The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic

In this collection of short stories, four classic fairy tales are retold with a twist, and Bardugo includes two original stories. In the first story, Ayama and the Thorn Wood, Little Red Riding Hood is Ayama, a poor serving girl who goes to confront the terrible beast of the woods. Instead of killing him, she persuades him to stop destroying the kingdom’s crops, and in return, he grants her the power to depose the land’s evil king.   

In the story The Witch of Duva, Hansel and Gretel become Havel and Nadya. After Havel goes off to war, Nadya discovers that it is not a witch who is eating children, but her own father.  

Then, in The Soldier Prince, the Nutcracker comes to life. At first, he thinks it is because of Clara’s superficial, admiring love, but he realizes it is actually the fatherly love from the clockmaker who designed him that brought him to life.  

Finally, in When Water Sang Fire, readers meet Ulla, the witch from The Little Mermaid. Ulla is betrayed by her closest friend, Signy, who marries the prince, Roffe. Signy later becomes Ariel’s mother. Thus, Ulla holds a grudge against Ariel and her family forevermore. 

In the first original story, The Too-Clever Fox, a clever fox escapes from predators with his sharp tongue, but when words fail him, he must ask for help from his only friend, a songbird.  

Finally, in Little Knife, a beautiful woman named Yeva is auctioned off for marriage, and a suitor named Semyon pleads with the river in the village itself to help him marry Yeva. Yet when the wedding day comes, the river helps Yeva gain her freedom from unwanted matrimony. 

Every fairy tale is told in omniscient third person, and almost every main character is a strong young girl who must overcome incredible cruelty and hardship. When the main character is male, there is no shortage of well-rounded supporting female characters. Contrary to the original fairy tales, the main characters never simply slay monsters or find true love. Rather, they question the truth of what has been told to them and work to find meaningful companionship. Though the main characters’ personalities vary, it is easy to root for them and sympathize with their difficult lives. 

The supporting characters are full of surprises, which is part of what makes this collection so intriguing. Many of the characters readers expect to be good (the prince, the suitor, the father) are actually sinister, and vice versa for the “evil” characters (the witch, the beast, the evil stepmother). The supporting characters urge the reader to question the characters’ intentions and decide for themselves what is true. As the back cover reads, “Love speaks in flowers. Truth requires thorns.” 

The Language of Thorns collection of stories is incredibly entertaining, with twists that constantly surprise and excite readers, whether they are familiar or unfamiliar with the classic fairy tales. While the tales can often be dark, the messages and themes they convey are hopeful, emphasizing the power of love and companionship. In fact, the contrast of dark and light themes emphasizes each one to a powerful effect. The Language of Thorns is perfect for fairy tale, fantasy, or thriller lovers. 

Sexual Content  

• In The Witch of Duva, there is an implication of pedophilia from Nadya’s father, Maxim, but it is performed on an illusory double of Nadya rather than Nadya herself. “But her father’s hand slipped beneath the hem of her skirts, and the ginger girl did not move . . . Maxim opened his wet mouth to kiss her again.” The sexual content is described over a page, but it is implied that Maxim regularly preyed upon young women. 

• In The Soldier Prince, Clara kisses the Nutcracker after developing a crush on him. “She could not wait. Clara stood on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his.”  

• Clara kisses the Nutcracker again, believing him to be romantically interested in her. “He kissed her beneath the stairs.” 

• Frederik kisses the Nutcracker after similarly developing a crush on him. The Nutcracker “kissed Frederik in the darkened hall.”  

• In When Water Sang Fire, when Ulla, Signy, and Roffe go to the human world, Signy and Roffe have romantic interactions with many mortals. “Roffe took his pleasures [and] Signy suffered but drowned her longing in a tide of human lovers.” 

Violence  

• In The Too-Clever Fox, Koja’s mother (a fox) eats a few of her young children. “So she snatched up two of her smallest young and made a quick meal of them.” 

• Koja gets caught in a metal trap. “Koja ran all the way back to his den, trailing the bloody chain behind him.” 

• Koja frequently kills and eats chickens. “He raced back from Tupolev’s farm with a hen’s plump body in his mouth. . .” 

• Hunters Lev and Sofiya Jurek come to the woods and kill a bear that Koja was friends with. “Koja’s blood chilled at the sight of his fallen friend’s hide.” 

• Sofiya stabs Koja and attempts to kill him. “‘Why?’ he gasped as Sofiya worked the knife deeper.” 

• Lula, the songbird, attacks Sofiya to save Koja. “Lula came flying, and when she saw what Sofiya had done, she set upon pecking at her eyes.” 

• In The Witch of Duva, Nadya’s fingers get cut off as ingredients for a spell. “At the sight of her fingers lying forlorn on the table, Nadya fainted.” 

• Maxim eats a gingergirl who is an illusory double of Nadya. The gingergirl is not alive or conscious, but this implies that Maxim has been sexually assaulting and then killing and eating young girls. “Nadya watched her father consume the gingergirl, bite by bite, limb by limb.” 

• Maxim dies when his stomach ruptures from the witch’s spell. “They found Nadya’s father there the next morning, his insides ruptured and stinking of rot.” 

• In When Water Sang Fire, to walk on land, the mermaids cut off their tails. “Only then did Ulla add her own voice to the song and drive her blade into her tail.”  

• Roffe murders a young boy with the help of Signy and Ulla in order to create fire that will exist under water. “Even above the sound of their voices, she heard a horrible wet thunk, and the boy cried out, woken from his sleep by the blade piercing his chest.” 

Drugs and Alcohol  

• None 

Language    

• None 

Supernatural  

• Most animals talk throughout the book. “To her surprise, the runt answered, ‘Do not eat me, Mother. Better to be hungry now than sorry later.’”  

• In Ayama and the Thorn Wood, Ayama turns into a monster. “Then she took off her hat, and all the people saw that she was a girl no longer.” 

• In The Witch of Duva, there is a witch named Magda who can cast spells. She turns Nadya into a crow and creates a girl made of gingerbread who looks just like Nadya. When Maxim eats the gingergirl, he dies. “As for Nadya, she lived with Magda and learned all the old woman’s tricks, magic best not spoken of on a night like this.” 

• In Little Knife, there is a river that is a sentient spirit named Little Knife. “‘You have been a loyal friend, and so I think I must name you,’ Semyon said to the river as he tried to wring the water from his ragged coat.” 

• In The Soldier Prince, the Nutcracker is alive and can take children to a magical world via flight. “He would offer his hand and with a whoosh, they would fly through the attic window, out into the cold.” 

• In When Water Sang Fire, Ulla, Signy, and Roffe are mermaids who can use magic by singing. Witches also exist. “It was the deepest magic, music of rending and healing, the only song all royalty were trained in from birth.” 

Spiritual Content  

• None