Are you hearing echoes of Snow White here? Interestingly, we are told in this story that: As the sword is the soul of a samurai, so is the mirror the soul of a woman, and that to keep your mirror clean is to keep your soul pure. But her step-mother becomes suspicious of what the daughter is doing secretly in her room. “Whenever you look in it,” the mother says, “you will always see me.” As the girl grows up, she looks in the mirror and, because she resembles her mother, she thinks the dead mother is there with her. It tells of a young girl whose dying mother bequeaths her a rare object, a mirror. This is a Japanese tale about a mirror that isn’t actually magic but its owner thinks that it is. #5: The Mirror of Matsuyama (traditional, retold by Yei Theodora Ozaki and others)
JAPANESE MAGIC MIRROR FREE
Does she exist in real life? Can he free her from the mirror and finally be with her? You’ll have to read the book to find out! This is absolutely “mirror-as-dream,” and reminds me of those tales and myths in which a hero dreams of a beautiful woman and then sets out to find her. In the middle of the book (actually in a book in the library of the Fairy Palace) is the story of Cosmo, a student who buys a mirror from an antique shop, only to find that it shows a beautiful woman, who appears nightly in the reflection of his room. If you haven’t read this book by one of the fathers of fantasy, get a copy today! It was a huge influence on CS Lewis, and contemporary with Alice and Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, sharing many themes and tropes with Alice but treating them completely differently. #4: Cosmo’s Mirror from Phantastes by George MacDonald Bread and Butterflies, Jabberwocks and Humpty Dumpty.
JAPANESE MAGIC MIRROR FULL
Of course, this being Lewis Carroll, the other side of the mirror is not only full of things in reverse but also inhabited by the weird and whacky, eg. (Why is that, anyway? This is actually what George MacDonald is talking about when he says all mirrors are magic mirrors). She decides to climb up the mantelpiece and into “Looking-glass House,” the house reflected in the mirror, which always looks so much more magical than the real house. This time it is Alice, on her second adventure following Wonderland. #3: The Looking-Glass from Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll John TennielĪgain the mirror leads a young girl into a dream world. On the other side of the mirror is a reflection of the castle as it was before the Beast was cursed, gradually revealing his true history. In the 2014 La Belle et la Bete, director Christophe Gans plays on the idea of mirrors and dreams, by having Beauty visit a magic mirror nightly in her dreams. When the mirror does appear, it usually has the function to show whatever Beauty wishes it to show, or to show her family. In the Ladybird version I had as a child, it had the rhyme: Little Beauty, dry your eyes Needless are these tears and sighs Gazing in this looking-glass What you wish shall come to pass. Not all versions of Beauty and the Beast have a magic mirror, but I always liked it. #2: The Beast’s Mirror from Beauty and the Beast (traditional, retold by Madame Le Prince de Beaumont and others) Criterion Collection (A touch of Echo and Narcissus there, I think! More on them later). Who could forget the resonant voice of the mirror in Disney’s version? (Still a terrifying film, in my opinion!) And I like how Once Upon a Time made the mirror an actual person (aka Sidney Glass) whose unrequited love for the Queen (Regina) drives him to imprison himself in the mirror. But that’s not the point, is it? The mirror speaks the truth that the Queen refuses to accept. Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all? Actually, any ordinary mirror could tell you that you’re not as young as you used to be and that your step-daughter is pretty.
Probably the first magic mirror any of us remember. Here are some you will know well, and some which perhaps are still waiting to be explored… #1: The Evil Queen’s Mirror from Snow White (traditional, retold by The Brothers Grimm and others) Photo: ABC However, some mirrors are more magical than others. As a small child, I spent hours with my head inside the three-way mirror on my mother’s dressing-table, watching endless repetitions of myself disappear down glass corridors. “All mirrors are magic mirrors,” says George MacDonald in his classic fantasy, Phantastes.
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