Fairy Tales & Horror by Shannon Knight
I’ve always loved fairy tales. Part of this might be because my grandma had a great big book of fairy tales at her house that I read over and over when I visited. Or maybe it was due to all of those required nonfiction book reports in grade school paired with the discovery that the fairy tale section lived in nonfiction. Not until I was much older did I realize that my idea of fairy tales didn’t jive with popular notions. In my world of fairy tales, the wolf eats the little girl and her grandma, and the woodcutter chops the wolf open, and the girl and her grandma crawl back out, still alive.
Characters regularly have limbs chopped off, and the end of stories involves hot oil, iron shoes, and a barrel-ride full of nails down a hill. A witch lures children to her house with candy, then waits to fatten them up before cooking and eating them, but the children heroically shove the witch into the oven. “It’s like a fairy tale!” I say, and the person I’m speaking to pictures a princess swept away from her troubles by a prince along with a song-dance-combo arranged by forest animals. Meanwhile, I’m imagining Bluebeard smiling as he hands over the keys, including the forbidden one that leads to the murder chamber.
For my novel Domestication, I wanted to do many things,
including write a fairy tale. But I also wanted to twist other people’s expectations of what a fairy tale means or what characters in a fairy tale might choose to do.
Wolves are a classic component of fairy tales. Theoretically, the wolf symbolizes dangers in the world, from the forest predator to the human kind. The big, bad wolf appears in classics like “Little Red Riding Hood” and “The Three Little Pigs.” The hunger of the wolf is interpreted as insatiable lust. Perhaps Red Riding Hood chooses to be eaten up, and therefore comes out alive afterwards, having disobeyed her parents and done as she wished. In other instances, a sturdy house of brick may protect you from danger, but crafty wolves still try to gain entry. Clever pigs place a boiling pot on their fire so that the dish and diner are inverted if the wolf climbs down the chimney and lands in the cauldron. You never do know who’s coming to dinner!
Fairy Tales & Horror by Shannon Knight
Other villains include serial killer husbands. In “Bluebeard,” the young bride enters her husband’s mansion to discover the chopped bodies of his previous wives hidden in a secret room. Her husband handed her the keys, warning her that one room was forbidden. Is this a lesson in obedience or a set-up to sate his murderous impulses? We all know the answer.
In one variant, “Fitcher’s Bird,” the magic of fairy tales allows our hero to reassemble the hacked bodies of her sisters, the previous wives, which returns them to life. She then hides them in a basket and has the murderer himself carry them back to her parents. While “Beauty and the Beast” prepares young brides for the frightening experience of marrying a stranger, “Bluebeard” and “Fitcher’s Bird” instruct them on how to handle a man who is truly a beast. The answer is never not to look in the hidden chamber. Sometimes you even have to place the bloody key, evidence of your knowledge, right back into the villain’s hand.
Once-upon-a-time invites us to look into the darkness. Time is flexible, and the lessons of the past might serve you well in the future. If you’ve only ever read the sanitized versions of fairy tales, look for older copies and collections with titles you’ve never heard of. Don’t be afraid. They might even prepare you for a glass mountain you want to climb or the unexpected arrival of Baba Yaga’s hut. Take the skull torch and enter the dark forest. Wolves, witches, and magical cats all play into our lives more than you might think.
Shannon Knight
Shannon Knight wrote Domestication while living on an Icelandic sheep farm in the Pacific Northwest. There are no skulls on her roof, but there are a suspicious quantity of bones kicking around the farm. Knight graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor’s in English. She is the author of Domestication, Grave Cold, Insiders, and Wish Givers. Sign up for her newsletter at https://www.shannonknight.net/.
Links
Find a copy of Domestication: https://books2read.com/Domestication
Website https://www.shannonknight.net/
Domestication by Shannon Knight
When Janie chose the isolated sheep farm, she knew her husband would hunt her down. What she didn’t expect was Rob and Howard. Rob rules the farm with the same domination tactics she uses to train dogs, while Howard believes only human supremacists think humans should be treated any differently than other animals. Janie inadvertently jumps out of the frying pan and into the fire. She wishes to leave her old self behind. She wants to transform. Will she devolve into meat, metamorphose into a monster, or transcend beyond her domesticated limitations?
Insiders Kindle by Shannon Knight
In a universe of long-haul truckers, parasite-bearing megalomaniacs, asteroid rustlers, and homicidal peace keepers, some people just want to stay alive.
Deep within Kerberos Station, pipe crawler Sachi Inside is dying of the planet-killing Hibravian virus. In a state of delirium, the agoraphobic girl agrees that in exchange for life, she will not only leave her pipes, but even the station. A parasitic plant wraps around her, guides her to an exiting ship, and adheres to the hull.
Captain Karasi Kwei is not pleased to discover a stowaway, but the crew thinks there’s money to be made on the plant, and the fact that both the Eastern Star Corporation and the Elysium Empire are tracking it confirms its value. However, none of that matters when the entire crew falls sick with the incurable Hibravian.
But Sachi’s plant is more than it seems. All they have to do is fight the mercenaries, survive the virus, evade the Elysium Empire, and navigate a fluctuating microwave wall, and they just might save the universe.
