Fairy Tale Origins, Part XII Jack and the Beanstalk

In many cultures, references to ladders and trees that provide passage to the upper world can be found. The Old Testament has tales of the Tower of Babel and Jacob’s Ladder reaching to heaven. The legends of several Northwest Native American tribes have a rope of arrows connecting the earth and sun.

The World Tree of ancient England held up the sky. Yggdrasil, from Nordic legend, is a gigantic ash tree whose branches reach to heaven, while Buddhism has a giant bodhi tree.
The Mayans, Aztecs, and the Olmec believed in a tree that had its roots in the underworld, its trunk in our world, and its branches in the upper world.

Legends of giants, as well, are found in many cultures. Both the Bible and Qur’an have several references to giants who once walked among men. Jewish mythology includes the story of Og, an enormous Amorite king, who was supposedly slain by Moses and his men at the battle of Edrei. In Hinduism the Daityas were a race of giants who defied the gods.

There are the Gigants of ancient Greece, who were the children of Gaia, Mother Earth; the Bagadjimbiri brothers, of Aboriginal Australia, who made mankind; and Kenya’s Mwooka, the creator of mountains and rivers. Chinese mythology includes Pan Gu, who hatched from an egg and became the creator of the universe.

The first print version of Jack and the Beanstalk appeared in 1734, a short burlesque narrative entitled 'Enchantment demonstrated in the story of Jack Spriggins and the Enchanted Bean'. The tale was meant to be read as a criticism of the presence of the supernatural in literature.

In 1807, Benjamin Tabart published a more moral version of the tale. Jack meets a fairy who explains that the giant’s gold, the hen lays the golden eggs, and the magic harp all rightfully belonged to Jack's father, whom the giant has killed. Jack therefore becomes an avenger of his father's death.

In 1890, Joseph Jacobs recorded a version based on the oral versions he had heard as a child, dismissing Tabart’s version. Jack is a good-for-nothing trickster in Jacobs' version while Tabart provides justification for Jack's destruction of the Giant. Both versions have competed for dominance in literary retellings.

The Brothers Grimm drew analogies between this tale and the German The Devil With the Three Golden Hairs, where the devil's mother or grandmother acted much like the wife in this tale: a female figure protecting the child from the evil male figure.

The English version, Jack and the Beanstalk, is the most popular and best known variation of the tale. The events causing the beanstalk to grow, as well as the motivation for stealing from and killing the giant, vary across versions, but the end result is always the same – Jack becomes rich and the giant ends up dead.


Jacobs version
Andrew Lang’s version, based on Tabart
Grimm’s Devil With the Thee Golden Hairs
Jack and the Beanstalk

Fairy Tale Origins - Part XI Cinderella, Part Two

For part one, go HERE


When someone talks about a “fairy tale ending” they’re almost always referring to the story of Cinderella. How many little girls dream of rising up and becoming a beautiful princess? And who doesn’t want to live happily ever after?

This story has been told across cultures for thousands of years before being made into numerous Hollywood movies. The identity of the Fairy Godmother changes often, and in fact she first showed up in Perrault's version, along with the pumpkin coach and the mice attendants which were all used in the Disney version.

One thing the early versions have in common, is that they revolve around the death of the true mother and the entrance of the wicked step-mother with her own daughters. The step-child is treated like a slave, while the step-sisters live in luxury. There is no fairy godmother to save the day, just the powerful magic of the dead.

Some scholars believe Perrault confused "vair" (an Old French word for "ermine or fur") with "verre" (Old French for "glass") when describing Cinderella’s shoes. Of course a prince looking for the owner of a “glass” slipper is very different from a prince who’s looking for the girl with the perfect “fur” slipper. Perhaps the prince wasn’t so noble after all. Other scholars believe that the tiny glass slipper can be equated to a small vagina, symbolizing virginity and the midnight curfew a taboo on pre-marital sex.

As with most fairy tales, the father is an ambiguous figure at best. Is he so blind that he can’t see what’s being done to his first daughter? Or does he just not want to cause disharmony in his new household? Yet he is the underlying, organizing principle. Without the absent father, there would have been no conflict, and therefore no story, much as in Snow White.

It’s not surprising that the Victorians preferred Perrault’s version of the fairy tale. It was a gentler, more elegant story. Cinderella is more virtuous, and less clearly self-motivated. The step-sisters are not obsessively cruel, merely vain and selfish. Not only does Cinderella forgive them in the end, she also finds husbands for them.

At its heart, Cinderella is a story concerned with relationships between women: between Cinderella and her mother; between the step-mother and her daughters; and between Cinderella and her step-family. It is not to her father that Cinderella turns for help — help must come from another source, such as the mother's ghost or the bones of a fish; a giant stork in a Javanese version; a talking doll in a Russian variant; the king of the frogs in an African version; or from spiders, eagle–women and spirits in Native American renditions.

Like most fairy tales, not only has the story changed subtly over the years, so has the character of Cinderella herself. She began as an intelligent, clever girl who overcame great hardships before she received magical assistance. Even then she needed to keep her wits about her to reach her happily ever after. Unfortunately, by the time Disney made his animated version in 1949, Cinderella had devolved into a long-suffering, passive character who would have been lost without her fairy godmother and little animal friends.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the Cinderella fairy tale is the lie it perpetuates in the “happily ever after”. The term “fairy tale” itself has come to refer to a lie or fanciful untruth and Cinderella is no exception. “They lie to us by reducing our dreams to simplistic formulas that empower no one, neither those who wait for Happily Ever After to arrive on the back of a shining white horse, or those who seek it in a pretty face. By contrast, the oldest Ash Girl tales use simple language to tell stories that are not really simple at all. They go to the very heart of truth. They've spoken the truth for a thousand years.” From Terri Windling’s Cinderella: Ashes, Blood, and the Slipper of Glass.

We all would like good to triumph, evil be punished, and justice prevail. Our sense of justice and fair play is rewarded in the story of Cinderella. She is treated badly by her step-mother and step-sisters but, though they seem to be in charge and “winning” at the beginning of the story, they are relegated to misery and disappointment at the end. Those who treat others badly do not prosper in fairy tales.

Fairy Tale Origins - Part X Cinderella, Part One

The sheer number of variations of this fairy tale made it necessary to do this post in two parts. Look for part two next week.

Cinderella is one of the most recognized stories around the world. There’s much disagreement over how many versions exist, but the numbers range from 340 to over 2,000.

The story of Rhodopis, the Ancient Egyptian version of Cinderella, recorded by the Roman historian Strabo in the first century BC, is considered the oldest version of the story.

Rhodopis was born in Greece but was kidnapped by pirates and carried to Egypt where she was sold into slavery. Her owner was a kind old man but the other servant girls in the house taunted and teased Rhodopis because she looked so different. Because she had pale skin that burnt easily in the sun they called her Rosy Rhodopis.

Not surprisingly, she had no human friends only the animals. Sometimes, if she had any energy left from the hard day's work, she would sing and dance for her animal friends on the river bank. One evening as she was dancing the old man saw her and admired her so much he decided she deserved a special pair of shoes. The shoes were gilded with rose-red gold and the soles were leather.

One day, they received word that the Pharaoh was holding court in Memphis. Everyone in the kingdom was invited. The other servant girls attended, leaving Rhodopis behind with a whole list of chores. As she was washing clothes on the river bank, her slippers got wet. Wiping them off, she placed them in the sun to dry. As she turned back to her chores, a falcon (familiar of the god Horus) swooped down and carried off one of her slippers.

Back in Memphis, the Pharaoh was sitting on his throne when suddenly a falcon swooped down and dropped a slipper in his lap. Knowing this to be a sign from Horus, he decreed that all maidens in Egypt must try on the slipper and that the owner would be his queen. Eventually his search led him to Rhodopis, and when the slipper fit and she was declared his queen, the servant girls protested, saying not only was she a slave, she wasn’t even Egyptian. The Pharaoh replied: "She is the most Egyptian of all...for her eyes are as green as the Nile, her fair as feathery as papyrus, and her skin the pink of a lotus flower."

Rhodopis, full text version

A Chinese version of the story, by Tuan Ch'eng-Shih, appeared around 860. In this tale, the girl’s parents die and the girl is abused by her step-mother and her half-sister. Her mother is reborn as a fish, but is killed by the step-mother. A spirit tells the girl to save the bones of the fish and they will grant her magical wishes. When it’s time for the spring festival, the girl is left at home but the magic fish bones create a set of beautiful clothes, including a pair of gold slippers .

She goes to the festival and has a good time until she thinks her stepmother may have recognized her, so she leaves, accidentally leaving behind a golden slipper. The golden slipper is found and finally reaches the hands of a nearby King. Taken by its tiny size, he proclaims he will marry the girl whom the slipper fits. Eventually the shoe reaches the house where the girl is and after her step-mother and half-sister fail to fit the shoe she slips it on and it fits perfectly.

The step-mother tries to persuade the King that the girl is not the one he seeks, but the King sees through her attempts and punishes her by forbidding the girl to bring her stepfamily to live with them. Instead they’re banished to a cave where they live until the are crushed to death by stones.

Ye XianWikipedia version
Ye Xian, a slightly different version

The earliest European tale, "La Gatta Cenerentola" or "The Hearth Cat", was written in 1634 by the Italian fairy-tale collector Giambattista Basile. It featured a wicked step mother and step sisters, magical transformations, a missing slipper, and a hunt by a king for the owner of the slipper. This one differs slightly from the earlier tales as the fish is replaced by a magical date tree and she has six nasty step-sisters.

La Gatta Cenerentola, full text version

In Rushen Coatie, a Scottish version of the tale, the dead mother comes back in the form of a cow to feed her starving child — until the suspicious step–sisters discover this and have it killed. The animal's bones retain the potent magic of the dead woman, providing the girl with clothes so that she can go to church and meet her prince.

Rushen Coatie, full text version

One of the most popular versions of Cinderella was written by Charles Perrault in 1697. It is believed this popularity was due to his additions to the story including the pumpkin, the fairy-godmother and the introduction of glass slippers.

Cinderella, full text version

Another well-known version, which is the one I’m most familiar with, was recorded by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in 1812. The tale is called "Aschenputtel" and the help comes not from a fairy-godmother but from a hazel tree that grows on her mother's grave. In this version, the stepsisters try to trick the prince by cutting off parts of their feet in order to get the slipper to fit. As the prince rides past the hazel tree with first one then a second false bride he is warned by a pair of birds and in the end finds his true bride. The birds peck out the stepsisters’ eyes and they become beggars for the rest of their lives.

Aschenputtel, full text

Next week we'll go into some detail about the origins and changes made to Cinderella.

Fairy Tale Origins - Part IXThe Princess and the Pea

The Princess and the Pea, one of Hans Christian Andersen's shortest yet best-known stories, first appeared in his first collection of Tales Told For Children in 1835. The unbound, 61-page booklet also included the Tinderbox, Little Claus and Big Claus, and Little Ida’s Flowers.

In his preface to the second volume of Tales and Stories (1863) Andersen claims to have heard the story in childhood, but the tale was not a traditional one in Denmark. There is, however, a Swedish version, "Princess Who Lay on Seven Peas", which tells of an orphan child who pretends to be a princess on the advice of her cat. After undergoing many tests, the last of which was having seven peas placed under her mattress, the girl claims to have slept poorly, thereby proving she is a real princess.

While the folk-tale heroine relies on deception, Andersen’s is relies on her sensitivity. One stormy night, a bedraggled girl seeks refuge at the castle. Although the girl claims to be a princess, the queen tests her claim by placing a single pea under 20 mattresses and 20 featherbeds. The next morning, the girl bemoans her sleeplessness, claiming the presence of ‘something so hard that I am black and blue all over’. That’s all the proof the queen needs. The girl and the prince are married and the pea is enshrined in a museum.

Tales of extreme sensitivity are not common but there are a few. The 11th-century Kathasaritsagara by Somadeva tells of a young man who claims to be especially fastidious about beds. After sleeping in a bed on top of seven mattresses, and newly made with clean sheets, the young man rises in great pain. A crooked red mark is discovered on his body, and upon investigation a hair is found on the bottommost mattress of the bed.

An Italian tale called "The Most Sensitive Woman" tells of a prince who wishes to marry “the most sensitive woman in the world.” He rejects a woman who is in great pain because of a pulled hair, a woman who was mad sick by a wrinkle in the sheet she slept on, and finally finds a woman whose foot is bandaged after a jasmine petal fell on it.

From India we have the Three Delicate Wives of King Virtue-Banner, a tale told to a kind by a goblin. The first wife is injured when a lotus petal falls on her. The second is burned by moonbeams. The third is bruised by the sound of pestles grinding grain. At the end the goblin asks the king to decide who is most delicate.

Unlike the folk heroine of his source material for the story, Andersen's princess has no need to resort to deceit to establish her identity; her sensitivity is enough to validate her nobility. For Andersen, "true" nobility derived not from an individual's birth but from their sensitivity.

The Princess and the Pea is told from the aristocratic perspective of the young prince seeking a royal bride. This reflects Andersen's preoccupation with issues of class as well as, by his own direct admission elsewhere, his feelings of personal fragility.

Andersen’s Princess and the Pea was not well-received by critics: "[the story] seems to the reviewer not only indelicate but indefensible, in so far as the child might absorb the false idea that great ladies must always be so terribly thin-skinned." One literary journal failed to mention his Tales Told For Children at all, while another advised Andersen not to waste his time writing "wonder stories".

The Princess and the Pea (full text)

Fairy Tale Origins - Part VIIIGoldilocks and the Three Bears

One interesting aspects of the Goldilocks tale is that the original story didn’t even feature a golden-haired child as the central character. There were three bears, but they were visited by a she-fox. The fox was later replaced with an old, crone-like woman. The woman was later replaced by a little girl named “Silver Hair”. “Silver Hair” was later changed to “Golden Hair”, and then finally “Goldilocks”.

The earliest recorded version of the tale is found in a collection of early children's books in the Toronto Public Library. This is a homemade book titled, The Story of The Three Bears. Eleanor Mure wrote and illustrated the story as a gift for her four-year-old nephew in 1831 from a story she already knew through oral tradition.

In 1837 it was published by Robert Southey in his collection of essays titled, The Doctor. The fourth volume contained the story, "Story of the Three Bears." This version has been so influential that for a time it was thought to be the origin of the story.

In both stories, the main character is not a young girl, but a nameless, homeless and ill-tempered old woman who intentionally breaks into the bears’ home, but there the similarity ends. Mure’s old woman has her courtesy visit rebuffed by the bears and, in a pique, she decides to inspect their home anyway. In Southey’s version there doesn’t appear to be a reason for the home invasion.

Mure's version differs further from Southey in that the bears' dishes are filled with milk rather than porridge. At the end of the tale, the bears try first to burn the old woman, then to drown her, and being unsuccessful in both attempts on her life, finally "chuck her aloft on St. Paul's church-yard steeple". Southey's old woman jumps out a window and runs away.

It’s believed that both Southey and Mure were influenced by the tale of Scrapefoot, an English tale which features a fox as the intruder. It is further believed that this may be the earliest variant with the old woman mistakenly replacing the fox/vixen through the simple confusion between the terms for a harridan, old woman, or she-fox.

Twelve years after Southey's story was published, Joseph Cundall changed the old woman into a young girl named 'Silver Hair' in the version he published in his Treasury of Pleasure Books for Young Children (1849). In 1858 the character was dubbed 'Silver-Locks' in Aunt Mavor's Nursery Tales. Next she became 'Golden Hair' around 1868 in Aunt Friendly's Nursery Book. Finally, in Old Nursery Stories and Rhymes, illustrated by John Hassall (circa 1904), she became Goldilocks. The name stuck and has been used the most often ever since.

The family of bears underwent a few changes as well. Instead of Father Bear, Mother Bear and Baby Bear, earlier versions called them “Great Huge Bear”, “Middling Bear” and “Little Small Wee Bear”. What was originally a fearsome oral tale became a cozy family story with only a hint of menace.

The number three is a common theme in many fairy tales, but more so in Goldilocks and the Three Bears. In the Mure and Southey versions, before entering the house, the old woman takes three actions: looking in the window, looking through the keyhole, then lifting the latch.

There are three bowls of porridge, three chairs, three beds and of course three bears. Goldilocks tries the bowls of porridge, chairs, and beds successively, each time finding the third "just right". There are also three sequences of the bears discovering in turn that someone has been eating from their porridge, sitting in their chairs, and finally, lying in their beds.

Author Christopher Booker characterizes this as the "dialectical three", where "the first is wrong in one way, the second in another or opposite way, and only the third, in the middle, is just right." Booker continues "This idea that the way forward lies in finding an exact middle path between opposites is of extraordinary importance in storytelling".

As a morality tale, the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears is somewhat unique in that it raises many psychological issues, but gives no solutions. There is no true resolution to Goldilocks’ problem – she just runs away, never to be seen again, and the bears go on with their unchanged lives.

However, even without a resolution, there is still a lesson to be learned: as you grow and learn to find your way you’ll be faced with many choices, some hard, some easy, and some just right. You need to know yourself to choose wisely.

Scrapefoot
Story of Three Bears
The Story of the Three Bears
Goldilocks and the Three Bears

Fairy Tale Origins - Part VII Rumplestiltskin

I’m sure most people are familiar with the Grimms’ version of Rumplestiltskin. A miller boasts that he has a beautiful daughter who can spin straw into gold. A passing noble hears this, tells the king and the girl is taken away and told to get spinning.

Fortunately she's helped by a little man who shows up and offers to help in exchange for a small trinket. This goes on for three nights, and by the third night the girl is promising the little man her first born child in return for his help. On the third morning, the king decides to marry this pretty girl who can produce gold out of straw.

They eventually have a son, and the little man shows up demanding his due. Naturally the queen doesn’t want to give up her child so they strike a new bargain. If she can guess his name, she gets to keep her child. The little man gives her three days. She tries everything but comes up short, until a passing woodsman overhears the little man bragging about how he's so clever no one will guess his name. He immediately tells the queen, who repeats it to the little man. Rumplestiltskin is so angry he stamps his foot hard enough to get it stuck in the floor. He pulls so hard to get himself free that he ends up tearing himself in half.

For the full version, click HERE

The story of Rumpelstiltskin is classified by Aarne and Thompson as folklore type 500 (The Name of the Helper). If you’d like to have a look at their full index, click HERE. You can also find it categorized as an Impossible Task, a Hard Bargain, the Changeling Child, and, above all, the Secret Name.

As with the other fairy tales we’ve explored, variations of Rumplestiltskin can be found in almost every culture that depended on spinning for clothing, although the name and some of the details vary.

In the English version, ''Tom Tit Tot'', a girl eats five pies and the king overhears her mother scolding her. The woman lies and said she had been talking of the five skeins her daughter had spun, and that speed of spinning was what interested him.

A Swedish tale tells of a woman whose daughter was beautiful but lazy. In an effort to try and cure her, the woman sends her up to the roof of their cottage to spin so that everyone can see how lazy she is. When a king’s son happens by and asks what’s going on, the woman tells him her daughter is “so clever that she can spin gold out of clay and long straw”. He doesn’t realize the woman is being sarcastic, and takes the girl away to spin gold out of clay and straw.

In the Three Spinners it is three women who assist the girl. However, they do not demand her first born, only an invitation to her wedding and to say that they’re her relatives. She complies, and is freed from her hated spinning when they tell the king that their hideous looks spring from their endless spinning.

Rumpelstiltskin is most commonly described as a cautionary tale against bragging even though it’s not the miller but his daughter that is punished for the lies. Tales such as these were used to stop children from playing outside without care, and mothers from leaving their children in danger.

In a more modern interpretation, Rumpelstiltskin Syndrome is used to describe the practice in middle-management to impose unreasonable work demands on subordinates. Upon completion of the task or tasks in question, equal or higher work demands are then imposed; moreover, no credit, acknowledgement, or overt appreciation is demonstrated by way of recognition.

Though not as dark as the previous fairy tales in this series, Rumplestiltskin holds a subliminal message for women. The act of spinning straw into gold can be seen as a metaphor for the value of household skills. The king in this tale seems more interested in the girl’s ability to spin than her beauty, showing that it's the industrious woman who makes the good marriage.

Fairy Tale Origins - Part VIRapunzel

Rapunzel has always been one of my favorite fairy tales, and like most people the version I’m most familiar with comes from the brothers Grimm. Rather than take up an entire post with the synopsis, you can go HERE to read this version if you’re unfamiliar with it.

The origin of the tale is thought to go back as far as the early years of Christianity in 3rd Century Asia Minor with the legend of Saint Barbara. Barbara was the beautiful daughter of a pagan merchant. Afraid that she might become attracted to an unworthy suitor, he locked her in a tower away from the outside world.

While her father was away on an extended trip, Barbara converted to Christianity. This enraged him so much he took her before the Roman pro-consul. The judge ordered that the girl be tortured until she denounced her beliefs. When Barbara refused to recant, the judge ordered her to be beheaded – a sentence which was carried out by her father. Afterwards, he was struck by lightening and consumed by fire. Revered by the Eastern Orthodox Church, St. Barbara is now the patron saint of firefighters, artillerymen and anyone who is in danger of sudden death.

The first literary traces of the tale come from Italy, with Giambattista Basile's “Petrosinella” (1637), the name derived from “petrosine” for parsley. This tells a tale of a pregnant woman desiring some parsley from the garden of an ogress, getting caught, and having to promise the ogress her baby.

“Petrosinella” contains many of the elements of today’s Rapunzel -- the mother forced to give up her daughter, the maiden with the long hair, and the handsome prince. The main difference is that the maiden and the Prince spend many nights together before they are caught and suffer little after escaping. They use magic acorns to stay ahead of the ogress and she is finally devoured by a wolf.

Sixty years later in 1697, a French version, by Charlotte Rose de Caumont de la Force, appeared. Her story is "Persinette", taken from “persille” which again means parsley. In this version it is a fairy who raises the girl after taking her from her mother. The fairy punishes Persinette and her Prince after discovering that the young woman is pregnant with twins. Persinette is banished to the wilderness and the prince’s eyes are pierced by thorns. Even after the couple and their children are reunited the fairy punishes them until she is finally moved by their love and forgives them.

The Grimms’ first version, in 1812, almost completely follows the earlier plots. The enchantress who keeps Rapunzel in the tower was initially a fairy, however the Grimms often edited fairies out of their stories, because they considered them to be too French. In this version, Rapunzel wonders why her clothes are getting tight alluding that her daily meetings with the prince in the tower have resulted in pregnancy.

At first the Grimms believed their folk tales would only be of interest to scholars, but soon they realized they had a large readership among children and their parents. In later versions of the story they made the sexual references more ambiguous and by the last edition (1857) had eliminated them altogether. Instead they created a chaste young woman who was referred to as the “wife” of the prince to rule out any suspicion that the children (who seemed to magically appear) were born out of wedlock.

The themes of Rapunzel's story are universal and timeless. Who hasn’t craved something that comes at too high a price, or felt imprisoned by someone else’s demands? We’ve all been swept away by love only to end up lost and broken, desperately hoping for that happy ending to our suffering. The story may be even more significant for anyone given up by a birth parent or raised by controlling, over-protective parents.

No matter which version you choose, from Saint Barbara to the Grimms, the story of Rapunzel is more than just that of another passive princess waiting for her prince to come. Initially the story is about a young woman whose life is completely controlled by the adults around her, but when she disobeys she is able to choose her own fate. Rapunzel tells us we can’t stay in our towers forever. We must either weave ourselves a ladder or leap into the thorns. Childhood must be left behind; the adult world is just beyond that forest.

Fairy Tale Origins - Part VSnow White, Part II

There are an astounding number of versions of Snow White, last week we explored just a few. What’s interesting is how the story changes with the region it’s told in, as well as the country. Italy has several versions, including one where Snow White grows while in her crystal coffin; ones with neither dwarfs nor prince; and ones with necrophiliac princes (the ones who fall in love with what appears to be a corpse). A Scottish version has her ending up in a three-some when her husband’s second wife is able to defeat the evil mother.

The Italian versions can’t seen to decide whether it’s the mother or the step-mother who’s the villain, but the Grimm’s settle that question in 1819 when they kill off the “good” queen in their version and add the “evil” step-mother. Without a doubt, their murderous queen remains one of the most vivid villains in folkloric history. She orders the death of an innocent girl and demands her heart. In many versions she cooks and eats it.

The queen is a woman whose power comes from her beauty; the implication being that it’s this beauty that gives her an important place in the world. If she loses that beauty, what power is left to this aging woman? The answer would seem to be witchcraft – potions and poisons, deadly combs and strangling stay-laces.

The magic mirror serves not only as a source of information for the queen, but a symbol of her insecurity and growing madness. Snow White is a kind of reverse mirror for the queen, reflecting all the good that the queen has lost.

Blood and consumption seem to be a large part of the story. The three drops of red blood spark the queen’s wish for a child. You can be sure there was blood in the death of the mother in childbirth. Blood is also a symbol of sexual maturity, the point at which the “bad” queen decides to dispose of Snow White. As proof, the queen demands to see the blood on the hunter’s knife, then makes a meal of the heart, echoing the ancient pagan belief that ingesting an enemy's flesh would enable one to claim their strength and magic.

The number of dwarfs in Snow White is significant. The number seven is regarded as a magical number. It took seven days to create the world, and ancient astronomers believed that there were seven planets. All the great Jewish feasts lasted for seven days, and there are legends of seven hills, seven cities and seven sacred trees.

What is important to remember about these versions of the Snow White tale is that they provide an interesting glimpse into the late Middle Ages. Women, it seemed, could either have the innocence and purity of Snow-white, or the conspiring, vindictive nature of the evil stepmother. In this era women were seen as unpredictable, in need of the control and stability that only a male partner (such as the prince or the dwarfs) could provide.

It’s hard to believe that this dark tale was the basis for Disney’s feature film. Walt Disney was fond of fairy tales and not shy about reshaping them to suit his needs, turning them into the simple tales he believed that his audience, a generation marked by economic depression and two world wars, wanted.

At the time, no one knew whether audiences would actually sit through an eighty–four minute cartoon, and the film was called "Disney's folly" as he poured more and more time and money into it.

He emphasized the dwarfs (who were not dwarfs but robbers in some versions), giving them names, distinct personalities, and a cozy cottage. The prince’s role was expanded, and he became pivotal to the story. His love for Snow White, demonstrated at the very beginning of the film, becomes the spark that sets off the powder keg of the stepmother's rage.

Only the queen retains some of the real power of the traditional tale. She's a genuinely frightening figure, and far more compelling than Snow White (who was drawn as a blonde at one point), a wide–eyed, childish figure wearing rags.

Although the film was a commercial triumph, and has been beloved by generations of children, critics through the years have protested the sweeping changes Disney Studios made, and continues to make, when retelling such tales. Walt himself responded, "It's just that people now don't want fairy stories the way they were written. They were too rough. In the end they'll probably remember the story the way we film it anyway."

Sad, but true.

Fairytale Origins - Part IVSnow-white (Part I)

When someone mentions the name, Snow White, it probably calls to mind a vision of seven dwarfs whistling while they work, and a cartoon princess singing, “Some day my prince will come.” Would it surprise you to know that the original Snow White was considered one of the darkest fairy tales of all?

The earliest known written version was called The Young Slave, published in Italy in 1634 by Giambattista Basile. In this version, a baron's unmarried sister swallows a rose leaf and becomes pregnant. She gives birth in secret and names the baby Lisa. Fairies are summoned to bless the child. The last one stumbles in her haste and utters a curse instead. As a result, Lisa dies at the age of seven while her mother is combing her hair. The grieving mother has the body encased in seven caskets made of crystal, and hides it under lock and key.

On her deathbed, she gives the key to her brother, but makes him promise that he will never open the locked door. More years pass, and the baron marries. One day he is away, so he gives the key to his wife with strict instructions not to use it. Suspicious, she immediately goes to the locked room where she discovers a beautiful young girl who seems to be fast asleep. (Basile explains that Lisa has grown and matured in her enchanted state.) The baroness seizes Lisa by the hair — dislodging the comb and waking her. Thinking she's found her husband's secret mistress, the jealous baroness cuts off Lisa's hair, dresses her in rags, and beats her black and blue.

The baron returns and notices the young woman cowering in the shadows. His wife tells him the girl is a kitchen slave, sent by her aunt. Soon after the baron sets off for a fair, and promises everyone a gift, including the slave. Lisa requests that he bring back a doll, a knife, and a pumice stone.

He returns and gives the slave the items she asked for. Alone by the hearth, Lisa talks to the doll as she sharpens the knife to kill herself. The baron overhears her sad tale, and learns she's his own sister's child. The girl is then restored to beauty, health, wealth, and heritage — while the cruel baroness is cast away, sent back to her parents.
The Young Slave, complete text

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

In another Italian tale called The Crystal Casket, Snow White is persuaded to introduce her teacher to her widowed father. After the marriage, the teacher treats her stepdaughter cruelly. An eagle helps the girl to escape and hides her in a palace of fairies. The stepmother hires a witch, who takes a basket of poisoned sweetmeats to the girl. She eats one and dies. The fairies revive her. The witch strikes again, disguised as a seamstress with a beautiful dress to sell. When the dress is laced up, the girl falls down dead, and this time the fairies will not revive her. Instead, they place her body in a gem–encrusted casket, rope the casket to the back of a horse, and send it off to the city.

Horse and casket are found by a prince, who falls in love with the beautiful "doll" and takes her home. His mother is appalled but the prince will not be parted from his treasure and locks himself away in a tower with the girl. He’s called away to battle and leaves the “doll” in the care of his mother. His mother ignores the macabre creature — until a letter arrives warning her of the prince's impending return. Quickly she calls for the maids to clean the neglected corpse. They do so, spilling water in their haste, badly staining the maiden's dress. The queen has them remove the dress, thinking to have a replacement made. As soon as they loosen the laces, the maiden returns to life, confused and alarmed.

The queen hears her story with sympathy, dresses the girl in her own royal clothes, and then, oddly, hides the girl behind lock and key when the prince comes home. He immediately asks to see his "wife." The Queen tells him that she had her buried because of the smell. He’s so upset the queen finally relents. The girl is summoned, her story is told, and the two are properly wed.
The Crystal Casket complete text

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

In a third Italian version of the tale, it's the girl's own mother who wishes her ill — an innkeeper named Bella Venezia who cannot stand a rival in beauty. First she imprisons her child in a lonely hut by the sea; then she seduces a kitchen boy and demands that he murder the girl. The servant abandons the girl in the woods, returning with the eyes and blood of a lamb.

The girl wanders through the forest and soon finds a cave where twelve robbers live. She keeps house for them, who love her and deck her in jewels every night. Her mother eventually gets wind of this, and is more jealous than ever. Disguised as an old peddler woman, she sells her daughter a poisoned hair broach. When the robbers return, they find the girl dead, so they bury her in a hollow tree.

At length, the fair corpse is discovered by a prince, who takes it home and fawns over it. The queen is appalled, but the prince insists upon marrying the beautiful maiden. Her body is bathed and dressed for a wedding. The royal hairdresser is summoned. As the girl's hair is combed, the broach is discovered, removed, and she comes back to life.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

In a Scottish version of the story, a trout in a well takes the role of the magical mirror. Each day a queen asks, "Am I not the loveliest woman in the world?" The trout assures the queen that she is. . .until her daughter comes of age, surpassing the mother in beauty. The queen is filled with envy, summons the king, and demands the death of their daughter. He pretends to comply, but sends the girl off to marry a foreign king.

When the queen finds out the princess is still alive she crosses the sea to her daughter's kingdom, and kills her with a poisoned needle. The young king, grieving, locks his beloved's corpse away in a high tower. Eventually he takes another wife, who notes that he always seems sad. She asks him what gift she could give him that would make him happy and he tells her that nothing can bring him joy but his first wife restored to life.

She sends him up to the tower, where he finds his first wife alive and well. The second wife had found her and removed the poisoned needle from her finger. With the couple reunited, the second wife offers s to go away. The king won’t hear of it and the three of them live happily until the queen hears that her daughter has come back to life. She crosses the ocean again to kill her, this time with a poisoned drink. The second wife tricks her into drinking the poison herself, and the young king and his two wives live happily ever after.
Gold-tree and Silver-tree, complete text

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The Grimms' version starts with a barren queen who longs for a child. The queen stands sewing by an open window. She pricks her finger. Blood falls on the snow. She makes her wish for a child as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as the wood of the window-frame. Her wish is granted, but the queen dies as soon as her baby is born.

The king takes for another wife, a woman who could not bear anyone more beautiful than she. She had a looking glass that could tell her if there was anyone who surpassed her in beauty. All was well until Snow-white turned seven, at which point the looking-glass told the queen that her step-daughter was more beautiful.

In a rage, the queen summoned a huntsman to take the child away and kill her. He was to bring back her heart as proof of the deed. The huntsman couldn’t bring himself to kill a child, so he set her loose in the forest and brought the heart of a young boar back, which the queen cooked and ate.

Snow-white wandered in the forest until she found a cottage and the seven dwarfs who lived there. They agreed to let her stay provided she clean, sew, wash, and cook for them. Of course the queen soon realized she’d been tricked, and tried three times to kill Snow-white. Once by lacing her up too tightly in some stay-laces, once with a poisoned comb for her hair, and finally, with a poisoned apple. The dwarfs made a coffin of glass for her and placed it on the mountain.

Eventually a king’s son found the coffin, with Snow-white in it, and persuaded the dwarfs to part with it. As the coffin was being carried to his palace, it was jostled and the piece of poisoned apple fell out of Snow-white’s mouth. The prince was over-joyed to see she was alive, and immediately asked for her hand in marriage.

The queen was beside herself with rage over the fact Snow-white was still alive. However, she was forced to wear red-hot, iron slippers and was made to dance until she dropped down dead.

Snow-white, full text of the Grimm’s version

Next week we’ll explore how Disney changed the story, and some of the recurring themes.

Fairytale Origins - Part IIISleeping Beauty

The beloved story of a young woman who goes into a comatose state after getting a splinter in her finger and then being revived by a handsome prince, has its basic elements in both Nordic mythology and 16th century French literature. From these beginnings, the story was developed by Giambattista Basile and revised by Charles Perrault, and the Brothers Grimm. The Walt Disney Sleeping Beauty story is only half the tale and is sanitized.

In the 12th century Norse saga, Volsunga, the god Odin, upset with the valkyrie, Brunhilda, cursed her to sleep on a couch surrounded by fire until any man would rescue and marry her. Eventually, she is rescued when Siegfried enters her domain and awakens her by cutting off her armor.

Four centuries after Volsunga, a story called Perceforest was printed in Paris. Based on oral stories from the 1300s, the work included a section titled “Histoire de Troylus et de Zellandine,” (published in 1528), in which a princess named Zellandine falls in love with a man named Troylus. Her father sends him to perform tasks to prove himself worthy of her. While he is gone, Zellandine is cursed by a deity into an enchanted sleep.

Troylus finds her and impregnates her in her sleep. When their child is born, he draws the poison dart that caused her sleep from her finger. She realizes from the ring that was left with her that the father was Troylus; he returns after his adventures to marry her.

In the early 1600s, Giambattista Basile, published a collection of folk and fairy tales which included one called “Sun, Moon and Talia.” This Sleeping Beauty is the story of a young girl who is pricked by a poisonous thorn and falls asleep. Her father, the king, takes the body of his young daughter and sets it to rest upon a velvet cloth in the woods, locking the gates to his kingdom behind her. A married prince finds her and, not caring that she’s in an enchanted sleep, rapes her.

He returns to his family and nine months later Talia gives birth to twins, named Sun and Moon. Fairies look after the twins until one day the little boy sucks on his dead mother's finger, sucking the poisonous splinter from her finger, restoring her to life.

After a few months, the prince gets the urge to revisit the site of his pleasure, only to find that the girl he'd ravaged is now awake. An affair ensues after he admits to being the father of Sun and Moon. Then he leaves her, neglecting to inform her that he is married.

His wife, however, soon learns of her husband's indiscretions and sends her minions out to capture Sun and Moon. Her cook is ordered to kill them and grind their flesh into hash. Later that night as her husband is eating the hash she cries out that he is, indeed, eating that which sprang from his loins. Mortified, the prince throws her into the fire. Later, he discovers that the kind-hearted cook had substituted a goat for the children. The prince then marries Talia.

"Sleeping Beauty in the Wood" was published by Charles Perrault in 1697 and is essentially the same as Basile’s with a few added features. A mischievous fairy is the source of the curse placed on the young woman; the children are named Aurora and Jour; the prince’s vengeful wife is replaced by his ogre mother; and an attempt is also made to serve Beauty as a meal. Instead of a fire, the mother is thrown into a boiling cauldron.

In the early 1800s, the German folklorists, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, modified the fairy tale in their story of “Dornroschen (Little Briar Rose)." The story has none of the macabre features of earlier tales, has only half the plot, and has a true “fairy tale ending.” The story reaches its denouement when the prince awakens Rose with a kiss. Shortly afterwards, they marry and “live happily ever after.”

It is this version that Disney adapted for his Sleeping Beauty movie, although he did pay some homage to Perrault’s story. Despite being called Briar Rose by the good fairies who protect her, the princess’s real name is Aurora, the same name as one of the illegitimate children in the Perrault‘s tale.


Surlalune Fairytales, annotated version
Sun, Moon, and Talia
Sleeping Beauty in the Wood
Little Briar Rose
Sleeping Beauty, by Midori Snyder (Non-fiction)

Fairy Tale Origins – Part IIHansel and Gretel

As in Little Red Riding Hood, this is a tale of children who are alone in a wood, away from parental influence, and must, through their wits, find a way to navigate the forest and avoid danger.

The story of Hansel and Gretel and its many variations are considered to be simple childrens fairy tales, but many contemporary folk scholars, such as Jack Zipes and Maria Tatar, believe that these tales of poverty, child abandonment, starvation and cannibalism can be traced back to the Middle Ages when people were actually experiencing these problems.

As with most folklore, these early stories were passed down orally. It was not until the 17th century that they were collected and published. The earliest version of Hansel and Gretel was written by Italian folklorist Giambattista Basile, whose Nennillo and Nennella was published posthumously in The Tale of Tales, or Entertainment for Little Ones (1634). In this story a selfish stepmother and her weak husband abandon his two children in order to conserve food. There is no evil witch however. Instead, a pirate kidnaps Nennella and a large fish saves her.

Other early versions involved French writers. Charles Perrault's Le petit Poucet (Little Thumb - 1697) involves seven brothers who stumble upon an ogre’s house after being abandoned by their parents. A year later, Madame Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy wrote Finette Cendron, a similar story of three princesses who are abandoned by their parents in the woods and find their way to a giant's house.

The most well known of these tales is, of course, the story of Hansel and Gretel as told by the German scholars Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm, first in 1812 and then in revised versions in 1819 and 1857. In the earliest versions of the story, it was Hansel and Gretel’s mother who suggests that they abandon the children not a stepmother, and in fact both parents participated in the decision.

During the Middle Ages, there were many disasters such as famine, war, and plague, which would cause parents to abandon their children. However, while creating a story based on familiar stereotypes, the brothers Grimm were also writing for middle class patrons during the nineteenth century. As a result, some of the original themes were converted to something less unpleasant for children of that era.

For instance, the mother and father’s collaboration in abandoning the children becomes something less sinister but also more morally ambiguous. The mother was turned into a wicked stepmother, so that there was no longer the conflict between mother and child. The father became a weak pawn in the hands of this witch.

Both the witch’s and the stepmother’s relationship with the children and their threat to the children is based on an overwhelming desire for food. The stepmother does not want competition for what little food is available and the witch wishes to consume the children as a delicacy.

In the end, the witch is burned to death in her own oven. Death by fire is a fitting ending that works not only for the genre but also fits with the mode of punishment for those accused of witch-craft.

The ending of the story is particularly difficult. The Grimms attempted to modify the story to fit into the satisfactory ‘happily ever after’ mode, but Hansel and Gretel doesn’t really reach a moral high note. It takes wealth to change them into a happy family and there is no resolution for the father’s lack of character in allowing the children to be abandoned in the first place.

The major change effected by the Grimms during the revision process from the 1810 manuscript edition to the final product lies in the reshaping of the parental figures. In an early version of the tale, both (natural) parents can be seen as "evil" in that they each contribute to the abandonment of their children actively. In subsequent editions, the roles begin to subtly shift so that the father slowly emerges as reluctant victim to the step -mother's evil designs-the "witching" of the female begins.

The mother becomes increasingly sinister in the first edition of the tale, but she is not the only female character to be presented as clearly evil; in this edition, the "old woman" becomes a wicked witch who lay in wait for children and had built her house to tempt them. Whenever one of them got into her power, she killed it, cooked it, and ate it.

The duplicitous nature of the woman/witch is illustrated by her behavior. Before she reveals her evil nature, she first gives the children a good meal of and then puts them into bed. The next morning she puts Hansel in a stable and puts Gretel to work. The story progresses as the manuscript draft does, but when Gretel is asked to enter the oven it is "God" who inspires her to shove the witch in instead.

The second edition (1819) follows the first almost identically until the death of the witch, after which the children take her jewels and then try to return home but can only do so with the aid of a white duck who ferries them across a river.

In the fifth edition (1843), the mother becomes "the wife" and thus a step- mother. She has gained even more zeal to rid herself and her husband of his children, and perhaps to soften the maternal threat to the children, she loses her status as a biological parent. When they return home, the wife blames the children for falling asleep in the wood and being left behind. Again the duplicity of the evil female character is shown, this time in reference to the wife. Much as the wife pretends the children are at fault and pretends that she is happy for their return, so does the witch "pretend to be so kind" in order to fool the children into entering her home. The tale, with some added details, follows the previous editions to its end. This double nature of the female character is corresponds to the split of the child's perception of its mother into good and bad elements.

Grimm’s version of the story
The story the operatic version is based on
Yet another version of the story
The History of Hansel and Gretel

Fairy Tale Origins, Part ILittle Red Riding Hood

Little Red Riding Hood started life in stories told orally of a girl who outsmarts a wolf – all by herself without any help. A few hundred later, she’s given a red cap, which seems to reduce her IQ, and she gets eaten by a wolf that likes to dress up like a woman. In another hundred years, the cap becomes a hood, which appears to reduce her IQ even further, she gets eaten by the wolf, but then is rescued by a big, strong man. It’s unfortunate that this is the story most of us are familiar with.

Traditional versions of Little Red Riding Hood were oral tales about a young girl’s initiation into womanhood. In an Italian version, the wolf is an ogress and Little Red is a girl on the cusp of growing up. A better known version comes from France and is known as “The Path of Needles or Pins”, named so because when she meets the wolf she must choose one of two paths, the path of needles or the path of pins.

Yvonne Verdier, who studied numerous variations of the Little Red Riding Hood tale, believed the paths were symbolic of two periods of growth in a young girl’s life. When a girl was sent off to be apprenticed to a seamstress, this was the path of pins (learning a trade as part of growing up) and is regarded by Verdier as the path of maidenhood, the path of change from child to young woman. The path of needles was the next stage and implied sexual maturity, the needle being emblematic of sexual penetration.

Angela Carter’s Little Red (“The Company of Wolves”) is brave and independent, fearless and ready to protect herself. She can and will look after herself. She is confident and when she meets the wolf/huntsman on the path to Granny’s house she is in no way intimidated.

They make a wager with a kiss the prize, and she happily dawdles so he may reach Granny’s house first. When she arrives, Granny is a rattling bundle of bones wrapped in a napkin under the bed, and the wolf makes no real attempt to pretend to be the grandmother. Their exchange, informed by knowledge rather than fear, breaks the traditional pattern. She undresses quite willingly. There is no fear of sex, or of male desire, or even a hint of shame about her own desires.

Carter’s heroine is fearless on many levels: she has sex outside the bounds of the approved space of marriage, she chooses it for herself (it is not imposed upon her as a marriage duty or as an act of rape), she acts without deference to anyone, and with no thought for society’s sanctions. And there are no consequences for her actions, no societal enforced punishment for being a “loose” woman.

Jack Zipes refers to the original tales as depicting the way a young girl must learn to cope with the world around her. The girl meets the wolf on the way to Granny’s house and discloses where she’s going. The wolf kills and eats the grandmother, takes her place in bed, and induces the girl to eat and drink Granny’s flesh and blood before climbing into bed with him. Recognising her danger, and with no one else to turn to, the girl uses her wits to save herself.

Gruesome though it is, the eating of the grandmother’s flesh and drinking of her blood can also be seen as representing the life-cycle. The young replace the old, the girl is coming into the fullness of her womanhood. The grandmother is at the end of the cycle, she is no longer fertile, no longer desired, no longer agile and active. Although the young girl has a traumatic experience, she has been independent and saved herself with no help from either a prince or woodsman, nor any other male figure.

Enter Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm.

Perrault’s tale became a moral tale, warning women and children that if they did not conform there would be consequences. Perrault introduces the red cap/hood and the element of a wager between the wolf and Little Red Riding Hood. He also implies that she is somehow careless in taking her time to get to Granny’s house – that she is complicit in Granny’s death because she wants to lose the bet, and thus invites the wolf’s sexual advances. When she arrives at Granny’s house she is raped and eaten. Perrault lays the blame very squarely on her shoulders (just in case anyone should miss the point).

A century or so later, the Brothers Grimm gave the story a happy ending and removed the sexual bawdiness and overt violence. Little Red is shown as a foolish little girl who gets herself and her Granny into trouble by disobeying her mother, dawdling, and talking to strangers. The wolf once again wins the race to Granny’s house, where he eats the old woman and then her granddaughter. Luckily, there is a woodsman, a big strong man, to rescue them by disemboweling the wolf. The huntsman then sews rocks back into the wolf's stomach for punishment.



If you’re interested in learning more about Little Red Riding Hood, here’s some links for you:

The Path of Needles or Pins by Terri Windling

The Grandmother (Needles or Pins) by Achille Millien

Little Red Riding Hood, by Charles Perrault

Little Red Cap, by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm

Politically correct Little Red Riding Hood