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The Ickabog

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112-529: The Ickabog is a fairy tale by J. K. Rowling . The story was published in installments by Rowling online, before its official publication in November 2020. The Ickabog is Rowling's first children's book since Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was published in 2007. Upon release the book received generally positive critical reviews and emerged a bestseller. The Ickabog is aimed at children between

224-506: A true crime podcast investigating an unsolved 1996 murder in West Cork, Ireland . In August 2018, it was reported that Nuzum was stepping down, and that Amazon had laid off most of the short-form content staff. This move came amid a shift in Audible's original content strategy, including a greater focus on "audiobook-first" deals with writers. The service's new strategy for original content

336-461: A Chinese Studio (published posthumously, 1766), which has been described by Yuken Fujita of Keio University as having "a reputation as the most outstanding short story collection." The fairy tale itself became popular among the précieuses of upper-class France (1690–1710), and among the tales told in that time were the ones of La Fontaine and the Contes of Charles Perrault (1697), who fixed

448-494: A Windows PC or Macintosh to download the files. Additionally, titles can be played on the PC (using iTunes or AudibleManager). Titles cannot be burned to CD with AudibleManager. According to Audible's website, they can be burned to CD using Apple's iTunes and some versions of Nero. (The DRM generally allows a title to be burned to CD once, although the resulting CDs can be played in any CD player and have no copy prevention.) Currently there

560-609: A fight between Daisy and her friend Bert Beamish, Major Beamish's son, when Daisy insults Fred. A shepherd from the Marshlands begs Fred to rid the country of the Ickabog, and Fred, wishing to prove himself, agrees and rides north. An accident in the marshes results in Beamish getting fatally shot by Flapoon, one of Fred's corrupt advisors. Seeking to take control of the kingdom and become richer, Spittleworth, Flapoon's ally, pretends that Beamish

672-492: A fixed form, and regardless of literary influence, the tellers constantly altered them for their own purposes. The work of the Brothers Grimm influenced other collectors, both inspiring them to collect tales and leading them to similarly believe, in a spirit of romantic nationalism , that the fairy tales of a country were particularly representative of it, to the neglect of cross-cultural influence. Among those influenced were

784-418: A folklore, Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index 300–749,—in a cataloguing system that made such a distinction—to gain a clear set of tales. His own analysis identified fairy tales by their plot elements, but that in itself has been criticized, as the analysis does not lend itself easily to tales that do not involve a quest , and furthermore, the same plot elements are found in non-fairy tale works. Were I asked, what

896-847: A literary variant of fairy tales such as Water and Salt and Cap O' Rushes . The tale itself resurfaced in Western literature in the 16th and 17th centuries, with The Facetious Nights of Straparola by Giovanni Francesco Straparola (Italy, 1550 and 1553), which contains many fairy tales in its inset tales, and the Neapolitan tales of Giambattista Basile (Naples, 1634–36), which are all fairy tales. Carlo Gozzi made use of many fairy tale motifs among his Commedia dell'Arte scenarios, including among them one based on The Love For Three Oranges (1761). Simultaneously, Pu Songling , in China, included many fairy tales in his collection, Strange Stories from

1008-427: A man-eating tiger with her own hand." In contemporary literature , many authors have used the form of fairy tales for various reasons, such as examining the human condition from the simple framework a fairytale provides. Some authors seek to recreate a sense of the fantastic in a contemporary discourse. Some writers use fairy tale forms for modern issues; this can include using the psychological dramas implicit in

1120-707: A mask on a human face, as in fables . In his essay " On Fairy-Stories ", J.   R.   R.   Tolkien agreed with the exclusion of "fairies" from the definition, defining fairy tales as stories about the adventures of men in Faërie , the land of fairies, fairytale princes and princesses, dwarves , elves, and not only other magical species but many other marvels. However, the same essay excludes tales that are often considered fairy tales, citing as an example The Monkey's Heart , which Andrew Lang included in The Lilac Fairy Book . Steven Swann Jones identified

1232-487: A monumental work called Le Cabinet des Fées , an enormous collection of stories from the 17th and 18th centuries. The first collectors to attempt to preserve not only the plot and characters of the tale, but also the style in which they were told, was the Brothers Grimm , collecting German fairy tales; ironically, this meant although their first edition (1812 & 1815) remains a treasure for folklorists, they rewrote

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1344-451: A picture book aimed at children in which a princess rescues a prince, Angela Carter 's The Bloody Chamber , which retells a number of fairy tales from a female point of view and Simon Hood's contemporary interpretation of various popular classics. There are also many contemporary erotic retellings of fairy tales, which explicitly draw upon the original spirit of the tales, and are specifically for adults. Modern retellings focus on exploring

1456-555: A satisfied Fred dies peacefully. Nobles: The Beamishes: The Dovetails: Side Characters: Audible released audiobook versions of The Ickabog in English, Italian, German, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Bulgarian, Dutch, Simplified Chinese and Russian in November 2020. The English language version was narrated by Stephen Fry . Jake Kerridge, for The Daily Telegraph , gave the book 3 out of 5 stars, saying "a fun but lightweight fairy tale that lacks Harry Potter's magic". Reviewing

1568-558: A technique developed by evolutionary biologists to trace the relatedness of living and fossil species . Among the tales analysed were Jack and the Beanstalk , traced to the time of splitting of Eastern and Western Indo-European, over 5000 years ago. Both Beauty and the Beast and Rumpelstiltskin appear to have been created some 4000 years ago. The story of The Smith and the Devil ( Deal with

1680-426: A time ", this tells us that a fairy tale or a märchen was originally a little story from a long time ago when the world was still magic. (Indeed, one less regular German opening is "In the old times when wishing was still effective".) The French writers and adaptors of the conte de fées genre often included fairies in their stories; the genre name became "fairy tale" in English translation and "gradually eclipsed

1792-490: A version intended for children. The moralizing strain in the Victorian era altered the classical tales to teach lessons, as when George Cruikshank rewrote Cinderella in 1854 to contain temperance themes. His acquaintance Charles Dickens protested, "In an utilitarian age, of all other times, it is a matter of grave importance that fairy tales should be respected." Psychoanalysts such as Bruno Bettelheim , who regarded

1904-539: A world where all the fairy tales take place, and the characters are aware of their role in the story, such as in the film series Shrek . Other authors may have specific motives, such as multicultural or feminist reevaluations of predominantly Eurocentric masculine-dominated fairy tales, implying critique of older narratives. The figure of the damsel in distress has been particularly attacked by many feminist critics. Examples of narrative reversal rejecting this figure include The Paperbag Princess by Robert Munsch ,

2016-405: Is a fairytale? I should reply, Read Undine : that is a fairytale   ... of all fairytales I know, I think Undine the most beautiful. As Stith Thompson points out, talking animals and the presence of magic seem to be more common to the fairy tale than fairies themselves. However, the mere presence of animals that talk does not make a tale a fairy tale, especially when the animal is clearly

2128-540: Is a tale of adventure, courage, and the power of unity in the face of adversity. The people of Cornucopia must come together to overcome the challenges they face and protect their kingdom from the threat of the Ickabog. On the eve of a visit from the king of a neighboring country, Dora Dovetail dies of overwork while trying to finish King Fred's latest costume. Fred, despite feeling embarrassed and guilty, declines to visit her family, leading them to become disillusioned with him, especially Dora's daughter, Daisy. This leads to

2240-471: Is able to offer DRM-free titles for content providers who wish to do so. FFmpeg 2.8.1+ is capable of playing Audible's .aa and .aax file formats natively. Audible operates the Audiobook Creation Exchange , which enables individual authors or publishers to work with professional actors and producers to create audiobooks, which are then distributed to Amazon and iTunes . Currently, the service

2352-498: Is an American online audiobook and podcast service that allows users to purchase and stream audiobooks and other forms of spoken word content. This content can be purchased individually or under a subscription model where the user receives "credits" that can be redeemed for content monthly and receive access to a curated on-demand library of content. Audible is the United States' largest audiobook producer and retailer. The service

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2464-451: Is best known today. The Brothers Grimm titled their collection Children's and Household Tales and rewrote their tales after complaints that they were not suitable for children. In the modern era, fairy tales were altered so that they could be read to children. The Brothers Grimm concentrated mostly on sexual references; Rapunzel , in the first edition, revealed the prince's visits by asking why her clothing had grown tight, thus letting

2576-406: Is in its essence only one aspect of the collective unconscious as well as always representing also the whole collective unconscious. Other famous people commented on the importance of fairy tales, especially for children. For example, G. K. Chesterton argued that "Fairy tales, then, are not responsible for producing in children fear, or any of the shapes of fear; fairy tales do not give the child

2688-409: Is its own best explanation; that is, its meaning is contained in the totality of its motifs connected by the thread of the story. [...] Every fairy tale is a relatively closed system compounding one essential psychological meaning which is expressed in a series of symbolical pictures and events and is discoverable in these". "I have come to the conclusion that all fairy tales endeavour to describe one and

2800-451: Is no support for Linux , although AudibleManager is known to work through Wine (though this is not officially supported by Audible). Prospective buyers of media players can check the audible.com "Device Center" to verify whether the device will play .aa files, as well as play them at the desired level of audio fidelity. Audible players are available on Apple iPhones, iPods, Android, and Windows Phone devices. The Audible App allows for

2912-406: Is one of the few remaining in place. Many Audible listings displayed to non-U.S. customers are geo-blocked . According to Audible, this is because the publisher who has provided the title does not have the rights to distribute the file in a given region. Logged in are unable to see titles that are unavailable for purchase. There were hopes that Amazon, after its purchase of Audible, would remove

3024-611: Is owned by Audible, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc. , headquartered in Newark, New Jersey . The company's first product was an eponymous portable media player known as the Audible MobilePlayer; released in 1997, the device contained around four megabytes of on-board flash memory storage, which could hold up to two hours of audio. To use the player, consumers would download an audiobook from Audible website. On March 11, 1999, Microsoft invested $ 11 million into

3136-525: Is ruled by King Fred the Fearless. However, the peace of the kingdom is threatened by the existence of a terrifying monster known as the Ickabog. This creature is said to inhabit the treacherous marshes of the North and is believed to prey on unsuspecting sheep and people who venture into its territory. The Ickabog's legend is used to scare children into obedience and explain the disappearance of those who dare to explore

3248-608: Is that the fairy tale has ancient roots, older than the Arabian Nights collection of magical tales (compiled circa 1500 AD), such as Vikram and the Vampire , and Bel and the Dragon . Besides such collections and individual tales, in China Taoist philosophers such as Liezi and Zhuangzi recounted fairy tales in their philosophical works. In the broader definition of the genre,

3360-593: The ACELP speech codec, but includes unauthorized-playback prevention by means of an Audible username and password, which can be used on up to four computers and three smartphones at a time. Licenses are available for schools and libraries. Audible's content can only be played on selected mobile devices. Its software does enable users to burn a limited number of CDs for unrestricted playback, resulting in CDs that can be copied or converted to unrestricted digital audio formats. Because of

3472-465: The Bronze Age . Fairy tales, and works derived from fairy tales, are still written today. The Jatakas are probably the oldest collection of such tales in literature, and the greater part of the rest are demonstrably more than a thousand years old. It is certain that much (perhaps one-fifth) of the popular literature of modern Europe is derived from those portions of this large bulk which came west with

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3584-555: The Crusades through the medium of Arabs and Jews. Folklorists have classified fairy tales in various ways. The Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index and the morphological analysis of Vladimir Propp are among the most notable. Other folklorists have interpreted the tales' significance, but no school has been definitively established for the meaning of the tales. Some folklorists prefer to use the German term Märchen or "wonder tale" to refer to

3696-513: The European Union . Two years later, the service released "Audible Air", which allowed users to download audiobooks directly to PDAs and smartphones . Its content would update automatically, downloading chapters as required that would then delete themselves after they had been listened to. In 2006, the company released its A-List collection, which had famous works read by Anne Hathaway and Annette Bening . In 2007, CEO Donald Katz moved

3808-454: The Harry Potter series, but stopped after focusing on adult fiction instead. She left her script of The Ickabog in her attic until 2020. Rowling says that she went to her 50th birthday party wearing a dress containing the "lost manuscript" of The Ickabog . Rowling has made some adjustments to her original manuscript after feedback from her children. Rowling announced that she would release

3920-463: The Renaissance , such as Giovanni Francesco Straparola and Giambattista Basile , and stabilized through the works of later collectors such as Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm . In this evolution, the name was coined when the précieuses took up writing literary stories; Madame d'Aulnoy invented the term Conte de fée , or fairy tale, in the late 17th century. Before the definition of

4032-409: The "purest and simplest expression of collective unconscious psychic processes" and "they represent the archetypes in their simplest, barest and most concise form" because they are less overlaid with conscious material than myths and legends. "In this pure form, the archetypal images afford us the best clues to the understanding of the processes going on in the collective psyche". "The fairy tale itself

4144-470: The 17th century, a passion for the conversational parlour game based on the plots of old folk tales swept through the salons. Each salonnière was called upon to retell an old tale or rework an old theme, spinning clever new stories that not only showcased verbal agility and imagination but also slyly commented on the conditions of aristocratic life. Great emphasis was placed on a mode of delivery that seemed natural and spontaneous. The decorative language of

4256-466: The 19th century: that the folk tradition preserved fairy tales in forms from pre-history except when "contaminated" by such literary forms, leading people to tell inauthentic tales. The rural, illiterate, and uneducated peasants, if suitably isolated, were the folk and would tell pure folk tales. Sometimes they regarded fairy tales as a form of fossil, the remnants of a once-perfect tale. However, further research has concluded that fairy tales never had

4368-761: The Affair was named Audiobook of the Year at the Audie Awards in 2013. The service began offering its narration workshops at acting schools, including Juilliard and Tisch School of the Arts ; in 2013, Audible's CEO speculated that the company was the largest single employer of actors in the New York area. In September 2012, Audible introduced a feature known as "Whispersync for Voice", which allows users to continue audiobooks from where they left off reading them on Amazon Kindle . In 2016,

4480-533: The CD issue, Audible's use of digital rights management on its .aa format has earned it criticism. While multiple software products are capable of removing the Audible DRM protection by re-encoding in other formats, Audible has been quick to threaten the software makers with lawsuits for discussing or promoting this ability, as happened with River Past Corp and GoldWave Inc. Responses have varied, with River Past removing

4592-516: The DRM from its audiobook selection, in keeping with the current trend in the industry. Nevertheless, Audible's products continue to have DRM, similar to the policy of DRM-protecting their Kindle e-books, which have DRM that allows for a finite, yet undisclosed number of downloads at the discretion of the publisher, however Audible titles that are DRM free can be copied to the Kindle and made functional. Audible

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4704-625: The Devil ) appears to date from the Bronze Age , some 6000 years ago. Various other studies converge to suggest that some fairy tales, for example the swan maiden , could go back to the Upper Palaeolithic. Originally, adults were the audience of a fairy tale just as often as children. Literary fairy tales appeared in works intended for adults, but in the 19th and 20th centuries the fairy tale became associated with children's literature. The précieuses , including Madame d'Aulnoy , intended their works for adults, but regarded their source as

4816-507: The Grimms' tale appears to be the only independent German variant. Similarly, the close agreement between the opening of the Grimms' version of Little Red Riding Hood and Perrault's tale points to an influence, although the Grimms' version adds a different ending (perhaps derived from The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids ). Fairy tales tend to take on the color of their location, through

4928-412: The Ickabog not to eat them, but to reveal itself to the people and befriend them. The group goes to Jeroboam, with the Ickabog handing out flowers. The citizens rally around the Ickabog, and they march on Chouxville. Basher John is alerted to the march and rides to warn Spittleworth, who refuses to believe him and has him arrested. Spittleworth prepares to investigate with Flapoon, but they are confronted by

5040-793: The Platinum pricing and credits grandfathered for existing subscribers), and introduced a new $ 7.95 subscription tier known as "Audible Plus." Both tiers include access to a curated on-demand library of audiobooks, podcasts, and other original productions, while the Audible Plus tier does not include credits. Once a customer has purchased a title, it remains in that person's library and can be downloaded or streamed at any time. As of April 1, 2019, credits expire one year after issue, and credits prior to this day expire after two years. In May 2015, Audible hired Eric Nuzum, formerly VP of programming at NPR , as its SVP of original content development. In 2016,

5152-679: The Russian Alexander Afanasyev (first published in 1866), the Norwegians Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe (first published in 1845), the Romanian Petre Ispirescu (first published in 1874), the English Joseph Jacobs (first published in 1890), and Jeremiah Curtin , an American who collected Irish tales (first published in 1890). Ethnographers collected fairy tales throughout

5264-526: The United Kingdom, though the numbers did not include lockdown sales. Fairy tale A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale , fairy story , household tale , magic tale , or wonder tale ) is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre . Such stories typically feature magic , enchantments , and mythical or fanciful beings. In most cultures, there is no clear line separating myth from folk or fairy tale; all these together form

5376-465: The ages of seven and nine. It is the first children's book written by J. K. Rowling that is not set in the Harry Potter universe , and at its announcement, Rowling confirmed that The Ickabog would not be a Harry Potter spin-off . Rowling has described the book as a "political fairytale   ... for slightly younger children". Rowling first drafted The Ickabog between 2003 and 2007, as a gift for her children. She intended to publish The Ickabog after

5488-421: The book online in 3 free online daily installments between 26 May and 10 July 2020. Rowling said, "I’ve decided to publish The Ickabog for free online, so children on lockdown, or even those back at school during these strange, unsettling times, can read it or have it read to them." The first two chapters were released on 26 May 2020. Later, chapters three to five were published on 27 May 2020. The final chapter, 6,

5600-609: The brutal Ma Grunter's orphanage, where she befriends Martha, a Marshlander. Years pass, with the tax doubling. Bert and his mother Bertha, the king's head pastry chef, guess Spittleworth's plot after Bert discovers an Ickabog foot made by the now insane Dan. Bertha attempts to reveal the plot to Fred but is imprisoned in the dungeons. Bert escapes the city as Major Roach leads soldiers to arrest him. Bert later meets Roderick Roach, Major Roach's son, who tells him that Spittleworth killed his father and imprisoned his family. The two are captured by Basher John, Ma Grunter's henchman, and taken to

5712-507: The capability from their software, and GoldWave retaining the capability, but censoring discussions about the ability in its support forums. But there are still many other software tools from non-US countries which easily bypass the DRM control of Audible by various methods, including sound recording, virtual CD burning, and even using a media plugin library once provided by Audible themselves. After Apple's abandonment of most DRM measures, Amazon's downloads ceasing to use it, Audible's DRM system

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5824-405: The children's window of tolerance". These fairy tales teach children how to deal with certain social situations and helps them to find their place in society. Fairy tales teach children other important lessons too. For example, Tsitsani et al. carried out a study on children to determine the benefits of fairy tales. Parents of the children who took part in the study found that fairy tales, especially

5936-435: The choice of motifs, the style in which they are told, and the depiction of character and local color. The Brothers Grimm believed that European fairy tales derived from the cultural history shared by all Indo-European peoples and were therefore ancient, far older than written records. This view is supported by research by the anthropologist Jamie Tehrani and the folklorist Sara Graca Da Silva using phylogenetic analysis ,

6048-399: The color in them, triggered their child's imagination as they read them. Jungian Analyst and fairy tale scholar Marie Louise Von Franz interprets fairy tales based on Jung's view of fairy tales as a spontaneous and naive product of soul, which can only express what soul is. That means, she looks at fairy tales as images of different phases of experiencing the reality of the soul. They are

6160-452: The common elements in fairy tales found spread over continents. One is that a single point of origin generated any given tale, which then spread over the centuries; the other is that such fairy tales stem from common human experience and therefore can appear separately in many different origins. Fairy tales with very similar plots, characters, and motifs are found spread across many different cultures. Many researchers hold this to be caused by

6272-544: The company announced that it would open a new facility in Newark, New Jersey, the "Innovation Cathedral", in a former Second Presbyterian Church, last used in 1995. In July 2019, a new feature was announced called Audible Captions, in which machine-generated text would be displayed alongside the audio narration. The company was sued by the Association of American Publishers shortly thereafter for copyright violation . The lawsuit

6384-442: The company headquarters with 125 employees from suburban Wayne, New Jersey to Newark. The new headquarters was a high-rise building on One Washington Park. On January 31, 2008, Amazon announced they would purchase Audible for about $ 300 million. In April of that year, Audible began producing exclusive science fiction and fantasy audiobooks under its "Audible Frontiers" imprint. At launch, 25 titles were released. In May 2011,

6496-478: The company. On October 24, 1999, Audible suffered a setback when its CEO, Andrew J. Huffman, died. Development proceeded, however, leading to Audible licensing the ACELP codec for its downloads in 2000, and Amazon bought a 5 percent stake in the then-publicly traded company the same year. In 2003, Audible reached an agreement with Apple to be the exclusive provider of audiobooks for iTunes Music Store . This agreement ended in 2017 due to antitrust rulings in

6608-418: The conversations consisted of literature, mores, taste, and etiquette, whereby the speakers all endeavoured to portray ideal situations in the most effective oratorical style that would gradually have a major effect on literary forms." Many 18th-century folklorists attempted to recover the "pure" folktale, uncontaminated by literary versions. Yet while oral fairy tales likely existed for thousands of years before

6720-503: The cruelty of older fairy tales as indicative of psychological conflicts, strongly criticized this expurgation, because it weakened their usefulness to both children and adults as ways of symbolically resolving issues. Fairy tales do teach children how to deal with difficult times. To quote Rebecca Walters (2017, p. 56) "Fairytales and folktales are part of the cultural conserve that can be used to address children's fears   …. and give them some role training in an approach that honors

6832-461: The distinction is commonly made, even within the works of a single author: George MacDonald's Lilith and Phantastes are regarded as fantasies, while his " The Light Princess ", " The Golden Key ", and "The Wise Woman" are commonly called fairy tales. The most notable distinction is that fairytale fantasies, like other fantasies, make use of novelistic writing conventions of prose, characterization, or setting. Audible (service) Audible

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6944-450: The downloading and playing of audio books purchased via Audible.com and allows the user to store multiple titles for play on mobile devices using the AA file format developed by Audible. The following qualities have been available from Audible. Currently, only the "Format 4" and "Enhanced" formats are available for download. Audible's .aa file format encapsulates sound encoded in either MP3 or

7056-408: The economy and concision of the tales. Originally, stories that would contemporarily be considered fairy tales were not marked out as a separate genre. The German term " Märchen " stems from the old German word " Mär ", which means news or tale. The word " Märchen " is the diminutive of the word " Mär ", therefore it means a "little story". Together with the common beginning " once upon

7168-433: The fairy tale Momotarō . Jack Zipes has spent many years working to make the older traditional stories accessible to modern readers and their children. Many fairy tales feature an absentee mother, as an example " Beauty and the Beast ", " The Little Mermaid ", " Little Red Riding Hood " and " Donkeyskin ", where the mother is deceased or absent and unable to help the heroines. Mothers are depicted as absent or wicked in

7280-403: The fairy tale is a distinct genre within the larger category of folktale, the definition that marks a work as a fairy tale is a source of considerable dispute. The term itself comes from the translation of Madame D'Aulnoy's Conte de fées , first used in her collection in 1697. Common parlance conflates fairy tales with beast fables and other folktales, and scholars differ on the degree to which

7392-655: The fairy tales served an important function: disguising the rebellious subtext of the stories and sliding them past the court censors. Critiques of court life (and even of the king) were embedded in extravagant tales and in dark, sharply dystopian ones. Not surprisingly, the tales by women often featured young (but clever) aristocratic girls whose lives were controlled by the arbitrary whims of fathers, kings, and elderly wicked fairies, as well as tales in which groups of wise fairies (i.e., intelligent, independent women) stepped in and put all to rights. The salon tales as they were originally written and published have been preserved in

7504-439: The first chapters following their original online release, Kelly Apter of The Scotsman reviewed it positively, praising Rowling's "lush descriptions" and "tantalising cliffhangers". Writing for The Times , Alex O'Connell also rated the novel positively, saying "cake and a monster is the escapism we all need", and rated it 5 out of 5 stars. According to Nielsen BookScan, The Ickabog had sold 90,023 copies as of April 2021 in

7616-752: The first famous Western fairy tales are those of Aesop (6th century BC) in ancient Greece . Scholarship points out that Medieval literature contains early versions or predecessors of later known tales and motifs, such as the grateful dead , The Bird Lover or the quest for the lost wife. Recognizable folktales have also been reworked as the plot of folk literature and oral epics. Jack Zipes writes in When Dreams Came True , "There are fairy tale elements in Chaucer 's The Canterbury Tales , Edmund Spenser 's The Faerie Queene , and in many of William Shakespeare plays." King Lear can be considered

7728-503: The forms of Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella . Although Straparola's, Basile's and Perrault's collections contain the oldest known forms of various fairy tales, on the stylistic evidence, all the writers rewrote the tales for literary effect. In the mid-17th century, a vogue for magical tales emerged among the intellectuals who frequented the salons of Paris. These salons were regular gatherings hosted by prominent aristocratic women, where women and men could gather together to discuss

7840-460: The genre of fantasy, many works that would now be classified as fantasy were termed "fairy tales", including Tolkien's The Hobbit , George Orwell 's Animal Farm , and L. Frank Baum 's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz . Indeed, Tolkien's "On Fairy-Stories" includes discussions of world-building and is considered a vital part of fantasy criticism. Although fantasy, particularly the subgenre of fairytale fantasy , draws heavily on fairy tale motifs,

7952-819: The genre rather than fairy tale , a practice given weight by the definition of Thompson in his 1977 [1946] edition of The Folktale : "...a tale of some length involving a succession of motifs or episodes. It moves in an unreal world without definite locality or definite creatures and is filled with the marvellous. In this never-never land, humble heroes kill adversaries, succeed to kingdoms and marry princesses." The characters and motifs of fairy tales are simple and archetypal: princesses and goose-girls ; youngest sons and gallant princes ; ogres , giants , dragons , and trolls ; wicked stepmothers and false heroes ; fairy godmothers and other magical helpers , often talking horses, or foxes, or birds ; glass mountains; and prohibitions and breaking of prohibitions. Although

8064-479: The genres are now regarded as distinct. The fairy tale, told orally, is a sub-class of the folktale . Many writers have written in the form of the fairy tale. These are the literary fairy tales, or Kunstmärchen . The oldest forms, from Panchatantra to the Pentamerone , show considerable reworking from the oral form. The Grimm brothers were among the first to try to preserve the features of oral tales. Yet

8176-628: The history of their development is necessarily obscure and blurred. Fairy tales appear, now and again, in written literature throughout literate cultures, as in The Golden Ass , which includes Cupid and Psyche ( Roman , 100–200 AD), or the Panchatantra ( India 3rd century BC), but it is unknown to what extent these reflect the actual folk tales even of their own time. The stylistic evidence indicates that these, and many later collections, reworked folk tales into literary forms. What they do show

8288-500: The idea of the evil or the ugly; that is in the child already, because it is in the world already. Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon." Albert Einstein once showed how important he believed fairy tales were for children's intelligence in

8400-404: The issues of the day. In the 1630s, aristocratic women began to gather in their own living rooms, salons, to discuss the topics of their choice: arts and letters, politics, and social matters of immediate concern to the women of their class: marriage, love, financial and physical independence, and access to education. This was a time when women were barred from receiving a formal education. Some of

8512-521: The literary forms, there is no pure folktale, and each literary fairy tale draws on folk traditions, if only in parody. This makes it impossible to trace forms of transmission of a fairy tale. Oral story-tellers have been known to read literary fairy tales to increase their own stock of stories and treatments. The oral tradition of the fairy tale came long before the written page. Tales were told or enacted dramatically, rather than written down, and handed down from generation to generation. Because of this,

8624-523: The literature of preliterate societies. Fairy tales may be distinguished from other folk narratives such as legends (which generally involve belief in the veracity of the events described) and explicit moral tales, including beast fables . Prevalent elements include dragons , dwarfs , elves , fairies , giants , gnomes , goblins , griffins , merfolk , monsters , monarchy , pixies , talking animals , trolls , unicorns , witches , wizards , magic , and enchantments . In less technical contexts,

8736-453: The marshes. Cornucopia is a land divided into two regions, with the South being a prosperous area that boasts several cities specializing in different types of food. Chouxville is famous for its delectable pastries, while Kurdsburg is renowned for its mouth-watering cheeses. Baronstown specializes in succulent meats, and Jeroboam is celebrated for its fine wine. Each city has its unique cuisine, and

8848-453: The more general term folk tale that covered a wide variety of oral tales". Jack Zipes also attributes this shift to changing sociopolitical conditions in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that led to the trivialization of these stories by the upper classes. Roots of the genre come from different oral stories passed down in European cultures. The genre was first marked out by writers of

8960-405: The most gifted women writers of the period came out of these early salons (such as Madeleine de Scudéry and Madame de Lafayette ), which encouraged women's independence and pushed against the gender barriers that defined their lives. The salonnières argued particularly for love and intellectual compatibility between the sexes, opposing the system of arranged marriages. Sometime in the middle of

9072-492: The most popular contemporary versions of tales like " Rapunzel ", " Snow White ", " Cinderella " and " Hansel and Gretel ", however, some lesser known tales or variants such as those found in volumes edited by Angela Carter and Jane Yolen depict mothers in a more positive light. Carter's protagonist in The Bloody Chamber is an impoverished piano student married to a Marquis who was much older than herself to "banish

9184-501: The narrative is perceived both by teller and hearers as being grounded in historical truth. However, unlike legends and epics , fairy tales usually do not contain more than superficial references to religion and to actual places, people, and events; they take place " once upon a time " rather than in actual times. Fairy tales occur both in oral and in literary form ( literary fairy tale ); the name "fairy tale" (" conte de fées " in French)

9296-482: The orphanage, where Bert reunites with Daisy and meets Martha. Meanwhile, Bertha transforms the dungeon into a kitchen with the help of the prisoners, while helping Dan regain his sanity. The children escape the orphanage and hike to the Marshlands. They plan to sway the soldiers of the Ickabog Defense Brigade but realize that it has gone south for the winter. Succumbing to the cold, they fall unconscious, and

9408-422: The people of Cornucopia take great pride in their culinary creations. In contrast, the Marshlands are a less wealthy area located in the North of Cornucopia. The Marshlands are a desolate and dangerous place where the Ickabog is said to roam free. The people who live there are often forgotten by the rulers of the kingdom, and they struggle to survive in a harsh and unforgiving environment. The story of "The Ickabog"

9520-525: The presence of fairies and/or similarly mythical beings (e.g., elves , goblins , trolls , giants, huge monsters, or mermaids) should be taken as a differentiator. Vladimir Propp , in his Morphology of the Folktale , criticized the common distinction between "fairy tales" and "animal tales" on the grounds that many tales contained both fantastic elements and animals. Nevertheless, to select works for his analysis, Propp used all Russian folktales classified as

9632-435: The presence of magic as the feature by which fairy tales can be distinguished from other sorts of folktales. Davidson and Chaudri identify "transformation" as the key feature of the genre. From a psychological point of view, Jean Chiriac argued for the necessity of the fantastic in these narratives. In terms of aesthetic values, Italo Calvino cited the fairy tale as a prime example of "quickness" in literature, because of

9744-507: The prisoners, who have armed themselves and escaped the dungeons. They escape, leaving Fred to face the angry mob. As the Ickabog approaches Chouxville, Spittleworth confronts it with the Brigade. The Ickabog's belly splits in the confrontation as the Bornding begins, and Flapoon attempts to shoot it. The first Ickaboggle to be bonded devours Flapoon, due to being Bornded in fear of his gun. However,

9856-456: The quote "If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairytales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairytales." The adaptation of fairy tales for children continues. Walt Disney 's influential Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was largely (although certainly not solely) intended for the children's market. The anime Magical Princess Minky Momo draws on

9968-427: The real Ickabog carries them to its cave. They speak to it, and the Ickabog reveals that from it a batch of Ickabogs will be "Bornded". As the feelings experienced by the dying parent Ickabog influence its newborn brood, the Ickabog plans to eat the four during the Bornding, so that its children will become man-eaters, to take revenge on the humans, who have caused the near-extinction of the Ickabog race. Daisy persuades

10080-491: The same psychic fact, but a fact so complex and far-reaching and so difficult for us to realize in all its different aspects that hundreds of tales and thousands of repetitions with a musician's variation are needed until this unknown fact is delivered into consciousness; and even then the theme is not exhausted. This unknown fact is what Jung calls the Self, which is the psychic reality of the collective unconscious. [...] Every archetype

10192-429: The second Ickaboggle is Bornded kind since Daisy comforts the dying Ickabog. As Spittleworth attempts to escape, he is captured by Bert and Roderick. Spittleworth and several others, including Fred, are arrested for their crimes. Dan and Bertha marry, as do Roderick and Martha. To redeem himself, Fred helps the first-born Ickaboggle become more mellow by taking care of it. In its breeding, it spawns happy Ickaboggles, and

10304-435: The service introduced an on-demand service known as "Audible Channels", which features short-form audio programming from various outlets, including news and other original productions. Access is included as part of Audible's subscription, and also became available to Amazon Prime subscribers. Nuzum compared this strategy to original content created by HBO or Netflix , and stated that the service deliberately avoided use of

10416-754: The service launched Audiobook Creation Exchange (ACX), an online rights marketplace and production platform. The platform was so successful that in 2012, Audible reported it had received more titles from ACX than from its top three audio providers combined. In March 2012, Audible launched the A-List Collection, a series showcasing Hollywood stars including Claire Danes , Colin Firth , Anne Hathaway , Dustin Hoffman , Samuel L. Jackson , Diane Keaton , Nicole Kidman , and Kate Winslet performing great works of literature. Firth's performance of Graham Greene 's The End of

10528-445: The simpler riddle might argue greater antiquity. Folklorists of the "Finnish" (or historical-geographical) school attempted to place fairy tales to their origin, with inconclusive results. Sometimes influence, especially within a limited area and time, is clearer, as when considering the influence of Perrault's tales on those collected by the Brothers Grimm. Little Briar-Rose appears to stem from Perrault's The Sleeping Beauty , as

10640-431: The spectre of poverty". The story is a variant on Bluebeard , a tale about a wealthy man who murders numerous young women. Carter's protagonist, who is unnamed, describes her mother as "eagle-featured" and "indomitable". Her mother is depicted as a woman who is prepared for violence, instead of hiding from it or sacrificing herself to it. The protagonist recalls how her mother kept an "antique service revolver" and once "shot

10752-706: The spread of such tales, as people repeat tales they have heard in foreign lands, although the oral nature makes it impossible to trace the route except by inference. Folklorists have attempted to determine the origin by internal evidence, which can not always be clear; Joseph Jacobs , comparing the Scottish tale The Ridere of Riddles with the version collected by the Brothers Grimm, The Riddle , noted that in The Ridere of Riddles one hero ends up polygamously married, which might point to an ancient custom, but in The Riddle ,

10864-512: The stories printed under the Grimm name have been considerably reworked to fit the written form. Literary fairy tales and oral fairy tales freely exchanged plots, motifs, and elements with one another and with the tales of foreign lands. The literary fairy tale came into fashion during the 17th century, developed by aristocratic women as a parlour game. This, in turn, helped to maintain the oral tradition. According to Jack Zipes , "The subject matter of

10976-451: The story, as when Robin McKinley retold Donkeyskin as the novel Deerskin , with emphasis on the abusive treatment the father of the tale dealt to his daughter. Sometimes, especially in children's literature, fairy tales are retold with a twist simply for comic effect, such as The Stinky Cheese Man by Jon Scieszka and The ASBO Fairy Tales by Chris Pilbeam. A common comic motif is

11088-443: The tale through use of the erotic, explicit sexuality, dark and/or comic themes, female empowerment, fetish and BDSM , multicultural, and heterosexual characters. Cleis Press has released several fairy tale-themed erotic anthologies, including Fairy Tale Lust , Lustfully Ever After , and A Princess Bound . It may be hard to lay down the rule between fairy tales and fantasies that use fairy tale motifs, or even whole plots, but

11200-469: The tales in later editions to make them more acceptable, which ensured their sales and the later popularity of their work. Such literary forms did not merely draw from the folktale, but also influenced folktales in turn. The Brothers Grimm rejected several tales for their collection, though told orally to them by Germans, because the tales derived from Perrault, and they concluded they were thereby French and not German tales; an oral version of " Bluebeard "

11312-403: The tales that servants, or other women of lower class, would tell to children. Indeed, a novel of that time, depicting a countess's suitor offering to tell such a tale, has the countess exclaim that she loves fairy tales as if she were still a child. Among the late précieuses , Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont redacted a version of Beauty and the Beast for children, and it is her tale that

11424-452: The term is also used to describe something blessed with unusual happiness, as in "fairy-tale ending" (a happy ending ) or "fairy-tale romance ". Colloquially, the term "fairy tale" or "fairy story" can also mean any far-fetched story or tall tale ; it is used especially to describe any story that not only not true, but also could not possibly be true. Legends are perceived as real within their culture; fairy tales may merge into legends, where

11536-520: The tradition of literary fairy tales. Andersen's work sometimes drew on old folktales, but more often deployed fairytale motifs and plots in new tales. MacDonald incorporated fairytale motifs both in new literary fairy tales, such as The Light Princess , and in works of the genre that would become fantasy, as in The Princess and the Goblin or Lilith . Two theories of origins have attempted to explain

11648-417: The witch deduce that she was pregnant, but in subsequent editions carelessly revealed that it was easier to pull up the prince than the witch. On the other hand, in many respects, violence‍—‌particularly when punishing villains‍—‌was increased. Other, later, revisions cut out violence; J.   R.   R.   Tolkien noted that The Juniper Tree often had its cannibalistic stew cut out in

11760-499: The word " podcast " as to not alienate listeners unfamiliar with the concept. Among its original productions are Where Should We Begin? —a relationship podcast with Esther Perel , Sincerely, X' —a podcast featuring anonymous TED Talks , Ponzi Supernova —a chronicle of the Madoff investment scandal , The Butterfly Effect —a podcast series by Jon Ronson chronicling the impact of PornHub on internet pornography , and West Cork ,

11872-596: The world, finding similar tales in Africa, the Americas, and Australia; Andrew Lang was able to draw on not only the written tales of Europe and Asia, but those collected by ethnographers, to fill his "coloured" fairy books series . They also encouraged other collectors of fairy tales, as when Yei Theodora Ozaki created a collection, Japanese Fairy Tales (1908), after encouragement from Lang. Simultaneously, writers such as Hans Christian Andersen and George MacDonald continued

11984-854: Was announced in fall 2020 with the debut of a new lower-price tier providing access to "Audible Originals." The new tier, called Premium Plus, provided access at the time of introduction to 11,000 audio titles available only by subscription to Audible. These titles included earlier original material, plus new audio productions featuring such creators as Common , Jamie Lee Curtis , Kate Mara , Harvey Fierstein , Michael Caine and Jesse Eisenberg . More recent releases include Newark Mayor Ras Baraka 's memoir and two works by Brown Sugar screenwriter Michael Elliot . Audible audio files are compatible with hundreds of audio players, PDAs , mobile phones and streaming media devices. Devices that do not have AudibleAir capability (allowing users to download content from their library directly into their devices) require

12096-507: Was first ascribed to them by Madame d'Aulnoy in the late 17th century. Many of today's fairy tales have evolved from centuries-old stories that have appeared, with variations, in multiple cultures around the world. The history of the fairy tale is particularly difficult to trace because only the literary forms can survive. Still, according to researchers at universities in Durham and Lisbon , such stories may date back thousands of years, some to

12208-555: Was killed by the Ickabog. On their return, three soldiers and Herringbone, the Chief Advisor, object to the story. Herringbone is murdered and the three soldiers are imprisoned. A heavy tax is imposed to pay for an "Ickabog Defense Brigade", causing widespread poverty, which Fred is oblivious to. Spittleworth, now Chief Advisor, has the Dovetails kidnapped, with Dan Dovetail sent to prison, and forced to carve Ickabog feet. Daisy ends up in

12320-424: Was published on 10 July 2020. In the first 24 hours, The Ickabog website had more than 5 million views from 50 countries. The Ickabog was released as a published book, e-book and audiobook on 10 November 2020, and is no longer available for free reading online. Rowling has said that she will donate her royalties from the book to charity. The Ickabog is set in the mythical land of Cornucopia, which

12432-1258: Was settled in early 2020, with Audible agreeing not to implement the Captions feature without obtaining express permission. In November 2020, Audible modified its return and exchange policy in response to concerns by authors, who felt that customers were abusing the policy to listen to audiobooks without paying. Audible's content includes more than 200,000 audio programs from audiobook publishers, broadcasters, entertainers, magazine and newspaper publishers and business information providers. Content includes books of all genres, as well as radio shows (classic and current), speeches, interviews, stand-up comedy , and audio versions of periodicals such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal . The service offered two monthly subscription tiers, "Audible Gold" and "Audible Platinum", priced at US$ 14.95 and $ 22.95 respectively: Both services allow users to obtain credits which can be used to purchase audio books (one whole credit for Gold, and two whole credits on Platinum), while Platinum also included additional incentives such as exclusive discounts. On August 24, 2020, Audible replaced both plans with "Audible Premium Plus" (a renaming of Gold, though with

12544-414: Was thus rejected, and the tale of Little Briar Rose , clearly related to Perrault's " Sleeping Beauty ", was included only because Jacob Grimm convinced his brother that the figure of Brynhildr , from much earlier Norse mythology , proved that the sleeping princess was authentically Germanic folklore. This consideration of whether to keep Sleeping Beauty reflected a belief common among folklorists of

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