New Fairy Tales to Invoke the Spirit of Winter

Beyond the Wood, edited by Paula Guran
This recently published anthology collects 30 previously published fairy tales from legendary mythmakers like Neil Gaiman, Tanith Lee, Gene Wolfe, Catherynne M. Valente, Peter S. Beagle, Jane Yolen, Holly Black, and many more. To get into the winter spirit, look no further than “The Bone Mother” by Angela Slatter, a close retelling of Baba Yaga and Vasilissa the Beautiful that celebrates family and the bond between generations of women.
Another notable tale from this expertly curated anthology is “Travels with the Snow Queen,” a James Tiptree Jr. award-winning story by Kelly Link that reconsiders the fairy tale romance as a sub-genre and addresses the unfair burdens placed on women in these types of stories. My favorite line says it all: “Ladies. Has it ever occurred to you that fairy tales aren’t easy on the feet?” Shards of broken mirror serve as the map the protagonist must follow to find her wayward lover who has run off with the Snow Queen. Along the way, she encounters some familiar female protagonists who are also disgruntled by the rough way they’ve been treating by their male significant others, and her journey ends with a twist of female solidarity.
And finally, a winter tale of the weird and wonderful from Jeff VanderMeer. “Greensleeves” is a modern retelling of the Eastern European folk tale known by various names, such as The Frog Princess, Vasilisa the Wise, and Tsarevna Frog. In VanderMeer’s variant, a lonely librarian helps a jester find his giant magical frog (and no, that’s not a metaphor) after they’ve crashed into a snow bank near her library. And that doesn’t nearly come close to covering the beautiful wackiness of this story.

“Snow, Glass, Apples” by Neil Gaiman, appearing in anthology, Smoke and Mirrors
“Snow, Glass, Apples” was originally sold as a chapbook to benefit the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, and is now included in Gaiman’s anthology of shorts called Smoke and Mirrors. This is a chilling tale of Snow White as told from the point of view of the Stepmother, and nothing is what it seems. It’s a twisted tale of lust and frozen corpses and reasons to never go into the forest alone. Gaiman takes this familiar tale and in his signature style brings it to a very dark place.

The Bear and the Nightingale, by Katherine Arden
In medieval Russia, Vasilisa, the daughter of a great lord whose lands border a dark forest, can see the domovoi, or household spirits. And that’s not all—a blue-eyed winter demon and his one-eyed brother haunt her dreams, and her fiercely devout stepmother attempts to have Vasilisa banished to a convent or married off. But as the snow falls and Vasilisa grows up, so do her powers and her wildly independent nature. This is ultimately a story about love, family, sacrifice, and powerful women, and is the perfect read for a snowy day. Appropriately, it releases in January 2017, in the depths of winter.

The Starlit Wood, edited by Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe
This anthology contains multitudes of fantastic stories, as we recently discussed, but if you’re looking for another fabulous winter tale, Kat Howard’s retelling of the Snow Queen will provide a touch of the unexpected. “Reflected” is a science fictional version of the popular folktale that inspired Disney’s Frozen that discusses physics, reflections, sooky action at a distance, and pocket universes. The Snow Queen herself does make an appearance of sorts as young scientists experiment with mirror reflections and travel to alternate universes.

Uprooted, by Naomi Novik
Agnieszka, who takes her name from the Polish fairy tale about a girl called Agnieszka and her yellow cow, is expecting the Dragon to come down from his castle to take her best friend, Kasia, for payment. The Dragon keeps the village safe from the creepy things that lurk in the Wood in exchange for these sacrifices. But before you get upset about dragons eating girls, let me tell you: this Dragon is not what you’d expect. And we find out that neither is Agnieszka, when he takes her instead of the more beautiful Kasia. Although winter doesn’t play a huge role in the plot of this novel, I can’t help but feel like stories about dark magic and even darker woods are perfect for a night when you want to just crawl under a warm blanket with a cup of tea and read past midnight.

Deathless, by Catherynne M. Valente
There aren’t really enough words to describe this one. It’s a powerful and difficult book, and sometimes you might have to reread a passage a few times before you really get what’s going on. But it’s beyond worth it. Deathless is a retelling of the Russian folktale about Koschei, an immortal villain who steals the wives of heroes. In Valente’s version, Koschei the Deathless is the Czar of Life, and though he’s stolen Marya Morevna away, I don’t believe she goes unwillingly. She grows to love him and he loves her in return, inspiring one of the most beautiful and passionate passages in the novel:
“Oh, I will be cruel to you, Marya Morevna. It will stop your breath, how cruel I can be. But you understand, don’t you? You are clever enough. I am a demanding creature. I am selfish and cruel and extremely unreasonable. But I am your servant. When you starve I will feed you; when you are sick I will tend you. I crawl at your feet; for before your love, your kisses, I am debased. For you alone I will be weak.”
In Marya’s Russia, war is coming. Leningrad was under siege by the Nazis in the early 1940s, and thousands of people froze and starved to death. And while the real-life war raged on, so too does war rage in the realms of myth between the Czar of Life and his brother, the Czar of Death. We follow Marya through her near starvation in Leningrad and her dazzling and dizzying route through Koschei’s kingdom of plenty, and we learn of love, passion, betrayal, and death. Valente’s work always reads like poetry to me, and this might be her most ambitious work in that regard. This one will stay with you for a very long time, and is by far one of my favorite books.
What stories get you in the mood for winter?