From the Archives: Donkeyskin and Blame

Donkeyskin, the fairy tale that deals with the threat of incest, is rarely told to children here in America, but  is more well-known in other countries such as France, where even children's toys and picture books are given this dark theme (Readers from other countries, how well known is this tale where you live?).  

Like most fairy tales, it's a story about a character who encounters awful challenges but overcomes in the end. Tragically, the theme of abuse is hardly restricted to this tale-it's estimated that 1 in 10 children are sexually abused before age 18 and percentages of women who are abused in relationships only increase as they go through high school and college. This tale can provide hope to those who are victims of abuse and understanding for those of us who aren't. 

The first recorded mention of Donkeyskin was a sermon in 1501; in 1550 Straparola included a similar tale, "Doralice," in his collection of tales. Apparently, Louis XIV was lulled to sleep by Donkeyskin tales, and Moliere most likely heard it as a child. The most famous version is Perrault's, however, Perrault didn't necessarily take his tales seriously and treated them flippantly and irreverently, which could also explain the issue of the moral in "Bluebeard." The annotated Perrault version of Donkeyskin can be read onSurlalune. Perrault can be frustrating for a modern person to read. The heroine escapes her incestuous father, travels to a different kingdom where a Prince falls in love with her-for her physical beauty, the same thing that caused her father to desire her. In the Grimms' first edition of their version of the tale, Allerlieurah, there is enough ambiguity that the reader is left wondering whether or not the King the princess marries actually is her father. Even if it isn't, the lack of punishment of the father at the end of the tale is sadly typical of fairy tales in general, which allow the fathers grace but delight in tormenting female villains.

  The article "Donkeyskin, Deerskin, Allerleiurauh" by Helen Pilinovskycomments on the Perrault version and then contrasts this with three modern versions by Robin McKinley, Jane Yolen, and Terri Windling, in a fascinating look at how modern culture relates to the tale differently than Perrault.  

The main differences can be seen in the issues of blame, and the "happily ever after" usually attached to fairy tales. In real cases of abuse, the victim may feel guilty, and this feeling may be enforced by society. Perrault-and several critics after him-sees the Queen mother as the guilty party for making the King promise only to remarry a woman more beautiful than she is, ignoring the fact that the King does not have to remarry at all (which is usually the intent attributed to the Queen), much less take his unwilling daughter.

The three modern writers (who are all female) spread out the blame. All of them, understandably so, put at least some of it on the father himself. McKinley includes more history on the Queen Mother, suggesting that she may have been abused herself by her father-and sadly, tragedies like abuse do tend to be cyclical through generations. Yolen includes a bitter nurse as the initial instigator, but thay all include the society around the characters in the blame as well. The other characters in the stories are quick to excuse the father, blame the daugther, and even silence those who disagree. The mothers themselves are not implicitly given blame; McKinley's mother is seen as a product of her past. Yolen's Queen mother dies before she actually makes a stipulation, and it is the King who provides it. Windling's mother was only concerned that the new wife be better than her, for fear of the stereotyped evil stepmother.

The endings of these versions are also drastically different than Perrault. There is no Prince who falls in love with Donkeyskinat first sight only because of her beauty; these stories are more realistic and dark. McKinley's heroine cannot heal from trauma quite so quickly as the classic Donkeyskin, who accepts the Prince's love without question. It takes time to heal, and even when she is ready to go back to the Prince who offered her marriage, she is afraid she will not be able to commit, and the Prince accepts her as she is-broken and scarred.

Yolen's story has this very chilling ending: "Now if this were truly a fairy tale (and what story today with a king and a queen. . . is not?) the princess would go outside to her mother's grave. . . .The neighboring kingdom would harbor her, the neighboring prince would marry her, her father would be brought to his senses, and the moment of complete happiness would be the moment of the story's end. . . .But this is not a fairy tale. The princess is married to her father and, having always wanted his love, does not question the manner of it. Except at night, late at night. . ."

Even more eerie is the conclusion. The heroine dies in childbirth like her mother before her, and the reader is left to suppose that the cycle will only repeat itself, for, " "The king knows that he will not have to wait another thirteen years. It is an old story. Perhaps the oldest."

Windling's story is set in modern America. Her heroine is not a Princess. The hard work that is Perrault's Donkeyskin must endure until the Prince discovers and saves her is this heroine's salvation-getting a job. Yet, as Pilinovsky suggests, the negative associations of hard work are taken away.

Each of these stories looks into the classic fairy tale canon and produces a new, thoughtful work that treats the themes seriously and more realistically.  

*Other sources were "From the Beast to the Blonde" by Marina Warner and the Donkeyskin History article on surlalune. Illustrations by Arthur Rackham, Margaret Evans Price, Kay Nielsen, H.J. Ford, and Gustav Dore (last two).

Interview with Chantal Gadoury, Allerlieurah Author

Being a fairy tale blogger has led to some incredible opportunities, and recently one of them has been dialoguing with an author who has recently released a novel version of Allerleirauh (also known as Donkeyskin/Thousandfurs/All-Kinds-of-Fur), Chantal Gadoury. The book is available in Kindle version and paperback (and is currently free if you have Kindle Unlimited!). It's a refreshingly different (and gutsy!) fairy tale to turn into novel form. Given the dark material of incest and rape, it's for a more mature reader.

Chantal was also kind enough to answer some of the questions I had!
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Tales of Faerie: What drew you to the story of Allerleirauh?

Chantal Gadoury: Well, it really started when I was little. My Dad had bought me a VHS with a bunch of cartoons on it, and one at the end was called “The Coat of Many Colours.” It was a fairy tale that stuck with me - probably more because of the magical and beautiful gowns the Princess wore. I loved the tale, how she had this very complex relationship with the Prince; a secret identity and then who she really was. As I got older, and found the real version of the story . . I think I always just kept it on the back burner for a future project. Something that I would try to tackle someday. 

TOF: What was your research process like?

CG:My research for this novel wasn’t too hard. I watched the cartoon a few times. Tried to find the German live action version of the story - and really watched a few other shows here and there to get the life style - develop the setting and the places I wanted the story to be located at. It was relatively a lot easier than “Seven Seeds of Summer” where-as I did a lot of Greek Myth research, and did a lot of Google-Map searches for locations; buildings - etc. 

TOF: I imagine it was hard to write the incest scene. What was that like, as an author?: 

CG: It was hard, as you can imagine. It was really hard to do. At first I wasn't even sure if I should or wanted to go forward with it. My fiance, who was reading along with everything as I was writing, and I even had a discussion about writing liberties and "pressing the envelope." I wasn't sure if it would be better to leave it to the reader's imagination, or paint the scene, so that it would be all the more vivid and painful. Rob (my fiance) told me that if I was going to write something like this, "go big or go home." 

For me as an author, I tried to be very careful in how much description I used. I didn't want to glorify the situation, but I wanted to show the uncomfortable-ness of Aurelia and what was happening to her. It had to be something that we, as the readers, felt - and would carry through the book until the end. As I look back, I know I listened to one song in particular (and it's really odd that I did - which was a Cover of "Earned It.") but didn't do any research in the matter. I took fear and what I would imagine as a terrifying experience for any person in Aurelia's situation. It was uncomfortable to complete, and I know afterwards, I was really unsure of the scene and if I should keep it in. I know rape/incest scenes can really deter readers from a book - but a huge part of the fairy tale of "Allerleirauh" is a Father who desires his daughter, and actively pursues her as a bride. With marriage, sexual consummation and child-bearing is a big factor in an older Royal marriage. I took a lot of inspiration from King Henry VIII (and 'The Tudors') when it came to the King and the Kingdom of Tranen. If you know your history, you'll see similarities. 

I knew when I wrote this novel, I wanted to press the boundaries - I wanted to be awareness to this reality. These things have happened and continue to happen in our present world. It was an uncomfortable necessity. 


TOF: What's next for you? Any new projects in the works (especially fairy tale retellings?)
CG: I guess what's next for me is to keep writing. I have an idea of a novel I'd like to write, non-fairy tale related though. It's more of a novel based on some things I've gone through as a young adult - love, loosing love, loosing my Father in a sudden heart attack - trying to fight through depression and finding myself. I'd love to tackle another Fairy Tale though. I just need to find a story that I feel passionate enough about, and a new way of telling the fairy tale - in the way I had with "Allerleirauh." 

It's hard to take a fairy tale that everyone knows and loves and live up to the expectations they might already have for it, because they've heard it so many times. You can't write a story about "Cinderella," for example, without her glass slippers. Nor, "Beauty and the Beast" without a rose. It's a little easier to have a story that isn't well known and sort of make it your own. I took the liberties of doing that with "Allerleirauh," and tried to give the Princess more of an equal experience with her Prince, rather than the typical "servant in the palace" scenario. 

I want to write a fairy tale, but make it new and original. I've thought about "Snow White and Rose Red," or "The Frog Prince" or "Toads and Diamonds." I'd love to take a dark story and bring an element of light and hope to it, and a twist of a happy ending. I suppose I'd ask, are there any suggestions to Fairy Tales that haven't been used, that one would wish to see? 

Illustrations by Arthur Rackham
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Thanks, Chantal! It's always fascinating to get an author's perspective. Readers, I'd also love to hear what lesser known fairy tales you'd like to have retold!

LaliBlue's Fairy Tale Necklaces

Some beautiful fairy tale necklaces can be found at Etsy's LaliBlue shop (or the original Spanish site)! There are the usual suspects (Little Red, Cinderella) alongside some other fairy tale characters you don't usually see in jewelry form, such as Donkeyskin and the Steadfast Tin Soldier.

Voice of the Narrator

"D'Aulnoy's most popular tales often featured enterprising, clever girls whose lives were tyrannized by wicked kings and fathers-very different from the stories of the better-known Charles Perrault, whose heroines are marked by their modesty, obedience, and reliance on the ingenuity of a prince to save them from the spell of a wicked stepmother or witch." -Susan Bordo* (emphasis mine)

Hmm...what do you think of this quote? I admit I'm not as familiar with Madame D'Aulnoy's fairy tales as a whole, but I do love tales of hers like "Green Snake" which is an unusual example of an ugly heroine desired by a Prince-a tale you probably wouldn't find being invented and told by a man. For while we know that Perrault was part of a feminist group of writers, we can't forget that he was still a man and had a different voice.

As for Perrault-tales of his like "Bluebeard" fit Bordo's claim. Even if you don't take the moral seriously, Perrault took a folk tale in which the heroine cleverly rescues herself (and sometimes her sisters), and turned her into a helpless heroine who had to wait to be rescued and served as a later cautionary tale against the evils of female curiosity.

And yet...although people generally interpret the heroine marrying a Prince at the end as sexist (meaning she needs a man to rescue her), I don't necessarily view marrying a Prince that way. Fairy tale endings generally satisfy human cravings for companionship (marriage) and stability (wealth), which often means marrying a beautiful royal, regardless of which gender the main character is. And if you look at tales like Perrault's "Cinderella," the Prince isn't the agent of change, but the prize. Cinderella's rescue is engineered by her (female) fairy godmother (and in other versions, the spirit of her dead mother). And, if you compare Perrault's "Cinderella" to D'Aulnoy's "Finette Cindron," if anything Perrault's character is more clever for letting her shoe drop on purpose, and Finette's Prince is creepier for having a small shoe fetish.

Also, in Perrault's "Donkey Skin," that heroine really saves herself-she leaves a horrible situation, alone (very brave, especially for a woman to be travelling alone at the time), again with the help of her godmother. She then puts herself in a position to be discovered by the Prince, rather cleverly dropping her ring in his cake.

And yet, there's still the fact that Perrault chose to rewrite "Griselda," an already well-known tale (published by Boccaccio and later included in Canterbury Tales) about how women must endure all kinds of abuse from the men in their lives all for the ultimate ideal of being loving and obedient. Even if you read it as a satire/parody, it's still pretty upsetting and I wonder why he chose that tale out of all the stories he could have chosen...

*Source-The Creation of Anne Boleyn by Susan Bordo

Antique copy of D'Aulnoy's tales
Russian Children's Book
Donkeyskin by Nadezhda Illarionova

The Maiden's Tower-Azerbaijan

Although Rapunzel is a fairly popular tale, there aren't too many actual folktales that are considered "Rapunzel" tales. In Surlalune's collection, there are only 10 Rapunzel tales, followed by 37 more general "Maiden in the Tower" tales. These vary from folk tales to myths to legends, like this one from Azerbaijan. There is a Maiden Tower in Baku that inspired many tales, including this story, published in 1911 by Abraham Valentine Williams Jackson:

"A brutal old Khan fell in love with his own daughter. She naturally rejected his addresses, until, overwhelmed at last by his importunities, she promised to yield to his desire, provided that he would build her the loftiest tower in the land. On the day when the structure was completed, she flung herself headlong from the parapet into the sea, which at that time washed close to the wall."

The tower entrance

This story, as Heidi Anne Heiner points out, is like a tragic mix of Rapunzel and Donkeyskin. Although the wikipedia entry doesn't cite incest as one of the reasons for the maiden committing suicide from the tower, but a woman being forced to marry against her wishes. Either way, the legends all seem to agree that something horrible caused a young woman to use this tower to commit suicide; a darker alternative to the traditional Rapunzel tale. But when you consider what it must be like to be imprisoned, alone, inside a tower for who knows how many years, it makes sense that the young woman might decide to take more drastic measures.

Although this tale isn't considered a possible "origin" for the Rapunzel tale (it's clearly descendant from Basile's "Petrosinella" and Charlote-Rose de la Force's "Persinette") I love when fairy tale-like stories are linked to history. Europe is full of mysterious towers, many of which were really used as prisons, so it sparks the imagination...

What Perrault Had to Say About His Tales

One of the reasons I was so interested in the book Fairy Tales Framed, edited by Ruth B. Bottigheimer, was to see what Perrault actually thought about his tales. He has a whole host of fairy tales that are now considered to be part of the classic fairy tale canon, but one question that has plagued me for years (as well as many other fairy tale fans and scholars) is what to make of his moral to Bluebeard-the one that concludes that the moral of the story is not to commend the wife for discovering the truth and saving herself from a murderous husband, but to condemn her for her curiosity.

Marina Warner thinks that Perrault's story contains thinly veiled sarcasm and should not be taken seriously; it's true that he was a feminist for his time and a friend and associate with many female fairy tale writers of his time. Maria Tatar thinks he may have given random and contradictory morals just to prove how foolish it is to try and find deeper meaning in fairy tales.

Yet many people who later retold the story seemed to take the moral completely seriously, despite the fact that the story's events contradict the condemnation of the woman (Bluebeard is always punished and the wife lives happily). Cautioning women against curiosity was a big theme in the Victorian era, and even through the 20th century (anyone remember the episode of Dick Van Dyke where they purposely trick Laura into opening a package meant for Rob, and she is humiliated when the boat expands in her living room?)

Unfortunately, Fairy Tales Framed doesn't include anything directly written about "Bluebeard", but includes his own words about his Mother Goose tales and another fairy tale collection that included Donkeyskin-which will shed light on how he thought about all of his tales. In both of those instances, he spends the vast majority of his arguments defending the validity of fairy tales, simply because they had beneficial morals. He compares his stories to ancient myths and fables, and even claims that his morals are superior because they make sense (he claims that "Cupid and Psyche" has no discernible meaning).

rcmtrue, "Allerleiruah"

For example, regarding "Donkeyskin", Perrault wrote that "It is not hard to discern that the goal of this tale is to help children learn that it is better to risk the most severe punishment than to fail to do their duty; that virtue may be thwarted, but it is always rewarded."

Perrault's tale Griselda is a very preachy tale about the need for a wife to humbly obey her husband in all things, even when he is clearly at fault. When the Prince of the tale decides to marry another girl and send his wife back to her parents, she responds with "You are my husband, lord, and master. And whatever else you may hear, you must remember that nothing is nearer my heart than to obey you completely." Seriously, the whole story is like this, it's a very uncomfortable read. It's actually possibly the most sexist fairy tale I've ever read and makes our discussion of how females tend to be more passive overall look like nothing in comparison.

Image

Yet Perrault did not see the cruel husband as needing to change, but the tale concludes with " Indeed, the people even praised the prince's cruelties because they had produced so remarkable a proof of Griselda's constancy that people saw in her a model for women everywhere in the world." He later wrote that the story "tends to influence women to put up with their husbands and to make them see that there is nothing so brutal or strange that the patience of an honest woman cannot bring to an end."

It's really hard to say what Perrault's true intent was. Scholars tend to think he couldn't have meant his words literally, and it's true that many fairy tales were disguised criticism of royalty. Yet I don't really find Perrault's tone to be that "tongue-in-cheek." He may have been defending the publication of fairy tales in general, which was a hot debate at the time, but to all appearances he was literally preaching complete and total obedience of wives to their husbands, no matter how degrading or cruel, in multiple tales.

Russian children's book illustration from Soviet Era-(can't find illustrator name, at least not in English)

And it really begs the question, why do scholars feel the need to defend Perrault's intentions? I admit I don't know much at all about French culture at the time other than what I've read in fairy tale books, but I kind of find it hard to believe that he was really just writing for shock value when it seems everyone at the time and for hundreds of years afterwards took him literally.

Jeannine Hall Gailey on Allerleirauh

The beginning of "Allerleirauh Reveals Herself to the Prince," by Jeannine Hall Gailey:

"I'd rather be mistaken for an animal.
If you knew what I ran from,
how my mother cursed me with golden hair, this face.


She left me a father obsessed with her image.
I fear your eyes, just as I feared his.
This coat offers shelter."

A friend once pointed out to me that the marriage of Donkeyskin/Allerleirah is not necessarily a happy ending-the prince only loves her when he sees how beautiful she is, the same reason her father wanted to marry her. This poem recognizes that same sad irony. I think so many girls face a battle between their desire to be found beautiful, yet their desire to be loved for more than that.

Gustav Dore

Ruth Bottigheimer on Donkeyskin

Perrault's famous version of Donkeyskin was dedicated to a friend of his, the Marquise de
Lambert, who was in the process of gaining back rights and property that were hers by birth. It's fitting that the heroine of the tale should be first deprived of her royal status, but at the end rewarded with the royal rights and privileges she started with, in the classic restoration fairy tale plot.

At the time, the term "donkeyskin story" was used to refer to any amusing tale with magic in it, not necessarily because it contained a donkeyskin (maybe like how most fairy tales don't actually have fairies). In using a donkeyskin in his donkeyskin story, he was making a pun. Other stories did exist with actual donkeyskins in the plot, however-including the frame story to "Cupid and Psyche" in Lucius Apuleius' Golden Asse (the story that is thought to be the earliest literary precedent to Beauty and the Beast). It's probable that Perrault was familiar with this, but the combination of a donkeyskin and incest driving a royal girl to servanthood was taken from two earlier tale versions by Straparola and Basile. Though Perrault added his own take to the tale, the influence of the earlier writers' tales is fairly obvious. As is characteristic of the authors' tale collections as a whole, Straparola's and Basile's tales were full of bawdy and cruder humor, while Perrault made the story more acceptable to a dignified, refined French audience in the 1690s.

Donkeyskin is most noteable among current audiences for its shocking attempt at incest. Incest was not entirely uncommon in midieval literature, but in Donkeyskin it is noteable because it was not only ultimately unsuccessful, but in the end deeply repented (repentance itself is very rare in fairy tales-the villains usually meet grisly punishments with no thought given to a possible change of heart).

Illustration by Kay Neilsen. Information from Ruth Bottigheimer's "Fairy Tales: A New History"

Marina Warner on Hair

I read another tale, the Romanian "How the Waterfall Came to the Thirsting Mountain," that also celebrated and almost deified a long head of female hair. In this tale the Old Man of the Mountain begs a Fairy to bring him a waterfall for a mountain. The fairy travels the world and finds a Princess who was about to give her long, beautiful hair to a Wizard in return for her father. The Fairy told the Princess not to surrender her hair to the evil Wizard, but helps her to free her father (the Wizard is powerless when he sees the Tear-maiden that was born of the Princess' weeping, for none who saw the tear maiden could be anything but melted with compassion). In thanks, the Princess offered the fairy a token of thanks, and the Fairy requested her hair, for the Fairy had seen "how the Princess' beautiful hair waved and sparkled in the sunlight, and when the wind blew a single thread away, it...turned into a strand of glistening dew drops." With the whole head of hair, then, the Fairy was able to give a waterfall to the Mountain.

This reminded of the Swedish story I posted not too long ago in which a single strand of the heroine's blonde hair shines so brightly that it stops the evil magician from keeping young women as captives. I remembered Marina Warner in From the Beast to the Blond: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers. She has two chapters on the language of hair, and traces examples from mythology, church tradition, medeival literature, and beyond in which long blonde hair is coveted as the sign of pure beauty. Blondeness has associations not only with light and goodness and purity, as seen in "The Magician's Cape," but also of wealth because of its similarity to gold.

Not only that, but hair is also very symbolic of the duality between human and animal. Hair is a similarity between ourselves and animal fur, but can also be an expression of human individuality. In Warner's words, "It is hair's imperviousness as a natural substance that yields the deeper symbolic meanings and warrants the high place hair plays in the motif repertory of fairy tales and other legends...it can be cut and curled, sizzled with hot tongs, steeped in chemicals and dyes without apparant suffering, and will go on growing, and is not even stopped by death...such quasi-magical properties make is a symbol of invulnerability."

If someone mentions the subject of hair and fairy tales, the most obvious association is Rapunzel, but hair factors into other fairy tales as well. Snow White is the only traditionally dark-haired princess because of a specific wish of her mother's; in this case the dark hair serves as a contrast to her white skin and therefore keeps in the tradition of fair/light representing that which is desirable. Allerlieurah from the Grimms covers herself with fur, or animal hair, to hide herself after her father attempted to violate her, and it is while brushing her hair in her natural state that she is discovered by the prince. Then there's Goldilocks, and Warner reminds us that in the history of the story, the main character's transformation from old meddling woman to adorable, sympathetic child was simultaneous with her hair's progression to blonde-Goldilocks has to be good, Warner claims, to live up to her blonde hair.

Illustrators have assumed that fairy tale princesses with no given hair color are blonde throughout history as well. Cinderella especially is blonde except for a few very rare exceptions. Though some modern interpreters are starting to challenge the blonde stereotype, such as Disney's Belle, "their attempts lever feebly against the long weight of the tradition."

Rapunzel-Arthur Rackham; Goldilocks-Jessie Wilcox Smith; Furball-Margaret Evans Price; Disney's Cinderella

Donkeyskin: The reality of child abuse

I've always been a fan of fairy tales, but especially since starting this blog I've been more aware of how people use the phrase "fairy tale," and it is nearly always condescending, no matter who it comes from. This is truly unfortunate-even in the "dumbed down" versions, of such as Disney is always accused, there are still horrific elements (abuse and murder attempts); not to mention the even darker historical versions. And even aside from these well-known American tales, Bluebeard and Donkeyskin, which deal more specifically with murder and incest, are considered not to be random fairy tales pulled out only to defend their mature content, but part of the basic fairy tale canon (Donkeyskin is apparently more well-known in France and other parts of Europe, where children's toys and picture books are given this dark theme). Donkeyskin is, like most fairy tales, a story about a character who encounters awful challenges but overcomes in the end. Tragically, the theme of abuse is hardly restricted to this tale-Wikipedia says that studies vary widely in results, but the percentage of abused females could range from 8 to 71%. This tale can provide hope to those who are victims of abuse and understanding for those of us who aren't. The first recorded mention of Donkeyskin was a sermon in 1501; in 1550 Straparola included a similar tale, "Doralice," in his collection of tales. Apparently, Louis XIV was lulled to sleep by Donkeyskin tales, and Moliere most likely heard it as a child. The most famous version is Perrault's, however, Perrault didn't really take his tales seriously and treated them flippantly and irreverently, which could also explain the issue of the moral in "Bluebeard." The annotated Perrault version of Donkeyskin can be read on Surlalune. Perrault can be frustrating for a modern person to read. After seeing a college production of the play "Secret in the Wings" (which I loved! I wish I could remember more about it so I could write a post about it!) a friend of mine commented that it was very disturbing that the hero prince at the end of the tale falls in love with Allerleirauh because he was physically attracted to her-which is hardly different than the incestuous father. The lack of punishment of the father at the end of the tale is typical of fairy tales in general, which allow the fathers grace but delight in tormenting female villains. The article "Donkeyskin, Deerskin, Allerleiurauh" by Helen Pilinovsky comments on the Perrault version and then contrasts this with three modern versions by Robin McKinley, Jane Yolen, and Terri Windling, in a fascinating look at how modern culture relates to the tale differently than Perrault. The main differences can be seen in the issues of blame, and the "happily ever after" usually attached to fairy tales. In real cases of abuse, the victim may feel guilty, and this feeling may be enforced by society. Perrault-and several critics after him-see the Queen mother as the guilty party for making the King promise only to remarry a woman more beautiful than she is, ignoring the fact that the King does not have to remarry at all (which is usually the intent attributed to the Queen), much less take his unwilling daughter.
The three modern writers (who are all female) spread out the blame. All of them, understandably so, put at least some of it on the father himself. McKinley includes more history on the Queen Mother, suggesting that she may have been abused herself by her father-and sadly, tragedies like abuse do tend to be cyclical through generations. Yolen includes a bitter nurse as the initial instigator, but thay all include the society around the characters in the blame as well. The other characters in the stories are quick to excuse the father, blame the daugther, and even silence those who disagree. The mothers themselves are not implicitly given blame; McKinley's mother is seen as a product of her past. Yolen's Queen mother dies before she actually makes a stipulation, and it is the King who provides it. Windling's mother was only concerned that the new wife be better than her, for fear of the stereotyped evil stepmother.

The endings of these versions are also drastically different than Perrault. There is no Prince who falls in love with Donkeyskin at first sight only because of her beauty; these stories are more realistic and dark. McKinley's heroine cannot heal from trauma quite so quickly as the classic Donkeyskin, who accepts the Prince's love without question. It takes time to heal, and even when she is ready to go back to the Prince who offered her marriage, she is afraid she will not be able to commit, and the Prince accepts her as she is-broken and scarred.

Yolen's story has this very chilling ending: "Now if this were truly a fairy tale (and what story today with a king and a queen. . . is not?) the princess would go outside to her mother's grave. . . .The neighboring kingdom would harbor her, the neighboring prince would marry her, her father would be brought to his senses, and the moment of complete happiness would be the moment of the story's end. . . .But this is not a fairy tale. The princess is married to her father and, having always wanted his love, does not question the manner of it. Except at night, late at night. . ."

Even more eerie is the conclusion. The heroine dies in childbirth like her mother before her, and the reader is left to suppose that the cycle will only repeat itself, for, " "The king knows that he will not have to wait another thirteen years. It is an old story. Perhaps the oldest."

Windling's story is set in modern America. Her heroine is not a Princess. The hard work that is Perrault's Donkeyskin's bane until the Prince discovers and saves her is this heroine's salvation-getting a job. Yet, as Pilinovsky suggests, the negative associations of hard work are taken away.
Each of these stories looks into the classic fairy tale canon and produces a new, thoughtful work that treats the themes seriously and more realistically. I have only read the Robin McKinley but am very interested in reading the others now. Other unmentioned sources were "From the Beast to the Blonde" by Marina Warner and the Donkeyskin History article on surlalune. Illustrations by Arthur Rackham, Margaret Evans Price, Kay Nielsen, H.J. Ford, and Gustav Dore (last two).

WRS Ralston on Cinderella

Found in "Cinderella: A Casebook", W.R.S. Ralston's Cinderella examines a number of versions of the fairy tale in order to find the common themes and meaning.

1. The dead, helpful mother. In Ralston's words: "Its earlier scenes appear to have been inspired by the idea that a loving mother may be able, even after death, to bless and assist a dutiful child." This may surprise a fan only familiar with the Perrault/Disney versions of the tale, where the dead mother is hardly mentioned, and a fairy godmother does all the work. But earlier versions of the tale almost all have a mother who dies but whose spirit is embodied in a tree (Grimms), a cow (Servian), a doll (Russian), a fish (ancient Chinese), her bones (Greek), and more. (Ralston does not mention the Chinese version).

Elenore Abbott

2. A means of recognition. The shoe is not actually essential to the recognition, but even as far back as the story of Rhodopis (1st century A.D.) she is found by her golden sandal. The glass slipper was never part of the tale until Perrault. Before then it was often gold or another costly, beautiful material, but Cinderella may also have been recognized by a lock of her golden hair, or other indicators. Ralston: "the lost slipper...seems to be...merely one of the methods of recognition by which the stories of brilliant beings, temporarily obscured, are commonly brought to a close."

3. Formula: Unjust degredation-temporary recognition-temporary degredation-permanent recognition. By following this general formula, that is how we connect the Donkeyskin tales to Cinderella. The degradation is caused not by a cruel stepmother, but by a "hateful marriage," often to her father, from which the heroine must escape. Interesting contrast b/t the two tale families: "Cinderella's promotion is due to her dead mother's watchful care. Rashie-Coat's degradation is consequent upon her dying mother's unfortunate imprudence" (yet again, the power of the birth mother from even beyond the grave is essential to both stories). Ralston cites several stories in which the Donkeyskin character escapes by sinking magically into the ground, and others in which she hides behind ugly animal skins, or some kind of wooden cloak or covering.
And in all of these, the hiding female takes on some form of humble servitude. However, to those that villainize fairy tales that seem to imply that a female's salvation is only to be had through domestic work and therefore women are only good for the kitchen, Ralston adds "Just as her counterpart, the golden-locked prince of so many tales, becomes a scullion at court..." so the fact that she is female does not condemn her to servitude-the fact that she is the main character means there has to be tension and excitement and some unfortunate circumstance to rise out from. Ralston mentions tales from Germany, Norway, and Russia in which the male hero follows the same formula (although the Russian male Cinderella is recognized not just for looking beautiful, but for heroics in battle, recognized by the scarf the Princess tied on his arm). And in all the male Cinderella variants, great emphasis is put on the fact that his hair is golden.

To further increase the connection between Cinderella and Donkeyskin, in Afanasyev's Russian story, the heroine escapes from a hated marriage, disguised in a Swine's Hide, and is revealed after dancing at the ball and losing a shoe on the third night which could fit only her. The slipper also reveals Norway's Katie Woodencloak, but most Donkeyskins are recognized by their royal clothes.
Ethel Franklin Betts

Once we see the common ground shared by Cinderella tales, we can start to wonder where the tale originally came from and what it means. Ralston mentions the nature myth theories (everything good is the sun, or day, always in battle with night) and the historical theories (the tales remain from pagan practices, such as the hated marriage). Ralston points out that certainly, historical customs will appear in old tales, and so might mythological beliefs be a possible interpretation of tales. Ralston warns the reader not to be too dependant on any one theory. I almost get tired of hearing all the theories of the supposed original meaning-what of the story simply being entertaining and the plot having its own merit? Sun worshipers may have seen Cinderella as the sun, but that wouldn't make it any more the source than we who like to see ourselves as Cinderella and our mean boss as the stepmother, or any other personal applications.

And Ralston, in combining all the universal elements of the tale, never talks about the significance of clothing. In all the variants of Cinderella and Donkeyskin, she is ultimately recognized when she wears beautiful clothes, and merely dressing like a servant and getting a bit greasy is enough to make her completely unrecognizable. It's sort of like Clark Kent vs. Superman-we're supposed to believe that Lois Lane has no idea that one is the other, sans glasses? I like to think that peasant women used to believe that they were each the most beautiful woman ever seen, but they were forced to wear simple clothes, and that if they ever got the chance to wear the clothes of a Princess, they too would be found to be beautiful beyond belief. Can anyone else think of an explanation as to this very materialistic theme that tends to get ignored by scholars, though it's probably the most universal?

PS-Blogger spellcheck is sexist. It highlights "female's" as misspelled, but among the options of correct spelling are "fem ale's" and "Male's"-yes, Male's is capitalized.

One more thing-Ralston has a quote comparing the historical life of the fairy tale to the Cinderella tale itself which is cool: "Long did it dwell beside the hearths of the common people, utterly ignored by their superiors in social rank...At length there arrived the season of its final change, when, transferred from the dusk of the peasant's hut into the full light of the outer day, and freed from the unbecoming garments by which it had been disgigured, it was recognized as the scion of a family so truly royal that some of its members deduce their origin from the olden gods themselves." (Revealing, Alan Dundes points out, his own belief in the mythological origins of fairy tales, which are now remnants of old myths).

Bruno Bettelheim

Bruno Bettelheim is a very interesting figure whose work involves two of my passions-fairy tales and people with disabilities-specifically, autism. He spent part of his life in a concentration camp, but went on to become well known for his work in child psychology and Freudian psychology. His contributions to understandings of autism are less than helpful. He believed autism was the result of poor parenting. As part of the therapy, he had the children stomp on figures of their mothers and hurl insults at them.

His work in fairy tales was perhaps slightly more beneficial. His book The Uses of Enchantment was very popular at the time, so even if Freudian psychology grates on you after a while, it's worth a read just to see how it's influenced current thought in interpreting fairy tales. He was very pro-fairy tales, so he still gets quoted a lot. He believed fairy tales help children sort through their various stages of development. He lobbied for what he thought were the perfected versions of tales-such as the brothers Grimm-because oral tales told over and over again are shaped to nurture whatever the child's needs are. He must not have been aware that the Grimms' versions were hardly authoritative, and to call them "oral" tales is doubtful.

His characters sort through Oedipal difficulties. This isn't too hard a stretch for the abundance of fairy tales with female protagonists, evil mothers and absent fathers. He also interprets Hansel and Gretel as children who were stuck too long in their oral stage and had to move on. Their rushing to eat a house of candy has nothing to do with the fact that the children are starving to death-literally-and only their oral greed (intentional sarcasm here on my part). Beauty and the Beast is a tale of a young woman who transfers her Oedipal attatchments from her father to a mate in a healthy way. Donkeyskin is not a tale about the potential evil of fathers, but a young girl's fantasies that her father will become sexually obsessed with her, and so on.

However, there are many very interesting points he makes as well, so again, it's worth a read. According to his own theories, Bettelheim should have been the most self-actualized person ever, because of all his readings of fairy tales, but he suffered from depression and committed suicide in 1990.

Designer Princess

One of my favorite fashion bloggers is Alix, The Cherry Blossom Girl. If you go through her archives, she's put together several modern and designer clothes and accessories to create outfits modeled after certain fairy tale characters.

Sleeping Beauty

As a peasant:

As a Princess whose dress color is being fought over by fairies:

Mary Poppins

Alice in Wonderland

Dorothy

Donkeyskin

A dress the color of weather:

A dress the color of the moon:

A dress the color of the sun:

Follow the links for more information on the individual peices, or in some cases, more accessories and outfits.