Arion Fountain - for Holly and her sister :)

Thank you Katerina. Wonderful how these stories survive over the centuries.
Some of the music played at the recent BBC Proms would have been curtains for Arion.

I put there Greek music, Diane. And my name is Katarina. Katerina is Russian name.

Lovely story Katarina, enjoyed your blog and pictures

Fascinating,loved it thank you.

That's great katarina, I loved that story and the details in the sculpture, especially the turtle sandals!

wonderful Kat, loved the story and the music, my two girls would love it, they love dolphins :-)

Thank you Cinderella and BJS :)
SL, I hope your daughters will like that.
Sticki, thanks, this fountain is all green and yes, you are right, it has a lot of small details which make it very interesting to watch around.
Just interesting fact is that metallurgic works were done in Italy, so that they have great experience how to make sculptures look like old ancient bronze ones :))

they will love it thanks Kat, when they come home i'll show them, as they have been away on sleepovers this weekend :-)

Sleepovers? What is that?

Wonderful, Katarina - I do like a happy ending!

(Sleeppovers are when children have friends to stay overnight. They are very popular here!)

I can imagine. Does every child have a talk with the parent before that? You know, what I mean ? :)) Here you have such talks till you are 60.

Melchi@ happy ending was there, as it was fairy tale, lol.

Woops. Sorry to mess up the spelling !

Homebird@Wow! What a pity I can´t see their eyes :))

they call them sleepovers but they never sleep, they talk and laugh all night.

What a lovely story! And amazing sculptures in the fountain. :o)

Thank you, Nariz :)

Sticki@ thank you for explanation. Ach, where are those lovely times? As we grow old, we sleep less and less and speak more and more about painkillers, right? :))

Funny you should say that Kat! I woke up with a headache!

OK, take painkiller then. Damned pharmaceutical industry thinks also on our generation :))

Hmm, Katarina. I was never convinced about the happy endings of "The Red Shoes", or "The Constant Tin Soldier"! (You can see I was an avid fairy-tale reader!)
Which reminds me - I was once telling my little daughter the story of the Gingerbread Man. My adult sister was in the next room and - unknown to me - also listening. When I got to the end, where the gingerbread man is finally eaten, I heard an exclamation of dismay from my sister. She (to me, amazingly) had not heard the story before and was quite horrified. She was waiting for someone to come and rescue him! Needless to say, my daughter was quite unaffected. As I said to my sister - he was only a biscuit!

Melchi, that is interesting. Maybe I know those two fairy tales, although in different countries they have different titles. The Red Shoes and The Constant Tin Soldier - I am not familiar with them.
I am not an expert on fairy tales, but as a girl who was for almost 3 years bedridden and separated from other kids, I can honestly say that I read and know all Czech and mainly Slovak fairy tales. I am almost 100 % sure, that in all Slovak fairy tales good wins over evil. There are some Czech horror fairy tales (e.g.The Nix), but otherwise they also have all good endings.
I think that very often fairy tales are mirrors into one nation spirit, that is why they have been studied so deeply by psychiatrists, psychologists, historians, philosophers etc.
As I see you are fan of fairy tales, I now try to find a short video for you from one Czech horror fairy tale, which was filmed about decade ago and it was really a ticket bestseller in our cinemas :) Wait, will try to find English version for you. If not, just have a look...you will like that :)

Melchi@Here is the ballad Waterman with English subtitles, it has two parts if you are interested. I liked this one which is very interesting - it is like E.A. Poe´s work).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r66VqncxXAw&feature=related

Well, that was certainly gripping, Katarina. It was disturbing, but beautifully made and of course I had to watch part 2 as well, which just shows how compelling such tales are.

The Red Shoes and the Constant Tin Soldier are both by Hans Christian Andersen.

If you have time, have a look on the tale Shirt from that series of ballads. It is very, very frightening....:)

I might give that one a miss, Katarina! I don't think I'm that brave!

:)) Anyway, I don´t think English subtitles are very good in there, are they.
I had a look on that fairy tale Red Shoes and must say I have never read this fairy tale of H.Ch. Andersen (he has memorial in Bratislava, by the way). I read its plot summary. Very strange and very dark fairy tale. We have much easier going fairy tales :))

Yes - some of his are quite dark. I remember being horrified by The Red Shoes when I was young, and I wasn't too keen on The Little Mermaid which has been hijacked by Disney. I was always hooked on fairy tales, I had old-fashioned collections of Andersen and the Brothers Grimm. I don't know much of Perrault though, except Cinderella.