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The juniper Tree

illustration by Zara Abraham

The juniper tree is easily the grimmest of Grimm tales I have come across! It  starts with woman wishing for a child as white as snow and as red as blood – but this tale has no seven dwarves and friendly woodland creatures. With  greed, murder, lies, and treachery at the hands of the evil step mother, the story already has enough macabre to last its length. Yet sadly  that is not the case . This woman tops her contending counterparts for other fairy tales with a perverse cannibalistic mind! Fearing competition for family fortune  with a son that isn’t her own she kills him and disposes his body by cooking him into puddings that she feeds her hungry husband! Does this sound like the tale of Sweeny Todd- the Demon Barber of Fleet Street?? It practically is! The similarities are uncanny!
What does the Juniper tree have to do with all this? Im not quite sure actually- but it seems to bring the whole story together in a beautiful metaphor. It is the spirit of the tree that is manifested in the boy. His true mother gives her life for him to be born, and when he dies the tree seeks vengeance that is only satisfied when it kills the stepmother, bringing the boy back to life. It is a tree that demand sacrifice for its fruit.
Do we all as humans feed off each other to grow and eliminate the competition around us? It’s a scary thought.

Text by nishant saldanha

Hansel and Gretel

illustration by nishant saldanha

Hansel and Gretel is a story about 2 children left outside to fend for themselves and what do they do? They find someone else to mooch off! The mother and the witch are really two sides of the same “Mother” both seem evil in their own respective ways and both are good too. The mother seems like an evil bitch for sending them out on their own and the witch initially seems like a good caring person taking them in only to inevitably try to eat them! These women are just trying to make the kids understand that they have to get out into the world and grow up. If they don’t then they will just become man-babies, shunned  from society! Are they both evil? Perhaps… but that depends on who you think I am talking about. This is purely based on western culture of course, had this story been based in the east, the mothers wouldn’t be able to let go of their children! The kids would have to shake them off or beat them with a stick!

text by zara abraham