointed.

Known but new

The anthology contains thirteen texts by our native authors, and each one somehow relates to the theme of the fairy tale. The stories used many well-known themes, such as Little Red Riding Hood , Wild Swans , Fairy Godmother or Hansel and Gretel , but there were also stories referring to less popular ones, such as Stubborn Child, and even loosely based on selected elements from fairy tales. Although each of the texts turned out to be very polished and unique in its own way, I read some of them with particularly strong commitment.

 Long long time ago….

Magdalena Kubasiewicz’s Urban Night Dream tells the story of Jagoda, a curse specialist, who is involved in an order from her former partner, whose sister … fell asleep. A well-planned plot and the main character, whom you want to get to know in more detail, make your fingers itch after reading a man to write to Kubasiewicz with the question: WHEN A BOOK? Immediately after it, on my private podium I put the story of Detective Fiks and Death in the Red Room by Anna Hrycyszyn. This time we are involved in a mysterious murder of a terrible man. One of the suspects is the deceased’s beautiful, delicate and young wife. If you have lit a lamp in your head – that’s very good, because of course it is a retelling of Beauty and the Beastonly in a truly Sherlock edition. An interesting use of the fairy tale theme in combination with a parody turned out to be the text by Milena Wójtowicz Six T-shirts with swans(which happened to me to laugh out loud several times). This story perfectly reflects the fact that sometimes it is worth knowing how to enter the right password in the search engine, and Asian stores can provide you with everything. Fans of Aneta Jadowska will be happy to look at another case solved by Dora and Roman. On the other hand, those who will encounter the writer’s work for the first time will surely like the fresh look at Hansel and Gretel, and in particular the forest, which is the setting of the action. Marta Kisiel, known from funny and adventure books, surprises us with a very folk story about human greed and cruelty, which will be followed by immortal justice in the body of an amazing woman. I swear that after this story I will never look at the elderberry bushes in the same way again.

And they lived long … or not

Harde fairy tales is a collection in which you can find not only new versions of well-known motifs, but also many incredibly created new characters and well-guided plots. The confrontation with the different styles of the authors is also a lot of fun. I must admit that a well-chosen first story strongly referring to the Tales of a Thousand and One Nights by Ewa Białołęcka perfectly puts you in the right mood. On the other hand, the last text by Aleksandra Janusz, about the fairy godmother who forgot that sometimes you also have to fulfill your wish, closes the whole thing with its light form on the one hand, and on the other, drawing us a bit to the ground. Diversity is a strong point of this collection.

The end of the fairy tale and the bomb. Who has not read, this trumpet!

These nearly six hundred pages are definitely not reading for one evening. However, you can read them with pleasure, just like we learned about fairy tales in childhood. One for bed every day. Then their craftsmanship will be appreciated and the ones that will be remembered more will be chosen.

PS. All Bohun fans will surely be pleased to see even he appear in this book.