The Fairy with Turquoise Hair | |
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The Adventures of Pinocchio character | |
La Fata dai Capelli Turchini, as illustrated by C.Chiostri
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First appearance | The Adventures of Pinocchio |
Created by | Carlo Collodi |
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Species | Fairy |
Gender | Female |
Nationality | Italian |
The Fairy with Turquoise Hair (Italian: La Fata dai Capelli Turchini, often simply referred to as La Fata Turchina) is a fictional character in Carlo Collodi's 1883 book The Adventures of Pinocchio. She repeatedly appears at critical moments in Pinocchio's wanderings to admonish the little wooden puppet to avoid bad or risky behavior. Although the naïvely willful marionette initially resists her good advice, he later comes to follow her instruction. She in turn protects him, and later enables his assumption of human form, contrary to the prior wooden form.
The character is the inspiration for the Blue Fairy in Disney's adaptation of the story.
The Fairy with Turquoise Hair makes her first appearance in chapter XV, where she is portrayed as a young girl living in a house in the middle of a forest. Pinocchio, who is being chased by The Fox and the Cat (Il Gatto e la Volpe), pleads with the Fairy to allow him entrance. The Fairy cryptically responds that all inhabitants of the house, including herself, are dead, and that she is waiting for her coffin to arrive. The pair catches and hangs Pinocchio from a tree. In the following chapter, it is established that the girl is a fairy who has lived in the forest for more than a thousand years. She takes pity on Pinocchio, and sends a falcon to take him down from the tree and for her poodle servant Medoro to prep her stagecoach. After a visit from three doctors consisting of an Owl, a Crow, and the Talking Cricket (Il Grillo Parlante), the Fairy attempts to give Pinocchio medicine in order to heal his injuries. Pinocchio refuses to take the medicine on account of its sour taste, prompting the Fairy to summon a group of coffin-bearing undertaker rabbits. Frightened by this display, Pinocchio drinks the medicine, and later tells the Fairy of his previous adventures. When he includes untruths, his nose begins to lengthen, which the Fairy explains is due to his lies. She summons a group of woodpeckers to shorten the disproportionate nose, and after forgiving Pinocchio, informs him that he is free to consider her an elder sister, and that his father Mister Geppetto is on his way to fetch him. In his impatience, Pinocchio leaves the house in an attempt to meet his father on the way.