Part of my job (a large part of my job, in fact) is identifying and boring people senseless about archetypes and cross-cultural stories that can be identified and pressed into the service of brands. So I have spent a lot of the year to date talking about myths of dragon-slaying, archetypes of The Hero and the character of The Summoner for one of my brands; and on another, I have been working a lot on fairy tales, and working with the idea of the fairytale kingdom.
Maybe this has rubbed off on Eldest Son, who (as part of Wife’s on-going home tuition programme) was asked this morning to think what advice he might give to Snow White, and write a story about it. I reproduce it here, unedited:-
Dear Snow White,
Do not go nere the horible queen she is disappointed that you are fairer than her. She is going to kill you. So here are the instruchions. 1. run into the forest 2. sneec past the wolf named mac 3. clim the trees at the top swing to the mantains were 7 dwafs are. You have reached your destination.
I am torn as to what my favourite aspect of this is: the re-imagining of Snow White as the lovechild of Andy McNabb and Lara Croft; the fact that there is (in this version) a Wolf named “Mac”; or the fact that his final sentence is learned (and lifted entirely) from the Tom Tom satellite navigation device that we have in the car.
