# Canuck Fairy Tales - A short story collection of humour and parody



## Dylan Hayes (Aug 18, 2012)

*Canuck Fairy Tales*​
 ​
When the clock struck midnight and Cinderella ran, all that the prince found was a snowshoe. When Hansel and Gretel's stepmother wanted to lose the children, they found themselves in downtown Montreal. And when Snow White was born, she had skin white as snow, lips red as the maple leaf and hair black as a hockey puck.

The world between the Great Lakes and the North Pole is not the world that Charles Perrault or the Brothers Grimm envisioned. There are no wolves in Grandma's clothing, just polar bears. There are no runaway men made of gingerbread, just poutine. But one thing remains the same: Canadians love the same classic stories. They just have a slightly different way of telling them.

From lumberjacks chopping down beanstalks to girls trapped in the CN Tower, author Dylan Hayes brings back the stories we all heard as children with a new twist. With humour on every page, Canuck Fairy Tales is a collection of everyone's childhood favourites set in a Canadian world of Mounties and maple syrup.

Here's the link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008Y5UAIA/


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Dylan -------------------

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## Dylan Hayes (Aug 18, 2012)

Thanks for the congratulations, Betsy and Ann. And, don't worry, I'll follow the rules.


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## Dylan Hayes (Aug 18, 2012)

The stories in _Canuck Fairy Tales_ are what are sometimes called "fractured fairy tales"--classic fairy tales changed in an unexpected way, often in order to be humorous. The stories are:

- The Glass Snowshoe
- Lumberjack and the Coffee Beanstalk
- Little Red Riding Parka
- The Poutine Man
- The Pied Fiddler of Newfoundland
- Straw into Black Gold
- The Girl in the CN Tower
- The Three Little Moose
- Hansel et Gretel
- Snow White and the Seven Klondikers.


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## Dylan Hayes (Aug 18, 2012)

I'm actually working on a second volume of these stories that will cover several famous fairy tales that I didn't include in the first one.


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## Dylan Hayes (Aug 18, 2012)

Still working on book two.

I’ve already got a rough idea which fairy tales I’m going to fracture for the second book, but nothing is final yet. If there’s one that anyone would like me to do, I’m open to suggestions.


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## Dylan Hayes (Aug 18, 2012)

Okay, I've pretty much chosen which ones to do for _More Canuck Fairy Tales_, as the second book will be called. Wish me luck.


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## Dylan Hayes (Aug 18, 2012)

_Canuck Fairy Tales_ just got its first review (a four-star review) and I'm very pleased with it. You can see it on the book's Amazon Customer Reviews page.


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## Dylan Hayes (Aug 18, 2012)

To all current and future readers: I hope you enjoy reading _Canuck Fairy Tales_ as much as I enjoyed writing it.

It's only $2.99 a copy.


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## Dylan Hayes (Aug 18, 2012)

Excerpt from story #1, _The Glass Snowshoe_:

Once upon a time, eh, there was a girl named Cinderella. She lived in Toronto along with ninety percent of the rest of the population. Both of her parents had bled to death after accidentally cutting themselves with ice skates. Since then, she lived with her wicked stepmother and her two ugly stepsisters. They hated Cinderella and treated her like a servant because they were jealous of her being as beautiful as Shania Twain.

Cinderella did all of the chores around the house. She prepared her stepmother's Kraft dinner, cleaned up after the family's Labrador retriever and polished the lacrosse sticks that her stepsisters rarely bothered to use. Her stepfamily was as courteous and polite as anyone in Canada, but never helped Cinderella because of their laziness. They preferred to sit around having Tim Hortons coffee and donuts while leaving Cinderella to do one thing or the other.

While her lazy and gluttonous stepfamily gradually became more obese and less attractive, the stepsisters went out of their way to hide Cinderella's beauty. She kept her Shania looks, but had no time to see to her own needs, so her clothes looked like they had been run over by a herd of wild bison.


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## Dylan Hayes (Aug 18, 2012)

Excerpt from story #2, _Lumberjack and the Coffee Beanstalk_:

Once upon a time, eh, in the wilderness of Western Canada, there was a lumberjack who was okay. His name was Jack. Conveniently, this allowed people to nickname him Lumber Jack the Lumberjack. He always said that it was a coincidence. So was the fact that he was fond of Northern pike (which is also called a jack).

Like most lumberjacks who were okay, Jack was six feet tall with well-built muscles, a red plaid shirt (or flannel, as he insisted on calling it), a scruffy beard, a pleasant attitude, poor dental hygiene and an eight-grade education that did not prevent him from keeping above Canada's gradually decreasing poverty line.

However, in the last few years, there had been little work for Jack. His wife became upset when all he brought home were a few Canadian pennies, which were now at risk of becoming obsolete anyway. Just to make ends meet, they had to sell off everything they owned from their miniature totem pole to their Celine Dion collection. In the end, when they were nearly broke, they had to sell the only thing they had left that was worth anything: their moose.


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## Dylan Hayes (Aug 18, 2012)

Excerpt from story #3, _Little Red Riding Parka_:

Once upon a time, eh, there was a little Eskimo Inuit girl who always wore the same hooded parka. Her mother had dyed it Canadian red to make her easier to find in the endless white (and besides, the red and white seemed to go well together). Because she always wore it, she was called Little Red Riding Parka.

One day, Little Red Riding Parka's parents told her that her grandmother was ill. Her grandmother claimed to have a disease called Winnipegosis. Little Red Riding Parka's parents asked her to take her grandmother some food. All they had to eat around the north was fish. Fortunately, her doctor had said that protein was just the thing for someone who looked as old as Percé Rock. Little Red Riding Parka's mother packed the fresh fish into a seal-hide bag and sent Little Red Riding Parka on her way.

Her grandmother lived on the other side of the tundra. Her mother warned her to be careful about going through the tundra, but Little Red Riding Parka was an Eskimo Inuit. She laughed in the face of danger as if she'd just seen one of Phil Hartman's acts. Along the way, a polar bear spotted her. He smelled fish and knew that she had to be carrying fish in her bag. He wanted it for himself. This particular bear would do anything for fish, including breaking in to steal anchovies from Boston Pizza.


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## Dylan Hayes (Aug 18, 2012)

Excerpt from story #4, _The Poutine Man_:

Once upon a time, eh, an old man and an old woman lived in a cottage in a little town in Ontario. The old woman made the most delicious poutine in Canada. Whenever she cooked a fresh batch of it, all of the men in town stopped watching The News Room to smell it. It was so irresistible that she had no trouble finding a husband. Of course, now, her husband was wondering if he had chosen the right woman because, with all of the other poutine-crazy men dropping in for a taste, it was hard to get any time alone with his wife.

One day, using Fraser Valley potatoes for the deep fried potatoes (whether they should properly be called chips or French fries in Canada has never been decided), she made a batch of poutine into the shape of a man. Lester B. Pearson. But when she was done, the Poutine Man did not want to be eaten. As soon as he was out of the oven, he jumped up and ran before the old woman could pick him up. She chased him out of the kitchen. The old man saw this and joined his wife. The couple chased him down the Trans Canada Highway.

But he said, "Run, run, as fast as you can, you can't catch me, I'm the Poutine Man," with the old woman and the old man chasing him.


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## Dylan Hayes (Aug 18, 2012)

Excerpt from story #5, _The Pied Fiddler of Newfoundland_:

Once upon a time, eh, in Newfoundland and Labrador (officially, the province is not just called Newfoundland anymore), there was a tiny east coast town not a long drive from Ungava Bay (yes, I know that's a stupid name). The town suffered a great plague. No one was sure where so many rodents had come from all at the same time, but it was true: the town was suffering from an infestation of beavers.

Finding no forest in the area and no trees to cut down, the beavers would instead chew up all of the woodwork and furniture in the town. Smooth wooden planes and beams with no bark on them didn't taste the same as live trees, but as hungry as they were, they ate as much woodwork and furniture as they could. At least Home Hardware was making a profit.

Every day, the local Newfies would sail out on their Campions to catch fish while wearing plastic yellow raingear. Despite their raingear being almost paper-thin and completely un-insulated, it managed to keep them warm in Canada's so-called freezing climate. But lately, the beavers had been chewing holes in their wooden boats so that many of them would sink before catching any fish. It was just as well that they lost their boats because the beavers would have chewed up the docks and piers too.


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## Dylan Hayes (Aug 18, 2012)

Excerpt from story #6, _Straw into Black Gold_:

Once upon a time, eh, a poor farmer and his daughter lived alone in Alberta. All they owned besides their grain farm was a beat-up old Ford Mercury. The reason that the farm earned them so little money was that oil companies were contaminating the soil on his farm while extracting Alberta oil. Why did the Athabasca oil sands have to be so close to the Athabasca?

To keep people from polluting his farm, the farmer wanted to make the oil companies think that there were safer ways to get oil. He lied to them that his daughter could spin straw into black gold. Word of this got around quickly because someone sent the news to Global. A famous hockey player who played for the Edmonton Oilers had heard about it and had the farmer and his daughter brought to him. The girl was a fan of the Oilers, which was ironic considering how much she and her father resented the oil companies. Her supposed ability caught his attention because you can't have the Oilers without oil.

She told the hockey player that he was even more handsome up close than on Hockey Night in Canada. He was the man of her dreams. He made a deal with her. He would have her locked in a room for three nights with a pile of straw. If she could spin the straw into black gold on all three nights, he would ask her to marry him. If not, he would ban her from watching hockey. Her father had not realized that his daughter would have to prove his claims. He had forgotten how much straw there was in a grain-farming province.


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## Dylan Hayes (Aug 18, 2012)

Excerpt from story #7, _The Girl in the CN Tower_:

Once upon a time, eh, a childless couple lived in an apartment on the top floor of a tall apartment building near the CN Tower. An enchantress lived in the apartment next door to them. She kept her apartment locked at all times, so most people never saw her. She had the usual long nose, bad teeth, messed-up grey hair, warts and shrivelled face of an old hag, but wore a cloak of Canadian red and white instead of the traditional witch's black. She was also a member of the Liberal party.

After praying for many years for a child, the woman finally became pregnant. When the baby was nearly ready to be born, the woman felt sick. She told her husband that she wanted the freshly baked Nanaimo bars that were cooling in the window of the next apartment. She told him that if she didn't eat some, she would join the fates of John A. MacDonald, Alexander Mackenzie, Wilfrid Laurier and James Doohan.

The man did not want to put himself in danger climbing over to the window next door. Besides, his wife had already made enough demands of him in her pregnancy. But no one argues with the cravings of a woman in her third trimester. So he carefully climbed out their window and over to the enchantress' window. He snatched the Nanaimo bars from the windowsill, but the enchantress came to the window and caught him.


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## Dylan Hayes (Aug 18, 2012)

Excerpt from story #8, _The Three Little Moose_:

Once upon a time, eh, there were Three Little Moose. They were brothers who never got along because one was a New Democrat, one was a Conservative and one was a Liberal. The Green Party had no representation. The Three Little Moose had decided to build a house and live on their own. They had planned to live together, but they had conflicting ideas about how the house should be built.

The First Little Moose, who was a New Democrat, wanted to build a house in a location where it would not harm the environment. He wanted to use renewable biodegradable building material. The Second Little Moose, who was a Conservative, insisted on traditional building materials. He did not care what happened to the environment as long as what he did worked well enough for him right now. The Third Little Moose, who was a Liberal, believed in finding a balance between the two ideals, but he did not get involved in his brothers' political rivalry because he was a Liberal fence sitter.

In the end, they all separated and each built their own house. They built their houses deep in the forest where they hoped that a moose would be out of danger from butchers. But there were other dangers too. A Big Bad Grizzly happened to be walking through the forest and smelled some moose meat.


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## Dylan Hayes (Aug 18, 2012)

Excerpt from story #9, _Hansel et Gretel_.

Once upon a time, eh, in French Canada, also knows as _le Québéc_, a widower lived with his two children, a boy named Hansel and a girl named Gretel, and his second wife who was their step-_maman_. They were very poor and did not have much food. All they could afford for every meal was one bowl of pea soup each; no cheese, no frog legs, no fatty foods. _Bon appétit_.

Their _papa _loved Hansel and Gretel, but his wife was snotty and rude to them and forced them to do most of the work around the house. Her husband argued with her over it, but she always got her way. He always lost their arguments because, being French, losing fights was in his blood. Well, _c'est la guerre_.

One day, the step-_maman _told her husband that they had to lose to the children because they barely had enough to feed themselves. He said "_Au contraire_," but as always, she got her way in their arguments. So he agreed. They would take Hansel and Gretel in town for a _promenade _and leave them there.


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## Dylan Hayes (Aug 18, 2012)

Excerpt from story #10, _Snow White and the Seven Klondikers_.

Once upon a time, eh, way up north in the Yukon on a snowy day, a queen was in her room sitting by the window watching a group of boys play hockey outside under the nation's flag. She wished for a daughter with skin white as snow, lips red as the maple leaf and hair black as a hockey puck. A year later, she gave birth to a daughter with skin white as snow, lips red as the maple leaf and hair black as a hockey puck. She was named Snow White because of her skin, which caused her to blend into the background whenever she was outside.

But one day, the queen died, artificial insulin not having been invented yet. Her husband the king decided to marry again. At the local saloon where the old gold miners gathered, the king ran into a beautiful but arrogant young barmaid who was making a killing by taking money from the few miners lucky enough to find Klondike gold. The girl became the new queen and Snow White's stepmother, but she still worked at the saloon where she felt more at home serving Canadian Club.

The new queen was arrogant about her beauty and insisted on being the fairest of them all in the Yukon. She was also a witch and could speak to the Northern Lights. Every day, she would ask the Northern Lights the same question. "Northern Lights, up in the sky, is there no one as fair as I?" The Northern Lights always agreed with her.


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## Dylan Hayes (Aug 18, 2012)

Sorry I haven't posted here in a while.

Anyway, I've shown you a sample of all ten stories, so now you've got a taste of the book's style. I hope you like it.


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