This morning I went to a puppet show with my niece and my sister. Wow. Hungarian fairy tales are just COOL, particularly when you literally translate them into English. Hungarian is a strange language anyway, but once you start realizing what it is you are actually saying and what this implies about the good ol’ days, it becomes very, very amusing.
There were approximately 140 screaming 2-5 year olds and maybe 20 moms and kindergarten teachers. I was the ONLY male over the age of 5. Now normally I enjoy these moments (okay, I enjoyed this one as well). Hungarian kids go to live shows and the theater from the moment they can crawl (sometimes they are taken even before then – some strange attraction to culture). This meant the kids began to act like an organized mob from the moment they set foot in the place. A rhythmic chant was started by some three year old theater junky: “Sta-art It Now, Sta-art It Now, Sta-art It Now”. The sound reverberated from the walls. I sat down in my chair and looked around with interest, to come face to face with the glowing eyes of some little hellspawn behind me. He looked upon my immense (for him – I am really rather slender and good looking) bulk with loathing. I was blocking his view, and if he had a knife, I would have been headless in, say, 2 seconds. I cowered and assumed a prone, nearly horizontal position, hoping this would appease him.
My niece loved sitting down, the other kids, the chanting, everything except the damn puppet show. The actual performance began with a horrifying, mutated white larva, claiming to be a witch, gloating over some recipe for some toxic magic steroid. The key ingredient of this potion was a Fairy Flower (this becomes important later) which as it so happens the witch does not have. My niece stared at this terrible creature, whimpered, assumed a fetal position, and buried her head in my sister’s shoulder for the remainder (meaning the entire duration) of the performance
The next puppet that surfaced was the Prince, a rather effeminate looking dude in a skirt. He told us he was looking for a wife.
Next, we got a shot of the Princess. She was this blonde cupcake, an obvious psychotwinky who is convinced that when her potted plant blooms she is in love. You guessed it: Fairy Flower! The Princess is accompanied by a filthy, suspicious looking crow.
The King is this huge guy with a beard and a deep voice, yet he looked and sounded decidedly weirded out by his insane daughter.
So the witch shows up and steals the precious, unique magic flower, left unguarded in a pot outside the castle gates. Is this even theft? I mean, there wasn’t even a tag on the pot, saying ‘Princess’s Fairy Flower’ or some such. Am I the only one who considered this issue? The filthy crow confronts the witch as she is hauling the pot, but she performs this mighty magic spell with her wand, which results in a tangled green rag wrapped around the crow’s beak. Anyway, the witch takes off, and the Princess goes ape. She throws a hissy fit and tells her father to forget marrying her off unless her damned flower is returned.
Enter Prince. He shows up, and tells the king he is looking for a wife. This is where the Hungarian becomes just too funny. I will include a running literal translation of the dialogue:
“I am looking for a wife. Your daughter is hot. Is she for sale?”
“Sort of. She won’t put out unless she gets her flower back from the evil witch. If you bring the plant back, I will give you her hand in marriage. If this ‘inducement’ is insufficient, I will throw in half my kingdom. Fuck – I will throw in the whole thing. Just take her off my hands, please.”
(except for the word Fuck the whole dialogue is real)
So the Prince and the filthy crow take off to reclaim the fairy flower. EVERYONE knows where the ugly witch’s mountain is. It’s a longass trip.
They walk by this tree with a fat yellow bird stuck in it. It’s screaming for help. The Prince, instead of (1) freeing it (2) or whacking it over the head with a rock and eating it, ASKS it why it’s stuck.
“I am stuck in treesap. Free me!”
“Okay.”
“Here. Take this feather. You can use it to summon me anywhere. I will come.”
This is where we find out that the filthy crow is allergic to feathers. It is allergic to the little bird, it is allergic to its own feathers. I believe this is a modern twist to this timeless classic and has no bearing on the tale whatsoever.
They get to this glade and camp for the night (the glade is represented by four heavy looking flat trees, two of them capable of rudimentary movement). The crow passes out. The Prince is just sitting around, when the trees begin to moan. Sinister, evil music starts up.
“I am… suf-foc-cat-ting…. Free us…. Free us…. The vines… The vines… The horrible vines…”
(Yes – the two semi-mobile trees have incredibly lifelike green plastic wrapped around them)
The Prince kills the poor innocent vines by ripping them off their hosts. The trees are totally into this and promise their help.
The next night they are accosted by this furry thing while they are eating dinner.
“Gimme food.”
The crow, a Machiavellian, refuses to share with the beggar. “We don’t have enough for two, much less three!”
The Prince, brainless git that he is (see: ‘looking for a wife’) offers the unidentifiable brown animal (with white spots) food. He justifies his generosity with the following brilliant logic: “If there is enough for two, there is enough for three.”
The crow is not liking this at all. At this point, I share his pain. There is a limited amount of food. It is evident, based on the crow’s testimony and the lack of pack animals, that there is barely enough for the two of them. By this logic, a thousand animals could have descended on them and there would have been enough for them too. ‘If there is enough for two, there is enough for 1000?” I think not. Anyway, they feed the rodent/deer/cat (kids badgered their parents/caregivers for an ID on the animal as well. Those seemed to be the most prevalent candidates, although my sister said it was a squirrel). The critter gives them a piece of its fur that can be used to summon it and its buddies. We still don’t know what it is.
At this point, the Prince is (1) out of food, (2) dead tired, (3) and carrying various vital supplies, like a feather and a tuft of fur. There is no sign of useless junk, like, say, a sword or even a club they could use on the witch. The Prince is completely unarmed as he saunters through the wilderness in search of a homicidal, magical maniac. Lucky for him, just then they find the witch’s headquarters.
She is in the middle of concocting her magic potion that will make her uber-powerful. The only ingredient (again) missing is the chopped up fairy flower. This seems to be essential, like potatoes for fries. She brings out this gigantic, razor sharp knife, tests the edge (I winced) and claims that it is too dull for her purposes. I swear I could hear it cut air as she dragged it around in her withered, white claws. Anyway, she goes inside to sharpen it, leaving the Fairy Flower (which seems to attract this condition) completely unattended.
Enter Prince and Crow. They grab the flower and start hauling it off but – bam! – the witch comes out of her lair and uses her wand to summon a cage out of thin air, with a lock. She turns the key, trapping them inside the cage. The Prince is not at all worried, of course – after all, he has animal parts on him! He uses the feather, and the fat yellow bird appears out of thin air.
“What do you want?”
“The key.”
“Okay.” The bird flew INSIDE the witch’s lair, who is apparently too god damned preoccupied with sharpening that knife to notice a grossly fat, bright yellow avian rummaging around her cupboard. The story does not address the possibility that the key is in the witch’s pocket, which would have made the tale vastly more enjoyable for me, for one. She flies out with the key in her beak and delivers it to the Prince, who totally matter of factly opens the cage door, grabs the plant (left unguarded and unattended), and takes off towards the castle, like this was stuff that happened to him on a daily basis.
Aside: So what would have happened to the story if, say, a goat showed up and ate the flower, frustrating all parties (except the goat)? Huh?
So the Witch gives chase. Since they are half starving and been trekking for ages, they are not exactly springing and striding, and she is catching up.
The crow is freaking out. They reach the glade where they killed the vines. The grateful trees tell them to chill – they are going to form ‘a mighty wall’ that will slow down the ugly witch. This they do, by kidnapping the old woman and dragging her somewhere off stage.
Our heroes are still not out of the woods (forgive the pun, please). She has nearly caught them, again, when the Prince decides to use the last Ace in the Hole – the piece of fur in his pocket. We finally learn what the thing is: It is a gopher. We are only given a glimpse of ONE gopher, but he is intimated as a representative member of a large gopher community, capable of performing feats more useful, say, than eating a nut. So the gopher(s) dig a hole and the witch trips in it. Somehow this mighty feat is sufficient to slow down her approach so they get to the castle unharmed.
After she trips, somehow, somewhere, without any indication why, or when, the Witch breaks her wand. It is obviously, totally broken. She keeps saying she can still cast spells with it, but I could tell her heart was not really in it anymore. This was the proverbial writing on the wall, and she knew it.
Prince gets to the castle, where Psychotwinky is just ecstatic to get her damned plant back. The Prince, prime idiot that he is, can’t see past the blonde hair and boobs to the obvious psycho that he is tying himself down to, and asks – again – whether the chippie is ‘for sale’.
The King nearly tries to pull a fast one and only give ½ of the kingdom as dowry, but then realizes this might sour the deal and quickly promises the whole thing.
Suddenly, the Witch arrives! She’s got her broken wand in her hand, casting something totally nasty. The whole tableau is like ‘holy fuck, we are screwed now!’ when, through no act of heroism, in fact, no act of any kind whatsoever, her wand backfires and the nasty ugly witch turns herself into a scarecrow. This was a bit of a letdown – the only comparison I can think of would be Vader finally tracking Luke down in Cloud City, only to stab himself in the head with a defective lightsaber.
The crow picks up the hay filled corpse and body slams it.
Wow, the kids really loved it!
After it became obvious that the show was over, they began to clap and CHANT FOR AN ENCORE. I am NOT kidding.
“Encore, Encore, Encore…” on and on and on.
The bastard adults refused to accommodate them.
This is really the whole story. Bye Bye.
