Fairy Tale Resolutions for the New Year!

Overcoming Inner Demons

Fairy Tale Resolutions for the New Year!

January is the month of fresh starts and working on New Year’s resolutions. The January postings on this website feature fables by Aesop and Lafontaine in addition to a fairy tale by Grimm. They offer a springboard for reflection and self-improvement. These stories highlight human faults of various kinds, including perceived physical and spiritual defects. While reflecting a strong moral impulse, they are not too heavy-handed or moralizing. Change is practical, even ethical, they seem to say. Have you acted upon your own New Year’s resolutions this month? These tales might help:

The Old Beggar Woman by Grimm

A New Year’s Resolution based on this tale is easy to formulate but it might be more difficult to put into practice: To have more compassion toward others, and to develop a stronger feeling of responsibility for community and environment.

Aesop’s Fable No. 19: Tale of the Viper and the File 

Possible New Year’s Resolution: To avoid self-defeating behavior in all its sinister forms, especially no more chewing on iron files!

Aesop’s Fable of the Lion and Mouse

It’s easy to agree with the sentiments of this fable: A small act of kindness is often received with enormous gratitude. However, we often perceive ourselves as the mouse in this tale, but our actions are more like the bumbling lion.

New Year’s Resolution: Don’t be a bumbling lion. Be kind to mice.

Lafontaine’s Fable of The Stag Who Saw His Reflection in the Pool

Lafontaine might actually have been making fun of noblemen at court with spindly legs, who thought a good calf was a reflection of virility.  New Year’s Resolution: Be good humored and don’t take yourself too seriously. The expression on the stag’s face speaks volumes. (Click on picture to enlarge.)

Lafontaine's Fable: The Stag Who Saw His Reflection in the Pool

The Stag Who Saw His Reflection in the Pool

In a deep crystalline pool of water a stag gazed

lovingly at his own reflection.

The beauty of his antler array  

impressed him.

But his slender legs

vanishing in the water

tortured his inner thoughts.

He vainly stood  there  

in satisfied self-regard.

Only his slender legs did not speak to

what a fine fellow he was.

“What dumb luck!” said he

“that I should bear such branches on my proud head,

as if I had robbed a tree, yet

my legs are spindle-thin!”

While the stag was thus complaining bitterly

came panting a wild hunting dog.

The stag by running into the

wooded preserve thought to save himself.

But his antler piece – treacherous ornamentation –

stopped him in his tracks.

His legs would save his life,

but his antlers became tangled  in the bush,

where he did curse aloud those very gifts,

that heaven had bestowed so plenteously year for year.

Beauty corrupts; what is useful we forget.

We call marvelous what brings us down.

The stag abjures his legs that make him mobile.

It’s his antlers, he thinks, that make him noble.

 

Read more fairy tales:

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Fables, a Type of Fairy Tale New Year's Resolution

Fable of the Lion and Mouse

A small act of kindness is often received with enormous gratitude, as this fable teaches.

A lion once lay sleeping in the forest when a group of mice were frolicking merrily. One fell on the lion causing him to awake abruptly. The lion snatched the poor mouse enraged. But the mouse cried, “Spare my life!” for he hadn’t strayed near the sleeping lion intentionally. He had been playing with the other mice and they had all quite forgotten themselves.  The lion reflected and came to the conclusion that a small imposition from a little mouse was nothing to get excited about, so he let the creature go. The mouse promptly ran away in gratitude.

A few days later the lion fell into the net of a hunter. When he realized his end was near, he roared and bellowed and howled. Soon, the little mouse heard him, came running and gazed on the accident that had befallen the lion. But when the mouse recognized the lion he said “I will reward your prior kindness to me.” And he immediately began to gnaw on the ropes and break the knots of the netting, so that the lion was soon free and could return to the forest.

Fresh Starts and False Starts in the New Year: A Viper in the Smithy's Shop

Aesop’s Fable No. 19: Tale of the Viper and the File 

Moral: This fable teaches caution in handling sharp-toothed objects.

A hungry viper went to a smithy’s forge, where he found a sharp-toothed file, which he promptly began to gnaw upon. The file spoke to the little snake: “Oh you silly one! What are you doing? Do you want to ruin your teeth completely?  Don’t you know that I, with my sharp little teeth, can destroy the strongest, hardest iron? And you want to gnaw on me? One can only laugh at such false starts!

Fairy Tale of the Beggar Woman and the Fire

(Pablo Picasso, Weeping Woman with Handkerchief, 1937)

Grimm’s Fairy Tale No. 150: The Old Beggar Woman

There once lived an old woman, surely you have seen this type of person begging?

When the old woman went out crying for alms, if she received something, she said to her benefactor, “May God give you your just reward.” Now the beggar woman arrived at the door of a rapscallion, a young chap warming himself by the fire. The fellow greeted the woman friendly enough and asked why the woman stood at the door shivering. “Come here, old mother and warm your bones.” She approached the fire but came too close so that her old rags began to burn, but she did not notice what had happened. The youth stood quietly, and saw it all. He should have done something! Even if he didn’t have any water, then he should have cried bitter tears so forcefully, that two watery streams flowed from his eyes to quench the fire.


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Fairy Tale New Year's Eve Celebrations

Fairy Tale Parties, and Dancing, and Feasting on New Year's Eve

Designing your own New Year's Eve Traditions:
Starting at 11:59 p.m.:

1. Ring bells to signify the ending of the New Year

2. Sing a song or recite an appropriate verse

3. Open the front door to let in the New Year (and close it again)

4. Raise a toast to commemorate events in the past year

5. Raise a toast to mark your hopes for the New Year

6. New Year's resolutions

7. Open the back door to let the old year out

8. Ring bells to celebrate the New Year

We must learn to trust the future…..
but for those who are curious about what the future has in store…
Augury for the 21st century (adapted by the fairytalechannel.org editorial staff)
Love augury to foretell one’s future true love during the course of the year:
Unmarried maids take four onions and place them in the corners of the room, assigning a young man’s name to each of the bulbs. Let the onions stand from Near Year’s Day until Three King’s Day (Jan. 6). Whichever onion sends out a green shoot, the person associated with that onion will become a suitor during the year; if no onion sprouts, no wedding will be celebrated during the year.
On New Year’s Eve, those persons who find themselves in a city at midnight, and who will make their way to a festive communal celebration (like fireworks at midnight), can follow this custom:
City dwellers buy a roll and divide it into three parts. As they walk down the first street, they eat the first part of the roll. In the second street they eat the second part of the roll. In the third street they eat the third part and there they shall meet their future true love.

Weather augury to foresee the New Year’s weather patterns.
The weather on December 31st forecasts the trend for the entire month of January and so on, see table below:
December 31st : Weather for month of January
January 1st : Weather for month of February
January 2nd : Weather for month of March
January 3rd : Weather for month of April
January 4th : Weather for month of May
January 5th : Weather for month of June
January 6th : Weather for month of July
January 7th : Weather for month of August
January 8th :Weather for month of September
January 9th :Weather for month of October
January 10th : Weather for month of November
January 11th : Weather for month of December

Example: If the weather on December 31st is mild most of the day but a winter storm hits an hour before midnight: expect a January with wildly fluctuating weather, but the predominate theme for January weather is mild with surges of excess.

Coin toss to predict a year of failure or success.
(If you don’t like the first outcome, you can always take the average of several tosses).
Bread under the pillow to predict one’s future true love.
Buy a perfectly shaped roll, carve out an emblem or face with a knife, place under pillow and sleep on it New Year’s Eve. In the morning, try to determine whose face the roll most closely resembles. (However, a perfectly smashed roll means there is little hope of marriage during the New Year.)

Customs to follow on January 1st and month of January:
Extend good wishes for the New Year to friends and family (a phone call, card, or personal greeting).
Make resolutions for the New Year, think about things you would like to change, self-improvement, goals, hopes or aspirations for the New Year. Think about your blessings and joys. Write all this down on a piece of paper and put it in a safe spot. (Read your list again Next New Year’s Eve.).

The custom of giving New Year’s gifts is outmoded but should be revived. This is a great time to give small tokens of appreciation, not fancy or expensive gifts. For example: a jar of home-made jam, honey from a local farmer, a loaf of freshly made bread, a small New Year’s wreath you have made yourself with fresh greens from the yard or a card you made especially for the person. If all this seems too involved, a simple E-mail message is also quite nice!

And if you dance on New Year's Eve, follow the example in the picture above only metaphorically, by severing yourself from those things that have frightened or sapped your energies in the past year, thus chopping off a head.




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