This poem by Eugene Field inspired my next shoe in my fairytale shoe series. Read the poem or jump to the end to see the painting! Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night    Sailed off in a wooden shoe,— Sailed on a river of crystal light    Into a sea of dew. “Where are you going, and what do you wish?”    The old moon asked the three. “We have come to fish for the herring-fish    That live in this beautiful sea;    Nets of silver and gold have we,”             Said Wynken,      

Most people have heard the nursery rhyme about the old woman and the shoe. There was an old woman who lived in a shoe. She had so many children, she didn't know what to do. She gave them some broth without any bread; And whipped them all soundly and put them to bed. Being a child of abuse, I don't care for the whipping line, but beyond that I feel intrigued by this nursery rhyme and the potential stories within its simplicity. Who is this woman? Where is the father of these c

With so much to distract us or so many goals to pursue, it may get tricky to feel like one understands the point of this world. And when trouble strikes, when conflict bubbles over, one may feel totally helpless. I believe that every person matters -- that it is the most worthwhile goal in the whole wide world to lift up others and remind them that they matter. I have felt unseen. I have felt unloved. I have ached to be known and to feel like I matter to people. Truth... I st

I came across this tale in my research about fairytale shoes. The story is called The Magic Shoes and Staff. It begins with three nobel brothers living with their wives in luxury until a drought came. The brothers, in a fit of selfishness, ditched their wives to find a better place. They disregarded their wives and left. Once the brothers went away, one of the wives found out she was pregnant. The three women were delighted and raised him together -- the aunts doted on the ba

The story of Tom Thumb shares some details with Little Red Ridinghood. Tom’s family is very poor. There are seven children and two parents in a little home trying to survive on next to no income. Tom’s parents decide they can no longer support their children and determine to take them to the woods and leave them, so they won’t have to watch their children die. Tom hears his parents plotting. He grabs white stones from the garden. The next morning, when his parents feed them a

In Puss in Boots by Charles Perrault, three sons lose their father. There is only a little bit of inheritance. The oldest son receives the mill, the second son receives a donkey, and the third son receives the cat. The youngest son feels disappointed as his brothers have enough to work together to make a living. This son… has a cat. After hearing the boy’s plan to eat the cat for survival, the cat speaks up. The cat assures the boy that, if he gives him a pair of boots, the c

In The Galoshes of Fortune by Hans Christian Andersen, Dame Fortune’s assistant and Dame Care herself, leave a pair of magic galoshes in a pile of boots at a party. The boots can take the wearer to any time and any place. However, in each chapter of this tale, the person wearing the boots is taken somewhere they have romanticized only to find out it is not so wonderful after all. Thereby finding renewed contentment with their own life. If I had to pick a moral for this tale,

In the Grimm brothers’ fairy tales, there’s a story called The Juniper Tree. A small boy whose mother died gets a new step mother who (surprise) favors her own daughter. Eventually, the step mother kills the little boy (she chops his head off with the lid of a achest. Yikes!) and covers it up by tying a ribbon around his neck to hold his head on (who remembers the story of the girl with the green ribbon?!) until she can trick her daughter into believing SHE killed her brother