Cinder Jack

This Hungarian tale is found in Surlalune's Frog Tales collection but it's also a gender reversed version of Cinderella (by the way that's an idea for a collection I'd love to get my hands on some day, I love a good gender reversed fairy tale!)

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A peasant had three sons, and he sent the eldest to guard the vineyard. During the night, a frog came up to him and asked for a piece of the cake he was eating. Angrily, the young man threw a stone at the frog and in the morning the vineyard was ruined. The same thing happened to the second son the next night.

The following night, the youngest son offered to watch the vineyard. The family thought very little of him, and he always sat in the cinders, so he was called Cinder Jack. But they allowed him to try. When the frog approached, he shared his cake. In return, the frog gave him three rods of copper, silver, and gold; and told him that three horses of the same material would come to destroy the vineyard unless he used the rods. Cinder Jack was able to subdue the horses, and the vineyard flourished; but he did not tell his family the secret of his success.

One day, the king erected a high pole and hung a golden rosemary on the top, promising his daughter to whoever could reach it in one jump on horseback. All the knights of the realm tried, but failed. Then, a knight in copper mail, on a copper horse, came and took the rosemary, and disappeared. When Cinder Jack's brothers returned home, they told him all about the mysterious knight. Their brother claimed he had seen the whole thing from the top of the hoarding, so his brothers had it pulled down, so he wouldn't be able to see anything else.

The next week an even higher pole was put up with a golden apple at the top, and the same promise. This time a silver knight on a silver horse took it and disappeared. When Cinder Jack told his brothers he witnessed the whole thing from the pigstye, they had it destroyed.

The following week, a gold and silk kerchief was placed on yet a higher pole, and a gold knight took it and disappeared. Cinder Jack claimed to have seen it from the top of the house, so his brothers had the roof taken off.

The king invited the mystery knight to come forward with the rosemary, apple, and kerchief. The people were astonished to see that it was Cinder Jack, and he was good hearted enough to rebuild his brothers' house and give them gifts. "Cinder Jack is reigning still, and is respected and honored by all his subjects!"
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I find gender bent fairy tales to be fascinating-in some ways they might seem to confirm gender bias but the mere fact that they exist proves that gender roles in folklore may be more flexible than we often assume. For example, I like the fact that Jack forgives his brothers. Although Cinderella gets criticized for forgiving her sisters in some versions, and it can be troubling and seem naive, when a man forgives and even goes beyond that to restore their house and give them gifts, it comes across less as weakness and more as him being the better man taking the high road, at least to me--(which makes me wonder how much of my/culture's interpretations themselves are biased and not the character's actions themselves?). Then again, it depends on each story; in this tale, Cinder Jack was clearly manipulating his brothers and Cinderellas don't tend to do that.

Then there's the matter of how Jack wins the bride-rather than simply appearing beautiful as Cinderella does, he performs feats of strength, which on the surface seems unfair and to reveal unbalanced gender expectations. And yet...is jumping really high on a horse that much more impressive than Cinderella's feats of dexterity, sorting grains, etc.? Especially when considering the fact that neither of them are actually performing their impossible tasks on their own merits, but using aid of magical helpers they befriended because they were kind?
What do you think of Cinder Jack?

Illustration by Charles Folkard

From the Archives: Marina Warner on the Silence of Women in Fairy Tales

Fairy tales are often accused of portraying negative female stereotypes, encouraging young girls to become passive and silent and obedient to men. 

In one sense this is true-when men such as the brothers Grimm collected fairy tales, they tended not to include stories which existed in folklore that featured strong, clever female heroines, and instead gravitated (however consciously) towards stories with active males and passive females. Not only that, but as Marina Warner cites from Ruth Bottigheimer's analysis of speech patterns in the Grimms, as the Grimms published their later editions, the female heroines used less and less words and the female villains spoke more. Thus girls tend to subconsciously receive the message that to be good and desirable like the female heroines in the stories, they must be quiet.

There are two famous examples of females who aren't simply reserved, but are completely unable to speak--Hans Christian Andersen's Little Mermaid, and the sister from "The Wild Swans" and its variants. 

The Little Mermaid stands in direct contrast to the sea maidens of antiquity, the sirens. Sirens used their voices, beautiful and alluring, to draw men to them and cause their death. Their voices are therefore powerful, and evil. The Little Mermaid gives up her voice willingly for the chance to win the love of a prince and her immortal soul. Now the desire is hers, but it is she who is forsaken. 

The Disney version makes Ariel, in Warner's words, "a fairytale heroine of our time." She knows what she wants (another word count fun fact-the word "want" is spoken by Ariel more than any other verb) and will go through anything to get it, but this time hers is a happy ending. But in this version, according to Warner, "female eloquence, the siren's song, is not presented as fatal any longer, unless it rises in the wrong place and is aimed at the wrong target." The female voice is now powerful like the siren's, but not inherently evil.

The sister in the Wild Swans is silent by choice (in a way)--if she speaks one word before the shirts of nettles are made and placed on her enchanted brothers, they will stay swans forever. In one sense, this can be seen as yet another example of encouraging women to be quiet and submissive, but although she is rewarded for enduring, the silence is clearly meant as a hardship--the happy ending includes a return of her voice. Other tales have forms of silenced heroines as well, such as the heroine from Goose Girl, who gave her word (under pressure) not to tell the truth of her situation to a living being--but she is able to find a clever way for her to reveal the truth anyway.

It's possible that, as women throughout the centuries were frustrated at their own lack of voice within the community and family, they told stories such as "Wild Swans" to express their own frustration. Yet there is also something to be admired in the self control and determination of the heroines. This is Warner's personal memories of reading the Wild Swans, one of her favorite childhood stories: "it still seemed to me to tell a story of female heroism, generosity, staunchness; I had no brothers, but I fantasized, at night, as I waited to go to sleep, that I had, perhaps even as many tall and handsome youths as the girl in the story, and that I would do something magnificent for them that would make them realize I was one of them, as it were, their equal in courage and determination and grace". The actions of the sister are indeed impressive-there are different forms of heroism, not all that are as easy to recognize. 

Fortunately, we are not as constrained by the severe gender expectations of the Victorian times, but that doesn't mean these stories or even these particular versions have to be thrown out and completely replaced with new "girl power" tales. There are times when we all feel silenced-we don't feel like our opinions are being taken seriously at work, we feel overlooked in a certain relationship, etc.--and even today people of many races, faiths, and sexual orientation are still being denied basic rights. It can be encouraging to read stories that give us hope that there will come a time when we will be able to speak again and the truth will be revealed.

Illustrations of Little Mermaid by Margaret Tarrant, Six Swans by Elenore Abbott
Information from Marina Warner's From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and their Tellers

From the Archives: Swan Lake and Gender Perceptions

The Royal Ballet 

Though the plot of the ballet Swan Lake is pulled very loosely from a few existing tales, it was basically created for the ballet itself. Given that it reflected the values of a few men in 1895, the gender roles in the ballet are very cliche. In fact, the last time I saw the ballet I found myself bored with Odette and Siegfried's characters-Siegfried spends the vast majority of his time looking perplexed, or trying to find Odette, who looks scared and woeful the whole time. My favorite character was Odile, who has not only the flashiest moves but at least looks like she enjoys dancing.

From this site, by Aaron Green:

"We do know that Tchaikovsky had much control over the stories content. He and his colleagues both agreed that the swan represented womanhood in its purest form. The stories and legends of swan-maidens date as far back as ancient Greece; when the Greek god Apollos was born, flying swans circled above their heads. Legends of swan maidens can also be found in The Tales of the Thousand and One Nights, Sweet Mikhail Ivanovich the Rover and The Legend of the Children of Lir. "

So I guess according to Tchaikovsky and his colleagues, "womanhood in its purest form" is a fragile and powerless creature, with no real personality or depth, defined by being a victim (Ironically, Tchaikovsky was a pretty fragile creature himself-more on that here.)

This view of women is frowned upon by most people in Western culture today. The ballet has been reinterpreted by Matthew Bourne with a corps of male swans, challenging preconceived notions (this is the production Billy Elliot stars in, if you saw the movie). Bourne said, "The idea of a male swan makes complete sense to me. The strength, the beauty, the enormous wingspan of these creatures suggests to the musculature of a male dancer more readily than a ballerina in her white tutu." It's true that the power of the male dancer is extremely impressive-while the female can acheive the affect of defying gravity by dancing en pointe, the male can do so simply by the strength of his jumps, seeming to linger in the air for longer than humanly possible.

Then of course there's the Mercedes Lackey novel, Black Swan, which I've mentioned multiple times before, but I really prefer Lackey's compelling characters. Though the prisoners of Von Rothbart are still victims, Lackey's females have depth and dimension and her unique take on Odile's character is just wonderful.

The original ballet ended tragically, and each production comes up with its own. I think happy endings are the most prevalent these days (ballet people out there, correct me if I'm wrong!). Although, listening to the music-the famous minor theme is major at the end, it seems hard to believe it could accompany the death of the two main characters...

Prince(s) and the Pea

I've heard of tales related to Princess and the Pea in which other women were so delicate that even flower petals, moonbeams, and sounds gave them bruises, but this story from Csenge Virag Zalka's Tales of Superhuman Powers is the first story I've heard of that gives us a gender swapped version of delicate skin!

"Three Critical Men" from India tells of three brothers who are all trying to avoid fetching a turtle for their father to sacrifice, each using his sensitivities as an excuse, the eldest to food, the middle to women, the youngest to beds. Since they couldn't decide who was the most critical, their father gave them each a test. The eldest found the smell of a gourmet feast to be repulsive, smelling like corpses, and it was discovered the rice had been grown in fields that were close to a funeral burning place. The second son couldn't stand the smell of a beautiful woman that was sent to him, saying she reeked of goats, and it was found that the woman had been raised on goat's milk. And when the youngest had a bruise on his side from his bed piled with seven mattresses, a single strand of hair was found under the mattresses. In the end each brother was given gold and said to be equally critical, and the turtle was forgotten about.

There are other related tales to this around the world, Zalka shares. The sensitivity of the Princess in Andersen's famous tale could be seen, if not as a literal unfortunate condition, symbolically or satirically. In "The Three Critical Men", the sensitivities are really more like really refined tastes-each is a connoisseur in his respective field, and at the end they are referred to as "abilities" (although it seems like they would just make life more difficult for the brothers).

There is also The Tale of the Dragon, from Greece, in which a King tests a young man by putting ragged bed covers on his bed, to see if it will interrupt his sleep and reveal if he is truly rich or not. The man tosses and turns all night, satisfying the King-but not because of the covers, but because he was afraid of losing his pea with which he was to start his fortune. (Interesting way to connect a pea with loss of sleep...)

UPDATE: The Earl of Cattenborough is a Puss in Boots tale in which the young man is tested to see if he is really royalty by being given a "mean truckle bed." It's the cat who spots this potential red flag and tells the hero to refuse to sleep in it. (Thanks, Aster Haiku, for the link in the comments!)

Are there other gender reversed versions of "Princess and the Pea"?

Illustration by Kay Nielsen

Alison Larkin's Fairy Tales of the Fiercer Sex

Fairy tale collections featuring female protagonists have gotten more popular recently in our little world of fairy tale lovers, but those stories sadly still remain elusive among the more general public who still tend to think that fairy tales promote the stereotype of the helpless female waiting around to be rescued by a man.

I was recently notified of a new audiobook release that features 20 tales, narrated by Alison Larkin, all of which feature strong female protagonists! Description for Fairy Tales of the Fiercer Sex:

 These are not stories of helpless females shut up in high towers waiting around for a handsome Prince to rescue them. These are tales of strong, independent, brave, at times irreverent girls and women who take charge of their own lives, go on their own adventures and rescue themselves and the ones they love. 

 The clever serving maids, brilliant princesses and other females in this collection have far more to distinguish them than the fact that they end up happily married to a prince! 

 Title and End music by Emmy award-winning composers Gary Schriener and Curt Sobel. Introduction by Alison Larkin 

1. The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen 
2. Molly Whuppie and the Double-faced Giant by Flora Annie Steel 
3. A Pottle of Brains by Joseph Jacobs 
4. Cap O’ Rushes by Joseph Jacobs 
5. Hansel and Grethel by the Brothers Grimm 
6. Mr. Fox by Joseph Jacobs 
7. Clever Grethel by the Brothers Grimm 
8. Kari Woodengown by P.C. Absjornsen 
9. The Twelve Dancing Princesses by the Brothers Grimm 
10. Felicia and the Pot of Pinks by Madame la Comtesse d’Aulnoy 
11. The Iron Stove by Miss Mulock 
12. The Hedley Kow by Joseph Jacobs 
13. The Six Sillies by Monsieur Lemoine 
14. Baba Yaga a Russian folk tale re-told by Verra Xenophontovna Kalamatiano De Blumenthal 
15. The Old Woman in the Woods by the Brothers Grimm 
16. The Idle Spinner by the Brothers Grimm 
17. The Twelve Brothers by the Brothers Grimm 
18. Frederick and Catherine by the Brothers Grimm 
19. Little Red Cap by the Brothers Grimm 
20. Beauty and The Beast by Marie Le Prince de Beaumont

"Snow Queen" illustrations of Gerda's journey by Amy Chipping

There are a few standard fairy tales on the list, but it's good to be reminded that even the fairy tales culture is familiar with often feature clever women who actually do a lot more than sitting around dreaming helplessly of love (even in the cases of the worst offenders for most helpless princesses, you can usually make a case for them not being quite as passive as some have made them out to be anyway). There are also quite a few tales I'm not familiar with at all, so it seems like it would be a good mix for both the casual fairy tale fan as well as many of the readers here who are already familiar with more tales than the average person!

Another cool thing about this collection: Promoting awareness is also translated into action, because for every downloaded audiobook ($20), $5 goes towards helping girls and women in need around the world. That's a cause I would happily support!

Other similarly themed books:

Jane Yolen's Not One Damsel in Distress

Kathleen Ragan's Fearless Girls, Wise Women, and Beloved Sisters

UPDATE: Adam reviewed the audiobook over at Fairy Tale Fandom, check out his review!

The Sleeping Prince

In my post on the different ways of Awakening the Sleeping Beauty, reader Nectar Vam shared this fantastic gender swapped version of the tale, The Sleeping Prince. It combines elements of Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, East of the Sun and West of the Moon, and even reminded me a little of Beauty and the Beast with the enchanted castle at the end. A bird tells a Princess of a sleeping Prince, who is white and gold and red, and goes on a dangerous journey even though she knew her parents wouldn't approve. She has to go to the lands of the West Wind, East Wind, and North Wind, where mortals should not go, and follow instructions to get past two lions that guard the gates of the castle, and awaits the time when the Prince's spell will be over.

It very much has the feel of a traditional folk tale to me, and although the sleeping prince trope may be much less common, if you look hard enough you can generally find gender swapped versions of any classic fairy tale-especially since this one bears resemblance to the journey of the heroine in "East of the Sun, West of the Moon." But the only sites I could find the tale at had no source cited-Wikipedia has a tale of the same title but it's clearly different (although also fascinating-in this one the heroine must stay awake watching the sleeping Prince for 3 months, 3 weeks, 3 days, 3 hours, and 3 half hours. She is persuaded to sleep towards the end and then follows a Goose Girl-type episode of mistaken identity). This site says it's Spanish (thanks, Amy Elize!) but has no further information on collection, editor, date, etc. So I can't promise it's authentic folklore but an interesting tale worth reading and sharing! Any further information on it would be welcome! UPDATE: Sarah Allison has more information on the source in the comments. Thanks, Sarah!

Also-in the past I've done features on roses in fairy tales on Valentine's Day. Interestingly, the key to getting past the lions in this tale is to pick two white roses from outside the North Wind's door, and throw them down before the lions when she gets close enough-something that would require lots bravery, since the lions act threatening until she gets close enough to throw down the roses! And the episode also reveals the great amount of power sometimes associated with roses in fairy tales.

Image sources-1 and 2

Awakening the Beauty

Everyone's familiar with the episode where the Prince comes and awakens Sleeping Beauty with a kiss; some people might be aware of older versions of the fairy tale that involve rape and childbirth; sensationalized articles and lists love to use those versions to shock people with the "real" and disturbing versions of classic tales.

While many of the older versions are indeed quite dark and disturbing, they don't all involve rape of an unconscious victim, and True Love's Kiss isn't always the solution in later tales. I used Surlalune's Sleeping Beauties Tales From Around the World book to gain a few different examples of how the Princess is actually awakened.

Going back to Norse mythology, the story of Brunhild (from the late late 13th century) is similar to a Sleeping Beauty tale. In it, the bravery of the hero Siegfried allows him to pass through the dangers and get close to Brunhild (although he doesn't actually do anything, the "vile flames fled in shame and dismay before the pure sunbeam flashes from Greyfell's mane"-so the real secret to heroism is apparently having a magical horse). Once there, he gives Brunhild a gentle kiss on the forehead (not even the lips) and softly calls her name, giving us the picture of an absolute gentleman. I find it ironic that this possibly oldest version of the tale is the closest to the Disney in terms of the stereotypical hero riding in on his horse, braving dangers, and saving the day with a kiss. From there we depart from that ideal-

It's the French story of Troylus and Zelladine from Perceforest, from some time in the 13th or 14th century, that we get to some of the horrific parts of the story. We read a description of how Troylus tries to resist temptation around the beautiful sleeping girl, but just can't help following "the tenets of Venus"-at least this version describes his actions as cowardly, and perhaps tries to justify it a little because Troylus "speaks a long discourse begging forgiveness for his grand liberties." Yet nine months later Zelladine gives birth to a son, who grabs her finger in an attempt to suckle, and suckles so hard that he sucks out the sleep thorn that kept her enchanted.

There are other, less well known Medieval stories which involve a maiden under an enchanted sleep. In almost all of them she is taken advantage of. In Pandragus et Libanor, the maiden is in an unnatural sleep, does not wake up during the night in question, but simply wakes up normally the next day. In Brother of Joy and Sister of Pleasure, the "hero" manages to wake the woman he impregnated with the help of a bird who gives a magic herb to the maiden. This is one of the rare stories in which the woman actually gets upset to find she has been taken advantage of (Zelladine also felt devastated upon waking)-most sleeping beauties seem strangely silent, even happy, to find themselves awakened with a strange lover and/or child-although in this story she does eventually grow to love her rapist (There are good reasons these stories aren't so well known today). Lastly, in the adventures of Blandin de Cornoalha the Knight, we find a chivalrous hero who is more like Siegfried-he falls in love but does not appear to succumb to temptation; rather breaks the enchantment through bravery; he learns he must defeat a serpent, obtain a white hawk, and bring the hawk to the side of the maiden.

Basile's Sun, Moon, and Talia (early 1600s) is very similar to "Troylus and Zelladine"-the only difference being that it is twins who suck the flax from her fingernail and not a single baby. It is this version which also introduces the next violent episode, with the attempted cannibalism of the children. In this version it's a little more understandable, though, because it's the Prince's wife that grows furious when she discovers the truth.

From there we move away from raping/nursing babies as the primary cause of awakening. In Perrault's 1697 classic version, the prince finds the princess and kneels at her side (no kiss) just as the 100 years of her curse happen to be ending, so his part in everything is pretty simple. Once the Princess awakes, they simply talk together for four hours, so it's perhaps the best example of love in a Sleeping Beauty tale. The brambles parted to let him through, so while he wasn't quite the brave knight in shining armor, it would have been pretty creepy to continue as the thorns closed again behind him and then again as he walked through the castle where everyone was eerily unconscious, so we'll give him credit for that. The cannibalism episode follows, only now it's the Prince's mother that is an ogress and wants to eat her grandchildren

In the Italian Sun, Pearl, and Anna, the hero simply removes a spindle from the grasp of the sleeping Anna. They have children together (followed by the cannibalistic mother in law again) but at least it's consensual; I find this transition (or lack thereof) to be downright humorous: "'How are you today, Anna?' 'Very well, thank you. And how are you, your majesty?' 'I'm well.' By the end of nine months, the girl was great with child."

There's another very brief, tragic Italian tale called The Son of a King in which the queen mother actually succeeds in cooking and eating her grandchildren and daughter in law (there is no mention of awakening or the princess actually being found asleep in this one, just that she was found in a deserted castle).

In the Grimm's Briar Rose, once again the hedge parts  for our hero (but this time the hedge is filled with corpses from others who attempted to pass before the time was up), and we have a Princess awakened with a kiss for the first time since Siegfried and Brunhild.

The Grimms also have another Sleeping Beauty tale, The Glass Coffin. I thought I had never read it before but it turns out not only had I read it, I wrote a whole post on it 5 years ago. This is why I have a blog...my memory is terrible! Anyway, it's a fascinating tale in which a Princess was cursed to sleep in a glass coffin because she spurned the advances of an evil magician-she had even attempted to shoot him but the bullet bounced off of him! A traveling tailor discovers her, and all he had to do was look at her, and she woke up and instructed him on how to open the coffin and free her. Afterwards, she gave him a "friendly kiss on his lips." This one wins the award for the most active female heroine!

In the Austrian The Enchanted Sleep, although the count's son does kiss the sleeping maiden, it doesn't appear to awaken her right away. He had also the foresight to write her a letter, which she later used to summon him to her, and also prove his innocence and his brothers' treachery (they had actually killed him, but animals he had helped along his journey came and healed him).

The Story of The Prince in Love is from Egypt, but bears similarities to older tales, particularly the cursed flax under the fingernail being what causes the sleep. Here, fortunately, the prince simply finds and removes the flax, and it's only after she wakes up that he spends forty days and nights with her in bed-although no children result from it. The prince is eventually a jerk to her though, so she decides to teach him a lesson-disguises herself with more beauty and causes him to fall in love with her again, but spurns his gifts, and will only marry him if he pretends to be dead and is himself carried around in a coffin. I'm not sure shy she wants to marry a man who thinks he's cheating on her, but it is interesting that he must have his own sort of "enchanted sleep" before they unite.

There's also The Petrified Mansion from India, in which the prince finds a stick of gold and just happens to touch the Princess' head with it, which revives her and the rest of the mansion's inhabitants. The curse was brought on by a stick of silver, so gold was the antidote-and the same gold stick later healed the Prince's parents, who were mourning their missing son.

So rather than bravery, many medieval Princes took advantage of sleeping princesses. Later, most Princes became more respectful of the enchanted women, who seemed more likely to be revived by chance than from getting a magical kiss. Some of the tales make us feel uncomfortable to read today, yet some were pretty feminist, featuring strong and brave women, and men who had self control. What other versions of Sleeping Beauty and methods of awakening are there? (I didn't even touch on Snow White tales here...)

Illustrations-A. H. Watson (first two), Millicent Sowerby (last two)

Fairy Tale Fashion: Swan Maidens

One of the things I love about my new obsession, the book Fairy Tale Fashion by Colleen Hill, is that not only does she discuss some of the obvious fairy tales with fashion connections (Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood), but some lesser knowns, especially ones that I wouldn't have necessarily thought of in terms of clothing being significant. She has sections on Diamonds and Toads, Snow Queen, and Swan Maidens.

There are countless variations of Swan Maiden tales (and some other related mermaid tales)-stories about an enchanted maiden who takes off her swan feathers and becomes human, only to have a man steal that feather dress and take her as his wife. After years go by, one of her children eventually finds the feather dress, and their mother takes it and returns to her swan form and leaves. Different tales have various endings at this point-sometimes she just never comes back, other times her husband searches for her and gets her back.

Obviously, the dress of feathers is a central part of this fairy tale. It has the power to change her form, which in turn influences where she lives and with whom.

Mikhail Vrubel, The Swan Princess, 1900

Some tales tell not of enchanted female swans, but males, whose sisters must undergo trials to bring them back to their original form. One thing I never noticed before was how, in the most commonly known versions of these stories, they all seem to emphasize the burden of making clothes.

In both the Grimms' "Six Swans" and Andersen's similar "Wild Swans," the sister must fulfill two things in order to bring her brothers back: maintain silence, and make them each enchanted shirts. In "Six Swans," the process is a little more idealized; she must make them out of the fictional starflowers, but she spends six years laboring over those shirts for her six brothers. Interestingly, the curse was achieved when their stepmother threw enchanted white shirts over each of them. I this case, clothing was the key to both cursing and restoring their rightful human forms.

"The Wild Swans", Gordon Robinson

In "Wild Swans," the process is described even more painfully, for Elisa must make her brothers' shirts from fabric made from stinging nettles. The painful nettles give her hands blisters.

Interestingly, Joseph Jacobs' "Swan Maidens", although it belongs to the first tale type mentioned, hints at this burden of clothes making as well. After the swan wife has resumed her form, her husband seeks her out, and is told he can only get her back if he can identify his wife from among a group of identical sisters. He touches each of their hands, and knows his wife by the indentation of a needle on her forefinger, caused by making clothes for their children. The very act of clothing a family leaves its mark on a woman.

Catlait

Jacobs' tale is a little more ambiguous. Given that his wife immediately returned to the sea upon finding her swan feathers, one wonders if returning to her human life is really a happy ending for her. Her husband stole her feathers, and also used trickery to steal enchanted objects in order to find her again, so he isn't exactly a flawless character. As Hill points out, the fact that the swan maiden is willing to leave her children "may be unfathomable to many readers," but for all we know she could have had children in her former life too-in some related tales it's her former lover that she wants to return to. Her husband apparently gives no thought to her past, and clearly not to her wishes on the matter.

These tales, while bittersweet, are really powerful tales with modern feminist messages: women are more than just means to produce children and clothing for their husbands. They often have their own hopes and dreams and longings. The life of a wife and mother, whether it's wanted or unwanted, is quite painful-from bearing children, to all the tasks involved with raising the family.

Anna and Elena Balbusso

When I imagine what it might have been like to live as a woman in pre-industrial society, I often think of the cooking and cleaning, which can be a burden even now, and even more so before modern conveniences. But I rarely even think of how difficult the task of making clothing would have been. Women would often have done the whole process themselves-from making the fabric, to sewing the clothes together. Tales that address spinning really all serve to point out how unwanted the chore was, and these swan tales make us sympathize with the time and discomfort it took to make the clothes.

And although modern machines have certainly made the process of making clothes easier, it's still by no means a simple, instantaneous process. The process of growing and spinning and sewing and embellishing are simply more hidden from us today, yet even the clothes we buy and wear were often made at the cost of other people's comforts and even basic human rights. I've been learning and reading more about the fast fashion industry and the fact that, despite getting some publicity, most of our clothes still end up being made in sweatshops. I can recommend some resources if anyone else is interested in learning more about that (this documentary is currently on Netflix), but maybe these swan tales can help us think a little more about who makes our clothes, and sympathize a little more with the hours of work it takes.

Post-Feminist Fairy Tales

Tom Shippey has a great article titled "Transformations of the Fairy Tale in Contemporary Writing" (which can be found in A Companion to the Fairy Tale). Fairy tale scholarship itself has gone through phases-at certain points, academics have been more concerned with fairy tale origins or psychoanalysis. Around the 70s, feminism was sweeping through folklore research as well as the rest of the Western world. We still see the effects of this today in much writing about fairy tales-it's very common to hear concerns about gender representation, especially the dreaded stereotype: the passive fairy tale Princess who does nothing but sit around and wait for her prince to save her.

While some scholars have fully embraced certain methods of looking at fairy tales, some theories are more controversial. It can be easy to dismiss other claims, but Shippey has, I think, a very well rounded outlook-recognizing both the flaws and the values in various trends. Sexism in fairy tales is still a very important topic, but sometimes going too far in one direction can actually hurt your cause. I appreciated reading a male perspective that seems a little more moderate than Jack Zipes (who appears to be way more offended by female roles in fairy tales than I am).

A large part of the reason for unbalanced gender portrayals in stereotypes is simple the culture of the Victorian period that ultimately determined what we now consider to be "classic" versions of "standard" fairy tales. It was a patriarchal culture and this was reflected in the tales that were collected, told, edited, and retold. Yet, Shippey says, "Fairy tales may be transparently patriarchal, but once this is grasped they need be so no more; they can be rewritten with an entirely different, or inverted, orientation." Yet, how does one go about rewriting fairy tales in a non-patriarchal lens? It's not necessarily as simple as it might appear.

Some authors have decided to write more active heroines who play the traditional "hero" role, sometimes doing the rescuing, sometimes rejecting the Prince to show independence. Things things can be done well...they can also be done poorly, or simply too much. Shippey points out that these kinds of stories may still be just as moralistic as the Victorian ones that were meant to train young girls into being the ideal, submissive wives. The fact that it's an opposite moral doesn't take away from the fact that stories can lose their power when they become more about making a point (even a good one) than telling a good story. They come across as preachy (and can also suffer from being very unrealistic, especially when authors set feminist heroines in historical contexts without necessarily grasping the culture well).

Merida from "Brave" and Danielle (Cinderella) from "Ever After", modern weapon-weilding Princesses

The irony is that as more and more authors write feminist tales that reverse traditions, they are actually embedding those traditions in the fairy tale realm. If a princess rescues a prince, there is still a victim that needs rescuing and a hero that does it; if one gender is presented as negative and the other positive, that's still sexist, just reversing sexes.

The other ironic factor is that, by choosing the most well known passive princesses to use as the basis for a "twisted fairy tale," we are still only being exposed to those core Princess tales that tend to feature passive females, rather than exploring  other types of tales. There are countless dark or inverted versions of Snow White, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, etc. out there-yet the public still tends to think of the Grimm/Perrault versions of these tales as the "real" versions, and a twisted version as only that-not the new normal. Why not expose the public to Kate Crackernuts or Janet from Tam Lin? What about the many tales that don't involve romance or rescuing at all? What about "Snow White and Rose Red", a tale that shows sisters with very opposite personalities,but both seen in a positive light (because, just as we can't all fit into the prim, dainty, Victorian ideal woman, we can't all fit into the bold, athletic, feminist stereotype either!) There are countless wonderful folktales that have positive messages for modern culture (see Multicolored Diary for lots of examples!) while still having the timeless, "authentic" quality that most people crave who desire fairy tale entertainment.

Andrea Adams, illustration for "Kate Crackernuts"

Don't get me wrong, I love a good feminist tale and it's very important to question certain elements of old tales and reinvent them, but there can be dangers in going to the opposite extreme. Especially since it's been decades now and the feminist formulas are, frankly, getting kind of old. The first "twisted" fairy tales I read were very powerful experiences for me, and for some people, being exposed to this is still a fairly new concept.

Shippey also points out something really interesting-even among fairy tales themselves, the idea of "transforming" or "reversing" the stories already exists! "Bluebeard" and "Beauty and the Beast" are like opposite tales-"the one tale of an ideal husband who becomes a monster, and the other a tale of the monster who turns into an ideal husband." There's also Sleeping Beauty, waiting for a kiss to come back to life, verses the Beast, waiting for love to bring him back to his former life. Of course, I find it interesting that in the two contrasting examples he uses, he compares tales to "Beauty and the Beast." It's a tale that doesn't fit the traditional mold-it's essentially the story of a helpless male who needs to be rescued by a woman. (And yet, nobody gets all up in arms because this implies that males are helpless! Our very idea that a helpless woman in a story translates into "all women are innately helpless" is in itself kind of sexist...but I digress).

Another concern I have with the gender-focused approach to fairy tales is that, by being so fixated on gender and stereotypes, we're further emphasizing the divide between genders, whereas I would love to see children encouraged to relate to and empathize with characters of all kinds. In the words of Kate Bernheimer, "While I appreciate the celebration, both in scholarship and in popular culture, of the strong female characters in fairy tales, I think that, first and foremost, our devotion to fairy tales is with 'the whole of the mind' and not with our gender." Yes, it's important to realize that gender is usually a huge part of our identity, but it doesn't need to define us and our experiences, especially in negative ways.

Rebecca Guay

Shippey makes an intruiguing suggestion: "Are all female-protagonist fairy-tales, then, all versions of each other?" An interesting thing to think about, especially when you realize that there really are dozens of versions of each of the standard Princess tales. You can find versions that end unhappily, versions in which the heroine is more passive or more active, versions that combine elements from other stories-it becomes clear that fairy tales themselves aren't sending out certain "morals" or messages, unless that message is that situations play out differently for different people, in different circumstances, at different times.

And of course, there are many authors who have written feminist tales and done it very well. He spends a lot of time discussing the stories of Angela Carter, among others. It's a great article that goes into more topics than addressed here. He ends with reminding us that the future of fairy tales in this century is yet to be determined.

What do you see as the future of fairy tales in the 21st century? How should fairy tales (or really stories in general) portray genders, and what would you  like to see in terms of either reinventing the classic tales, digging into unknowns, or creating new stories?

From the Archives: History of Arabian Nights

It can be a lot harder to fine information on the Arabian Nights than on the fairy tales collected by the Brothers Grimm. The following information is taken from the chapter "The Splendor of the Arabian Nights" from Jack Zipes' When Dreams Come True: Classic Fairy Tales and their Tradition.

The Arabian Nights is more unique than just another culture's collection of folktales because of its framework story: that of Scheherezade heroically saving her own life and that of countless other women by telling stories to Shahryar, the king who was so incensed by the adultery of his first wife that he took to marrying and killing a different woman each night. This framework story was modeled after a Persian book called Hazar Afsaneh, or "A Thousand Tales", translated into Arabic in the ninth century.

The individual tales themselves differ from collection to collection. The tales as we know them today are mainly taken from Persian tenth century tales with some Indian elements, tenth century tales recorded in Baghdad, and Egyptian stories written down between the tenth and twelfth centuries. But, similar to other collections of fairy tales around the world, these were probably circulated orally for hundreds of years before being written down, and afterwards have become an important influence in Western stories. The Arabian Nights were translated into French by Antoine Galland between 1704 and 1717, whose literary talents made the tales popular and eventually were translated into multiple languages, with the most famous English translation by Richard Burton (who plagarized a lot from an earlier English translation by John Payne).

Due to the Scheherezade story, the tales have clear purposes-firstly, for Scheherezade to educate and recivilize Shahryar and show him that he can regain his trust in women. Secondly, Scheherezade's sister Dunazade is also an audience member, so the tales are Scheherezade's passing down advice to her younger sister and enabling her to navigate through society. The readers themselves are the third audience, who become educated alongside Shahryar and Dunazade into values of the time and culture-justice, the importance of creativity and wit, and most of all, empowering the oppressed.

The power of story itself cannot be ignored either-through the ultimate happy ending that Scheherezade's determination brings about, as well as four other major tales that employ the same motif of people telling stories to save innocent lives.

I found this passage fascinating, as it's something I had wondered about myself: "Given the patriarchal nature of Arabic culture, it would seem strange that Scheherezade assumed the key role in the Nights. Yet, a woman exercised more power in Moslem culture during the Middle Ages in Baghdad and Cairo than is commonly known," including ultimate power over children and slaves, including children's educations, marriage, profession, and sexual initiation.

Interestingly, the title was originally One Thousand Nights, and no one knows how it became The Thousand and One Nights. Zipes speculates that it had something to do with the fact that odd numbers were considered lucky in Arabic culture. I personally find the perfectly even "one thousand" to be a little too practical, while "the thousand and one" adds a touch of whimsy and a hint of the eternal, as if no matter what the number, there's always one more to be heard the next night...(there are not literally one thousand tales in the collection. There are 42 "core" tales in Galland's translation, but apparently the complete collection of Payne's collection included nine volumes).

Illustrations by Virginia Frances Sterret

The Three Daughters of King O'Hara: An Irish Animal Bridegroom Tale

Continuing in my tradition of sharing an Irish tale for St. Patrick's Day!

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A King had three daughters. One day while he was away, the eldest put on a cloak of darkness and wished for the most beautiful man under the sun as a husband, and a beautiful man came and took her away.

The middle daughter saw this, and put on the cloak and wished for the best man in the world as her husband. The youngest put on the cloak and wished for a white dog, and they were each taken away.

When the king came home he was furious his youngest daughter had wished for a white dog and gone off with him.

The eldest daughter's husband asked her if she would like him to stay in his current form at night, or during the day. She asked for his human form in the daytime, and he was a seal at night. The same thing happened to the next sister.

The youngest wife asked for her husband to remain a white dog during the day, and at night he became a handsome man. After a time she bore a son, and her husband warned her, if anything happened to the child, she must not shed a tear. While her husband was gone, a great crow came and carried the week old baby away, and she did not shed a tear.

The same thing happened after she bore a second son. A little while later, she gave birth to a daughter. Despite the warning, when the crow carried her away, the wife shed one tear, and put it in her handkerchief. When her husband came home and realized she had shed a tear, he was very angry.

Some time later, the father invited his three daughters to stay with him. The white dog was in dread that he would not be allowed to stay in the palace, but his wife told him, "There is no danger to you, for wherever I am, you'll be, and wherever you go, I'll follow and take care of you."

Although the King did not want the dog in his castle, his youngest daughter did not listen to him, and insisted on staying with the white dog all evening. Later, when everyone was in their rooms, the Queen and the cook stole into her daughter's rooms, and was surprised to see her eldest daughters with seals, and her youngest with a handsome man. The Queen also found the white dog skin, and threw it in the fire.

The skin gave a crack that woke everyone in the castle, and everyone for miles around. The youngest daughter's husband was angry, and revealed that if he had spent three nights with his wife under her father's roof, he could have resumed his human form permanently; but if his skin was destroyed, he was forced to leave. But his wife followed him, even though he ran all night and the next day; she would not leave him.

On their journey, they encountered three houses. In the first lived a little boy who called her "mother", and the woman of the house gave her a pair of scissors that would cut rags and turn them into new gold clothes. In the second house the woman met another little boy who called her "mother," and was given a magical comb that would heal sores on people's heads and give them a head full of beautiful golden hair. In the third, she met a little girl with one eye. The mother had kept the handkerchief in which she had shed a tear, and the tear had turned into an eyeball; the mother took out the eye and fitted it into her daughter's head, and she could see out of it. At this home she was given a whistle which would bring birds to her aid.

Finally, the husband and wife came to a place where he had no power to stay on upper earth, but was forced to become the husband of the Queen of Tir na n-Og (the land of youth), and he disappeared. His wife followed down until she came to the lower land, where she befriended a poor washer woman, and helped her with her chores.

One of the local children came to the wife in rags, and she used the magic scissors to make her beautiful new clothes. News of this traveled to the Queen, who insisted on having the scissors for herself. The true wife traded the scissors for a night with the Queen's husband, where she tried to talk to him, but he slept all night.

Later, she used the comb to heal a little girl with sores all over her head, and when the Queen heard of the girl's beautiful golden hair, she traded the comb for a night with her husband, but the same thing happened.

The wife used the whistle to call the birds to her, and they told her how to kill the Queen: her husband must find her heart in an egg in a duck in a wether (a neutered male sheep-thanks, Sue Bursztynski!) in a holly tree in front of the castle, and destroy the egg, which contained her heart. The true wife wrote her husband a letter, telling him of their history and that the Queen was giving him sleeping potions, and how to kill the Queen. Once the Queen heard about the whistle, the true wife was able to strike the same bargain, but this time her husband was awake; he was able to obtain the egg and smash it, killing the evil Queen. He and his first wife are still living happily together in the Land of Youth.

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Found in Surlalune's Beauty and the Beast Tales From Around the World
This is such an interesting version of Animal Bridegroom tales! The journey of the wife and the trading trinkets for a night with her husband is similar to many other stories, but so many other features are unique.

I find the idea of the other sisters' husbands also being part time animal bridegrooms fascinating. It's as if the youngest daughter somehow realized that obtaining a husband through wishing on a dark cloak would have some kind of catch. She is also bold enough to defy her father's wishes that her white dog husband not stay in his house, and to follow her husband despite his protests that she return home.

I love how she keeps the eyeball and is able to heal her daughter (in a similar English tale, the daughter simply remains blind in one eye). The stipulation of not crying after her children are taking is very sad-but in tales like these, even though the curses are never explained, it seems that they were meant to be impossible to break (in another similar tale, the wife must remain silent while her husband, a bird, is being attacked and beaten). Yet none of the wives in these tales are condemned for showing motherly affection (or sticking up for their husbands).

 I also love how, whereas the husband usually just disappears, this wife chases after him and won't let him out of her sight during the journey! This story is definitely more feminist, even compared to other Animal Bridegroom tales in which the wife is already on a journey and seeking her husband, playing the part of the traditional male rescuer to her helpless cursed husband.

In some versions, the magical objects she is given is only used for bartering purposes; I really like how in this tale she befriends the poor people, works with them, and uses the magic to help others, and indirectly gets an audience with her husband. Also, in other versions, the husband is eventually clued in to the voice in his bedroom by a friend or servant, but in this one, his wife takes the initiative to write him a letter! Makes so much more sense. This heroine is active and clever. It's still a pretty bizarre little tale (what ends up happening to her children, for example?) but a fun one.

Snow White and the Band of Thieves

In the comments on my post on the history of mirrors, Nectar Vam mentioned a version of Snow White in which the heroine's helpers are the personified 12 Months of the year. That in itself is a fascinating concept, but it also got me wondering about how often Snow White is helped by creatures other than Dwarfs.

I turned once again to Surlalune's fabulous collection of Sleeping Beauty and Snow White Tales from Around the World! It's not an exhaustive group of Snow White tales (as if such a thing could exist), but with 40 variants from around the world it still reveals some interesting trends.

Some stories didn't quite have a group of characters that functioned like the dwarfs we're familiar with, but almost all did. And dwarfs were actually not that prevalent in the stories! The clear winners were thieves and robbers, in 9 stories. Next most popular was just a regular band of men, in 6 tales. When the helpers were males they were often brothers. In 4 versions, they were the heroine's own brothers (in fact you could probably call these versions of "The Twelve Brothers.")

Dwarfs weren't really that popular in folklore versions of Snow White, showing up only twice besides the Grimms' (they were featured in Joseph Jacob's story but that's basically a condensed version of the Grimms). Other characters that featured as helpers in two versions each: Giants, Fairies, and an Ogre husband and wife.

Other helper groups that appeared once were a wounded woman, a spirit of a dead woman living inside a magic castle, an old man, the Goddess Nycteris, and one group of dragons (although Heidi Anne Heiner notes that the dragons could also be translated as "heroic men").

Also, the number "7" wasn't present in every version either. No matter what form the helpers came in, they could be helping alone, in pairs, or other significant numbers-groups of 3, 7, 12, 24, and 40 were common.

What does this reveal about Snow White's friends? First of all, that help can come from the most unlikely places. Thieves and robbers are not a group you would most expect to treat a beautiful young girl as a sister (one group of robbers was also initially cannibals). Even if it was a group of young men, the fact that they're living by themselves, secluded in the woods, probably meant that they were cast out from normal society on some level. It's usual for us to hear of groups of young adults rooming together, but this is a newer concept-most young adults would historically get married as soon as possible to start their own families, and those that weren't married would probably still live with family and help raise relatives (this was at least true for young unmarried women, I'm not sure about unmarried men).

Some of Snow White's helpers-giants and ogres-would obviously be assumed to be very dangerous. I like that they weren't all males, either, although males prevailed (and sometimes there was an added helper role-an old man or woman might point Snow White to the house where the helpers lived, etc.)

And, although I just skimmed the tales, it really struck me once again how creepy the Prince is for being obsessed with a young girl's corpse. It really serves to highlight the contrast between how he and the group of helpers treat her. In the Portuguese "The Vain Queen," the man who takes in the beautiful Princess would like to marry her but gives her the power of choice-he asks if she would like to remain with him as his wife, or as his daughter, and she chooses the latter. This tale makes me wonder if the story just serves to highlight Snow White's growing older and desiring to marry, because at the end she is asked if she would like to marry the Prince who fell in love with her and she agrees.

That story was one of the healthiest examples of love and marriage, but some were so extreme I feel like the marriage at the end wasn't necessarily assumed to be a happy ending. The Italian tale "The Crystal Casket" really highlights the creepy factor when the Prince's mother asks him, after he brings home an unconscious girl, "But what is it? A doll? A dead woman?" and he replies, "Mother, don't trouble yourself about what it is, it is my wife." The heroine, Ermellina, was referred to as a "doll" or an "it" for the rest of the text. (Cue "Psycho" theme...)

Not every Prince is quite that level of horrifying. In fact, in some versions, like the tale I referenced at the beginning, Myrsina, the Prince gets the chest that contains the body without knowing what is inside it, and only discovers later that it contains a beautiful woman. (That tale isn't available in full online, but the summary can be read on Wikipedia). In that story it was a ring that proved the Princess' ultimate downfall, not an apple (I noticed a ring was a very prevalent symbol but I didn't count the number of appearances, maybe in a future post?).

Illustrations by John Hassall

What Fairy Tales REALLY Say About Curiosity

This post is kind of an extension of some of the discussion that went on in the comments from my post on an alternate beginning for Rapunzel a couple weeks ago. It's largely been accepted in fairy tale scholarship that traditional fairy tales tend to condemn female curiosity, some of them outright (like Perrault's moral for "Bluebeard") and some of them more subtly. Culturally, it was typical for curiosity in women to be seen as a horrible thing for a while there, so it's sad but not too surprising that that idea would have been applied to fairy tales.

Yet, when you ignore the moral tacked on at the end or inserted by an editor trying to make their tales more marketable for children's instruction, what do the tales themselves actually say about curiosity?


Sleeping Beauty-the Princess is exploring the castle one day and finds a spindle, and touches it, having never seen one before. She falls into deathlike sleep, as was predicted by the fairy (and really caused by her father's attempts to prevent the spell from happening). But after her sleep is over, she ends up with a royal husband and is none the worse for her long nap (also an extra episode with an evil mother in law in some versions, but that also gets resolved and the villain punished)

Snow White-enters a strange house in the woods when she is running from her murderous mother/stepmother (this one is more desperation than curiosity, but she could have just sat outside and waited for the dwarves to come home, like a proper little girl should have). Yet she is never condemned-she strikes a deal with the dwarfs, who end up later helping the Prince find her (in a totally creepy way but that's a different topic)

Twelve Dancing Princesses-We are never told (in most versions) how the sisters discovered that there was an entrance to an underground kingdom in their bedroom, but it stands to reason they somehow discovered it, and made the choice to venture down. This tale is one of the most ambiguous, sometimes the Princesses are assumed to be under a spell, but in the Grimms their actions are never really explained-but they are also not specifically condemned (and interestingly, the princes in the underground kingdom are punished, but not the Princesses who traveled there to dance-the soldier, who was curious and adventurous enough to discover the truth, is the rewarded hero)

-And, in the "Twelve Dancing Princesses" category, we have to remember Kate Crackernuts, a version in which it's a female who does the exporing into the hidden Kingdom, saving her sister and a prince in the process! Thanks Sue Bursztynski :)

Bluebeard's Wife-opens the door to the forbidden chamber. Because of this she is threatened with death by her husband, but he is killed, and his killing seen as just. His widow ends up with his estate, and her freedom.

Jack and the Beanstalk-climbs up the beanstalk and discovers the world of giants. This gets him into a dangerous situation from which he ultimately escapes and triumphs, ending up with the money he lacked at the beginning

East of the Sun, West of the Moon/Cupid and Psyche-the heroine disobeys an order not to look upon her husband, seeing how hot he secretly is. She has to go on a long, hard journey to win him back, but they do ultimately end up together and happy

So, what do the tales themselves actually say about curiosity? (This is only a partial list of some big ones-feel free to add more in the comments! And there are always exeptions to rules but I'm going to go ahead and state:)

First of all, curiosity does often bring challenges and obstacles. (Even to males, like Jack!) And that, honestly, can be true. There's the old saying, "ignorance is bliss"-it's not always easy discovering new knowledge that might challenge your worldview, or the truth about a person you thought you could trust. Curiosity leads to discovering something you didn't know before, and that often sends you on a different life path than you were previously on. It's the same in detective stories-digging through clues and getting closer to the truth can put you in dangerous situations with the criminals, but is necessary for obtaining justice.

But if fairy tales truly wanted to condemn the curious, the characters who went where they weren't supposed to and opened locked doors would ultimately end up dying and/or unhappy-many fairy tales really do end tragically! The Grimms weren't afraid to punish disobedient children in their stories, or to make their villains suffer horribly. Yet the endings reveal that those who pursue knowledge really are the heroes and heroines, not the villains. Sometimes that forbidden discovery really enables the happy ending to happen. We, the readers, always want to know what lies on the other side of the door just as much as the characters-by listening we are complicit in the discovering alongside the protagonists! It would be too ironic if stories themselves (which impart ideas and knowledge) were to truly condemn discovery of other ideas and knowledge!

Of course, there are boundaries to curiosity. The Victorian idea of not indulging curiosity isn't entirely bad, because you should also respect other people's privacy, etc. The level to which the characters actually crossed that boundary could be debated for each tale and variant (such as Goldilocks). But for most of these stories, the plots of fairy tales ultimately speak louder than the official morals, and the characters who display curiosity are clearly the sympathetic protagonists.

Illustrations-Kay Nielsen