And Now For Something Completely Different

I can't do it, guys. I can't finish Ghost. This morning I was all, "I can force myself through it. I DON'T GIVE UP, DAMMIT." But I have to give up. I can take the misogyny, the BDSM, and Mike's batshit ways, but not the boring military stuff.

Anyway, I've decided to recap fairy tales. They're in the public domain so you can get them on the internet, plus at home I have two big books of fairy tales so I can get them next time I go home. And most fairy tales are completely batshit, so there should be some good jokes to be made.

So anyway, today's offering is called "Little Claus and Big Claus" by Hans Christian Andersen.

There are two men who live in the same town. One has four horses, so he is called Big Claus. The other has one, so he is Little Claus. Well, in my town there were three Nolans and we differentiated them by their last initial. But maybe we should have differentiated them by the number of livestock they owned. Anyway, the two Clauses have this slightly confusing arrangement where they share their horses and Little Claus (LC, from now on. Not to be confused with LC Conrad) ploughs for Big Claus (BC.) I'm getting confused already.

Whenever LC ploughs for BC, he always says, "Gee up, my five horses" and BC gets all mad because only one of them is his. But LC always forgets (he sounds like kind of a tool) and BC is like, "If you say that one more time I'm going to hit your horse so he dies." Wow. Harsh.

So LC forgets again and BC kills his one horse. No one can say he's not true to his word. I also think that's kind of a shitty thing to do. After all, LC only has one horse. And now their arrangement is fucked. LC doesn't have to plough for BC anymore. I have a feeling that BC didn't think this through very well.

LC is sad for awhile, then he's like, "whatever" and he skins the horse and goes to sell its hide. Why? I don't know. He has to walk a long way and he gets tired so he invites himself over to this random farmer's house. Because that's safe. Anyway, the farmer's wife is like, "Hell no, you can't stay here" so he decides to go sleep on the roof of a shed. Not IN the shed, for some reason.

Oh also, the farmer's wife is having sex supper with a sexton. LC sees the farmer come up the road. For some reason, this farmer fucking HATES sextons. Like he will FREAK THE FUCK OUT if he sees a sexton. Why? Again, I have no idea. A sexton, apparently, is someone in charge of upkeep of a church. I don't know why anyone would have such a bias against them. So anyway, the wife tells the sexton to hide in a big chest in the corner and she puts the food and wine and stuff in the oven. This can't turn out well.

The farmer sees LC and he's like, "WTF are you doing on the roof? Come inside." Apparently he is more copacetic with strangers than his wife is. He's surprisingly okay with a strange guy sleeping on the roof of his shed.

The farmer feeds LC porridge but he's kind of a prick and he really wants the fish and stuff that the sexton was eating so he's all, "I have a conjurer in this sack! He just conjured good food in the stove!" I want to live in a world where someone can be like, "The wizard in my bag conjured food in the oven!" and other people are like, "Oh, okay, whatever. Cool."

“Oh, I am not afraid. What will he be like?”

“Well, he is very much like a sexton.”

“Ha!” said the farmer, “then he must be ugly. Do you know I cannot endure the sight of a sexton."
Ouch. That's harsh.

So basically, LC said the wizard in his sack looks like the sexton.

“Oh,” cried he, springing backwards, “I saw him, and he is exactly like our sexton. How dreadful it is!” So after that he was obliged to drink again, and they sat and drank till far into the night.
Ha ha ha ha! I love how even the sight of the sexton (well, actually, to the farmer he's not ACTUALLY the sexton) drives him to drink. I don't even hate TWILIGHT that much.

So LC tricks the farmer into buying the horse hide because the farmer thinks it's magical. But he tells LC to take the chest because he's so scared that the sexton may still be there. I think it's hilarious how he hates this guy SO MUCH for no apparent reason.

Dude. LC takes the chest and the sexton is STILL THERE. The sexton has been in there like the whole night.

LC muses aloud that he may as well just throw the chest in the river (way to be a litterbug) and the sexton is like, "NO! I'LL BE DROWNED!" and LC pretends he didn't know the sexton was in there and he's like, "Oh, is there someone in there? Meh, I'll throw him in anyway." And the sexton offers to pay LC not to kill him which was LC'S PLAN ALL ALONG. He's kind of a prick.

So LC goes back home and sends someone to BC's house to ask to borrow a bushel measure. Eighteen years on a farm, and I have no idea what that is. BC gets suspicious because after all, LC doesn't have a horse. So BC goes to talk to LC and LC's like, "I got a bushel of money for my horse's skin" so BC, who is also kind of a moron, kills all four of his horses and tries to sell the skins. You'd think he could start off with ONE and see if he gets that much, but no.

What would you use a horse's skin for? Clothes? Blankets?

“Ah,” said he, as he came to his house; “Little Claus shall pay me for this; I will beat him to death.”
Well, Big Claus, he wasn't the one that killed all four of your fucking horses, was he, you douchebag?

Now, in non-sequitur land:
Meanwhile the old grandmother of Little Claus died. She had been cross, unkind, and really spiteful to him; but he was very sorry, and took the dead woman and laid her in his warm bed to see if he could bring her to life again.
Because that generally works.

Then BC comes to LC's house with a hatchet, thinks that LC's in the bed, and stabs the grandma with a hatchet. LC seems extraordinarily lucky.

So LC goes off to an inn with his grandma in the backseat of his cart. He asks the landlord to bring her a glass of mead, which he does, and he gets really angry when she doesn't respond and throws the glass at her face. Whoa. Apparently everyone in Andersenland has extreme anger issues. First Big Claus and his horses, then the farmer and the sexton, and now the landlord. LC comes out and he's like, "YOU KILLED MY GRANDMA!" and the landlord offers to pay him if he won't say anything AND he'll bury LC's grandma. Man, he sure is getting a lot of mileage out of a dead grandma. If only I KEPT my dead fish, maybe I could have gotten a bunch of money.

LC then goes home and sends someone to BC to ask for his bushel measure and, understandably, he's a little confused. So he goes to LC's house and LC's like, "You killed my grandma instead of me and then I sold her." So what does BC do? HE GOES AND KILLS HIS GRANDMA AND ATTEMPTS TO SELL HER TO AN APOTHECARY. He also readily admits this to said apothecary. Now everyone thinks he's crazy. Which he is.

So BC gets mad at LC (I think he has some kind of psychological disorder, but I'm not sure what the name is) and kidnaps him. In the middle of his kidnap/murder attempt, he decides to go to church. I don't get his motivations for action here.

So a suicidal cattle driver goes by (No seriously. He's actually suicidal) and Claus is like, "You'll be in heaven if you climb into this sack" and the cattle driver doesn't think this is sketchy AT ALL and climbs into the sack. So BC comes back and kills this guy and then he sees LC with the guy's cattle. LC weaves this crazy ass story about how he sank to the bottom of the lake and he saw mermaids and stuff who randomly gave him sea-cattle. BC believes every word of this because he's BATSHIT INSANE. He's probably also the hugest moron I have ever seen in a fairy tale, ever. He wants his own herd of sea cattle so he decides to go to the bottom of the lake and LC kindly offers to tie BC up into a sack and throw him into the river.

“I’m afraid he will not find any cattle,” said Little Claus, and then he drove his own beasts homewards.
That's cold.

So, my conclusions. Little Claus is a sociopath with absolutely no regard for anyone other than himself. Ostensibly, he is the protagonist and the person we're supposed to be rooting for, but he's so despicable I can't support him at all. Big Claus is a big, bruiser moron who deserves everything that happens to him because he's so fucking stupid and gullible. I'm still not sure what was with the farmer's extreme hatred of sextons, but it was pretty hilarious.