One of my daughter’s books (I don’t recall the author) is a wonderfully elaborate (and wordless) saga of the Tooth Fairy. Apparently she has anunderground mine, where she mines almost pure silver ore and casts it into custom coins, which she leaves under the pillow in exchange for teeth. The teeth she takes home, cuts up with a big saw, and turns them into ivory keys for her piano. Her hippie-esque house is decorated with lots of elephants.
Great book, and it comes with a cover for making your own tooth box and coin. MilliCal, despite being almost 7, still believes in the Tooth Fairy.
Regarding the myth of the Tooth Fairy (http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mtoothfairy.html), Dex notes that “the tooth fairy doesn’t have the developed mythos of, say, Santa Claus. Santa has a residence, an occupation, helpers, reindeer, even an identifiable slogan…the tooth fairy has none of that.” All true. Believe it or not, Robert Devereaux’s novel Santa Steps Out: a Fairy Tale for Grown-ups takes exactly this point and runs with it (Leisure Books, 2000, ISBN 0843947810). (Briefly, God goes on vacation and leaves the Archangel Michael in charge. Michael makes a significant mistake: Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, who were to be kept apart eternally, are allowed to meet once more, with results that are by turns hilarious, horrifying and - depending on the reader’s taste - titillating or disgusting, or both.)
Be warned, this novel is not for the faint-hearted: it’s violent, gory and sexually explicit, with almost every permutation and perversion one can imagine - but it also plays some interesting games with a few of our favorite mythical holiday characters and their Classical origins. Out of print, but worth looking for. And Devereaux comes up with an, er, interesting twist on the question “what does the Tooth Fairy do with all those teeth?”
Twenty years ago (my God, that long ago?) I worked one summer away from grad school, and every morning on the radio I heard the syndicated Adventures of the Tooth Fairy. It was wonderful. The Tooth Fairy was played by that radio guy with the deadpan voice (even deader than Lorenzo Music), and every ten minute episode began with :
Knock, Knock!
(Door Opening)
Female Voice: Yeah? (You can hear the curlers in her hair)
Tooth Fairy: Hello, I’m the Tooth Fairy. And I doth come…
(Door slams, cutting him off.)
I’ve looked on the 'web, but can only find a few brief mentions of this syndicated show.
The “Adventures” chronicled him getting and setting up an office, dealing with his dentist/office mate, etc. Never did explain what he did with those teeth.
I don’t know anyone who really questioned what is done with the teeth. The thing in this article that gets me is that the going rate has jumped to over $2! In the mid 1980s I only got a quarter.
Unless the treasury starts minting $2 coins, my kids are getting Sacajaweas. If that’s the largest single coin denomination, tough luck for them.
Interesting to learn that the Tooth Fairy myth didn’t take off until the 1950s.
Robert McCloskey’s great 1953 children’s book, One Morning in Maine, is all about the loss of a first tooth, and the Tooth Fairy makes no appearance…the reward is, instead, the gift of a “secret wish.” Which is used to procure a chocolate ice cream cone, plus a vanilla one for little sister Jane (so the drips won’t spot).
I don’t remember what I thought the Tooth Fairy did with teeth when I was a kid, but I can still think like a kid today. I suspect that the teeth are simply reused. Where do you think the new teeth that replace the ones that fell out come from?
As for older adult teeth, I’m not sure. But I suspect the four molars I’ll be getting pulled soon (they’re not worth repairing… again) will just have to written off by the Fairy. (I’ve got more filling than tooth in my mouth now. There’s not enough tooth left to fill. )
Oh! Wait. I thought of something. Maybe the Fairy sells adult teeth to witches and the like. I believe they use things like teeth in some of their potions and spells. I can imagine the social circles the Fairy belongs to often overlap with witches circles.
As a Mom of now, young men, I,as the ‘tooth fairy’ can say in all honesty that the teeth are still (albiet smaller…dust to dust, ashes to ashes, type thing) residing in a velvet jewelers box deep in a corner of my dresser.
I thought I had mentioned in the Staff Report, but obviously didn’t, the wonderful children’s book The Mango Tooth, about a child who loses a tooth while eating a mango, and so names the lost tooth. We used that with our kids, and each tooth was named (including one lost when we were playing horsie, named the “Daddy’s Tushy Tooth”) and taped to a piece of paper and labelled. Unfortunately, we didn’t indicate which tooth belonged to which child. Consequently, twenty plus years later, we have a bundle of papers with teeth taped to them, named, but no idea which one goes with which kid.
Really? Cool! Tell me, how did you manage the one where my tooth was exchanged while we were picking up my sister from dance class, back in 1983? I’ve always wondered about that one…
When I lost my second or third tooth my brother was in the hospital and consiquently the tooth sort of got forgotten the first night it was under my pillow. The following morning I was crushed. My mom explained that the tooth fairy must have gotten lost because we had just moved, which was always true in that household. She told me to put it back under my pillow.
The next morning along with whatever coin there was was a letter from the tooth fairy. It explaied why she got lost and explained what she did with the teeth. It seems she is building a castle, and those teeth are the bricks. She is constantly adding remodeling and renovating, so there is a continuous need for them. Its been almost 40 years now and I still remember how special i felt to get that letter. Mom said she was up till 5am writing it and was really afraid that I would wake up before she got done. My brother came home a couple days later and was alright for that time.
Which, thank goodness, is exactly why it shouldn’t be made in Hollywood. It’s an Ankh-Morpork/Discworld book, not NYC. What would you do to the wizards, anyway?
Thanks, furlibusea. Now I’m having visions of a little fairy overseeing the building of an ivory Winchester Castle. As long as she keeps building, she will never die. Stairways that terminate at the ceiling. Doors behind doors. As long as the teeth keep coming, but only as long as the teeth keep coming.
Now, what did she do to make her feel guilty about teeth?
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