Igraine without fear
Igraine Ohnefurcht (published 1998) is a fantasy novel by the author Cornelia Funke , illustrated by herself.
content
The magician's daughter Igraine lives with her parents, the beautiful Melisande and Sir Lamorak, and her brother Albert at Bibernell Castle. Her parents have mastered the art of magic with the help of the magical books, Albert is also learning this, only Igraine does not seem so gifted. She would rather be a knight. When her parents accidentally cast themselves into pigs while conjuring up a birthday present, Igraine must leave to get them the magical ingredients they need to transform themselves back.
At exactly this time, Gilgalad the Greedy and his thorny knight took the neighboring castle of Düsterfels. He also wants to get hold of Bibernells and the magical books. Albert defends Bibernell Castle together with the singing books against Gilgalad until Igraine comes back with the magic ingredients. While Albert and the parents perform the transformation spell, Igraine has to act again quickly and with the help of the Sad Knight Gilgalad and his troops hold out until her parents have transformed back and use their superior magical powers to fend off Gilgalad's threat.
Important topics in the book
When reading, it becomes noticeable that Funke used a bourgeois family model as the basis for Igraines' family. The family scenes are commonplace, the siblings tease each other and argue a bit, just like the readership experiences every day. The characters evolve as the novel progresses. Igraine comes closer to her goal of becoming a real knight, her brother proves himself a magician, the sad knight frees himself from his sadness thanks to Igraine and sees a meaning in his life again.
Funke paints a very black picture of the two villains Gilgalad and the spiky knight. She sympathizes with his soldiers because most of them do not volunteer in Gilgalad's army. The good, on the other hand, is shown in color. The attitude of the figures towards animals is also interesting. The positive characters always treat animals well and have a positive image of them. Even snakes, which have a negative connotation in the typical medieval reception, have a positive connotation here.
Audio books
There is an audio book with three CDs that was read by Cornelia Funke.
Others
In 2007 the author published a new version of the book in German. In addition to minor changes in content (for example, Igraine is now twelve years old, no longer ten; Gilgalad is called Osmund in the new version), she has made stylistic adjustments based on experiences with translating the book into English.