Fairy-Tale Files, published once weekly, feature three variations of a fairy tale chosen by one of Fairy Tale Review’s editors.
This miniature-sized Grimm-collected tale, titled either “The Willful Child” or “The Stubborn Child,” tells the story of a child (sometimes a boy, sometimes a girl, depending on the translation) who gets on the bad side of God and dies from an unknown disease. After the burial, this child’s arm resurfaces, only to be beaten back down with a switch wielded by none other than the mother herself.
There’s no burials involved here, but the child about to be born in this scene, from the hit science fiction film Alien, certainly doesn’t let a little bit of skin and bone get in its way. The image above is, as one can probably guess, just before this most stubborn of children earns its nickname “chestburster.”
In this famous scene from Kill Bill: Volume 2, Uma Thurman’s “The Bride” character is buried alive, not by a parent, but by a former compatriot, and only after being sold out by her ex-lover, Bill. Deadly Viper Budd is the one to dig the grave, but what he doesn’t know is that The Bride still has a knack for a certain close-range martial arts arts technique she picked up from kung fu master Pai Mei. Perhaps he taught the original stubborn child as well?
This edition of Fairy-Tale Files is brought to you by Fairy Tale Review Managing Editor Joel Hans.
