Hi there, Earthlings! Like everyone else I’m stuck at home in an attempt to avoid the Coronavirus. It’s like a science fiction horror film with abandoned streets and people hiding away from the “monster”.
One of my favorite books has to be Grimm’s Fairy Tales, and I especially like the darker stuff. A certain type borders on being true horror. The story is usually about a farmer or a shepherd who fashions a musical instrument from bone that sings a tune which identifies a murder victim and/or murderer.
In one version, simply known as “The Singing Bone,” the king of a mythical kingdom offers up his daughter’s hand to anyone who can kill a wild boar that is terrorizing the land. Two brothers set out to kill the boar, knowing that whoever gets to it first wins the princess’ hand. When one of the brothers kills the raging boar, the other becomes so jealous that he murders his sibling. Years later a young shepherd is trying to catch a lamb and wanders into the forest. He trips on a bone sticking out of a shallow grave. He takes the bone and fashions it into a flute, which, when played, sings about the young man’s murder. The shepherd takes the flute to the king, thus revealing his son-in-law as the killer, who is them executed, and the hand of the princess given to the shepherd as a reward.
Another version is the familiar tale of “The Juniper Tree.” This definitely is a fairy tale that is a horror story as well. In this case it involves the remains of a murdered child buried under a juniper tree. A small bird rises up out of the grave to sing of the murderer’s guilt. This gets back to the king, who has the murderer executed for his crime. Another variation is a jealous sister who murders her sibling, only to be revealed as guilty by the Singing Bone.
As a big fan of Tim Burton, I would love to see him direct a version of “Something Wicked this Way Comes.” Now I realize Disney did a version with Johnny Deep doing the voice of the carnival braker (who may also be the very devil himself), filmed in expressionistic black and white, splashed with red-orange. Think of the imaginative visuals that Tim Burton could come up with…
Ah, summertime on Mars-Happy, joyous revelry!