"And so they were all dead together"

I'm doing an online course on fantasy literature. That's right, I'm actually choosing to learn.

It looks to be a very interesting course, studying classics such as Stoker's Dracula or Carroll's Adventures in Wonderland  and Through the Looking Glass. Luckily I've read most of these already, but when I was young so I'll have a new perspective now. Hopefully a good enough one to write about, but we'll see.

The first book we're looking at is Grimm's Children's and Household Tales. I'm sure you'll have heard of those, but probably the happier ones. Some of them are much darker than others. For example: Death of a Hen.

We begin with a rooster and a hen having a spot of dinner. All happy... until the hen begins to choke. So the rooster runs off to find water, which he finds in a brook. However, the brook demands something in return. It wants some silk. Now, why a brook would possibly want/need silk for is beyond me, but no-one ever claimed these stories made perfect sense. At least, not in a literal way. So, the rooster runs off to find silk, which he finds in the possession of a bride, who requests that the rooster fetch her garland. Luckily this is where the chain of fetching ends (Those of us who remember classic Legend of Zelda may think he got off easy, but just wait). Garland gets silk, silk gets water, water is taken to... a dead hen. Unsurprisingly the hen didn't have enough air to last through all that madness. Rather upset now, the rooster decides to cart the hen away to bury her and an array of woodland critters emerge to help. The only trouble is that they need to cross a river. So they devise a cunning plan to make a bridge out of a piece of straw. Predictably this fails, and a handful of the helpful critters die. After, they use a helpful stone a a new bridge, but everyone slips and drowns. All but the rooster and the cart with the hen. By now you're probably thinking "Damn, this rooster's had a pretty crappy day. On top of losing his wife and feeling responsible for her death, he's pretty much caused the death of every friendly creature in the vicinity. There's got to be some sort of turnaround now"

Nope.

It quite simply ends that once the rooster finishes burying the hen, he sits down and dies of grief. The end.

No happy ending, no moral. Everyone just dies despite most of them trying to do the right thing and help the poor rooster. Rather..... well, grim I guess.


On an infinitely happier note, there will be a new Smash Bros. game!

Nintendo have said that it will be revealed at E3 with something better than screenshots!

“Wii U and 3DS versions — I would like to show you both. Other games have had visuals shown, but you still have to wait for Smash Bros. But we’ll be able to release something better.”

Very, very excited!