There were many things that struck me about the selections I read from this book, but one of the most immediate was the complexity of the stories. Not only is there a quest, but the quest has three parts. And then there’s a secondary quest, and that one is usually even more challenging.¹ I’m not sure why it is that the fairy tales we’re used to aren’t set up this way. Perhaps they’ve been simplified, or there may be a basic difference between the oral traditions of Eastern and Western Europe that affected the development of their folktales. The first story I read, “Goldenhair”², had several unique sections, and seemed almost like a blend of three distinct narratives.

• A king hears of a snake that–when eaten–will give a person the power to understand any animal. He orders his servant, George³, to cook it for him, but warns George not to taste any of it.
• George tastes the snake anyway. He serves it to the king.
• The king finds out that George tasted the snake, and tests him by making him pour a glass of wine exactly full. If it runs over or is slightly under, George will be killed.
• George screws that up because he’s distracted by birds flying through the room chattering about three golden hairs they’re carrying.
• Instead of executing George, the king (who overheard the birds) sends him to bring back the beautiful golden-haired woman.
• George rescues some ants along the way.
• George kills his own horse so that two young ravens won’t starve.⁴
• George buys a golden fish from two quarreling fishermen and sets it free.
• He arrives at the castle and asks Goldenhair’s father for her, so he can bring her back as a bride for his king. The answer is yes, on the condition that he can complete three tasks.
• Task #1: Find scattered pearls in a meadow and string them back onto a necklace. The ants help George with this.
• Task #2: Find a gold ring lost in the ocean. The fish does it for him.
• Task #3: Find the waters of life and death. The ravens bring them back, and on the way to deliver them, George kills a spider wit hthe water of death and revives the fly it was about to eat with the water of life.
• There’s one more catch, it turns out. George has to pick, from the twelve princesses, which one is Goldenhair. They’re all wearing scarves on their heads, and the fly tells him which one is the correct choice.
• George brings Goldenhair back to his king. The king is thrilled, but executes George anyway.
• Goldenhair uses the waters of life and death to bring George back to life, the king dies, and George becomes the new king with Goldenhair as his bride.

This is an unusually complex story. The three parts, as I see them, are these:

1. The magical snake (George is warned not to taste it, but does anyway out of curiosity. Classic cautionary pattern.)⁵
2. The wine test (‘If you manage this impossible task, you will be rewarded’ pattern.)
3. The quest for Goldenhair (‘Save the animals, they help you later on’ pattern.)

I’m not sure if I’d classify the conclusion (George’s death, resurrection, and ascension to the throne) as an individual narrative, as it’s closely linked to the rewards he gained from helping the animals in section three. You’ll almost certainly recognize these patterns in all sorts of other folktales and myths. What makes this tale unique, I think, is the fact that all three of these narrative patterns are in one story. There are several other stories in this collection that do the same sort of thing structurally, and, reading them, I wondered whether they started out as individual stories and were later combined, or if perhaps the original was this long and had been split for other versions, or in other cultures.

One interesting sidenote: the Bulgarian version of Cinderella in this collection has a very different beginning:

ONCE upon a time, a number of girls were assembled spinning round a deep rift or chasm in the ground. As they spun they chattered together and told stories to each other. Up came a white-bearded old man, who said to them: ‘Girls! as you spin and chatter, be circumspect round this rift; or, if any of you drops her spindle into it, her mother will be turned into a cow.’ Thus saying he departed. The girls were astonished at his words, and crowded round the rift to look into it. Unfortunately, one of them, the most beautiful of all, dropped her spindle into it. Towards evening, when she went home, she espied a cow–her mother–in front of the gate, and drove her out with the other cattle to pasture. After some time the father of the girl married a widow, who brought a daughter with her into the house.

From there, it follows the usual pattern of Cinderella being persecuted, and seeking out her mother (in one form or another) for help. In this version, the ball is simply church on Sunday, the prince is an emperor, and the shoe/foot quest remains the same. I was intrigued by this particular story because it explains the missing mother element in a unique way. In fact, Cinderella herself is responsible for her mother’s absence, and–indirectly–for her own later misfortunes. What a twist!

Finally, be sure to check out “The White Snake” (unrelated to the Grimm story), which is a strange Illyrian version of the Pied Piper story, where the community is plagued by snakes rather than rats. You’ll be surprised by the ending.

1. This has been pretty consistently true of the Russian folklore I’ve read as well, especially the Vasilisa, Matreshka, and Baba Yaga stories.
2. A variation on the Grimm brothers’ “The White Snake“, though much more complex.
3. Is that really a Slavic name?
4. I couldn’t help but wonder about that– he can understand the horse too. Killing it would be pretty horrific.
5. If this were a story on its own, George would probably just be put to death as a result of his disobedience and that would be the end.

In “Sparks”, Gregory Frost retells Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Tinder Box”¹ with a decidedly film noir feel, if a bit surreal. Reading it, I was reminded of movies with twisting plots and surprising villains, like “The Big Sleep” and “Laura“. The femme fatale is alive and well in Frost’s retelling, but becomes a wicked stepmother figure, a comparison that I’d never thought to make.

Don Webb‘s “Three Dwarves and 2000 Maniacs” is a bizarre retelling of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” that–among other things–explores the connection between fairy tale violence and film violence. Like “Sparks”, the atmosphere is close enough to modern-day life to produce a very strange, uneasy feeling when fairy tale elements are inserted. The prince, in this case, is the head of a mental institution. And, in a way, it makes sense to approach a fairy tale from the perspective of the insane.

“Steadfast” by Nancy Kress (a version of Andersen’s “The Steadfast Tin Soldier“) is set during the Napoleonic Wars. It contains no magical fairytale elements, and is almost painfully realistic. It reimagines the story from a much more jaded perspective, with obsessive and unhappy characters.² The first-person account from the soldier’s perspective is framed by a journalist’s much later interview with the aging ballerina. This technique produces a sort of dual narration, as well as a strange dialogue between the two characters and their stories. From one of the interview sections:

It was said–and I quote from Le Journal de Paris–that you “dance as if pursued by wolves. Savagely, relentlessly.” Was that so?

Not wolves. Fire. Fire and blood.

I beg your pardon?

You do not have it.

You make no sense, Mademoiselle. Dancing is not war.

So all these stories have gotten me thinking more and more about fairy tales/mythology and intertextuality. What happens when an adaptation becomes more than a simple reworking of the story? Some narratives, like “Into the Woods” and “The 10th Kingdom“,³ weave together many different stories, and some, like “Pan’s Labyrinth” use common fairy tale elements to create an experience that is familiar, but a little uncomfortable in its unexpected realism. Sadly, many people think of the Disney versions when a common fairy tale is named, but it’s important to remember that Disney movies are also recontextualized. They may be faithful to the basic elements of the fairy tale, like characters and setting, but the stories are certainly reshaped for a different demographic.

Even B movies and creature flicks do creative things with mythology. In “She Creature“, mermaids are closer to their ancient Greek counterparts rather than Andersen’s, not only wrecking ships but actually devouring the panicked sailors. Film history abounds with vampires, werewolves, and all sorts of other monsters from mythology and folklore. (Evil snakes are also been a popular theme for years, all the way from the Bible to “Boa“.)

And before you scoff at my B movie enthusiasm,⁴ just think: Which is closer to the source material, violent creature flicks or sanitized Disney movies? And, as the protagonist in “Three Dwarves and 2000 Maniacs” suggests, perhaps we need a good dose of gore to keep ourselves sane:

“A very small percentage of the world’s crazies don’t respond to the standard Spencerzine therapy. They need careful balancing of the secretions of ductless glands, electrolyte balance, and, above all, movie therapy. Gore films work well.”

See?

1. A zippo lighter replaces the magical tinderbox in this version.
2. It was also one of my favorites. Figures.
3. If you haven’t seen either of these, you should. Right now.
4. And you should know better by now!

Not only that, but Lubitsch and Chaplin had their way with the story too. And then there’s Béla Bartók‘s opera “Duke Bluebeard’s Castle” (“A kékszakállú herceg vára”), Atwood‘s “Bluebeard’s Egg”, and even a couple of foreign animated features. Is our obsession with the horrific image of slaughtered women in pieces behind the forbidden door, the confusing morality of the story (is it telling women to be analytical or obedient?), or even with the satisfaction of Bluebeard’s well-deserved end? Well, yes. But enough about society. As Jim Groom would say, let’s talk about me!

My last post was all about Hilaire Belloc‘s Cautionary Tales for Children. One commenter was curious about the long-term effect these poems may have had on me, considering the early age at which I was exposed to them. While I don’t have an answer (yet), I do have one significant observation. Belloc’s poems, though certainly vindictive (“Matilda, Who told Lies and was Burned to Death”), aren’t especially shocking, given historical storytelling traditions. The idea that children must be protected from anything unsavory or violent, even in stories, seems to be a fairly recent development. Kids are being taught through stories like “Curious George” rather than “Bluebeard”.  (Even Beatrix Potter‘s Peter Rabbit stories are less watered down than most modern children’s literature. It’s pretty clearly stated that Farmer McGregor is going to bake the protagonist into a pie and eat him. In another story, a ‘bad rabbit’ steals and, as a consequence, has his tail and whiskers shot off by a hunter. And let’s not forget Owl trying to skin annoying Squirrel Nutkin alive.)³ So if you think Matilda’s punishment for lying is a bit harsh, let’s take a look at some popular fairy tales…

Snow White (Grimm Brothers):

“Snow White’s wicked step-mother was also bidden to the feast…At first she would not go to the wedding at all, but she had no peace, and had to go to see the young queen. And when she went in she recognized Snow White, and she stood still with rage and fear, and could not stir. But iron slippers had already been put upon the fire, and they were brought in with tongs, and set before her. Then she was forced to put on the red-hot shoes, and dance until she dropped down dead.”

Bluebeard (Perrault):

“The gate was opened, and two horsemen entered. Drawing their swords, they ran directly to Bluebeard. He knew them to be his wife’s brothers, one a dragoon, the other a musketeer; so that he ran away immediately to save himself; but the two brothers pursued and overtook him before he could get to the steps of the porch. Then they ran their swords through his body and left him dead.” (Bluebeard, Perrault)

The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood (Perrault):

“The ogress presently knew the voice of the queen and her children, and being quite mad that she had been thus deceived, she commanded next morning, by break of day (with a most horrible voice, which made everybody tremble), that they should bring into the middle of the great court a large tub, which she caused to be filled with toads, vipers, snakes, and all sorts of serpents, in order to have thrown into it the queen and her children, the clerk of the kitchen, his wife and maid…They were brought out accordingly, and the executioners were just going to throw them into the tub, when the king entered the court on horseback and asked, with the utmost astonishment, what was the meaning of that horrible spectacle. No one dared to tell him, when the ogress, all enraged to see what had happened, threw herself head foremost into the tub, and was instantly devoured by the ugly creatures she had ordered to be thrown into it for others.”

Little Red Cap (Grimm Brothers):

“And then the grandmother came out alive as well. Then Little Red Cap fetched some large heavy stones. They filled the wolf’s body with them, and when he woke up and tried to run away, the stones were so heavy that he fell down dead.”

Cinderella (Grimm Brothers):

“When the wedding with the prince was to be held, the two false sisters came, wanting to gain favor with Cinderella and to share her good fortune. When the bridal couple walked into the church, the older sister walked on their right side and the younger on their left side, and the pigeons pecked out one eye from each of them. Afterwards, as they came out of the church, the older one was on the left side, and the younger one on the right side, and then the pigeons pecked out the other eye from each of them. And thus, for their wickedness and falsehood, they were punished with blindness as long as they lived.”

When I was a kid, these were the stories that I loved. I’m sure my parents also read me the usual politically correct, award-winning children’s books, but violent fairy tales, Beatrix Potter, and Hilaire Belloc are what I remember and what I learned from the most. It hasn’t turned me into a constantly fearful adult, a serial killer, or a raving lunatic.⁴ Nothing can fully prepare children for the chaos and brutality of adult life, but stories like “Bluebeard” are a valuable teaching aid that is too often dismissed. So if you have kids, do them a favor. Read something grotesque and vindictive.⁵

1. Did you know that Wikipedia has a “List of murderers by number of victims“?
2. Millennia?
3. You can read and listen to these wonderful stories here, in English or Japanese!
4. Well, I’m not sure about that last one.
5. Extra credit: Poe’s “Hop-Frog“

Jack Zipes, a well-known scholar and translator of fairy tales, discusses the application of memetics to fairy tales in Why Fairy Tales Stick:

“…a good example of a meme is a fairy tale, but not just any fairy tale, an individual fairy tale and its discursive tradition that includes oral and literary tales and other cultural forms of transmission such as radio, film, video, and the Internet. For example, ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ has become a meme that has stuck in people’s minds since at least the seventeenth century and has replicated and propagated itself throughout the world.” (5)

The word “meme” was coined by Richard Dawkins in 1976 and has its origins in the Greek word mimeisthai, “to imitate”. A strangely similar (though etymologically unrelated, as far as I can discover) word is the French même, “same”. Keep this in mind.

With this idea of replication in my head, I started wondering about another selection I’d read. In From the Beast to the Blonde, Marina Warner discusses the role of the wicked stepmother. She suggests (citing Bruno Bettelheim) that the inclusion of an evil stepmother allows young readers/listeners, when applying the concepts of the story to their own lives, to split the concept of ‘mother’ into two parts, good and bad.

“The bad mother has become an inevitable, even required ingredient in fantasy, and hatred of her a legitimate, applauded stratagem of psychological survival.” (212)¹

This enables a child to direct a healthy amount of anger at his or her real mother without feeling guilt. (Mothers? Guilt? I’m sure Freud would have even more to say about this.) So the fictional stepmother replaces the fictional mother, and splits the real mother into two distinct personalities. But what about the fictional stepdaughter? What role does she play in this relationship?

The mother is the original iteration, who dies in childbirth and is–in essence–replaced by the daughter. The situation becomes more complicated when the stepmother is introduced into the family. She is now competing with the daughter as a replacement for the mother. It seems to me that the pattern within this type of fairy tale parallels the external pattern of fairy tales themselves. Evolution through new and competing versions is what drives both the production of stories and these specific characters. This replication and competition is most apparent in “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”, where the rivalry over ‘fairest in the land’² is explicit and constructed much more deliberately than the subtler stepmother-stepdaughter competition in “Cinderella”, in that the characters actually perceive and articulate their contest. Finally, the most important symbolic device in the story is a mirror.³ Coincidence? I think not.⁴

To put this in weirder, more technological terms, the dead mother is version 1.0. The daughter is version 2.0. I think the evil stepmother is also version 2.0, but with slightly different features. And you don’t need two versions of the same thing, right? One is bound to make the other obsolete.⁵

illustration by Jennie Harbour, from “Snowdrop”

1. Guess where else this has popped up recently? Neil Gaiman‘s ‘other mother’ in Coraline is a perfect example of the ‘bad mother’.
2. Incidentally, the French phrase for “stepmother” (and mother-in-law) is belle-mère, literally “beautiful mother”. I find this both charming and disturbing.
3. Want to see something with a really neat expansion of the mirror symbol? Try “The 10th Kingdom” (2000), a cheesy but very clever miniseries.
4. Channeling Gardner Campbell, I see.
5. Beta, I’ll always love you. You gave me my first Chaplin films.