Break The Spine.

[BBP]

Was reading a fun Murakami novel about sheep but I misplaced my copy... :/

[BBP]

Found it! It's about a sheep with a star on its back.

[Tawmis]

Yay, Dragonlance! I remember playing quite a few DL adventures back in the day, plus some Ravenloft, Forgotten Realms, al-Qadim, Greyhawk and (eventually) a little Planescape. It was fun.

Unfortunately I had to stop playing D&D a while back. I hung up my dice and put my D&D books on the market, but I still have a few AD&D books kicking around, and I still read KODT and other RPGing mags from time to time. It is fun.

I was completely unaware - or somehow forgotten - that you played D&D?!?!

This is awesome!

If you're reading KODT, you should also read Order of the Stick (sometimes referenced as OotS). It starts really good - but later, it gets VERY wordy and begins to take itself a little too seriously.

[Rath Darkblade]

I've heard of OotS before, but haven't read it. Funny stuff. I've just got up to strip 72... "only" about 900 to go.

[Rath Darkblade]

Done catching up on OotS - 1,020 strips! Quite a fun ride. I'm glad I took Speed Reading as a feat.

[Tawmis]

Glad you liked it! It really is pretty fun!

And that Haley is hot - for a stick figure!

Well, till she cut her hair.

[Rath Darkblade]

Haley didn't cut her hair, it wassome psychotic character from the Thieves' Guild (Sapphire, IIRC?) who did it while Haley was unconscious, and gloated over it. ("Now who's prettier?!?") If memory serves, the same character later gets turned into a flesh golem with a grudge. ("KILL HALEY! KILL KILL KILL!!!")

Durkan's Face Heel when he becomes High Priest of Hel is a bit of a shocker. I wonder what happens next. *thinks*

[BBP]

Just got an amazing fairy tale book with illustrations by Anton Pieck - it's gorgeous! Unfortunately it's very used - it's fixed with tape and there are a couple of deceased insects on the pages...

[Rath Darkblade]

Wow. Pretty awesome illustration. I am jealous. What is the story behind that picture? Now I'm curious.

[BBP]

Once upon a time there was a poor man who had four sons, and when they were grown, he said to them: "Dear children, you now have to meet the world, and I have nothing I could give to you, so all of you travel, learn a trade and see how you go through life." The four brothers grabbed their walking sticks, said goodbye to their father and went through the gate. After a while they reaced crossroads to the four corners of the world, and the oldest said: "Here we have to split, but in four years we'll reunite at these crossroads and try our hand in the mean time."

The oldest met a man who asked him where he was going and why. "I'd like to learn a trade." "Come with me and become a thief," said the other. "No," he replied, "thievery isn't honest and at the end you become the bell-clapper of a certain bell that's out in the field."
"Oh,"said the man, "you don't have to worry about the gallows; I just want to teach you how to get something you couldn't otherwise get, and what nobody will ever find out." The brother gave in and became a skilled thief: nothing he wanted was safe from him.
The second brother also met somebody who asked him what he wanted to learn. "I don't know," he said. "Then become a star-gazer with me, there's no better trade, nothing will be hidden from you." The brother became such a skilled star-gazer that his master gave him a pair of binoculars and told him: "With this you can see everything that happens in the sky and on earth, nothing will be a secret to you."
The third brother became a hunter's apprentice. He grew so handy that his master gave him a gun and said: "This gun will never miss: whatever you shoot, you'll hit."
The fourth brother became a tailor, and when he was fully skilled, his master gave him a needle and said: "With this you can sew anything you want, whether it's as soft as an egg or as tough as steel, and it will become one, you could never tear it apart again."

After four years the brothers met again at the crossroads, greeted each other, and went home to their father. After filling him in on what happened, the father said: "I'll put you to the test now. In that tree there's a bird with a nest. How many eggs does she have?" The second son looked at it through his binocs and said: "I see her? She has five eggs."
The father told the oldest: "Now, you take out all five eggs without the mother bird noticing." The oldest climbed up and returned all five eggs without disturbing the mother.
Father then took the five eggs, put each at a corner of the table and one in the middle, and told the third son: "Now you shoot all these eggs in one shot!"
And somehow the third son manages.
"Now it's your turn," he told the youngest. "Sew all the eggs and the baby birds inside so the shot won't hurt them."
The youngest did exactly that. Then the oldest was told to return the eggs without mama bird noticing, and he again succeeded. After a few days the eggs hatched, and the baby birds that came out only had a couple of little red stitches.
The father praised his sons: "You have all spent your time well, and only time will tell if any of you is the best."

After a short time, news of a job reached the sons: the princess o their country had been stolen by a dragon. The king was sad day and night, and he promised his daughter's hand in marriage to the person who could bring her back. The brothers decided to free her together.
The second son grabbed his binocs and spotted the princess, far away on a rock in the sea, guarded by a dragon. They went to the king and asked him for a ship, which they got. The brothers sailed to the rock and found the princess, with the dragon asleep with his head on her lap. The thief stole her back so carefully that the dragon didn't even wake up.
They took her to the ship and sailed to open sea, but when the dragon woke up and found the princess had gone, he chased them. As he flew over the ship, the hunter fired a shot at him and killed him instantly.
The falling body had smashed the ship, but the tailor sewed all the parts back together again, and so they reached land.
The king said: "Only one of you can marry her, but you'll have to decide among yourselves who that will be."
Now the four argued. "If I hadn't seen her, none of you could've saved her!" said the star gazer. "I got her from under the dragon, she's mine!", said the oldest. "You would all have been ripped apart if I hadn't shot the dragon!" said the hunter. "And if I hadn't fixed the boat, you would all have drowned!" said the youngest.
The king said: "I can only give her to one of you, and since you each have as much right as the others, I won't marry her to any of you. But to reward you I will give you half a kingdom each."
The brothers agreed, thinking that was much better than fighting, and with their father they lived long and happily ever after.

[Rath Darkblade]

All right, straight away I can tell that's a story for children - but a fun story nevertheless. Thanks, BBP!

There are a few things there that won't work in the real world, but the most glaring (to me) is this... how do they get half the kingdom each, when there are four of them?

[BBP]

Yeah I had that problem!

A lot of Grimm's fairy tales I wouldn't give to children - they're folk tales, and although the Grimms would often soften (teehee) the stories they collected, there's still some harsh matter to be found in it. I was surprised to see a guide on the fairy tale themes in them.

Speaking of Grimm, skip to 39:27 :
(unless you're American, then you'll have to get a proxy...)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fjw9g_PRCXU

[Rath Darkblade]

Sigh. I tried the Youtube video, BBP, and got the following error message:

"This video contains content from Fremantle International, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds."

Bah. It seems that ever since Youtube was bought out by Google, it began to suck - so thank you, Google, spoilers of all things good.

*takes a deep breath* Sorry about that. I'm better now.

Anyway, speaking of fairy tales - I know that it's not Grimm, but I've always been rather partial to Andersen's "The Emperor's New Clothes". It's so deliciously cynical.

[BBP]

Ooh I love that! But my favourite is still Big Clause And Little Clause. I even translated it and put it on my homepage aeons ago. (1998)
You can check it out at http://bonny.ploeg.ws in the text zone.

[Rath Darkblade]

Hmm... I've just gone over the GK3 art, and quelle surprise - I recognise the Edward Burne-Jones ("When Adam delved and Eve span", etc.) This was a couplet used by a priest called John Ball during the English Peasant Uprising of 1381. The rebellion occurred in the aftermath of the first outbreak of the Black Death, in response to three factors:

1. The plague wiped out something close to a third of the population, meaning that the peasants could - in theory - offer their toil to the highest bidder, yet the noblemen wanted to keep the peasants tied to the land and not allow them to leave (as was the case during feudalism);

2. Compounding the peasants' misery, King Edward III had passed a law saying that wages were to be fixed at pre-plague levels; and

3. This was at the height of the Hundred Years' War, meaning that the peasants would be expected to keep paying taxes - and even more taxes now, to pay for the war.

No wonder the peasants were pissed off. The rebellion began in Kent, in England's southwest, and quickly spread to neighbouring shires and counties, and was initially about high taxes and low wages. It quickly became about abuses of privilege in general, and targeted unpopular noblemen and particularly those responsible for gathering taxes.

The couplet in question, then - "When Adam delved and Eve span" - was very relevant for the times. It asks the English society of the time: you expect us to follow religious rules and honour religion, yet what nobleman did Adam and Eve work for and pay taxes to? The answer, of course, is none - and the conclusion, therefore, is that the peasants should rise up against corrupt noblemen and return society to simpler times.

Anyway... sorry to go on and on like this. But I'm sure you know by now that I'm a history geek!