| The Fairy Tale Forest (Sprookjesbos in Dutch) is a 15-acre (61000 m2) forest section of the amusement park Efteling in the Netherlands, where a number of well-known fairy tales and fairy tale figures are depicted by animated statues, scenes and buildings. Most of the figures are inspired by the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen and Charles Perrault. Concept and building: The Fairy Tale Forest was founded on the work of RJTh. van der Heijden, Peter Reijnders and Anton Pieck. Van der Heijden conceived of the idea in the 1950s to boost tourism. He asked his brother-in-law Peter Reijnders, a filmmaker and amateur inventor from Eindhoven, to recreate a fairy tale theme park Reijnders built. Reijnders chose artist Anton Pieck, whose visual style had been inspired by Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac, to add the artistic elements. The first scenes: It took roughly two years to develop and build the first ten fairy tales: the Chinese Nightingale, the Talking Parrot (or "the Naughty Princess"), the Castle of Sleeping Beauty, the Gnome Village, "Number One" (referring to the toilets), the Frog King, the Magic Clock, Mother Hulda's Well, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Long-neck. The Fairy Tale Forest: The Fairy Tale Forest has 25 scenes. Some include specific events such as Little Red Riding Hood at the door of her grandmother's house; while others are more general, such as Dwarf Village. There are three types of fairy tale scenes: indoor scenes with a commentary telling ... |
