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Ogres Are Cool

The only rule of a tale is that everything gets used, even apparently superfluous details – though you’re allowed...

This was omitted from later editions, though the tales that remained were ruthless enough: wicked stepmothers are shod in red-hot shoes or imprisoned in spiked barrels, while Cinderella’s sisters cut off their toes in order to fit into her slipper and end up getting their eyes pecked out by doves. The sacralisation of everyday life, making the mundane thing hide a dazzle of wonder, is a recurrent feature of the tales (several of which have St Peter or the Virgin Mary roaming the earth), and is why they give the impression of being rooted in the experience of people who work with their hands or who need to imagine their way into a less gritty and less subsistence-based existence. To think of this retelling as a counter-version to the traditional horror of the murderous male and the passive female victim, which heroically resists or simply inverts the gender stereotypes of folk tales, is enticing but a bit too simple.

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