Kate Crackernuts facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Kate Crackernuts |
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Kate and the Fairy Baby
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| Folk tale | |
| Name | Kate Crackernuts |
| Also known as | Katie Crackernuts |
| Data | |
| Aarne-Thompson grouping | 306, 711 |
| Country | Scotland |
| Region | Orkney Islands |
| Published in | Longman's Magazine (1889) English Fairy Tales (1890) A Book of British Fairy Tales |
| Related | "The Twelve Dancing Princesses" |
"Kate Crackernuts" (or "Katie Crackernuts") is a Scottish fairy tale collected by Andrew Lang in the Orkney Islands and published in Longman's Magazine in 1889. Joseph Jacobs edited and republished the tale in his English Fairy Tales (1890). The tale is about a princess who rescues her beautiful sister from an evil enchantment and a prince from a wasting sickness caused by dancing nightly with the fairies. The tale has been adapted to a children's novel and a stage play.
Contents
Plot
A king had a daughter named Anne, and his queen had a daughter named Kate, who was less beautiful. (Jacobs' notes reveal that in the original story both girls were called Kate and that he had changed one's name to Anne.) The queen was jealous of Anne, but Kate loved her. The queen consulted with a henwife to ruin Anne's beauty, and after three tries, they enchanted Anne's head into a sheep's head. Kate wrapped Anne's head in a cloth, and they went out to seek their fortunes.
They found a castle where the king had two sons, one of whom was sickening, and whoever watched him by night vanished. Kate asked for shelter for herself and her "sick" sister, and offered to watch. At midnight, the sick prince rose and rode off. Kate sneaked onto his horse and collected nuts as they rode through the woods. A green hill where the fairies were dancing opened to receive the prince, and Kate rode in with him unnoticed. The second night is passed as the first but Kate found a fairy baby in the hill. It played with a wand, and she heard fairies say that three strokes of the wand would cure Anne. So she rolled nuts to distract the baby and get the wand, then cured her sister.
The third night, Kate said she would stay only if she could marry the prince, and that night, the baby played with a bird, three bites of which would cure the sick prince. She distracted the baby with the nuts again to get it. As soon as they returned to the castle, she cooked it, and the prince was cured by eating it. Meanwhile, his brother had seen Anne and fell in love with her, so they all married — the sick brother to the well sister, and the well brother to the sick sister.
Adaptations
Literature
- Katharine Mary Briggs adapted the story for her children's novel, Kate Crackernuts.
- Sheila Callaghan adapted the story for her play, Kate Crackernuts.
Music
- Juan María Solare composed a piece called Kate Crackernuts (the Dancing Fairy), original for solo piano but with several additional instrumental versions (such as clarinet and cello duo). In its version for music box, this piece is included in the album Music Box Music (2016), label Janus Music & Sound: Kate Crackernuts (the Dancing Fairy) on Spotify
- Hamilton, Mary. Kentucky Folktales: Revealing Stories, Truths, and Outright Lies. University Press of Kentucky. 2012. pp. 139–151.
