The fantasy parable of the fairy who lost her wings is quite popular in many Asian cultures and is always problematic in any retelling for the modern sensibility. She comes down from the Heavens, takes off all her clothes including her magical fairy cloth wings to take a bath in the mountain lake, and a human woodcutter spots her and steals her fairy cloth wings and she has no choice but to marry him because she can’t go back to Heaven. Most of the retellings have her miserable, rightly, with her basically coercive husband and ends with her finding the hidden fairy wings and leaving her husband and child to fly back to Heaven. Good for her but sad for the blameless kid. The upcoming K-drama Mama Fairy and the Woodcutter (Tale of the Gyeryong Fairy) uses the premise and has the husband dying in a fall off a cliff (did she push him lol?) and the fairy living for 600 years into modern times to wait for his reincarnation and find her dang fairy cloth wings at long last. Moon Chae Won is the titular fairy and looks adorable in the first teaser which uses animation to show us the past transition to modern day Fairy as a barista.
First teaser for Mama Fairy and the Woodcutter:
Wait. So this is not really a romantic story? That is some terrible guy.
Okay, so this story will be another version of Ayashi No Ceres, right?
Two potential husbands? I guess one is the true husband, the other is “something” she’s been searching for 600 years, haha.
Can’t wait to see Chae Won in hanbok again 🙂
Ayashi no Ceres!!! So much darker of a retelling but I really loved this anime! Maybe her romantic counterpart will also have some powers like touya was created by the celestial robe in order to help her ascend to heaven.
Sounds like Ayaahi to me but I never liked that to be honest. Too Stockholmish.
In my country version, that peeping tom (the woodcutter) “help” the fairy who lost her clothes. Because she felt thankfull about that, then she married him. When she found that he the one who stolen it later, she was very angry. Its disturbing story, but when I “study” it in my elementary,the teacher told us that what the woodcutter did were wrong.
But I dont think kids these day know about this story
The story seems so dark from everyone’s posts, yet the preview seems really lighthearted… That would be pretty awesome if the drama followed a more dark and revenge storyline like Ayashi on Ceres, but it doesn’t seem to be depicted that way from the preview and all the pastel colors. I’m kinda confused now about what to expect.
*SPOILERS*
The source legend is dark when you interpet it in today’s context, but the webtoon brings a twist to it (I’m not saying the writer justifies love based on Stockholm Syndrome, but she gives more insight to the relationship between the Woodcutter and the Fairy). Moreover, the fairy searching for her husband’s reincarnation is really a story on the surface, the webtoon’s strength comes from its depiction of past grievances and long-lasting frienship that are well-developed.
When I see people focusing so much on the folktale I can only feel sorry for the webtoon writer… Her work is so different from that.
I can only hope they do it justice.
I just find her dull but maybe this drama will do her better