UPDATE: The winner is…Beckie!
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Believe it or not, I was searching for a Night Before Christmas kind of image and came across an illustration that took me down a rabbit hole. There is another Night Before Christmas story, written in the second volume of an 1832 collection of stories, Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka by Nikolai Gogol. It’s much darker than the lovely poem we read to our kids. It’s set in the Ukraine and begins with a witch flying across the sky and the devil stealing the moon and hiding it in his pocket. He wants the sky dark because he has a beef with a blacksmith of a small village and wants to be able to sneak up on him. When he comes down to the town to search for the blacksmith, he finds the witch, who hides him when townsfolk come searching for him. It’s a tale with twists. The blacksmith is in love with the village beauty, who sends him on a quest to steal the Tsarina’s slippers before she agrees to marry him. The witch ends up capturing the mayor and another man and hiding them in coal sacks. The blacksmith, after pretending to be dead, overpowers the devil, and forces him to fly him to see the tsarina (the future Catherine the Great), and she gives him the slippers. All ends well of course, and there is an opera dedicated to the story by Tchaikovsky…but Google it if you want to learn more.
In the meantime, I (and you) have learned there is another Night Before Christmas tale out there!
Solve the puzzle to see Solokha and the Devil! Then, for a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card, tell me whether you’d love to see the other Night Before Christmas story given a bit of sunlight so more people know about it! Would you prefer to see it in a film? Or rewritten as a children’s fairytale?
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Rewritten as a fairy tale
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I’m not sure. This is quite a convoluted plot. I think I would like to SEE it as long as it followed the story without any extra twists.
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I think everything tends to have a light and a dark side. It is up to the person as to which side appeals the most. Personally I prefer to let the light shine through and believe in the good even with some dark woven in.
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Not sure I think I’d need to read the story before I could decide on a new/old version.
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Interesting piece of trivia. Do I want to see more of it? I don’t know. It seems a bit dark of a children fairy tale, but that could be my mood today. I don’t like the film idea either. But reading this original story may be interesting.
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I prefer the one that is on the cheerful side, I an not sure about this one.
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I prefer the one that’s more uplifting and lighter than the darker version.
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Always up for different versions….
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I have not heard of Solokha and the Devil before. Seems dark – would make a great Fairy Tale.
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I think a fairy tale would lose some of the darkness if it was modernized. I like the old versions of the fairy tales that really teach a lesson the hard way.
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sunlight
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I like the old versions as well. The fairy tales we have today are not the same ones
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Don’t think I like that ‘village beauty’ very much. Having to steal something before she’ll agree to be his?
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I would love to see it as a story book. I find it fascinating to learn about other cultures and see the similarities and differences.
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Not absolutely sure. I’d have to do research, and read it first.
I usually love and do collect. Twas the Night Before Christmas poems.
My daughter in fact has one that only family has or might remember. I started illustrations for it years ago as it was writtenby her great grandmother. Who she is named after.
But with all the moves type of ink as it’s only black and white right now. Some areas were damaged, and I’m unsure how to fix what she has of Christmas at the Shanty, a Yooper Christmas tale.
She loves to read it two kids.
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Thanks for commenting, everyone! And yes, I know a dark Christmas tale isn’t to everyone’s liking. I’m just strange like that—it’s probably why I love Krampus so much, too!
The winner of the GC is…Beckie!