Cheekwood Part 2

The second display was of "The Sword and the Stone". I had never thought of the story as a fairy tale before. Maybe because it was never included in any of my fairy tale books I had growing up but it is a fictional story all the same. Despite that this was a pretty cool display. I loved that they had the sword in the stone for anyone to play with and Declan seemed interested enough in it. Across from the walkway was King Arthur's castle which somewhat explains the story, but not really. I didn't go inside but I'm assuming there is no details of the story on the wall. Otherwise, any display with a play house is a plus in my book. BThe next two displays lack pictures because they just didn't turn out that good.

Thirdly we have "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves". This display consisted of a structure with mirrored outer walls and a "secret" entrance covered by a tapestry. The inside of the structure had treasures and sand covering the floor. The sand added a nice touch but mixing it with muddy shoes was unappealing. Luckily we had a lot of walking left to do. It had been a long time since I had read the story and I think I have only read it once because it was pretty long if I remember correctly so I was kind of fuzzy on the story and the display didn't really explain much. The only explanation was a plaque that mentioned the famous line "open sesame". Declan liked going into the house and Brett and I walked away puzzled about the details of the story. C

The fourth display was "Rumpelstiltskin". Luckily I remember this story so I was able to explain it to Brett. This was one of the more fun ones because there were three separate structures. First was a structure depicting a castle and the straw room and inside were portraits of the characters painted on the walls. Just outside of that was the spinning wheel. Follow a stone trail and you will see a camp fire set up with a fire painted on wood surrounded by tree stumps. Follow another stone trail, each with a letter from Rumplestilskin's name(very cleaver) and you will find his little house in the woods. Through out the structures are quotes from the story which really helped piece the story together. The only weird part was inside Rumplestitskin's house was furniture that looked very out of place. For example the chair had faux leather upholstery and the table looked like a coffee table. This would have been better with a simple wood table and chair. A+