Fairy tales are things that we leave behind in childhood, but why should that be the case? Viktor Wynd’s Dark Fairy Tales is a collection of adult-oriented stories from around the world – namely, Wales, Ireland, Arabia, Germany, Norway, Papua New Guinea and Borneo, places Wynd’s love of both travel and storytelling has taken him.
Introducing the collection, which also features wonderfully blocky and scratchy black-and-white illustrations by Luciana Nedelea, Wynd offers both suggestions and cautions: the suggestions are on how to read the book (curled up in an intimate environment in your head, or out loud to someone else, either from the book or however much of it you can recall from memory) and the cautions are that the content is neither appropriate for children or those very easily offended. I’d also add that those who need logic, exposition, moral justification, or even satisfying endings to appreciate a story might want to avoid Dark Fairy Tales.
As Wynd also preps readers for, these short tales, which have no original author and have been handed down both in writing and spoken word, unravel with a dreamlike quality and playful unfussiness that defies the rules and rigours of modern storytelling, yet retain an archaic potency. Powerful images of the dead rising to mingle with the living still send a shiver down your spine, while eternally relatable issues like spousal disputes and the weight of social responsibility, as well as dealing with feelings of guilt, shame, ostracisation, and fear, are as insidious as a witch’s curse.
While we’ve grown accustomed to expecting stern lessons from the fables of Aesop and the Brothers Grimm, as well as Disney, Wynd’s collection of weirder, grislier stories is a reminder that moral enrichment is not a prerequisite for a good yarn, and our ancestors’ imaginations were just as fucked up as ours.