Fairy Tale Origins - Part XVII The Little Mermaid

The tale of the mermaid who fell in love with a mortal prince and longed, not only to be with him, but to gain an immortal soul so she could be with him forever, is a perennial favourite. Written by Hans Christian Andersen in 1837, the original tale was a far cry from Disney’s animated feature film.

The Little Mermaid didn’t just lose her voice to the sea witch, her tongue was cut off as payment; in exchange, she received legs for which each footfall was like "stepping on piercing needles and sharp knives." "Her tender feet bled so that even her steps were marked."

Andersen himself admitted that The Little Mermaid was "the only one of my works that has affected me while I was writing it. . . .I suffer with my characters, I share their moods, whether good or bad, and I can be nice or nasty according to the scene on which I happen to be working."

The closest precursor of the tale is Undine, a story by Friedrich de La Motte Fouque. Andersen admited to his familiarity and consideration of Undine while writing his Little Mermaid. Undine, originally published in Germany in 1811, is the story of a water–sprite who can only gain a soul by marrying a human. She falls in love with a knight and marries him, only to later be betrayed. Unlike Undine, Andersen's mermaid is allowed another option; when the mermaid refuses to kill the prince, she dissolves into foam and becomes a "daughter of air.”

Andersen may have tried to use the story of The Little Mermaid to express the ideals of Christian faith and redemption, but the emotional heart of the story is in the mermaid's yearning for the prince and the world above.

From a feminist perspective, this story is a misogynist tale about dampening the sexual curiosity of a young female who wants to explore other worlds. The little mermaid who begins the story is of a completely different character than the one who ends it. In the beginning of the story, the little mermaid is adventurous, talented, and yet sensible and modest. She is also brave and bold.

However, the mermaid's character soon devolves as she begins to fixate on the prince. She becomes obsessed; she discovers where he lives and night after night goes to sit in the canal under his balcony to watch him.

She gives up everything for the prince: her family, her voice, her ability to move without crippling pain. She suffers in silence, never demanding appreciation for her sacrifice. The prince treats her more like a pet than a person and in the end he marries someone else.

Sexual overtones abound throughout the text, usually in a negative context. When the mermaid's tail transforms into legs, for example, "it felt like a double–edged sword going through her delicate body." The mermaid cannot manage the pain of this bodily invasion, and so "she fainted and lay there as if dead." When she awakens, it’s to find the prince standing over her.

The word "mermaid" is usually read as "sea maid," or "virgin of the sea." There are many connections between the mermaid and the ancient Goddess, whose origin and power are associated with the sea. The first syllable, "mer," French for “sea,” sounds much like mêre or "mother." One of the underlying deep meanings of "mermaid" is "virgin mother," directly linking the term and the figure it names with the Virgin Mary.

The tale originally ended with the mermaid dissolving into foam, but Andersen later changed it to include the “daughters of air”, which was the working title of the story. The daughters of air can earn their souls by doing three hundred years worth of good deeds, and this again was revised to state that it depended on whether children are good or bad. Good behavior takes a year off the maidens' time of service; bad behavior makes them weep, and a day is added for every tear they shed.

The prince never learns that it was the mermaid who saved him, nor does he fall in love with her. He is struck by her devotion, and it is this devotion that entails self–sacrifice and brings about her own miraculous salvation. . . .Voiceless and tortured, the mermaid serves a prince who never fully appreciates her worth. Twice she saves his life. The second time is the most significant: instead of killing him to regain her identity and rejoin her sisters and grandmother, the mermaid forfeits her own life and is rewarded by the chance of gaining a soul.

All in all, the tale of The Little Mermaid can be seen as a cautionary tale, containing a message about love and self-sacrifice, and the dangers of accepting abuse or inconsiderate treatment in the name of love.

The Little Mermaid

Undine

Menticide Monday

menticide ~ reduction of mind by psychological pressure

Is it just me or was last week a really long week? Maybe it just seemed like it because I was without my lap top for the last half of it. However, my personal IT godmother (I would never call her a fairy) came and reformatted it for me and it’s running almost like new, which is pretty darn good considering it’s five years old.

You notice it took a woman to do the job properly. I’ve taken this lap top in three times to men and asked them to reformat it for me and what did they do? They did a system restore, not a reformat. I do know the difference, and I also know that’s the only sure way to get rid of a Trojan off your system.

I had everything important backed up and saved, and I even remembered to save my bookmarks. One thing I didn’t think of was to write down the password for my Facebook account. And I also didn’t write down the password for the e-mail account I created for it. And I timed out trying various passwords to get it to open so I couldn’t reset them for a couple of days. Argh!

I missed my poetry installment last week, and the only reason the serial chapter made it up was because I’d written and scheduled it earlier in the week. I took advantage of being internet-less and got some reading done, as well as some cleaning and baking.


This Week’s Goals:

Tuesday: Part XVII of my fairy tale series will explore the Little Mermaid. I think this series will be wrapping up soon – I’m running out of fairy tales.

Wednesday: A new hunk for your viewing pleasure.

Thursday: This week’s Passion for Poetry is the French form of Rime Couée.

Friday: Chapter 55 of the Space Opera. I think I’m going to have to take a day and plot the remainder of this to the end. I’d like to have it wrapped up before NaNo.

Elsewhere in my week:

I have a Scribe’s meeting tonight, and there’s a poetry reading on Thursday night. I need to get back on track with my writing and catch up on the blog reading I missed last week.

I also need to catch up on my 30 days of writing over on Random Writings. And I think that’s about it for me. What about you, what have you been up to lately? Anything interesting going on this week?

Hump Day Hunk

This one's for you Karen. ;-)

Fairy Tale Origins - Part XVI The Pied Piper

The Pied Piper of Hamelin is, at heart, the story of the disappearance of a great many children from the town of Hamelin (Hameln), Germany, in the Middle Ages. The earliest references describe a piper, dressed in multicolored (pied) clothing, leading the children away from the town never to return. In the 16th century the story was expanded into a full narrative, in which the piper is a rat-catcher hired by the town to lure rats away with his magic pipe. When the townsfolk refuse to pay for this service, he retaliates by turning his magic on their children, leading them away as he had the rats.

There is a fascination in the story of the Pied Piper which draws us in. For children, the fascination is wonder. They wonder at the magic that led those children away and they wonder about what those children must have found. For adults the fascination is that of horror. The loss of so many children in such a fashion is incomprehensible and the question of ‘What would I do?’ haunts the listener.

The earliest account of the story appears to have been on a stained glass window placed in the Church of Hamelin in 1300. On the glass was an inscription that read, "On the day of John and Paul 130 children in Hamelin went to Calvary and were brought through all kinds of danger to the Koppen mountain and lost" – there was no mention of a piper.

The window was described in several accounts between the 14th century and the 17th century. It was destroyed in 1660. Based on the surviving descriptions, a modern reconstruction of the window has been created by Hans Dobbertin. It features the colorful figure of the Pied Piper and several figures of children dressed in white.

The earliest written record is from the town chronicles in an entry from 1384 which states: "It is 100 years since our children left"

Although research has been conducted for centuries, no explanation for the historical event is agreed upon. Scholars generally agree that something horrible happened in the town of Hamelin to spawn the story. Though there might not have been a piper with magical musical talents, it’s safe to assume that some tragedy ensued.

A number of theories suggest that children died of some natural causes and that the Piper was a symbolic figure of Death. Death is often portrayed dressed in motley, or "pied" clothing. Various ecstatic outbreaks were associated with the Plague, such as the Flagellants, who wandered from place to place while scourging themselves in penance for sins that presumably brought the plague upon Europe. The rat is the preferred host for the plague vector, the rat flea. When the rats die, the fleas seek humans as a substitute host. Children might be especially vulnerable to the disease.

William Manchester proposed that the Pied Piper was a psychopathic pedophile and claims that on June 20, 1484, this criminal kidnapped 130 children from the Saxon village of Hammel and used them in "unspeakable ways." He adds that "some of the children were never seen again. Others were found dismembered and scattered in the forest underbrush or hanging from tree branches." No documenting support for this alleged incident has ever been found, and Manchester offers no references or citations for his asserted explanation.

Others have suggested that the children left the city to be part of a pilgrimage, a military campaign, or even a new Children's crusade (which occurred in 1212, not long before) but never returned to their parents. These theories see the unnamed Piper as their leader or a recruiting agent.

It has also been suggested that one reason the disappearance of the children was never documented was that the children were sold to a recruiter from the Baltic region of Eastern Europe. The selling off of illegitimate children, orphans or other children the town could not support was not uncommon at the time.

The theory with the broadest support is that the children willingly abandoned their parents and Hamelin in order to become the founders of their own villages during the colonization of Eastern Europe. Several European villages and cities founded around this time have been suggested as the result of their efforts as settlers. This claim is supported by corresponding placenames in both the region around Hamelin and the eastern colonies where names such as Querhameln ("mill village Hamelin") exist.

Last year, the town of Hamelin in Germany celebrated the 725th anniversary of this macabre event that has been kept alive through children’s fairytales for more than seven centuries. Beyond the musical Rats, the colourful souvenirs and tourist attractions, the town of Hamelin is full of references to a real tragedy – one recorded on the walls of the Ratten­fängerhaus, or House of the Piper:

“In the year of 1284, on the day of Saints John and Paul, the 26th of June, 130 children born in Hamelin were seduced by a piper, dressed in all kinds of colours, and lost at the calvary near the koppen.”

There is said to be a long-established law forbidding singing or playing music in the street adjacent to the House of the Piper, Bungelosen­strasse: "street without drums”. This is the street where the children were said to be last seen. During public parades which include music, the band will stop playing upon reaching this street and resume upon reaching the other side. Though the source of the loss may never be known, the town of Hamelin will never forget the loss itself.

Maddening Monday

So . . . I'm sitting here last night, getting myself organized for the coming week, ready to do my post for today and get it scheduled, and suddenly this microsoft essentials warning pops up. Then another. And another. Then my virus protection popped up with about 15 threats listed. And then my lap top froze. I was able to get it shut down, but it wouldn't start up again. It kept freezing on the first Windows screen. Finally, I went to bed, thanking God that I'd backed up my important files a couple of days ago.

This morning I discovered my desk top computer (which the hubby uses, not me) is mind-numbingly slow. Since I don't have dental coverage and can't afford to grind my teeth away to nothing, I crossed my fingers and turned my lap top back on. It gave me an option to start from the last time the settings worked so I crossed my fingers some more and said "do it!." My virus protection was able to remove the potential threats and the microsoft essential warnings went away, and here I am. Knock wood.

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

Last week I had a serious lack of focus. True, I had a few other things on my plate, and true, it was so hot it was making me sick, but the real reason for my lack of focus was Sookie Stackhouse. I don't know who's more to blame - Charlaine Harris for creating her, or the devil's spawn who got me started reading this TEN BOOK series - all I know is even when I wasn't reading about Sookie I was wondering what was going to happen next, to the point where I really couldn't concentrate on anything else. I finally caved and finished reading them.

That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. ;-p

I'll tell you, last week really did wipe me out with the heat. I didn't care how grey and overcast it was on Saturday, the fact that the temperature dipped low enough for me to wear jeans again made me do a happy dance.

I missed my Fairy Tale installment last week, and did not get as much writing done as I'd hoped. But I did finish the Sookie Stackhouse books so I can put them behind me now.

This Week’s Goals:

Tuesday: Let's try this again, part XVI of my fairy tale series will be The Pied Piper. If anyone has a favourite fairy tale they’d like me to investigate, drop me a line at carolrward(at)gmail(dot)com and I’ll see what I can dig up.

Wednesday: A new hunk for your viewing pleasure.

Thursday: This week’s Passion for Poetry is the Sanskrit form of Ushnik.

Friday: Chapter 54 of the Space Opera. What happened to Nakeisha's wind? And will she be able to get it back again?

Elsewhere in my week:

This week's motto is going to be: Less internetting and more writing

When I need a break from writing I'm going to be going through my house and getting rid of some of the "stuff" that's accumulated over the years. I'm a self-professed pack rat with border-line hoarder tendencies. It's really time to start cutting loose some of this junk.

I suppose I should also try and work in some exercise somewhere - can't use the heat as an excuse any more.

And that's pretty much it for me for the week. Yesterday we had a barbeque at the in-laws to mark the end of summer - it was too wet and cold to have it at the cottage. So how about you? What did you do to mark the end of the season?

Jue Ju

Jue Ju (pronounced “Jeh-Jee”) is one of the oldest of the Chinese forms and was very popular in the 3rd century. Also known as the curtailed or frustrated verse, it does not tell a story but attempts to create a mood. The impression is much like that from a symphony orchestra where a solo instrument takes up the theme.

In Chinese poetry, the basic rhythmic unit is zi, a single character that represents a single syllable. When translated into English, this character might be more than a single syllable which results in a loss of metre when it’s translated.

The early Jue Ju were composed in 5 character lines, but by the Tang era (the 8th century) this had changed to a 7 character line. The five-syllable-long form is called wujue and the seven-syllable-long form is the qijue. Limited to either 20 or 28 characters, writing a Jue Ju requires the author to make full use of each character to create a successful poem.

Structure:
5 or 7 character or word lines (lines should be same length)
composed of 4 lines
often erotic in subject matter
composed using Qi, Cheng, Zhuan, Jie:
Line 1 Qi (beginning) sets scene
Line 2 Cheng (development) expands image and mood
Line 3 Zhuan (returning) contrasts with start
Line 4 Jie (finishing) ponders meaning



Clandestine meeting in the night
Furtive touch and soft caress
Forbidden lovers meet at last
Sweet surrender to the bliss.


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Come to me in dreams
By moonlight and by starlight
Fill the emptiness inside me
Phantom lover, soul mate mine.

Hump Day Hunk

Could you imagine coming home to this every night? ;-)