Snow White
Snow White keeps on coming around! There are at least three movies about her out about now or very soon. Her story is perennial, and has been for hundreds of years all over the world. There are at least sixty versions, and according to Bruno Bettelheim some of the motifs are even to be found in the Greek myth of Tantalus, who for vanity’s sake, kills his son Pelops and serves him up to the gods for dinner!
The earliest known written version is Italian from 1634, The Young Slave, in Giambattista Basile’s Il Pentamerone. This story gives us an explanation of the time-span covering Snow White’s sudden growth from being a seven year old girl to being a grown woman ripe for marriage – her coffin grew with her as she lay comatose in it for years. Also, don’t forget, as in dreams, time in fairy tales has a magical quality and does not obey the laws of physics.
Snow White is one of the darkest stories – “a chilling tale of murderous rivalry, adolescent sexual ripening, poisoned gifts, blood on snow, witchcraft, and ritual cannibalism.” – not intended for children, saysTerri Windling. On the other hand, I agree with InkGypsy in Once Upon a Blog when she says,
“I’d rather my kid pick up a book of fairy tales with all the gore intact than watch or hear the nightly news. That’s far more frightening and has nothing to offer but fear, encouraging you to worry about things you have no control over and are largely being speculated about at best (break down any local news and you’ll find the factual content is actually quite light). One thing fairy tales do for children is take away uncertainty. They’re pretty clear about what happens to whom and why. To have these “definites”, these boundaries, is actually very comforting for a child. Uncertainty makes for instability and adults cause enough of that even without meaning to.”
And many people have re-written the story or written commentaries and poems on it from every different angle from Freudian and literary analysis to feminism and everything in between. I join them all, making no apology for the ending, as I too reclaim Snow White from Walt Disney. One young woman writing in the Omaha World Herald, says of Snow White, “She gets under our skin and into our brains before we can really make sense of her, and then we never tire of trying to figure her out”.
Resources:
Bruno Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment, 1975
Rainbow Rowell, Omaha World Herald, 8 January 2012
Terri Windling – www.endicott-studio.com
InkGypsy http://fairytalenewsblog.blogspot.com.au/
The Golden Blackbird
Greetings!The Golden Blackbird is a story with many variations. The Walter Crane illustration I have used is from The Golden Bird by the Grimm brothers. It has a fox instead of a hare. Andrew Lang’s first Fairy Book (Blue) was published in 1889 and became a famous series of twelve. “The series proved of great influence in children's literature, increasing the popularity of fairy tales over tales of real life”. Why was there a resurgence at that time, I wondered? It occurred to me that perhaps the current resurgence corresponds with the upheaval of the times we are living in now when so many people overwhelmed and confused. And this idea was confirmed for me when I researched the times of Andrew Lang (1844-1912) and his contemporaries, such as JRR Tolkein (1892-1973) and the Grimm brothers in Germany (Jacob 1785-1863, Wilhelm 1786-1959). The Industrial Revolution (mid1700s to mid1800s) had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of theUnited Kingdom, spreading rapidly to the rest of the world. Many people did not like what they saw in the shadow side of the innovations of the industrial revolution - the resulting poverty and disrespect for nature. After all there are two sides to everything, and as Marie-Louise von Franz has said, the greater the light the darker the shadow. “Romanticism was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century inEuropeand strengthened in reaction to the Industrial Revolution … and the Age of Enlightenment …. It was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature”. (Wikipedia) The Golden Blackbird appears in Andrew Lang’s Green Fairy Book and was collected from Paul Sebillot (1843-1918), native ofBrittanyand a folklorist, painter and writer who was also a first-hand collector of stories from the peasantry. Being both Celtic these men had much in common, and who knows, they probably met. 
The Emperor’s New Clothes
Welcome to my first story for 2012 dear readers and listeners! Adapting it from a Persian tale told by Court Lucanor Prince Don Juan Manuel, ‘Of that which happened to a king and three imposters”, Hans Christian Andersen wrote this story in 1837 as part of a collection of tales for children.
And yet it is as pertinent now as it was in his day, if not more so. Deborah Orr wrote in the Guardian Weekly in late September 2011,
“If the global market had an emperor, he wouldn’t be wearing any clothes. It is astounding that so much evidence can be staring so many people in the face, yet failing to inspire even a lull in the conversation that peddles “a return to growth” or “10 years of pain” before the “sunny uplands” of prosperity are regained.”
Her reference to the Emperor’s New Clothes just goes to show how relevant fairy tales are, and that there is always something for us to learn from their archetypal motifs.
The scoundrel weavers wove ‘invisible’ non-existent cloth and hood-winked everybody – the Emperor and his whole kingdom – by appealing to their pride and herd-mentality. In the same way we all fall under the spell of what the spin-doctors tell us today.
We all need to be as awake and innocent as children if we are to cut through the delusional junk our current culture feeds us.
The Emperor’s New Clothes
The White Snake
Welcome! Happy and safe holidays to all my listeners and readers!
This month’s story follows the typical plot of a hero setting out on his quest journey, his tasks and helpers along the way, and its ultimate completion in a marriage of opposites. The difference in this story is his acquired ability to understand the conversation of animals.
The question popped into my mind as I re-read the story: why do we anthropomorphise? I’m sure there’s a whole thesis in this question, and I have scraped the very tip of the iceberg in my research. Perhaps you’ll be inspired to follow your own path of enquiry. I have had to use my dictionary quite a bit for these notes!
Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human characteristics to animals and other objects. The earliest evidence of this phenomenon is in cave paintings and sculptures from theUpper Palaeolithicage (40,000 years ago) where humans and animals merge. Seemingly the human artist is taking on perceived characteristics of the animal, for example the power of the lion.
Aesop, who wrote the famous fables back in 6th Century BCEGreece, was one story writer who used anthropomorphism to illustrate human stereotypical traits. There are others of this ilk, such as the Panchatantra.
Modern literature, particularly children’s’ literature, is festooned with anthropomorphic stories – Kipling’s The Jungle Book, A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh, Beatrix Potter’s books, JRR Tolkein, the list is almost inexhaustive, Walt Disney, even Thomas the Tank Engine.
Animals have always spoken to us in dreams and other altered states of consciousness.
Anthony Stevens (1998) says,
“On the one hand they have the characteristics of the animal species they represent, but on the other hand they are our own mental inventions: they are composite figures which draw together human and animal qualities giving them a power, a meaning, and a dynamism all their own. This process of imaginative synthesis must be the source of all the fabulous beasts and monsters, part animal, part human, with which myths, folk tales and legends are filled.”
But what is this ‘process of imaginative synthesis’? Neuroscience is now giving us some clues.
In their article on research into the Mirror Neuron System (MNS), and how tightly matched the “observed movements and the observer’s motor programs” need to be before they are activated, Gazzola et al (2007) show that,
“while for complex actions, human and robotic agents did not differ significantly, for the simple actions, human agents determined marginally stronger activations than robotic ones. This suggests that the richness of the goal in the complex actions was sufficient to fully activate the MNS whatever the agent/kinematics.”
(Kinematics: the branch of mechanics concerned with the motion of objects without reference to the forces which cause the motion.) They conclude that,
“Finally, an interesting implication of our results, beyond neuroscience, is the fact that the understanding of actions of artificial devices can take advantage of the intricate brain mechanisms that humans have developed to understand other human beings without having to be particularly human-like. The strong activations in the MNS observed to the vision of robots in our experiments suggests that even crude industrial robots, particularly while engaging in meaningful human actions, can tap into our social brain—as long as their behaviors are not too repetitive. Once again, science seems to lag behinds the arts: George Lucas was apparently well aware of the potential of robots to enter our social brains when he decided to have a set of robots star in his new science fiction saga. Now we know, that our MNS may be part of the reason why, when in Star Wars, C3PO taps R2D2 on the head in a moment of mortal danger, we cannot help but attribute them human feelings and intentions, even if their physical aspect and kinematics are far from human.”
I hope you will look at the Annotations and Process Questions pages too.
Resources:
Anthony Stevens, Ariadne’s Clue: A guide to the symbols of humankind. 1998.
Gazzola, V., Rizzolatti, G., Wicker, B., & Keysers, C. (2007). The anthropomorphic brain: The mirror neuron system responds to human and robotic actions. NeuroImage, 35, 1674–1684.
The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs
The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs is an intriguing story of life, dealing with themes of superstition, the fearlessness of youth, and overcoming deception and greed.
“The heroism of fairy tale orphans lies in their ability to survive and transform their fate, and so outwit those who do them harm without losing their lives, their souls, or their humanity in the process” (Terri Windling).
This story is very similar to a Serbian story, “The Story of the Three Wonderful Beggars” in Andrew Lang’s The Violet Fairy Book. There are similar stories from Switzerland,Sweden, andNorway,Hungary and Mongolia. In some variants of the story, obtaining three feathers from a phoenix-bird is the task.
Among the ordinary people like parents, millers, and the miller’s boy, we also meet some interesting archetypal characters, in particular the Orphan, the King, the Ferryman, the Devil’s Grandmother and the Devil himself.
In Greek mythology, the Ferryman’s name was Charon, who was the son of Erebus, the embodiment of darkness, and Nyx the Goddess of Night. He ferried the souls of the dead across the Rivers Styx and Acheron, for a fee. In Norse mythology Odin is the god of war and death (he is pictured as the ferryman). However, the hero in our story needs to get back across this river, to the world of the living. So he uses his cunning not to change places with the Ferryman on his way back from his visit with the Devil.
Three Hares Looking For a Home
Re-told with permission from Mike Pristow.
This child-friendly Turkish story is similar to the story of the Three Little Pigs, in that three brothers are sent out into the big wide world to make houses for themselves, and the youngest lands up looking after his older siblings when they are pursued by the archetypal enemy, the fox. It is a story about making our way in the world, wisdom and foolishness, and generosity.
Three is a number that crops up all the time in fairy tales, in all of life in fact. The list goes on for miles, but just think… yesterday today tomorrow, me you us, red yellow blue, width height depth, and the triangle and all that it symbolises. Fascinating stuff if you want to delve deeper.
Rabbits and hares symbolise many different things in different cultures, often connected to fertility, the moon and good luck.
Mother Hulda
Hello dear readers and listeners! I know you have been waiting since July for a new story – well here it is!
From my research it seems that the fairy tale of Mother Hulda, or Frau Holle as she is known inGermany, has origins in Norse and German mythology, where she is revered as a goddess of the underworld, the land of the dead, and guardian of young maidens and spinning and weaving. She is also acknowledged as an ancient sky-goddess who rules the weather, going back to Neolithic times.
In the Hesse region ofGermany– where the Grimm Brothers lived, there is still the saying that when it is snowing Frau Holle is making her bed (shaking out her feather duvet).
So this story has remnants of memory and oral tradition from ancient times which have survived marginalization by Christianity and patriarchy. It is rich with symbolic motifs and esoteric metaphysical knowledge concerning the practical and spiritual initiation of young women, and can be seen as containing ritual information important to girls’ maturation process through puberty, which had become taboo, or silenced under patriarchy, but kept alive in the story for centuries.
The story is also a good example of the adage, “we reap what we sow”.
This story, number 24 of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, and published in 1812, contains the themes of good vs bad, just vs unjust, separation-journey-return, tasks and rewards. I am indebted to Kerby Lynn Boschee, who wrote an excellent Master’s thesis on Frau Holle.
The Teapot
Hello again and welcome to my monthly podcast and notes. Hans Christian Andersen had a particular capacity for using the typical fairy tale genre’s device of giving ordinary objects personality and character, thus using the tea service as a metaphor for human characteristics. The Teapot is one of his later stories, written in December 1863. One can imagine him warming his hands on his tea cup as he wrote in the freezing Danish winter.
This is a story about the inner and outer adventures and self-reflections over the life of a dainty porcelain teapot ‘who’ was part, indeed the queen, of an elegant tea service which did not appreciate her.
The teapot knew her-self, inside and out. She knew her virtues as well as her defects. She could adjust to poorer times. And even in old age, she clung to all she had left – her memories.
“You need only claim the events
of your life to make yourself yours.
When you truly possess all you
have been and done, which may
take some time, you are fierce
with reality.”Florida Scott Maxwell (look her up, she’s fascinating)
Some people don’t bother with teapots any more, but the ritual of preparing tea in a pot does somehow make it all the more enjoyable.
“…. the spirit of the tea beverage is one of peace, comfort, and refinement. As these qualities are all associated with the ways of women, it is to them, therefore, the real rulers of the world, that tea owes its prestige and vogue.” The Little Tea Book
When Michael Leunig, I would say Australia’s favourite cartoonist, ended his political cartoonist career in 1969, “he drew a man riding towards the sunset on a large duck, with a teapot on his head. Leunig later stated, “…the man was most definitely me and the teapot, worn like a fool’s cap, symbolised warmth, nourishment and domestic familiarity,” while the duck, “represented feelings of primal freedom and playfulness.” Leunig’s website is well worth a look, and his books are treasures of down-to-earth philosophical whimsy.
Resources:
http://www.readingtealeaves.info/
http://www.leunig.com.au/characters/
The Ugly Duckling
Contained within the stories of faiytales and myth are universal themes common to all humanity. Welcome to my next story, and thank you for all your encouraging comments.
Written by Hans Christian Andersen in 1845, The Ugly Duckling is one of my favourite stories. It appealed to me as a sensitive child who always felt different (to the point that my name starts with p and the rest of my family all started with j!). I love Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ book Women Who Run With The Wolves, and my Process Questions this time are compiled from her commentary. I also love to hear Danny Kaye’s song about the ugly duckling.
“Hans Christian Andersen wrote dozens of stories about the orphan archetype. He was a premier advocate of the lost and neglected child and he strongly supported searching for and finding one’s own kind” (Estes).
The duckling represents that fighting spirit, that will to live, that is present in all of us, and is vulnerable to attack – I’m thinking of bullying, at school or in the workplace - but which can be nurtured and honoured by mixing with the ‘right’ people, our own mob.
The Princess and the Pea
Here’s my next story. Welcome!
“Any one of the symbols in a classic story is worthy of a close look. If we meditate on the flow of images, and reflect on the meanings it presents to us, the rewards can be great”.
So says Jonathan Young.
In my research for these notes I discovered the poet William Stafford’s metaphor of following a thread of creativity.
“Something catches your attention, a feeling, an image, an idea, the events of a moment. The challenge is to pay attention to that subtle urge and follow it gently.” (Young)