THE QUEEN OF QUISINE AND THE PET OF THE SET

Hugtto! Pretty Cure
Episode 26 - My Own Review

THE QUEEN OF QUISINE AND THE PET OF THE SET
or,
WELL, I DON'T LIKE ONIONS EITHER...

Remember Saaya? She hasn’t really had a lot to do in recent episodes of Hugtto! PreCure, but episode 26 shines the spotlight on her – and it is well deserved. Saaya’s mother also plays a prominent role in this episode. And Saaya's father debuts as well!

Let’s all get fizzy with Saaya

An advert for Angel Fizzy Mineral Water starring Saaya airs in this episode, and she gains quite a following due to it.

Ah, the kind of refreshing advert that always makes me thirsty now around Thermidor (for cool liquid, NOT for Saaya)...

Totally NOT Toei. Well, Bland-Named as Ohei. All rights reserved.

As related to the source material as Guns 'N' Rodents or Farbucks Coffee.

Even Lulu wants to get fizzy with Saaya

With the popularity of the advert, Saaya finds herself mobbed by fans who want to shake her hand and get autographs.

Everyone gets together after that. 

However, Saaya is actually undecided on becoming an actress. She wants to hear what her mother thinks about it. When she says that, Lulu suggests, in her matter-of-fact tone, that they all go to Ohei Studios and ask her directly. 


Ohei Studios. Ut supra, no relation to the actual Toei Studios.


After the girls congrat Saaya's drink commercial, she has her doubts of whether to pursue a career in acting as she rarely sees her actress mother Reira at home for advice. 


Why is Lulu salivating? All right, she's from decades into the future. Guess robotics would develop into such an advanced state that such a gynoid would have nearly all human functions.

Saaya’s Dad, Shuji Yakushiji

Saaya and the others go to a TV studio, where they are greeted by Saaya’s dad. He has made lunch for Reira – Saaya’s mother – and he has some business at the studio as well. As such, he takes them into the studio to meet with Reira.

Heeeere's... Ranze! (The Shining impression)

Ranze Ichijou appears again

Inside the studio, Ranze appears when she hears the word "celebrity," and gives away multiple copies of her autograph. Ranze then goes on to upset Hugtan.

Hooo hoo hoo hoo... mama's girl is back, isn't she?
But this time I'm back with a vengeance.
Give it all for the Grrrreat and Powaaaaful Ranze Ichijo!!!


Oh, I'm so sorry for making the li'l one cry... I know we all Ichijos have a tendency to be loud talkers and all dat jazz...

So Lulu suggested to meet her in person during filming and the girls together with Saaya's father visited Ohei Studios on the set of her new show. They even met Ranze who was playing a minor part in the show. (She even accidentally startled Hug-tan!)

Saaya’s mother Reira, the One and Only Queen of Quisine

Reira arrives, and she is quickly able to calm Hugtan. Both Saaya and Ranze apologise for causing a disturbance, but Reira assures them that it’s fine. Harry decides to go for a walk with Hugtan so they don’t interrupt any more.

But Reira appeared and with her gentle demeanour, she was able to calm Hug-tan but remained cold and distant towards Saaya when they met.

Hana, Saaya, and Homare watch as Reira, Ranze, and the other actors film a scene. Reira eats a raw leek and manages to maintain her composure – until the scene is finished at least. 

Reira soon regrets biting into a leek

Eating the leek was an ad lib, simply because she felt that was what her character would do.



Reira was very professional in her acting and bit off a raw spring onion in style. Although she regretted it after that since it tastes terrible.

Saaya talks to Reira during her break

When the lunch break arrives, Saaya approaches Reira and asks if she has been causing any trouble for her. Reira responds with a rhetorical question: are you prepared to face the people who accuse you of getting roles because you are the daughter of Reira Yakushiji?

Saaya doesn’t have an answer for that.

Saaya meets some people who knew her as a baby

Following that, Saaya ends up meeting some old folks of the studio staff who know her. She spent a lot of time at the studio as a baby, and they helped to look after her.

Reira worked hard to balance both being parenthood and career

The old folks reminisce back to when Saaya was a baby, and how hard Reira worked. They helped out in order to support Reira’s family in any way they could. Back to the present, they suggest that Saaya’s stay-at-home dad take them to see just how hard Reira works.

Saaya approached Reira during break and asked about her drink commercial. Reira didn't comment much and claimed it was only adequate. Later Saaya was approached by some of Reira's colleagues and learned an interesting thing about her mother.
It seems that Reira was determined to be both a professional actress and a mother at the same time; however the director was reluctant since it would be hard for Reira to take care of a toddler Saaya. The director gave in and Saaya was brought along to the set and became the darling of the staff. Shuji took care of all the housework and the refreshments.


The Yakushijis: the media family that always sticks together, both on and off the set. Also, Reira is the breadwinner, while her hubby Shuji most frequently had the duty of sitting little Saaya...

Though still there was spare time allowed for mother-daughter cuddling, like in this adorable pastel-chalked memory...


Here, Saaya. Eat it all up!


Awwww... Really, these mother-daughter moments are full of fluff, especially in anime...

Saaya notices how busy her mum is cooking the dish for the show once more.
Saaya also peeked at Reira in the kitchen as she practiced her kitchen skills for the show, since the household chores are taken care of by Saaya's father. Saaya has more respect for her mother as she really gives her all (ganbare) for her career.

Reira puts in a lot of effort behind the scenes

Despite playing a character who is renowned for her cooking skill, Reira isn’t actually able to cook very well. It is Saaya’s dad Shuji who takes care of that, and the very reason he was at the TV studio. He basically fed and refreshed the whole crew of the shows his wife starred in!
Seeing Reira practicing her cookery behind the scenes reminds Saaya that her mother is awkward at times, but always did her best/gave her all (ganbare). She would always cheer her on when she was on television. Saaya has always wanted to see the world behind her.

Ranze is still bitter about her previous experience with leeks, and that generates enough toge-power for Gelos to bring forth a wild theender. The studio crew all fall unconscious, including Reira.

The Ranzecam attacking Reira at the set entrance. Yes, the source negative emotion for this theender was Ranze Ichijo having a traumatic past with leeks and onions, and embarrassing herself in front of the camera lens! Gelos could not have picked a better source material, right?

The girls transform to confront the enemy, but the Ranzecam is able to fight back, just leaving Cure Ange to confront it. The Ranzecam charges at Ange, but some support from Cure Ma Chérie gives her a chance to counter.



Cure Ange storms into the battleground to save her ailing mother, who is also being bled dry of negative emotions...

Gelos appeared and created a theender from Ranze (Again!?) and sucked all the energy from everyone including Reira. The girls went to battle and Cure Ange who had a new resolve gave all her strength and overthrew the Ranzecam in an epic smackdown.

Cure Ange slams the Ranzecam into the ground

That's one badass angel. No more Miss Nice Girl, eh, Saaya?

Ange is able to attack the Ranzecam, leaving it open for Cure Amour and Cure Ma Chérie to finish off.

With the enemy defeated and everyone regaining conscious, it is time to eat. Saaya has also reached a decision about something, which she tells her Mum.

Saaya wants to act alongside Reira

Though Saaya hasn’t made the decision to become an actress just yet, she does know that she wants to act alongside Reira at least once.

That brings this episode to an end, and I enjoyed it. It was a nice warm and fuzzy episode, which gave Saaya some much needed time in the spotlight. I think Cure Étoile said it best: ‘Ange is pretty cool too, isn’t she?’.
There isn’t much more for me to add here; Saaya has a good relationship with her parents, and this episode showed us that.

After the battle and the end of the filming, the girls joined the staff for a Spring Onion meal course (Why is Lulu eating non-stop?) Saaya finally told her mother that she is not really sure if acting is her choice, but for now, she hopes she can act alongside her mother in the future and her mother gave her blessings...

After last week's reveal of Harry's backstory, we had a subtle episode but some character development for Saaya. Saaya still had to content that she is the daughter of Famous Actress Reira Yakushiji and Ranze still claimed that Saaya is just that lucky due to her mother. 

Although Reira acted indifferent to Saaya but she does care about her, since the entertainment world / show-biz is a harsh place and she choose to be both an actress and mother at the same time, doing her best to juggle career and parenthood. But thanks to the support of her husband and understanding staff members, she persevered and got her status as a nationwide celebrity today.

Saaya knew it is not going to be easy if she chooses this acting path but seeing her mother on the TV screen makes her want to be next to her as an equal. Let's see how it goes in the 2nd half of the season. 

Hugtto! will be on a break next week, but it will be back the week after.

MY OWN HUMBLE OPINION:
The "don't like" in the second title of this review is maybe too weak an expression. In fact, in my own case it happens to be a visceral aversion or loathing that, worst-case scenario, results in emetic reactions.
Ranze Ichijo, in other words, has a good reason for me to sympathise with her; furthermore, there are even fricking Facebook groups of onion loathers... which already speaks volumes.
Once more, Ranze's negative emotions fall into the targeting of the enemy. This time, Disgust is at the helm instead of Anger. But still she is prime Heartless material.

The whole leek incident reminded me of Flueflen's banter with Ensign Pistol about that Welsh leek, and, since I am translating Henry V at the moment, why not remember it (and, besides, picture ourselves Reira as Flueflen and Ranze as Pistol, in military uniforms and all)?

Act 5, Scene 1:

PISTOL

Ha! art thou bedlam? dost thou thirst, base Trojan,
To have me fold up Parca's fatal web?
Hence! I am qualmish at the smell of leek.

FLUEFLEN

I peseech you heartily, scurvy, lousy knave, at my
desires, and my requests, and my petitions, to eat,
look you, this leek: because, look you, you do not
love it, nor your affections and your appetites and
your digestions doo's not agree with it, I would
desire you to eat it.

PISTOL

Not for Cadwallader and all his goats.

FLUEFLEN

There is one goat for you.
Strikes him
Will you be so good, scauld knave, as eat it?

PISTOL

Base Trojan, thou shalt die.

Furthermore, if we stick to our headcanon that Ranze is blood-related to the now celebrated Ranko Ichijo, the most likely scenario is that she has a strained relationship with her elders and envies the Yakushijis for sticking together in spite of their careers. Yes, let's invite the green-eyed monster to the mix as well!

I also adored and admired how the Yakushijis subverted the traditional gender roles of a married couple, with a breadwinner mum and a stay-at-home dad; which reminded me A LOT of Mrs. Fawcett and Charles Eastwood. I can completely relate to the scenario and, moreover, relate to how much it encouraged Saaya's freedom of thought, which has made her so bright.

Mrs. Fawcett, a soon-to-be divorcée who has left her first husband and their birthplace oop north, and her decades younger paramour Major Charles Eastwood, a war veteran, have taken up at a cottage in the southern English countryside.
There seems to be a parity in the Fawcett/Eastwood household that ought to be emulated, not scorned. It is noted that Eastwood’s “powerful athletic white arms… deftly and carefully washed the dishes while the woman wiped” and that “he went round attending to the stoves of the small house” (67).  The domestic chores, then, are split evenly among man and woman. 
The couple are outwardly friendly and progressive, just like the Yakushijis in this anime, but living in the UK one century before them.

It started out with how Saaya reveals she is worried about troubling her mother by following her footsteps. So she and the girls decide to visit her on set to help her get some clarity. There she meets the extended family who have known her since she was a little babe. The staff behind the “The Queen of Quisine" supported Reira when she passionately fought for the role. Despite being a young mother, the director hired her and he and the staff, alongside her husband, helped take care of Saaya so she could continue pursuing her dreams as an actress.
Initially Saaya misunderstood her mother when Reira asked her if she was prepared to face the peer pressure of those who would assume she is riding off her success. And to be fair, Reira did make a good point, but she certainly could have explained it better, especially when she finished off the conversation with how Saaya doesn’t have to follow her footsteps. Even I can see a misunderstanding coming out of that from a mile away! But she is that kind of mum who is a bit awkward when it comes to explaining her intentions. She is ready to support Saaya in whatever decision she chooses, and gave her fair advice of the challenges she will face should she decide to become an actress.


NEXT WEEK, THERE WILL BE NO NEW EPISODE! But when we come back the week after, it will be featuring the teacher and his pregnant wife we saw during the Pool Party episode. To add more sugar, I leave Spain for Sweden the next weekend...

Remember Mr. Uchufuji (Uchufuji-sensei)? 

Remember that his wife is expecting?

Well, the nine-month term is due this mid-August (will that make the little one a Leo or a Virgo, or cusp-born)?

Will things go smoothly for the delivery?

Strong Female Characters - The Snow Queen

The Snow Queen

(Article illustrated with pictures by Nika Goltz)

This week we begin a series of women from legends and fairy tales, the enduring figures that are used to instil in us important life lessons and teach us the rules of social life. We are particularly interested in these characters because of their longevity; their influence has lasted hundreds of years and their stories are retold in various media as legions of adapters reaffirm their relevance for generations of audiences.

The subject of this first post is markedly different than the vast majority of the tales that have come to form the backbone of Western popular culture. Published for the first time in 1845, “The Snow Queen” by Hans Christian Andersen stands out from both the crowd of androcentric (male-centric) stories we tell today and the throng of cautionary tales starring girls, women, and crones that come to us from The Brothers Grimm (Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Hänsel and Gretel...). “The Snow Queen” is a story that revolves around and celebrates females, as evidenced by the fact that, of the seven sections, six are named in whole or in part after women. We are all familiar with tales in which the male hero saves the damsel in distress, and most of us are probably well-versed in the modern subversions of these stories, in which the dude in distress, or gentleman in jeopardy, is saved by a heroine. What “The Snow Queen” offers us is a take on the latter before it was cool. (Consider yourself warned; that was not the last ice joke.)

We begin with the Snow Queen herself. As we learn when Kai’s (or Gerda's? Never explained) grandmother tells her story to the children, Kai, the dude in distress / gentleman in jeopardy, and Gerda, the heroine, the Snow Queen is an entity like a queen bee, who “flies where the swarm [of snowflakes or ‘white bees’] hangs in the thickest clusters. She is the largest of all; and she can never remain quietly on the earth, but goes up again into the black clouds. Many a winter’s night she flies through the streets of the towns, and peeps in at the windows; and they then freeze in so wondrous a manner that they look like flowers.” She is a force of nature, the embodiment of winter, but she is also a woman: “a young lady, dressed in the finest white gauze, made of a million little flakes like stars. She was so beautiful and delicate, but she was of ice, of dazzling, sparkling ice; yet she lived; her eyes gazed fixedly, like two stars; but there was neither quiet nor repose in them.” She is both the beauty and the lethality of winter.

This is further demonstrated in her treatment of Kai. In order to take Kai further into her realm, she kisses him twice; the first kiss stops him from feeling the cold, while the second makes him forget Gerda and the rest of his loved ones. She states, “Now you will have no more kisses... or else I should kiss you to death!” The only affection her lips can provide is frostbite, and the expression of what others might term warmth results in her victims freezing to death.

Before she becomes a shero, Gerda is a little girl whose best friend, Kai, is taken by the Snow Queen after he is corrupted by pieces of a magic mirror that lodge in his eye and heart. There’s a lot of thinly veiled symbolism here -- the creature who made the mirror is clearly Loki or Satan -- but it’s enough for our character-based analysis to say merely that Kai is abducted to the Snow Queen’s palace. 

Gerda is devoted to Kai, and when he disappears, she takes the initiative to question all the witnesses of his disappearance. When they cannot provide satisfactory answers, she comes to the conclusion that he must have died.

Because literally everyone is rooting for Gerda, both the sun and the swallows (birds of passage) assure her that Kai is not dead, and she decides to test this theory. She throws her most prized possession, a pair of red shoes, into the river in exchange for Kai’s presumably drowned or hypothermia-frozen body. When the stream rejects her offering, she assumes that she just has to throw them further, and boards a boat to enable her to make this throw. Although she initially panics as she floats away, she eventually decides to sit back and enjoy the scenery while the river hopefully takes her to her lost friend. That’s how Gerda approaches most obstacles in the story: by accepting them as a necessary step in her journey to save Kai.

The person who saves her from this predicament is an old lady who knows magic. Unfortunately, the woman decides to keep Gerda, and enchants her to forget Kai and her quest. This woman is something of a mirror image of the Snow Queen; the Snow Queen spreads winter across the globe while the old lady cultivates a garden of everlasting springtime. Unlike the Snow Queen, however, who can use Kai’s prior corruption to keep him in line, this good witch finds that she cannot prevent Gerda from discovering her own captivity. When the old lady removes all the rose bushes from her garden to stop Gerda from remembering Kai, Gerda is bothered by an unknown absence, only revealed when her tears cause the roses to spring from the ground. In this way, Gerda overcomes the old woman’s magic, feeling an absence that she comes to realize is a stand-in for a more profound lack.

After interrogating the flowers and gaining nothing but confirmation of Kai’s continued existence, Gerda sets off, barefoot, to continue her quest. She comes upon a raven, who tells her about another fascinating female character: a princess who is so clever that “she has read all the newspapers in the whole world, and has forgotten them again.” This princess decides to get married, but explicitly states that her prince will be someone intelligent and articulate, “a man who knew how to give an answer when he was spoken to--not one who looked only as if he were a great personage, for that is so tiresome.” She ends up choosing a suitor who had no intention of marrying her, but merely entered the castle in order to hear the princess’ wisdom. She chooses a husband who admires her brain, someone who, unlike the actual suitors, did not seek to win her but merely to hear her and enjoy her intellect.

Although Gerda sneaks into the princess’ castle -- her bare feet violate their strict “no shirt, no shoes, no royal assistance” policy -- the princess nevertheless allows her to stay the night and sends her on her way. Garbed in fine clothing and travelling in a carriage of pure gold, however, Gerda quickly gets robbed. The transition from the princess’ castle to the robbers’ woods marks the apparent shift from civilization to barbarism, from Disney-style aspirations to Grimm, violent reality. 

Luckily, Gerda is ambushed by a group including one of the more interesting characters in fairy tales, the little robber girl. She is described, on various occasions, as wild, unmanageable, spoiled, and headstrong, and it probably comes as no surprise that she’s also pretty awesome. When the robber girl’s mother, the leader of the company, a woman with “a long, scrubby moustache and beard, and bushy eyebrows that hung down over her eyes,” verbalizes her plan to eat Gerda, the robber maiden bites her mother in the ear, like a feral Mike Tyson. The girl offers another plan: she will keep Gerda’s fine things, as well as Gerda herself. She also assures Gerda that she will not be killed, so long as she doesn’t anger the robber girl; in that case, the robber girl will kill her herself. The girl sleeps surrounded by dozens of woodland animals, an entire petting zoo, all kept and terrorized by her. Among them is a reindeer, whom she torments nightly with the long knife that she also sleeps with, because she lives in a world where “there is no knowing what may happen.”

Still, her harsh existence has in no way destroyed her ability to feel compassion. While she finds amusement in tormenting animals, it appears that the robber girl has been raised with the idea that violent actions can be used to express love and affection. She also possesses the ability to express these things in more traditional ways, as demonstrated when she comforts Gerda and when she sends her off to continue her journey, this time with the reindeer as both transportation and navigator.

When we last see her, the robber girl is “a young damsel with a bright-red cap on her head, and armed with pistols,” riding a magnificent chestnut horse. She has undertaken her own journey, not because she needed to save someone, but merely because she was bored. It’s a refreshing move to have a female character decide to do something just for the hell of it, with no thought for anyone’s amusement but her own. We’re used to reading about and watching people who must be pushed into action, so it is especially interesting to see a character go on a quest for their own pleasure. In a further subversion of unquestioned narrative tropes, the robber girl asks Gerda whether her quest was even worth it: “‘You are a fine fellow for tramping about,’ said she to little Kai; ‘I should like to know, faith, if you deserve that one should run from one end of the world to the other for your sake?’” We almost never ask whether the damsel deserved to be saved, but here the robber girl poses just that question. Was that person worth the hero’s time, or was it the character growth that made it all worthwhile?

We return now to the rest of that journey. Before Gerda saves Kai, she receives help from two more women, one from Lapland and one from Finmark. The Lapland woman offers sustenance, but can only refer Gerda to the Finmark woman, to whom she writes a message on a dried, salted codfish. The Finmark woman is an incredibly powerful figure, described by the reindeer thusly: "you can, I know, twist all the winds of the world together in a knot. If the seaman loosens one knot, then he has a good wind; if a second, then it blows pretty stiffly; if he undoes the third and fourth, then it rages so that the forests are upturned.” He requests that she give Gerda a potion to give her the strength of ten men, but she declines. This is not because she cannot brew such a potion, but because physical strength won’t help Gerda in the task ahead. She knows this because she, unlike everyone else in the story, appears to know exactly what has happened to Kai, down to the mirror shards embedded in his eye and heart. It is possible that she learns all of this from a parchment covered with strange figures (most probably runes). It’s almost as if she’s reading the story itself.

Even if she isn’t reading ahead, the Finmark woman does have a kind of omniscience, as she figures out what has to happen next. She argues that she “can give her [Gerda] no more power than what she has already. “Don't you see how great it is? Don't you see how people and animals are forced to serve her; how well she gets through the world barefooted? She must not hear of her power from us; that power lies in her heart, because she is a sweet and innocent child! If she cannot get to the Snow Queen by herself, and rid little Kai of the glass, we cannot help her.” Again, setting aside any symbolic implications for a narrative about good and evil, this is very cool. This is an incredibly powerful crone saying that she cannot empower a little girl any further, because the girl, in and of herself, has power enough on her own. She commands other living creatures, she receives intelligence from nature, and she does all of this without so much as a speck of foot protection. She’s something of an anti-Cinderella; instead of a set of ornamental shoes and a fairy godmother, she has her own two feet and her own power.

Now, we must briefly address the symbolism. In order to infiltrate the Snow Queen’s castle, Gerda arms herself with prayer. It summons a host of armoured warriors or angels to fight snowflakes and banish the cold from her limbs. The prayer also halts the winds that comprise the castle gate. Finally, it is a baptism of her “burning tears” that thaws Kai’s icy heart. Gerda’s power is, at the end, bolstered by the constancy of her faith and the innocence of youth.

At the same time, the nature of her victory is well worth considering from another angle. You may have noticed the recent trend in Hollywood of having the female protagonist spend the third act in a suit of armour. In order to make these characters more palatable to the masses, the filmmakers relocate their struggles to the battlefield; this suggests that the proper ending for any adventure necessarily involves violence. “The Snow Queen,” by contrast, argues that no such resolution is required. Gerda doesn’t have to face the Snow Queen to win; she merely has to brave the elements and use the physical results of the love she bears Kai to save him. While we have railed against the idea that a woman’s power comes from love, what redeems this story for us in that regard is the fact that this is explicitly friendly, not romantic, love.

Although this story is more than 165 years old, it seems bizarrely progressive in today’s media environment. While we’d like to commend Hans Christian Andersen for writing a tale that can still be considered forward-thinking today, we’d also like to take this opportunity to discuss why this progressiveness is, in itself, problematic. It all boils down to one question (which I, as is my wont, will stretch into two): If a 165-year-old story is still progressive, what does that say about the regressive nature of our contemporary storytelling? If it’s still progressive to write about a girl saving a boy, have we made any progress in dismantling the expectation that boys should save girls? Something can only be subversive if it is operating against an established norm; it can only be progressive if we are actually making progress.

This is one of the reasons we will be reviewing Disney’s Frozen. As a modern adaptation of “The Snow Queen,” the film could be expected to keep these same subversive qualities intact. From the information currently available, however, it appears as if Frozen will merely perpetuate the status quo. As far as we can tell, this film isn’t about the girl saving a boy, but about the girl falling for the boy; it’s not about women helping women, but about a new set of male sidekicks helping a young woman in her quarrel with her sister. As we said in our preview, we hope that the film will prove us wrong. We would like nothing more than for Frozen to prove itself truly progressive, to ditch the same old freezer burnt tropes and use this opportunity to improve on a classic. Unfortunately, having seen no mention of the little robber girl or many of the other women in the story, we’re not holding out much hope.

Megan Croutch

WHY FAERIES ARE UNABLE TO LEAVE MORTAL MEN BE

WHY FAERIES ARE UNABLE TO LEAVE MORTAL MEN BE

A Flemish Folktale

Translated and retold by Sandra Dermark

21st of July, MMXVIII

In a village not far from a vast heathland, once upon a time, a girl-child was born. Her parents christened her Mieke. Everyone who crossed her path was left staring at her. And little Mieke never wasted a chance to contemplate herself. She never smiled at her mother, but only at her own reflection, just as it was mirrored in her mother's eyes. There was no mirror, pond, or windowpane where she passed by without becoming self-absorbed and losing track of time.
And everyone told her:
"Beware, Mieke, you will spend your beauty with so much staring at yourself!"

It was not until Mieke became a woman, and the village schoolteacher, that her ego finally went to her head for sure. When her mother asked her to sweep the chicken coop, she pointed at her clean dress and winced in disgust. When her grandmother asked her to fetch water from the village pump, she pretended, with most convincing performance, that she had sprained her foot. She always found some young man ready to carry out the chores that were actually her own responsibility. And, as soon as the lad du jour was finished with her work, Mieke sent him away.
She insulted every man who dared to whistle at her:
"Go whistle at your goat!"
She mocked every man who invited her to attend the local fête with him.
"Kisses in exchange for sweets? But who do you think I am?"
She criticized, from crown to toe, every one who insisted on taking her to the fête.
However, the lads in that heathland village were more stubborn than the most persistent weeds, thornier than any blackberry bush, and stickier than the sundew plants. They were not the kind to give up that easily. However, as soon as they heard Mieke's critiques, they all felt as worthless as worms.
Mieke was more fastidious than a butterfly who tastes a thousand flowers before beginning to drink the nectar in earnest. She spurned, one by one, all of her suitors.
"Given how lovely you are, such a rarity, and that there is no way at all that you should get married," her parents sighed. "Beware, my daughter; life gallops far faster than any racehorse. What keeps us warm are kisses of flesh and blood."
But Mieke stuck out her tongue and did exactly as she pleased.

Mieke's female friends were all delighted: they let themselves be hugged and kissed, tried their hand at two or three suitors, picked the one they found most convenient, and married him. Mieke, however, was unable to decide.
The baker's boy was the one who insisted the most, in spite of Mieke's jeers at him:
"Crookteeth, squinteyes, bonehead...!"
One day, a terrible epidemic broke out. No one was safe. Not even the young people.
While Mieke kept rest in her bed, the baker's boy kept on bringing heather blossoms to her. And when the maiden breathed her last, the lad had grown weary of mourning her, his squinting eyes and the face on his bony head all swimming in tears.
"Oh, Death, what have you done?!" Mieke's grandmother sobbed. "Why have you not come to take me instead? I have lived throuugh everything: kisses, caresses, pregnancies, childbirths, nursing, menopause... Why have you taken away a young maiden whose life was in full bloom? A girl who had never tasted love?"
Mieke's mother and grandmother opened the wardrobe and took out the clothes both of them had worn at their respective weddings: a gown, a veil, a petticoat, a corset, stockings, and low shoes, all of them snowy white. They washed the lovely form clean and dressed her.
"You shall be buried as a young bride."
They both repeated what they had been told on the wedding day:
"The wedding night has to be discovered, layer by layer."

Everyone who came to take their leave of Mieke was left speechless. There she was, the most beautiful bride of them all. The sobs and sighs kept on echoing for hours:
"Poor girl! What a pity!"
The baker's boy kissed Mieke's cold lips, and crowned her hair with a wreath of heather blossoms.
When night fell, and the women at the wake in the church had all fallen fast asleep, Mieke received a visit from some female strangers.
There entered, fluttering, twelve white damosels.
"Come with us, pretty sweetling! Take off your wedding gown, but keep your petticoats on. That is all that a cajoling faery needs..."
Out of the lifeless form's mouth came, with a flutter, a tiny white damosel in petticoats. In the company of the other twelve white damosels, she left the chapel, where the candles burned bright, and flew over the village, out towards the heath. They all landed in some clumps of furze on the shores of a little lake.
"At the crack of dawn, we go to bed," the white damosels explained, "but, in the nighttime, we take to the skies. We will teach you how to flutter by and cajole with mortal men, until they are driven to madness!"
The very next night, the novice cajoling faery accompanied her seniors. As soon as Mieke had learned all the somersaults, songs, and dance steps, they all flocked heading towards the pathway that crossed the heath. Not long thereafter, they heard voices, deep male voices and laughter.
No sooner had she recognised the voice of the baker's boy that Mieke flew towards him. The stripling had five or six beers under his belt. He was as drunk as a newt, yet to that detail Mieke paid no heed, and neither did she care about his crooked teeth, his squinting eyes, or his bony head.
The baker's boy could not believe his eyes.
"How luvly... But she ish the shpidding image of...!"
Mieke descended, twirling pirouettes, and remained fluttering around the lad, who was dying of eagerness.
"Lemme touchya... Gotya!"
However, his fingers could not grasp anything but thin air.
Mieke headed towards the lake. The baker's boy followed her, running as fast as he could. He waded into the waters, drenched up to his thighs. When Mieke pulled his hair, he turned to stone. When she pulled his ears, stradding his shoulders, he let himself be carried away. "Ride a horse to Banbury Cross...!"
After much cajoling, Mieke led him back onto the pathway.
"Promise me that tomorrow we will see each other again..." the stripling pleaded.
The other cajoling fairies, however, tore Mieke along with them.
"The sun is rising. We must leave. Tomorrow I shall return..."

When the baker's boy reached the village, he was exhausted.
"How pale you are! What's wrong with you? It looks as if you've seen a ghost...! To bed, and say what's going on..." the baker reacted with concern.
"A ghost you say? A ghost maybe... She looked just like a ghost to me... One moment there, then she was gone...!" sighed his son. "I have seen a damosel in a white petticoat... How gracefully she fluttered! What a rarity she was!"
The baker sighed. "Couldn't you hear any music?"
The lad nodded, and instantly he fell asleep.
The baker swaddled his son in the covers. He had himself, as a young man, let himself be carried away more than once by those cajoling faeries.
Who could chide them in their face for coming to seek, time after time, what they had been missing throughout their human lives?
"Life gallops far faster than any racehorse," said the baker, huddling up close against his wife in their marital bed. "What keeps us warm are kisses of flesh and blood."