The Nutcracker and the Mouse King

"The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" is a story written in 1816 by German author E. T. A. Hoffmann, in which young Marie Stahlbaum's favorite Christmas toy, the Nutcracker, comes alive and, after defeating the evil Mouse King in battle, whisks her away to a magical kingdom populated by dolls.

In 1892, the Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and choreographers Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov turned Alexandre Dumas père's adaptation of the story into the ballet The Nutcracker, which became one of Tchaikovsky's most famous compositions, and perhaps the most popular ballet in the world.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

A novella is a work of written, fictional, narrative prose normally longer than a short story but shorter than a novel.

▲The Decameron

● a collection of novellas by the 14th-century Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio

● The book is structured as a frame story containing 100 tales told by a group of seven young women and three young men sheltering in a secluded villa just outside Florence to escape the Black Death, which was afflicting the city.

● In addition to its literary value and widespread influence (for example on Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales), it provides a document of life at the time. Written in the vernacular of the Florentine language, it is considered a masterpiece of classical early Italian prose.

● a short story, written by O. Henry (a pen name for William Sydney Porter), about a young married couple and how they deal with the challenge of buying secret Christmas gifts for each other with very little money.

● As a sentimental story with a moral lesson about gift-giving, it has been a popular one for adaptation, especially for presentation at Christmas time.

● The plot and its "twist ending" are well-known, and the ending is generally considered an example of comic irony.

White Rabbit

in Lewis Carroll's book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

The Tortoise and the Hare

Dreams (1990 film)

▶ a 1990 magical realism film based on actual dreams that the film's director, Akira Kurosawa, claimed to have had repeatedly.

Saving Mr. Banks

▶ a 2013 period drama film directed by John Lee Hancock from a screenplay written by Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith

▶ Centered on the development of the 1964 film Mary Poppins, the film stars Emma Thompson as author P. L. Travers and Tom Hanks as filmmaker Walt Disney

The Brothers Grimm (film)

▶ a 2005 adventure fantasy film

▶ The film stars Matt Damon, Heath Ledger, and Lena Headey in an exaggerated and fictitious portrait of the Brothers Grimm as traveling con-artists in French-occupied Germany, during the early 19th century. However, the brothers eventually encounter a genuine fairy tale curse which requires real courage instead of their usual bogus exorcisms.

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●  When Rapunzel reaches her twelfth year, Dame Gothel shuts her away in a tower in the middle of the woods, with neither stairs nor a door, and only one room and one window. 

⇨  Greek mythology recounts the story of Danae, whose father received a prophesy that her son would one day kill him. So he locked her a bronze chamber to prevent her from ever having children, but Zeus visited her there and became the means for fulfillment of the oracle.

Femme fatale

▶The phrase is French for "fatal woman".

▶A femme fatale is a stock character of a mysterious and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers, often leading them into compromising, dangerous, and deadly situations.

★ Lorelei

Legends say that a maiden named the Lorelei lives on the rock and lures fishermen to their death with her song.

★ Sirens

In Greek mythology, the Sirens were dangerous creatures, who lured nearby sailors with their enchanting music and voicesto shipwreck on the rocky coast of their island.