The Subject Was Roses by Honora Foah

MYTHIC Imagination

THE SUBJECT WAS ROSES

In times past, the hood was not only the padded headdress with a tail which was so widespread in the Middle Ages, but a coif or crown of flowers. The May Queen wore for a crown a flowery hood made of white or red roses. The crown and the flowery hood have always been used in liturgical, magical, or religious ceremonies. Indeed, we cannot imagine Maïa, Chloris, or Flore, the ancient Queens of the May, without their flowery hoods. Could little Red Riding Hood be such a liturgical personage? ALAN DUNDES

Spring & Summer 2012 Year of the Roses Honora Foah Theme of roses, the state-‐of-‐the-‐art in mythic fairy tales, and women’s voices

The Path of Needles or Pins Terri Windling Older versions of Little Red Riding Hood spell out the wolf’s true intentions

The Better to Eat You With D. L. Ashliman Renowned folklorist shares six variations on the theme of Little Red Riding Hood

Fairy Tales for Writers Lawrence Schimel Three poems: The Princess and the Pea, Sleeping Beauty, and Little Mermaid

Notes from the Editor Mary Davis Insights into Jungian events around Atlanta and the new performance piece Rua/Wűlf

Cinderella: Ashes, Blood, and the Slipper of Glass Terri Windling Traces the evolution of Cinderella from Yeh-‐hsien to Disney’s child-‐safe version

Puss in Boots, a Fairy Tale Dahna Lorrain Koth Theatre Royal, Drury Lane: home to drama, spectacle, and fairy tales

Sleeping Beauty Awakes Carolyn Dunn, Heinz Insu Fenkl, Gayle Ross & Terri Windling Transcription of a Big Conversation from Mythic Journeys 2004

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let Down Your Hair Terri Windling Maiden-‐in-‐a-‐Tower stories are worldwide, but Rapunzel comes from literary sources

In addition to the purely personal unconscious hypothesized by Freud, a deeper unconscious level is felt to exist. This deeper level manifests itself in universal archaic images expressed in dreams, religious beliefs, myths, and fairytales.

C. G. JUNG

Year of the

Roses

Year of the Roses

Honora Foah President, Mythic Imagination Institute Roses are roses are roses as Ms. Stein so ably said, and I supposes she choses this flower that is used over and over and over again as a symbol, to make her stand for the thing itself. But, it is precisely because a rose is such a glorious thing in itself that it is irresistible as a doorway to different dimensions of experience. This issue issues in our newest version of Mythic Imagination Magazine, published by ISSUU, and the first in our series, The Year of the Roses.

We begin with The Subject Was Roses, here in May, the time in the Northern Hemisphere when the flowers grace us with their first bloom and perfume. In The Friendly Frog from Charles Perrault’s Tales of Mother Goose there is a long convoluted story about a magical frog who wears an ever-‐blooming hood of red roses, which is the source of her power. These red hoods, which like the roses, have so many connotations and magical powers, lead us into this springtime issue.

Ut eu libero

The splendid, fierce Alan Dundes, who was a bulwark at Mythic Journeys in 2004, wrote a book called Red Riding Hood: A Casebook. He gives dozens of interpretations and ideas about Red Riding Hood, including this one: …the tale reflects a seasonal ritual in which typically spring conquers winter….Here Red Riding Hood is spring, (or the month of May) escaping from the winter-‐wolf. Guest Editor Dahna Koth has woven an amazing tapestry here of the rose and red hood, of spring and it’s invitation to the world of faerie and then the quite different world of fairy tales, largely through the words of Terri Windling. Ms. Koth has added to her Second Skins repertoire that you may have seen at Mythic Journeys, with a Queen of the May, springtide evocation of the archetypes and currents that run in the way we present ourselves to the world.

The next Year of the Roses magazine will be Guns and Roses, partially as a balance to this one which is girls, girls, girls all the way down. If you have been watching Game of Thrones, which is loosely based on the War of the Roses in the 15th century, the thorny side of life’s flower is shown in full bloom. This blooming of the thorns, blooming of the swords, was also for a long, long time a spring ritual, as men came out to fight after the winter lull. It continued through the fall, which is the time of year Guns and Roses will come out, and that is also the time to reflect on the blood harvest.

Having done so, one might want to turn winterward and in to reflect on the Mystic Rose, the subject of our winter issue. Throughout the world, from the Rosicrucians to the Mevlevi dervishes, the rose is the spiral portal to the inner life and the heart. One of the highlights of this issue, The Subject Was Roses, is a transcript of Sleeping Beauty Awakes, a Big Conversation from Mythic Journeys with Terri Windling, Heinz Insu Fenkl, Carolyn Dunn and Gayle Ross. Here is an introduction to that conversation: In the 20th century, fairy tales came to be viewed as simple, silly, sexist stories in which passive, dutiful, beautiful girls grew up to marry rich Prince Charmings. It is largely forgotten that in centuries past fairy tales have not been so simple and saccharine, happy endings have not been guaranteed, and heroines have not sat passively awaiting rescue by a passing prince. Fairy tales in the past had looked unflinchingly at the darkest parts of life: at poverty, hunger, abuse of power, domestic violence, incest, rape, the sale of young women to the highest bidder in the form of arranged marriages, the effects of remarriage on family dynamics, the loss of inheritance or identity, the survival of treachery or calamity. The old fairy tales had much to say on subjects such as these and on how one finds the courage to fight and prevail against overwhelming odds. Such tales were passed down through the generations by word of mouth, woman to woman, mother to child—using archetypes as a mirror held to daily life, particularly the lives of those without clear avenues of social power. We look at the ways women storytellers have used fairy tales to portray the truths of their lives—from the anonymous oral storytellers of the past, through the women fairy tale writers of 17th and 18th century France and 19th century Germany, to feminist fiction writers, poets, and scholars of today.

Terri Windling is a significant link in this chain of women storytellers herself and we are honoured to reacquaint you with her work. She was a mainstay of our arts festival conferences. Both her scholarship and her imagination as an author have enriched the tradition and helped to ensure that it is passed down in a form that is recognizable to us, that reminds us that we are part of the chain of human wisdom and how much we need it. For the last year, I have been working with Deeyah, Darin Prindle and others on Ava (ava-‐projects.org) and its associated projects. Mythic Imagination is a partner of Ava, which means ‘voice’ in Farsi, as well as in other languages: ‘breath of life,’ ‘waterfall’ and ‘bird.’ It is also a form of the name Eve, and indeed Ava projects focus mainly on women, particularly those from the Middle East and Indian Sub-‐ Continent. These women often are without a voice in their communities. While one of Ava’s projects is an educational initiative for police, social workers and hospital staff to familiarize them with the danger signals for honor-‐based killing and violence, (honour-‐killings.com) other aspects of Ava are working specifically to help women practice having a voice through art and story. This gets their stories into the world so they can become visible, but it also is a way to strengthen their own resources as human beings—much as the Mythic Imagination project Creativity in Captivity (creativityincaptivity.org) demonstrates how continuing to raise one’s voice even under the harshest conditions can be a critical tool of soul survival.

All of this is in the history and the stories of fairy tales themselves. Most critically, folk tales are usually about what to do when you are the less powerful one. Our cultural poverty discourages understanding symbolic language, preferring the literalism of fundamentalism or materialism, stripping us of the birthright to these stories, and could not be more cruel because hidden inside Red Riding Hood is a world of resources and understanding. Still, the archetypes pop out everywhere and people respond though they may not have the context that would make it more useful. I love what Dahna Koth has done with connecting these themes to fashion, images from the theatre, magazines and Internet sites that fill up our brains. So please explore The Subject Was Roses and enjoy its fashion and beauty as well as its tour of the dark—sometimes it’s the same thing. And since this is the season, look deeply into the heart of rose, let the perfume awaken you into the present moment or into the harem of Scheherazade—sometimes it’s the same thing.

Sarah: Ow! It bit me! Hoggle: What'd you expect fairies to do? Sarah: I thought they did nice things, like granting wishes. Hoggle: Shows what you know, don't it? LABYRINTH, THE MOVIE

The Path of Needles or Pins

The Path of Needles or Pins: Little Red Riding Hood Terri Windling Little Red Riding Hood is one of the best loved fairy tales of all time—yet few now know the original story as it was told in the French countryside long before Charles Perrault penned his famous version in 1697. The oral version, called The Grandmother's Story, has its taproots in ancient Asian tales but was largely shaped by the rural traditions of France from the Middle Ages onward. The heroine of The Grandmother's Tale does not wear the famous red cap (or hooded cloak), which was a detail added by Perrault; nor does she require rescue by a passing hunter, which was added by the Brothers Grimm. Little Red Riding Hood, as we know it today, is a cautionary tale warning little girls of the perils of disobedience, but the older story is a complex one of female initiative and maturation.

The Grandmother's Tale comes in a variety of forms, but in general the story goes like this: A woman had finished her baking, so she asked her daughter to take a fresh galette and a pot of cream to her grandmother who lived in a forest cottage. The girl set off, and on her way she met a bzou [a werewolf]. The bzou stopped the girl and asked, "Where are you going? What do you carry?" "I'm going to my grandmother's house," said the girl, "and I'm bringing her bread and cream." "Which path will you take?" the bzou asked. "The Path of Needles or the Path of Pins?" "I'll take the Path of Pins," said the girl.

"Why then, I'll take the Path of Needles, and we'll see who gets there first." The girl set off, the bzou set off, and the bzou reached Grandmother's cottage first. He quickly killed the old woman and gobbled her up, flesh, blood, and bone—except for a bit of flesh that he put in a little dish on the pantry shelf, and except for a bit of blood that he drained into a little bottle. Then the bzou dressed in Grandmother's cap and shawl and climbed into bed. When the girl arrived, the bzou called out, "Pull the peg and come in, my child." "Grandmother," said the girl, "Mother sent me here with a galette and a cream." "Put them in the pantry, child. Are you hungry? "Yes, I am, Grandmother." "Then cook the meat that you'll find on the shelf. Are you thirsty?" "Yes, I am, Grandmother." "Then drink the bottle of wine you'll find on the shelf beside it, child."

As the young girl cooked and ate the meat, a little cat piped up and cried, "You are eating the flesh of your grandmother!" "Throw your shoe at that noisy cat," said the bzou, and so she did. As she drank the wine, a small bird cried, "You are drinking the blood of your grandmother!" "Throw your other shoe at that noisy bird," said the bzou, and so she did. When she finished her meal, the bzou said, "Are you tired from your journey, child? Then take off your clothes, come to bed, and I shall warm you up." "Where shall I put my apron, Grandmother?" "Throw it on the fire, child, for you won't need it anymore." "Where shall I put my bodice, Grandmother?" "Throw it on the fire, for you won't need it anymore." The girl repeats this question for her skirt, her petticoat, and her stockings. The bzou gives the same answer, and she throws each item on the fire.

As she comes to bed, she says to him, "Grandmother, how hairy you are!" "The better to keep you warm, my child." "Grandmother, what big arms you have!" "The better to hold you close, my child." "Grandmother, what big ears you have!" "The better to hear you with, my child." "Grandmother, what sharp teeth you have!" "The better to eat you with, my child. Now come and lie beside me." "But first I must go and relieve myself." "Do it in the bed, my child." "I cannot. I must go outside," the girl says cleverly, for now she knows that it's the bzou who is lying in Grandmother's bed. "Then go outside," the bzou agrees, "but mind that you come back again quick. I'll tie your ankle with a woolen thread so I'll know just where you are." He ties her ankle with a sturdy thread, but as soon as the girl has gone outside she cuts the thread with her sewing scissors and ties it to a plum tree.

The bzou, growing impatient, calls out, "What, have you finished yet, my child?" When no one answers, he calls again. "Are you watering the grass or feeding the trees?" No answer. He leaps from bed, follows the thread, and finds her gone. The bzou gives chase, and soon the girl can hear him on the path just behind her. She runs and runs until she reaches a river that's swift and deep. Some laundresses work on the riverbank. "Please help me cross," she says to them. They spread a sheet over the water, holding tightly to its ends. She crosses the bridge of cloth and soon she's safe on the other side. Now the bzou reaches the river, and he bids the women help him cross. They spread a sheet over the water—but as soon as he is halfway across, the laundresses let go. The bzou falls into the water and drowns. * * *

Numerous variants of The Grandmother's Tale were collected by French folklorists in the 19th and 20th centuries in the Loire basin, the Nivernais, the Forez, the Velay, the northern Alps, and the Italian Tyrol. Italo Calvino published a version from Abruzzo in his collection Italian Folktales (1956). Called The False Grandmother, in this story a hungry ogress takes the place of the wolf— but in other respects, the story is quite similar to the French folktale. Just as in the French story, the girl is offered a grisly meal—beans (really teeth) boiled in a pot and fritters (really ears) in a frying pan; and she, too, escapes by feigning the need to relieve herself outside. Calvino had doubts that The False Grandmother actually came from the Italian oral tradition, suggesting it may have derived instead from published versions by Perrault and the Brothers Grimm. Yet the Abruzzo tale contains elements that link it clearly to the older folk tradition: the cannibal meal, the toilet ruse, the heroine who plots her own escape... all things that disappeared as the tale moved from oral transmission to print.

In the oral tales, the girl must

largely told by female

choose between two paths of

storytellers, and some

needles and pins. In some

folklorists attach no more

versions she chooses pins, in

significance to the two

other versions she chooses

different paths than this.

needles, and in a few versions

Paul Delarue and Marc

the bzou chooses the path for

Soriano viewed the choice

her. Folklore scholars have

between pins and needles as

different theories on what

a nonsense question, a false

precisely these paths are meant

choice (for both are equally

to represent. Sewing and

prickly), a deliberate

spinning terms are ones we find

absurdity. Yvonne Verdier

often in fairy tales, for the

disagreed in her fascinating

making of cloth and clothes was

essay "Le petit chaperon

a constant part of women's

rouge dans la tradition

labor prior to the 20th century.

orale," first published

Such work was often done

posthumously in 1995.

communally, in spinning rooms

Verdier had extensively

and around the evening fire,

recorded and studied the

when gossip was shared and

folklore, traditions, and

tales were told to relieve the

rituals of rural women in

monotony of the tasks at hand.

remote areas of France, and

Small wonder then that

she brought her wider

needles, pins, distaffs, spindles,

understanding of traditional

and other symbols of women's

women's stories to her

work make frequent

examination of The

appearances in folk stories

Grandmother's Tale.

In villages Verdier studied, she found that girls were sent at puberty to spend one winter with local seamstresses—a passage of time that marked a girl's change from child to young woman. Writing about a village in the Châtillonnais, she noted "This had less to do with learning to 'work,' to sew and use needles, than with refining herself, with polishing herself and learning to adorn herself, to dress up. The seamstress expressed this by saying of her young apprentices, 'They have been gathering pins.' When they reached the age of fifteen, both the winter with the seamstress and the ceremonial entry into the age group consecrated to St. Catherine signified their arrival at maidenhood (la vie de jeune fille), that is, permission to go dancing and to have sweethearts, of which the pin seemed to be the symbol. It was by offering them dozens of pins that boys formerly paid court to girls; it was by throwing pins into fountains that girls assured themselves a sweetheart."

While pins marked the path of maidenhood,

wise-‐women, witches, herbalists, and other

needles implied sexual maturity. "As for the

femmes sauvage.

needles," wrote Verdier, "threaded through

its eye, in the folklore of seamstresses it

Warner writes, "In the witch-‐hunting

refers to an emphatically sexual symbolism."

fantasies of early modern Europe they [wolf

Indeed, in some parts of Europe, prostitutes

and crone] are the kind of beings associated

once wore needles on their sleeves to

with marginal knowledge, who possess

advertise their profession. The versions of

pagan secrets and are in turn possessed by

The Grandmothers Tale where the girl

them. Both dwell in the woods, both need

chooses to take the Path of Needles might

food urgently (one because she's sick, the

well imply that the heroine is trying to grow

other because he hasn't eaten in three

up a bit too quickly.

days), and the little girl cannot quite tell

them apart."

At the end of the path, the werewolf awaits, disguised as the heroine's grandmother. We assume that he's wearing his human shape now, which makes the deception a bit more convincing, and yet—as Marina Warner points out in her fairy tale study From the Beast to the Blonde—it's odd that the granddaughter can't tell the difference. Perhaps, Warner suggests, it's because there's a similarity between the wolf and the crone. The grandmother lives apart in the forest—an unusual place for a helpless old woman, but a common dwelling for

We're not surprised when the bzou slaughters the grandmother—that is, after all, what werewolves do. But the granddaughter's gruesome meal is shocking—particularly in those versions of the tale where the method of cooking and seasoning is elaborately described. Yvonne Verdier likens this ritual meal to a sacrificial act, a physical incorporation of the grandmother by her granddaughter.

Such a scene is reminiscent of a wide variety of myths in which a warrior, shaman, sorcerer, or witch attains another's knowledge or power through the ritual ingestion of the other's heart, brain, liver, or spleen. But Verdier looks at this part of the story in more symbolic terms. "What the tale tells us," the scholar conjectures, "is the necessity of the female biological transformation by which the young eliminate the old in their own lifetime. Mothers will be replaced by their daughters and the circle will be closed with the arrival of their children's children. Moral: grandmothers will be eaten." The slow striptease then demanded by the wolf hints at another kind of appetite, as does the fact that the bzou is not just a wolf, but also a man. Though focusing on those aspects of the tale that speak the language of female initiation, Verdier also acknowledges the powerful role of the wolf at the center of the story. He is more than just a symbol of the dangers of sexual deception; he is the agent of change.

"At the crossroads when she

the job of assisting in 'passages,'

chooses the pins, he is at the

of helping in childbirth and

origin of the choice; it is when she

helping people to die, is held—at

is face to face with him, under his

least in the Châtillonnais—by one

gaze and at his demand, that she

and the same person, an aged

incorporates her grandmother

woman, a woman who can at the

and undresses. This is as much to

same time handle the swaddling

say that he leads the game..." He

and the shroud, who washes

leads, but he does not win—for in

infants as she washes the dead…

the folktale (unlike Perrault's

If the laundresses bring about the

retelling), she is not eaten by the

death of the wolf, they bring

wolf. She sees through the bzou's

about the [re-‐]birth of the girl."

tricks at last, takes his measure,

Looking at The Grandmother's

and shrewdly escapes him.

Tale within the context of rural

French history, we should also

The werewolf is finally destroyed

remember that the story comes

not by a passing woodsman or

from a time when wolves were

hunter, but by a group of women

still a real danger, and when

engaged in traditional women's

people of all classes still believed

labor. Verdier comments: "This

in the existence of werewolves.

double role held by the

As German folklorist Marianne

laundresses—on the one hand

Rumpf has documented, France

allowing the girl to pass, thereby

was positively rife with werewolf

rescuing her, on the other

trials in the 15th to 17th

drowning the wolf, killing him—is

centuries—a masculine

consistent with their role in the

counterpart to the witch hysteria

social reality of village life. In fact

of the time.

In werewolf trials, men stood accused of shape-‐shifting, killing and devouring children, as well as of incest and other unnatural acts. These men transformed into wolves, it was said, with the help of salves purchased from the Devil. Any man might be a wolf in disguise, and any wolf, a man. In 1598, to give just one example, a man named Jacques Raollet was tried as a werewolf in Angers, Touraine—which was a time and place when Perrault's own mother might have witnessed these events. Raollet was eventually declared insane and placed in a m ental hospital, but other men were hung and burned for crimes supposedly committed as wolves. Rumpf points out that the regions of France where folklorists found The Grandmother's Tale being told were also the very regions where werewolf trials had once been widespread. By the end of the 17th century, when Perrault published his Little Red Riding Hood, popular belief in werewolves had dwindled, at least among the upper classes. Educated people generally disdained the "backwards" folklore of the countryside—but that was about to change, due to a group of Parisian writers. These writers, congregating in the influential literary salons of Paris, created a vogue for magical stories, for which they coined the name contes des fées, or fairy tales. The salon writers drew inspiration from peasant tales of magic and enchantment—but they reworked this material, dressing it up in rococo language and aristocratic clothes, penning stories that commented on life in the court of Louis XIV. In many respects, the salon fairy tale movement was the fantasy genre of its day—lively, inventive, popular with readers, and held in suspicion by the literary establishment (in particular because it was a movement dominated by outspoken women authors). The salon tales proved to be so popular that they were eventually collected in forty-‐one volumes in the Cabinet des fées, and were also reprinted and translated in smaller editions across western Europe. Simplified versions of the stories reached the lower classes in the pages of the Bilbliotheque Bleue— inexpensive chapbooks sold by traveling booksellers—and many tales then filtered back down into the groundwater of the oral tradition.

Although not the first or

little stories for adult

mother and grandmother.

the only successful fairy

readers of the upper

Perrault gives her a red

tale writer to emerge from

classes. Unlike a number

chaperon to wear—a

the Paris salons, Charles

of the other salon writers,

fashionable little hat, not a

Perrault is the author

however (including his

hood, that was generally

whose tales were most

niece, Marie-‐Jeanne

made out of velvet or satin.

often reprinted, and are

L'Héritier), Perrault

Red would have been an

still read and loved today.

maintained traditional

unusually flamboyant color

Perrault was an influential

ideas about the role of

choice for an unmarried girl;

civil servant in the court of

women, and his tales

more modest attire, the

Louis XIV, as well as a

demonstrated the

text implies, might not have

prolific writer on a variety

"correct" behavior

attracted the attention of

of subjects and a member

expected of women of his

the wolf. But attract him

of the French Academy.

class. His heroines are

she does, and worse, she

He wrote his fairy tale

uniformly beautiful

stops to talk with him, "not

collection, Histoires ou

(whereas we know nothing

knowing any better." She

contes du temps passé,

of the appearance of the

tells him where

during the final years of a

granddaughter in The

Grandmother lives,

busy life—and probably

Grandmother's Tale); they

whereupon he suggests a

little dreamed that this is

also tend to be hapless

race to the house. He runs,

what he'd be remembered

creatures—either passive

while she foolishly dawdles,

for three hundred years

saints or active fools.

amusing herself with

later. Like the other

The heroine of Little Red

butterflies and flowers.

salonnières, Perrault used themes and characters drawn from peasant tales, turning them into droll

Riding Hood, one of the eight stories in Perrault's Histoires, is a pretty, naive child, doted on by her

(Here again the text implies that the heroine's fate is her own blessed fault.)

Perrault eliminates the cannibal meal, and the details of the girl's striptease, merely telling us that the girl undresses and climbs into bed beside the wolf. When she says, “Grandmother, what big teeth you have” the wolf gives his well-‐known reply, “All the better to gobble you up.” And then he pounces, eats her up, and there the story ends. Perrault finishes with a moral, making the point of his story crystal clear. “Now there are real wolves, with hair pelts and enormous teeth,” he writes, “but also wolves who seem perfectly charming, sweet-‐natured and obliging, who pursue young girls in the street and pay them the most flattering attention. Unfortunately, these smooth-‐tongued, smooth-‐ pelted wolves are the most dangerous of all.”

The wolf, I knew, would lead me deep into the woods, away from home, to a dark tangled thorny place lit by the eyes of owls.

Once again, let's look at this tale within an historical context, for it was published in 1796 for a very particular audience: aristocratic readers in the court of Louis XIV. The Sun King's court was famed for its wealth, its intrigues, and its sexual excesses, particularly as practiced at the King's sumptuous playground of Versailles. (Read the letters of the Marquise de Sévigné for a glimpse of this fascinatingly decadent society.) At the same time, virginity in young brides was absolutely insisted upon—for marriage was a business arrangement contracted between two families, and a girl's market value decreased sharply if her virginity was compromised. Perrault's story addressed the subject of seduction and rape—but rape as it was understood at the time, not as we define today. Fathers had the absolute legal right to determine whom their daughters would marry—and a man who seduced or married a young woman without her father's consent was guilty of rape, regardless of the wishes of the woman in question. To avoid this occurrence, daughters were often kept locked in convents until they married in order to avoid romances and elopements. Perrault's own wife had been raised in a convent, emerging shortly before their marriage, and Perrault had laid eyes on her only once before the wedding. At the same time, certain women were agitating for greater freedom for their sex— particularly the influential women who hosted the Parisian salons. Within the salons, men and women could mix more casually than was possible at court; they could converse about art and politics, and meet on more equal terms.

Waiting in this old lady's ruffled bed, I am all calculation.

Perrault himself was a

Uncloaked, "Perrault's

Parisian high society,

frequenter of the salons

'girls' are bien faites and

seducer of young women

(one of them run by

gentilles: of the

and a threat to the family

L'Héritier); and as an

aristocracy. His warning is

patrimony—he is, as one

academician, he

not simply to girls, but to

folklorist has called him,

championed modern

the well-‐bred, educated

the 'unsuitable suitor,"

culture, which was

women of high society

who insinuated his way

generally more favorable

who, in inviting men and

into the best beds in town,

to women. But in his tales

women together in mixed

deflowering young women

he consistently stripped

company, set a dangerous

and robbing their value as

folk heroines of the power

precedent. Perrault's wolf

virgin pawns in the

of self-‐determination,

is the dapper charmer of

marriage de raison."

holding up modesty and demure good manners as the feminine ideal. By lacking these things, Red Riding Hood walks blindly into the jaws of the wolf; and her fate is as merciless as that of girls seduced by wolves in human skin. The wolves are only doing what comes naturally; it's female behavior that is under scrutiny here. As Catherine Orenstein writes in Little Red Riding Hood

Little Red Riding Hood was a popular tale, and it soon spread beyond the borders of France. As it became well known, elements from Perrault's story (such as the red chaperon and the foolish heroine) slipped into the oral tradition just as though they'd always been there. When the Brothers Grimm published their version of the story, Little Red-‐cap, one hundred years later, they convincingly proclaimed it as part of the oral folk tradition of Germany. Contrary to public perception, however, the stories published by Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm in their famous collection of German folktales did not come straight from the mouths of stout German peasants. Many tales came from their circle of middle class friends, who had heard them from nursemaids and governesses (some of whom were French), and whose re-‐ tellings bore the influence of literary tales from France and Italy. The Grimms collected Little Red-‐cap from Marie Hassenpflug, an educated woman of French Huguenot ancestry; it's a tale complete with red hat and gobbling wolf that clearly derives from Perrault.

They then altered the story for publication, as they did with many of their tales—particularly in the later editions of the collection, aimed more and more at children. (The first edition had been geared toward scholars.) The Grimms begin their tale with a warning from the mother instructing Little Red-‐cap to stay on the path, which subtly shifts the emphasis of the story to the girl's disobedience. Whereas Perrault had warned girls to be modest and chaste lest they be gobbled up by the wolf, the Grimms warn them to mind the rules and stay on the straight and narrow. They also changed the ending, adding a hunter who comes to save the day. He cuts the wolf's belly open, and out steps Grandmother and Little Red-‐cap, as good as new. The wolf's belly is then filled with stones, which causes him to fall down dead. Just in case we don't get the point, there's a second ending appended to the Grimms' re-‐telling in which Little Red-‐cap encounters a second wolf, but this time she's a good little girl. She stays on the path and reaches her Grandmother's house in safety.

In a tupperware wood, mix child and hood. Stir slowly. Add wolf. Serve swaddled in a wolfskin throw, cradled in a basket and left on grandmother's doorstep.

Little Red Riding Hood became popular

a general tendency to make Little Red

with English language readers in the middle

Riding Hood into a Victorian middle-‐class

of the 19th century when the fairy tales of

lass whose virtue is threatened because

the Brothers Grimm took Victorian England

she forgets to control her sensual drives

by storm. The red cap then became a red

and disobeys her super-‐ego mother."

cloak and hood like those worn by English

country women, and it's in this guise that

With a few exceptions, it was not until after

the heroine of the tale has been known to

World War I that writers began to examine

us ever since. Advances in printing

the fairy tale anew—whereupon we begin

methods led to the rise of the children's

to see it used in literary works that were

book industry, and Victorian editors—

not expressly aimed at younger readers,

following in the footsteps of the Grimms—

such as Charles Guyot's The Granddaughter

continued altering fairy tales to make them

of Little Red Riding Hood (1922), Milt

suitable for younger and younger children.

Gross's Sturry from Rad Ridink Hoot (1926),

Some publishers found even the Grimms'

and James Thurber's wonderful, wry tale

edited renditions of fairy tales too harsh,

The Girl and the Wolf (1939.) [For an in-‐

and soon there were versions of Little Red

depth look at early 20th century versions of

Riding Hood in which the huntsman comes

the tale, see The Trials of Little Red Riding

to the rescue before the wolf pounces on

Hood by Jack Zipes.] By the end of the 20th

the girl. "In England and America," notes

century, the pendulum had fully swung,

folklore scholar Jack Zipes, "sweet,

and fairy tales could be found once again

innocent, and helpless Little Red Riding

on the shelves of adult literature. Echoing

Hood suffered through hybrid adventures.

the fairy tale movement of 17th century

That is, the Perrault and Grimms versions

France, the writers of the new contes des

were often mixed together, and, whether

fees were largely (but not exclusively)

the plot was developed in verse, prose,

women, using the stories to comment on

theatrical scenes, or illustrations, there was

life in the 20th/21st centuries.

Two primary texts of the new movement were Transformations by Anne Sexton (1971) and The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter (1979), both of which contained powerful re-‐workings of Little Red Riding Hood. In Transformations—a volume of seventeen poems based on the themes of Grimms' fairy tales—Sexton used Little Red Riding Hood to explore the subject of deception—the lies we tell and the lies we believe. In The Bloody Chamber, Carter's "The Company of Wolves" was a sensual fever-‐dream of a story that skillfully manipulated the themes, the symbols, the very language of Little Red Riding Hood. In "The Werewolf," in the same collection, Carter re-‐examined the fairy tale from a different angle, taking a more historical, less psychoanalytical approach in this dark rendition.

In the years since Sexton's

in contemporary London,

and Carter's

involving wolves, IRA

groundbreaking volumes,

terrorism, and the

the field of fairy tale

complexities of family

literature has become a

relationships. Little Red

lively one—but to seek out

Riding Hood in the Red

its treasures, readers must

Light District by Manlio

travel to many different

Argueta (1998) is another

parts of the bookstore.

award winner, this one set

Due to the idiosyncrasies

on the streets of El

of the modern publishing

Salvador. It's a brutal,

industry, this type of

haunting political novel

literature is published

with tenderness at its

under a variety of labels:

heart. Darkest Desire: The

mainstream fiction,

Wolf’s Own Tales by

fantasy fiction, historical

Anthony Schmitz (1998), is

fiction, horror fiction,

a quirky little novel in

feminist fiction, and young

which the wolf meets the

adult fiction. A number of

Brothers Grimm and tells

novels and stories make

them his story.

use of the themes of Little

Red Riding Hood, including

Short Stories: "Wolfland"

the following:

by Tanith Lee, first

published in her fine story

Novels: Wolf by Gillian

collection Red as Blood

Cross (1990), winner of the

(1983), is a deliciously

1991 Carnegie Medal, is a

gothic tale set in 19th

rich, engrossing novel set

century Scandinavia. "I

Shall Do Thee Mischief in the Woods" by Kathe Koja, from Snow White, Blood Red (1993), is a dark, sharp story that forces us to re-‐examine the roles of predator and prey. "Little Red" by Wendy Wheeler, from Snow White, Blood Red (1993), is a disturbing contemporary tale about wolves whose skin is on the inside, and the ways that young girls can be preyed on. "The Apprentice" by Miriam Grace Monfredo, from Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (November, 1993), mixes fantasy, mystery, and fairy tales in a poignant exploration of the subject of child abuse. "The Good Mother" by Patricia Galloway, from

Truly Grim Tales (1995), reworks the fairy tale into a post-‐nuclear-‐disaster science fiction story. "Riding the Red" by Nalo Hopkinson, first published in Black Swan, White Raven (1997), is an extraordinary story about sex and female power, influenced—at least in the rhythm of the language—by the author's Caribbean background. "Wolf" by Francesca La Block, from her urban fairy tale collection The Rose and the Beast (2000), is another story using the fairy tale to explore the subject of childhood sexual abuse. "Little Red and the Big Bad" by Will Shetterly, from Swan Sister (2003), is a sly urban version of the story, street-‐wise and sassy. There are also many good rewordings of Little Red Riding Hood over on the poetry shelves. Olga Brooms explores familial relationships between women in her "Little Red Riding Hood," from Beginning with O (1977). Roald Dahl's "Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf," from Revolting Rhymes (1983), is a hilarious poem in which the wolf is no match for a little girl with a gun. Gwen Strauss's disturbing poem "The Waiting Wolf," from Trail of Stones (1990), is one that should not be missed. "Waiting in this old lady's ruffled bed, I am all calculation," says the wolf as he justifies his behavior and awaits his tender prey.

Alice Wirth Gray's "On a Nineteenth Century Color Lithograph of Red Riding Hood by the Artist J.H.," from What the Poor Eat (1993), turns the tale into a police report, examined from multiple points of view. "In a tupperware wood, mix child and hood. Stir slowly. Add wolf," begins "Journeybread Recipe" by Lawrence Schimel, from Black Thorn, White Rose (1994). "....Serve swaddled in a wolfskin throw, cradled in a basket and left on grandmother's doorstep." In the same volume, the narrator of "Silver and Gold" by Ellen Steiber is asked how it was that she could not manage to tell her grandmother from a wolf. Perhaps, her doctor suggests in the poem, she was actually living with wolves all along. The heroine of Carol Ann Duffy's "Little Red-‐Cap" knows precisely why she followed the wolf. "The wolf, I knew, would lead me deep into the woods, away from home, to a dark tangled thorny place lit by the eyes of owls." The poem comes from Duffy's splendid collection The World’s Wife (1999).

In Lawrence Syndal's

Walking Hood (1937), Red

"Grandmother," from

Hot Riding Hood (1945),

Conjunctions #31 (1999),

and Little Rural Riding

the old woman muses on

Hood (1949), as well as

her time in the belly of the

Disney's first animated

wolf: "I lay me down

short, Little Red Riding

between his ribs and let

Hood (1922). Shelley

each sighing lung massage

Duvall's Faerie Tale

the ache from these old

Theatre: Little Red Riding

bones." Sinking happily

Hood (1983) starred

into the dreams of the

Malcolm McDowell as the

wolf, she is not pleased to

Big Bad Wolf and Mary

be rescued. Other Little

Steenburger as the

Red Riding Hood poems

heroine. Angela Carter's

can be found in the

story "The Company of

following two excellent

Wolves" became a

collections: The Poet’s

wonderfully evocative film

Grimm, edited by Jeanne

of the same title, directed

Marie Beaumont and

by Neil Jordan in 1984.

Claudia Carlson, and

Carter wrote the

Disenchantments, edited

screenplay with Jordan,

by Wolfgang Mieder.

and is reputed to have

Dramatic adaptations of

disliked the end. (In the

Little Red Riding Hood include Tex Avery's wickedly salacious cartoons: Little Red

film, a dreaming young girl is awakened when a pack of wolves bursts into her home.

In the story, the heroine tames her wolf lover and sleeps safely in his arms.) Cannon Movie Tales: Little Red Riding Hood (1987), a rendition set sometime during the Middle Ages, tells the story of the daughter of a village lord, her evil uncle, and an enchanted wolf. Freeway (1986) is a rather dreadful film that turns the story into a contemporary serial killer flick. Reese Witherspoon plays the heroine, and Kiefer Sutherland plays the urban wolf. Far more worth seeing is Little Red Riding Hood, a short film directed by David Kaplan (1997)—a surprising and sensual version of the story that's definitely not for children. If you are looking for good versions of the tale adapted for children, I recommend these three picture books: Little Red Riding Hood, illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman (1988); Little Red Cap illustrated by Lizbeth Zwerger (1995); and Little Red Ridinghood: A Classic Collectible Pop-‐up Book, illustrated by Marjorie Priceman (2001).

If you'd like to know more about the history of Little Red Riding Hood, there are quite a few good books to choose from. For an introduction to the tale, including a primer on fairy tale history, I recommend Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Morality, and the Evolution of a Fairy Tale by Catherine Orenstein (2002). It's a lively, entertaining book, written for casual readers rather than folklore scholars. Jack

Jane Yolen. Recommended articles: "Little Red Riding Hood in the Oral Tradition" by Yvonne Verdier, Marvels & Tales: Journal of Fairy-‐tale Studies, Vol. 11, Numbers I-‐2 (1997); "Red Riding Hood: An Interpretation from Anthropology" by Mary Douglas, Folklore, #106 (1995); and (for fun)"Little Red Riding Hood Revisited" by Russell Baker, The New York Times Magazine (January 13, 1980).

Zipes presents numerous versions of the

The characters in familiar fairy tales have a

tale from Charles Perrault's to Angela

way of sinking deep into our psyches.

Carter's, along with an excellent essay on

Charles Dickens claimed Little Red Riding

the subject, in his useful book The Trials

Hood as his first love, and felt that if only he

and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood

could have married her, he would have

(Second Edition, 1993). In Little Red

known perfect bliss. Yet Little Red Riding

Riding Hood: A Casebook (1989), Alan

Hood was changed through the years,

Dundes presents critical writings on the

diminished, punished, literally gobbled up.

tale from a wide range of folklorists,

By knowing and retelling older versions of

including Wolfam Eberhard's essay on

her story, and by re-‐imagining her in fiction

Asian variants, "The Story of Grandaunt

and poetry today, we reclaim the spirit of

Tiger." For a general history of fairy tales,

girls everywhere who can face down the

including Little Red Riding Hood, try From

wolves in their lives, and outwit them.

the Beast to the Blonde by Marina

Warner, Twice Upon a Time by Elizabeth

Wanning Harries, and Touch Magic by

Endnotes *Great Aunt Tiger, a story found in various forms in China, Japan, and Korea, is clearly related to Little Red Riding Hood. Heinz Insu Fenkl will explore the Asian version of the story in a future Folkroots column, so for now we’ll limit ourselves to the Western history of the tale. **Translated by Marina Warner, From the Beast to the Blonde, p. 182.

To all the wolves of the world for lending their good name as a tangible symbol for our darkness. ED YOUNG

The Better To Eat You With

Six Variations on a Theme

Little Red Riding Hood Charles Perrault Once upon a time there lived in a certain village a little country girl, the prettiest creature who was ever seen. Her mother was excessively fond of her; and her grandmother doted on her still more. This good woman had a little red riding hood made for her. It suited the girl so extremely well that everybody called her Little Red Riding Hood. One day her mother, having made some cakes, said to her, "Go, my dear, and see how your grandmother is doing, for I hear she has been very ill. Take her a cake, and this little pot of butter." Little Red Riding Hood set out immediately to go to her grandmother, who lived in another village.

As she was going through the wood, she met with a wolf, who had a very great mind to eat her up, but he dared not, because of some woodcutters working nearby in the forest. He asked her where she was going. The poor child, who did not know that it was

"Who's there?" "Your grandchild, Little Red Riding Hood," replied the wolf, counterfeiting her voice; "who has brought you a cake and a little pot of butter sent you by mother."

dangerous to stay and talk to a wolf, said to

The good grandmother, who was in bed,

him, "I am going to see my grandmother and

because she was somewhat ill, cried out,

carry her a cake and a little pot of butter

"Pull the bobbin, and the latch will go up."

from my mother." The wolf pulled the bobbin, and the door "Does she live far off?" said the wolf "Oh I say," answered Little Red Riding Hood; "it is beyond that mill you see there, at the first house in the village."

opened, and then he immediately fell upon the good woman and ate her up in a moment, for it been more than three days since he had eaten. He then shut the door and got into the grandmother's bed,

"Well," said the wolf, "and I'll go and see her

expecting Little Red Riding Hood, who came

too. I'll go this way and go you that, and we

some time afterwards and knocked at the

shall see who will be there first."

door: tap, tap.

The wolf ran as fast as he could, taking the

"Who's there?"

shortest path, and the little girl took a roundabout way, entertaining herself by gathering nuts, running after butterflies, and gathering bouquets of little flowers. It was not long before the wolf arrived at the old woman's house. He knocked at the door: tap, tap.

Little Red Riding Hood, hearing the big voice of the wolf, was at first afraid; but believing her grandmother had a cold and was hoarse, answered, "It is your grandchild Little Red Riding Hood, who has brought you a cake and a little pot of butter

mother sends you."

"All the better to see with, my child."

The wolf cried out to her, softening his voice

"Grandmother, what big teeth you have

as much as he could, "Pull the bobbin, and

got!"

the latch will go up." Little Red Riding Hood pulled the bobbin, and the door opened. The wolf, seeing her come in, said to her, hiding himself under the bedclothes, "Put the cake and the little pot of butter upon the stool, and come get into bed with me."

"All the better to eat you up with." And, saying these words, this wicked wolf fell upon Little Red Riding Hood, and ate her all up. Moral: Children, especially attractive, well bred young ladies, should never talk to strangers, for if they should do so, they

Little Red Riding Hood took off her clothes

may well provide dinner for a wolf. I say

and got into bed. She was greatly amazed

"wolf," but there are various kinds of

to see how her grandmother looked in her

wolves. There are also those who are

nightclothes, and said to her,

charming, quiet, polite, unassuming,

"Grandmother, what big arms you have!"

complacent, and sweet, who pursue young

"All the better to hug you with, my dear."

women at home and in the streets. And unfortunately, it is these gentle wolves who

"Grandmother, what big legs you have!"

are the most dangerous ones of all.

"All the better to run with, my child."

"Grandmother, what big ears you have!" "All the better to hear with, my child." "Grandmother, what big eyes you have!"

Little Red Cap Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm translated by D. L. Ashliman

Once upon a time there was a sweet little girl. Everyone who saw her liked her, but most of all her grandmother, who did not know what to give the child next. Once she gave her a little cap made of red velvet. Because it suited her so well, and she wanted to wear it all the time, she came to be known as Little Red Cap. One day her mother said to her, "Come Little Red Cap. Here is a piece of cake and a bottle of wine. Take them to your grandmother. She is sick and weak, and they will do her well. Mind your manners and give her my greetings. Behave yourself on the way, and do not leave the path, or you might fall down and break the glass, and then there will be nothing for your sick grandmother."

Little Red Cap promised to obey her mother.

The wolf thought to himself, "Now there

The grandmother lived out in the woods, a

is a tasty bite for me. Just how are you

half hour from the village. When Little Red

going to catch her?" Then he said,

Cap entered the woods a wolf came up to

"Listen, Little Red Cap, haven't you seen

her. She did not know what a wicked animal

the beautiful flowers that are blossoming

he was, and was not afraid of him.

in the woods? Why don't you go and take

"Good day to you, Little Red Cap." "Thank you, wolf."

a look? And I don't believe you can hear how beautifully the birds are singing. You are walking along as though you were on your way to school in the village. It is very

"Where are you going so early, Little Red

beautiful in the woods."

Cap?" Little Red Cap opened her eyes and saw "To grandmother's."

the sunlight breaking through the trees

"And what are you carrying under your

and how the ground was covered with

apron?"

beautiful flowers. She thought, "If I take a bouquet to grandmother, she will be very

"Grandmother is sick and weak, and I am taking her some cake and wine. We baked

pleased. Anyway, it is still early, and I'll be home on time." And she ran off into the

yesterday, and they should give her strength."

woods looking for flowers. Each time she

"Little Red Cap, just where does your

picked one she thought that she could see

grandmother live?"

an even more beautiful one a little way off, and she ran after it, going further and

"Her house is a good quarter hour from here

further into the woods. But the wolf ran

in the woods, under the three large oak trees.

straight to the grandmother's house and

There's a hedge of hazel bushes there. You

knocked on the door.

must know the place," said Little Red Cap. "Who's there?"

"Little Red Cap. I'm bringing you some cake

"Oh, grandmother, what big eyes you

and wine. Open the door for me."

have!"

"Just press the latch," called out the

"All the better to see you with."

grandmother. "I'm too weak to get up." The wolf pressed the latch, and the door opened. He stepped inside, went straight to the grandmother's bed, and ate her up. Then

"Oh, grandmother, what big hands you have!" "All the better to grab you with!"

he took her clothes, put them on, and put her

"Oh, grandmother, what a horribly big

cap on his head. He got into her bed and

mouth you have!"

pulled the curtains shut. "All the better to eat you with!" And with Little Red Cap had run after flowers, and did

that he jumped out of bed, jumped on top

not continue on her way to grandmother's

of poor Little Red Cap, and ate her up. As

until she had gathered all that she could

soon as the wolf had finished this tasty

carry. When she arrived, she found, to her

bite, he climbed back into bed, fell asleep,

surprise, that the door was open. She walked

and began to snore very loudly.

into the parlor, and everything looked so strange that she thought, "Oh, my God, why am I so afraid? I usually like it at grandmother's." Then she went to the bed and pulled back the curtains. Grandmother was lying there with her cap pulled down over her face and looking very strange.

A huntsman was just passing by. He thought it strange that the old woman was snoring so loudly, so he decided to take a look. He stepped inside, and in the bed there lay the wolf that he had been hunting for such a long time. "He has eaten the grandmother, but perhaps she

"Oh, grandmother, what big ears you have!" "All the better to hear you with."

still can be saved. I won't shoot him," thought the huntsman. So he took a pair of scissors and cut open his belly.

He had cut only a few strokes when he saw

They also tell how Little Red Cap was

the red cap shining through. He cut a little

taking some baked things to her

more, and the girl jumped out and cried,

grandmother another time, when another

"Oh, I was so frightened! It was so dark

wolf spoke to her and wanted her to leave

inside the wolf's body!"

the path. But Little Red Cap took care and went straight to grandmother's. She told

And then the grandmother came out alive as

her that she had seen the wolf, and that

well. Then Little Red Cap fetched some large

he had wished her a good day, but had

heavy stones. They filled the wolf's body

stared at her in a wicked manner. "If we

with them, and when he woke up and tried

hadn't been on a public road, he would

to run away, the stones were so heavy that

have eaten me up," she said.

he fell down dead.

"Come," said the grandmother. "Let's lock

The three of them were happy. The

the door, so he can't get in."

huntsman took the wolf's pelt. The grandmother ate the cake and drank the

Soon afterward the wolf knocked on the

wine that Little Red Cap had brought. And

door and called out, "Open up,

Little Red Cap thought to herself, "As long as

grandmother. It's Little Red Cap, and I'm

I live, I will never leave the path and run off

bringing you some baked things."

into the woods by myself if mother tells me

They remained silent, and did not open the

not to."

door. The wicked one walked around the

house several times, and finally jumped onto the roof. He wanted to wait until Little Red Cap went home that evening, then follow her and eat her up in the darkness. But the grandmother saw what

he was up to. There was a large stone trough in front of the house. "Fetch a bucket, Little Red Cap," she said. "Yesterday I cooked some sausage. Carry the water that I boiled them with to the trough." Little Red Cap carried water until the large, large trough was clear full. The smell of sausage arose into the wolf's nose. He sniffed and looked down, stretching his neck so long that he could no longer hold himself, and he began to slide. He slid off the roof, fell into the trough, and drowned. And Little Red Cap returned home happily and safely.

Little Red Hat

Christian Schneller translated by D. L. Ashliman

Once there was an old woman who had a granddaughter named Little Red Hat. One day they were both in the field when the old woman said, "I am going home now. You come along later and bring me some soup." After a while Little Red Hat set out for her grandmother's house, and she met an ogre, who said, "Hello, my dear Little Red Hat. Where are you going?" "I am going to my grandmother's to take her some soup." "Good," he replied, "I'll come along too. Are you going across the stones or the thorns?" "I'm going across the stones," said the girl. "Then I'll go across the thorns," replied the ogre.

They left. But on the way Little Red Hat came

Little Red Hat opened the door, went

to a meadow where beautiful flowers of all

inside, and said, "Grandmother, I am

colors were in bloom, and the girl picked as

hungry."

many as her heart desired. Meanwhile the ogre hurried on his way, and although he had to cross the thorns, he arrived at the house

The ogre replied, "Go to the kitchen cupboard. There is still a little rice there."

before Little Red Hat. He went inside, killed

Little Red Hat went to the cupboard and

the grandmother, ate her up, and climbed into

took the teeth out. "Grandmother, these

her bed. He also tied her intestine onto the

things are very hard!"

door in place of the latchstring and placed her blood, teeth, and jaws in the kitchen cupboard. He had barely climbed into bed when Little

"Eat and keep quiet. They are your grandmother's teeth!" "What did you say?"

Red Hat arrived and knocked at the door.

"Eat and keep quiet!"

"Come in" called the ogre with a dampened

A little while later Little Red Hat said,

voice.

"Grandmother, I'm still hungry."

Little Red Hat tried to open the door, but

"Go back to the cupboard," said the ogre.

when she noticed that she was pulling on

"You will find two pieces of chopped meat

something soft, she called out, "Grandmother,

there."

this thing is so soft!" Little Red Hat went to the cupboard and "Just pull and keep quiet. It is your

took out the jaws. "Grandmother, this is

grandmother's intestine!"

very red!"

"What did you say?"

"Eat and keep quiet. They are your

"Just pull and keep quiet!"

grandmother's jaws!"

"What did you say?"

"Grandmother, you have such long legs!"

"Eat and keep quiet!"

"That comes from walking."

A little while later Little Red Hat said,

"Grandmother, you have such long

"Grandmother, I'm thirsty."

hands!"

"Just look in the cupboard," said the ogre.

"That comes from working."

"There must be a little wine there." Little Red Hat went to the cupboard and took out the blood. "Grandmother, this wine is very red!" "Drink and keep quiet. It is your grandmother's blood! "What did you say?" "Just drink and keep quiet!" A little while later Little Red Hat said, "Grandmother, I'm sleepy." "Take off your clothes and get into bed with

"Grandmother, you have such long ears!" "That comes from listening." "Grandmother, you have such a big mouth!" "That comes from eating children!" said the ogre, and bam, he swallowed Little Red Hat with one gulp.

me!" replied the ogre.

Little Red Hat got into bed and noticed

something hairy. "Grandmother, you are so hairy!"

"That comes with age," said the ogre.

Little Red Hood

A. H. Wratislaw translated by D. L. Ashliman Once upon a time, there was a little darling damsel, whom everybody loved that looked upon her, but her old granny loved her best of all, and didn't know what to give the dear child for love. Once she made her a hood of red samite, and since that became her so well, and she, too, would wear nothing else on her head, people gave her the name of "Red Hood." Once her mother said to Red Hood, "Go; here is a slice of cake and a bottle of wine; carry them to old granny. She is ill and weak, and they will refresh her. But be pretty behaved, and don't peep about in all corners when you come into her room, and don't forget to say 'Good-‐day.'

Walk, too, prettily, and don't go out of the

"A good quarter of an hour's walk further in

road, otherwise you will fall and break the

the forest, under yon three large oaks.

bottle, and then poor granny will have

There stands her house; further beneath

nothing."

are the nut trees, which you will see there,"

Red Hood said, "I will observe everything

said Red Hood.

well that you have told me," and gave her

The wolf thought within himself, "This nice

mother her hand upon it.

young damsel is a rich morsel. She will taste

But granny lived out in a forest, half an hour's walk from the village. When Red

better than the old woman; but you must trick her cleverly, that you may catch both."

Hood went into the forest, she met a wolf.

For a time he went by Red Hood's side then

But she did not know what a wicked beast he

said he, "Red Hood! Just look! There are

was, and was not afraid of him.

such pretty flowers here! Why don't you

"God help you, Red Hood!" said he. "God bless you, wolf!" replied she.

look round at them all? Methinks you don't even hear how delightfully the birds are singing! You are as dull as if you were going to school, and yet it is so cheerful in the

"Whither so early, Red Hood?" "To granny." "What have you there under your mantle?"

forest!" Little Red Hood lifted up her eyes, and when she saw how the sun's rays glistened through the tops of the trees, and every

"Cake and wine. We baked yesterday; old granny must have a good meal for once, and strengthen herself therewith." "Where does your granny live, Red Hood?"

place was full of flowers, she bethought herself, "If I bring with me a sweet smelling nosegay to granny, it will cheer her. It is still so early, that I shall come to her in plenty of time," and therewith she skipped into the

forest and looked for flowers. And when she

she thought, "Ah! My God! How strange I

had plucked one, she fancied that another

feel today, and yet at other times I am so

further off was nicer, and ran there, and went

glad to be with granny!"

always deeper and deeper into the forest. But the wolf went by the straight road to old granny's, and knocked at the door. "Who's there?" "Little Red Hood, who has brought cake and wine. Open!" "Only press the latch," cried granny. "I am so weak that I cannot stand." The wolf pressed the latch, walked in, and

She said, "Good-‐day!" but received no answer. Thereupon she went to the bed and undrew the curtains. There lay granny, with her cap drawn down to her eyes, and looking so queer! "Ah, granny! Why have you such long ears?" "The better to hear you."

went without saying a word straight to

"Ah, granny! Why have you such large

granny's bed and ate her up. Then he took

eyes?"

her clothes, dressed himself in them, put her cap on his head, lay down in her bed and drew the curtains. Meanwhile little Red Hood was running after flowers, and when she had so many that she

"The better to see you." "Ah, granny! Why have you such large hands?" "The better to take hold of you."

could not carry any more, she bethought her of her granny, and started on the way to her. It seemed strange to her that the door was wide open, and when she entered the room everything seemed to her so peculiar, that

"But, granny! Why have you such a terribly large mouth?" "The better to eat you up!"

And therewith the wolf sprang out of bed at

Afterwards out came old granny, still alive,

once on poor little Red Hood, and ate her up.

but scarcely able to breathe. But Red Hood

When the wolf had satisfied his appetite, he

made haste and fetched large stones, with

lay down again in the bed, and began to snore

which they filled the wolf's maw, and when

tremendously.

he woke he wanted to jump up and run

A huntsman came past, and bethought himself, "How can an old woman snore like that? I'll just have a look to see what it is." He went into the room, and looked into the bed; there lay the wolf. "Have I found you now, old rascal?" said he. "I've long been looking for you."

away, but the stones were so heavy that he fell on the ground and beat himself to death. Now, they were all three merry. The huntsman took off the wolf's skin; granny ate the cake and drank the wine which little Red Hood had brought, and became strong and well again; and little Red Hood

He was just going to take aim with his gun,

thought to herself, "As long as I live, I won't

when he bethought himself, "Perhaps the

go out of the road into the forest, when

wolf has only swallowed granny, and she may

mother has forbidden me."

yet be released." Therefore he did not shoot, but took a knife and began to cut open the sleeping wolf's maw. When he had made several cuts, he saw a red hood gleam, and after one or two more cuts out skipped Red Hood, and cried, "Oh, how frightened I have been; it was so dark in the wolf's maw!"

From lower Lusatia

Note by Wratslaw "Little Red Hood," like many folklore tales, is a singular mixture of myth and morality. In Cox's Comparative Mythology, vol. ii., p. 831, note, Little Redcap, or Little Red Riding Hood, is interpreted as "the evening with her scarlet robe of twilight," who is swallowed up by the wolf of darkness, the Fenris of the Edda. It appears to me that this explanation may suit the color of her cap or hood, but is at variance with the other incidents of the story. I am inclined to look upon the tale as a lunar legend, although the moon is only actually red during one portion of the year, at the harvest moon in the autumn. Red Hood is represented as wandering, like Io, who is undoubtedly the moon, through trees, the clouds, and flowers, the stars, before she reaches the place where she is intercepted by the wolf. An eclipse to untutored minds would naturally suggest the notion that some evil beast was endeavoring to devour the moon, who is afterwards rescued by the sun, the archer of the heavens, whose bow and arrow are by a common anachronism represented in the story by a gun. Though the moon is masculine in Slavonic, as in German, yet she is a lady, "my lady Luna," in the Croatian legend no. 53, The Daughter of the King of the Vilas. In the Norse mythology, when Loki is let loose at the end of the world, he is to "hurry in the form of a wolf to swallow the moon " (Cox ii., p. 200). The present masculine Slavonic word for moon, which is also that for month, mesic, or mesec, is a secondary formation, the original word having perished. In Greek and Latin the moon is always feminine.

The Grandmother Achille Millien translated by D. L. Ashliman There was a woman who had made some bread. She said to her daughter, "Go and carry a hot loaf and a bottle of milk to your grandmother." So the little girl set forth. Where two paths crossed she met the bzou [werewolf], who said to her, "Where are you going?" "I am carrying a hot loaf and a bottle of milk to my grandmother." "Which path are you taking? said the bzou. "The one of needles or the one of pins?" "The one of needles," said the little girl. "Good! I am taking the one of pins."

The little girl entertained herself by gathering

And for all her clothes—her bodice, her

needles.

dress, her petticoat, and her shoes and

The bzou arrived at the grandmother's house and killed her. He put some of her flesh in the pantry and a bottle of her blood on the shelf. The little girl arrived and knocked at the door. "Push on the door," said the bzou. "It

stockings—she asked where she should put them, and the wolf replied, "Throw them into the fire, my child. You won't need them anymore." When she had gone to bed the little girl said, "Oh, grandmother, how hairy you are!"

is blocked with a pail of water."

"The better to keep myself warm, my child."

"Good day, grandmother. I have brought

"Oh, grandmother, what long nails you

you a hot loaf and a bottle of milk."

have!"

"Put it in the pantry, my child. Take some of

"The better to scratch myself with, my

the meat that is there, and the bottle of wine

child!"

that is on the shelf." While she was eating, a little cat that was there said, "For shame! The slut is eating her grandmother's flesh and drinking her grandmother's blood." "Get undressed, my child," said the bzou,

"Oh, grandmother, what big shoulders you have!" "The better to carry firewood with, my child!" "Oh, grandmother, what big ears you have!"

and come to bed with me."

"The better to hear with, my child!"

"Where should I put my apron?"

"Oh, grandmother, what a big nose you

"Throw it into the fire. You won't need it anymore."

have!"

"The better to take my tobacco with, my child!" "Oh, grandmother, what a big mouth you have!" "The better to eat you with, my child!" "Oh, grandmother, I have to do it outside!" "Do it in the bed, my child!" "Oh no, grandmother, I really have to do it outside." "All right, but don't take too long." The bzou tied a woolen thread to her foot and let her go. As soon as the little girl was outside she tied the end of the thread to a plum tree in the yard. The bzou grew impatient and said, "Are you doing a load? Are you doing a load?" Not hearing anyone reply, he jumped out of bed and hurried after the little girl, who had escaped. He followed her, but he arrived at her home just as she went inside. From France

The True History of Little GoldenHood Charles Marelles translated by D. L. Ashliman You know the tale of poor Little Red Riding-‐Hood, that the wolf deceived and devoured, with her cake, her little butter can, and her grandmother. Well, the true story happened quite differently, as we know now. And first of all the little girl was called and is still called Little Golden-‐ Hood; secondly, it was not she, nor the good grand-‐dame, but the wicked wolf who was, in the end, caught and devoured. Only listen. The story begins something like the tale. There was once a little peasant girl, pretty and nice as a star in its season. Her real name was Blanchette, but she was more often called Little Golden-‐Hood, on account of a wonderful little cloak with a hood, gold-‐ and fire-‐ colored, which she always had on.

This little hood was given her by her

under the trees, suddenly, "Who goes

grandmother, who was so old that she did

there?"

not know her age; it ought to bring her good luck, for it was made of a ray of sunshine,

"Friend wolf."

she said. And as the good old woman was

He had seen the child start alone, and the

considered something of a witch, everyone

villain was waiting to devour her; when at

thought the little hood rather bewitched

the same moment he perceived some

too.

woodcutters who might observe him, and he

And so it was, as you will see. One day the mother said to the child, "Let us see, my Little Golden-‐Hood, if you know now how to find your way by yourself. You shall take this good piece of cake to your

changed his mind. Instead of falling upon Blanchette he came frisking up to her like a good dog. "'Tis you! my nice Little Golden-‐Hood," said he.

grandmother for a Sunday treat tomorrow.

So the little girl stops to talk with the wolf,

You will ask her how she is, and come back

who, for all that, she did not know in the

at once, without stopping to chatter on the

least.

way with people you don't know. Do you quite understand?"

"You know me, then!" said she. "What is your name?"

"I quite understand," replied Blanchette gaily. And off she went with the cake, quite proud of her errand.

"My name is friend wolf. And where are you going thus, my pretty one, with your little basket on your arm?"

But the grandmother lived in another village, and there was a big wood to cross before getting there. At a turn of the road

"I am going to my grandmother, to take her a good piece of cake for her Sunday treat tomorrow."

"And where does she live, your grandmother?" "She lives at the other side of the wood, in the first house in the village, near the windmill, you know."

the pillow. "Good!" said the wolf to himself, "I know what I'll do." He shuts the door, pulls on the grandmother's nightcap down to his eyes

"Ah! yes! I know now," said the wolf. "Well,

then he lies down all his length in the bed

that's just where I'm going; I shall get there

and draws the curtains.

before you, no doubt, with your little bits of legs, and I'll tell her you're coming to see her; then she'll wait for you."

In the meantime the good Blanchette went quietly on her way, as little girls do, amusing herself here and there by picking

Thereupon the wolf cuts across the wood,

Easter daisies, watching the little birds

and in five minutes arrives at the

making their nests, and running after the

grandmother's house. He knocks at the door:

butterflies which fluttered in the sunshine.

toc, toc. No answer. He knocks louder.

At last she arrives at the door. Knock, knock. "Who is there?" says the wolf, softening his

Nobody.

rough voice as best he can.

Then he stands up on end, puts his two

"It's me, Granny, your Little Golden-‐Hood.

forepaws on the latch and the door opens.

I'm bringing you a big piece of cake for your

Not a soul in the house. The old woman had

Sunday treat tomorrow."

risen early to sell herbs in the town, and she had gone off in such haste that she had left her bed unmade, with her great nightcap on

"Press your finger on the latch, then push and the door opens."

"Why, you've got a cold, Granny," said she, coming in. "Ahem! a little, a little . . ." replies the wolf, pretending to cough. "Shut the door well, my little lamb. Put your basket on the table, and

you have, Grandmother!" "That's for crunching little children with!" And the wolf opened his jaws wide to swallow Blanchette.

then take off your frock and come and lie

But she put down her head crying,

down by me. You shall rest a little."

"Mamma! Mamma!" and the wolf only

The good child undresses, but observe this!

caught her little hood.

She kept her little hood upon her head.

Thereupon, oh dear! oh dear! he draws

When she saw what a figure her Granny cut in

back, crying and shaking his jaw as if he had

bed, the poor little thing was much surprised.

swallowed red-‐hot coals. It was the little

"Oh!" cries she, "how like you are to friend wolf, Grandmother!" "That's on account of my nightcap, child," replies the wolf.

fire-‐colored hood that had burnt his tongue right down his throat. The little hood, you see, was one of those magic caps that they used to have in former times, in the stories, for making oneself

"Oh! what hairy arms you've got,

invisible or invulnerable. So there was the

Grandmother!"

wolf with his throat burnt, jumping off the

"All the better to hug you, my child." "Oh! what a big tongue you've got, Grandmother!" "All the better for answering, child."

bed and trying to find the door, howling and howling as if all the dogs in the country were at his heels. Just at this moment the grandmother arrives, returning from the town with her long sack empty on her shoulder.

"Oh! what a mouthful of great white teeth

"Ah, brigand!" she cries, "Wait a bit!" Quickly

And then, who was it who scolded her when

she opens her sack wide across the door, and

she knew all that had happened? It was the

the maddened wolf springs in head

mother.

downwards.

But Blanchette promised over and over

It is he now that is caught, swallowed like a

again that she would never more stop to

letter in the post. For the brave old dame

listen to a wolf, so that at last the mother

shuts her sack, so; and she runs and empties

forgave her. And Blanchette, the Little

it in the well, where the vagabond, still

Golden-‐Hood, kept her word. And in fine

howling, tumbles in and is drowned.

weather she may still be seen in the fields

"Ah, scoundrel! you thought you would crunch my little grandchild! Well, tomorrow we will make her a muff of your skin, and you yourself shall be crunched, for we will give your carcass to the dogs." Thereupon the grandmother hastened to dress poor Blanchette, who was still trembling with fear in the bed. "Well," she said to her, "without my little hood where would you be now, darling?" And, to restore heart and legs to the child, she made her eat a good piece of her cake, and drink a good draught of wine, after which she took her by the hand and led her back to the house.

with her pretty little hood, the color of the sun. But to see her you must rise early.

We read in Plato’s writing that old women told their children symbolic stories—mythoi. In later antiquity Apuleius, a philosopher and writer of the second century, built into his famous novel The Golden Ass a fairy tale called “Amor and Psyche,” a type of “Beauty and the Beast” story. This fairy tale runs on the same pattern as those one can nowadays still collect in Norway, Sweden, Russia, and many other countries. It has therefore been concluded that at least this type of fairy tale (that of a woman redeeming an animal lover) has existed for two thousand years, practically unaltered. MARIE-‐LOUISE VON FRANZ

Every man wants to experience certain perilous situations, to confront exceptional ordeals, to make his way into the other world—and he experiences all this, on the level of his imaginative life, by hearing or reading fairy tales.

MIRCEA ELIADE

Fairy Tales for Writers: The Princess and the Pea Lawrence Schimel The writing life is full of tests of authenticity, like variations on a theme, a repeated refrain of having to prove oneself time and again: Sleepless nights as an undergraduate, searching for that kernel of truth among the mountains of paper, that essential key to prove the thesis of her essay. Beginning to submit her work and, as she opens each SASE, feeling each form rejection like a physical blow strong enough to leave her black and blue. Those red marks on the pages of her manuscript that leave her tossing and turning all night: would she be able to do the rewrite the editor wanted? How confusing it often seems, as the emotional pendulum swings between the artist's sensitivity and receptiveness to the world and the thick-‐skinned toughness of the shrewd businesswoman. But for the writer able to endure the recurring onslaught of apprehension and self-‐doubts, there come those mornings of confirmation: the call from an editor or agent, a contract, a royalty check, a byline, a fan letter.

Fairy Tales for Writers: Sleeping Beauty Lawrence Schimel There are many who yearn to be frozen while their youth is at its peak, to stretch out that ephemeral time into a hundred years. There are others who seem not to discover themselves until late in life, following sundry other paths until they stumble upon a true vocation, such as writing. We call them sleeping beauties, these authors who blossom in a later season, their measured, mature prose a welcome antidote to the youthful brouhaha that's all the rage in the marketplace these days. But far too many are the true sleeping beauties, who at a tender age find a harsh critic who belittles their talent and their fantasies with a verbal barb sharper than the nib of any fountain pen that silences the stories, poems, daydreams they might have written. Be it from parent or teacher, sibling or spouse, just one tiny prick of criticism is all it takes sometimes to put a burgeoning writer to sleep for a hundred years, for a lifetime for so long that no princes are left to hack through the brambles, or if one is, he can't imagine that he should bother.

Fairy Tales for Writers: Little Mermaid Lawrence Schimel

She gave up her voice for him, learning to mimic the minimalist style he advocated in his workshops. They had met at a conference. He was one of the guest lecturers, and all during his talk about passion and craft, he kept his eyes on her. In the one-‐on-‐one discussion of her work, he complimented her form and said she showed tremendous promise. The things he could show her... His deep-‐timbred voice was full of assurances and innuendo, and she succumbed to both. She slaved to scrape together enough money to join the MFA where he taught, working double shifts as a waitress that sent sharp pains shooting up her legs from being on her feet all day and night. She had no time to write. But she bore it all silently, buoyed by the memory of their time together at the conference, and the promise the future held. At the cocktail party, the night before the first day of classes, where the students were to meet and mingle with the faculty and each other, he introduced her to his wife, who had also once aspired to write, but now was content to remain in his shadow, to be seen on his arm when he won awards and to look the other way when he followed his wandering eye.

You know how when you were a little kid and you believed in fairy tales, that fantasy of what your life would be, white dress, prince charming who would carry you away to a castle on a hill. You would lie in bed at night and close your eyes and you had complete and utter faith. Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, Prince Charming, they were so close you could taste them, but eventually you grow up, one day you open your eyes and the fairy tale disappears. Most people turn to the things and people they can trust. But the thing is it’s hard to let go of that fairy tale entirely ‘cause almost everyone has that smallest bit of hope, of faith, that one day they will open their eyes and it will come true.

MIMI SCHMIR Grey's Anatomy, Meredith Grey

Notes From the Editor Mary Davis As I write these notes, I am seeing the extravagant beauty of a bouquet of roses I picked in my garden yesterday. Red, pale pink, deep pink, peach colors with their variations of sweet smells, are all nestled in a vase which belonged to my grandmother. Their beauty is like the beauty of this issue of our Mythic Imagination Magazine, so lovingly put together by our

Guest Editor, Dahna Koth. Dahna even transcribed one of our Mythic Journeys™ sessions, in itself a big job. So first on my agenda is my huge gratitude to Dahna for a job well done. Thank you, Dahna! Next, there seems to be a convergence of interesting events in Atlanta, where I live and where MII is physically located. One of these events, “The Sacred Round, Mandalas

by the Patients of Carl Jung,” closed on May 6, and I encouraged anyone near Atlanta to see it. Located at the Oglethorpe University Museum of Art and co-‐ sponsored by the Jung Society of Atlanta (jungatlanta.com), the exhibit featured the drawings and mandalas of five women who were patients of Dr. Jung.

by the curator of the exhibition, Vicente de Moura, and de Moura’s comments are included in an exhibit catalogue, which is for sale by the Oglethorpe Museum of Art or the Jung Society of Atlanta.

audience followed the actors around twelve acres, as they explored “…tearing away labels such as victim and prey…” and “…exploring the choices individuals make, and the resulting consequences that transcend generations.”

I would also like to share with you information about two more events. The first was a world premiere production of Our area’s Jungian analysts a different “take” on Red provided commentary and Riding Hood titled Rua/Wűlf they and others presented by Saïah (saiah.org). Two lectures related to the exhibit. dozen Atlanta artists designed different sets, and the These lectures included three

Our Jung Society’s Red Book Discussion group has been exploring Jung’s Liber Novus/The Red Book as well as exploring some fairy tales in depth. This Rua experience will be part of our next discussion.

This was the first and only exhibit of these drawings from the Archives of the C. G. Jung Institute in Zürich, and it included Christiana Morgan’s journal and drawings, often referred to as a feminine version of The Red Book. The exhibit was a profound visit with the psyches of these five women as manifested in their art.

And finally, our Jung Society’s recent guest lecturer was a Jungian Analyst who is also a senior climate scientist, Jeffrey Kiehl, Ph.D., from Boulder, Colorado. Not only is he a practicing analyst, he has worked as a scientist on the issue of global warming for more than thirty years. He discussed “the psychological processes that have led to our split from the natural world and the current global environmental consequences of this split…” with a focus on healing this split in his lecture, “Sustaining Earth, Sustaining Soul,” as we connected with the celebration of Earth Day, 2012. In my view, every day must now be Earth Day.

these sorts of events, which while on the surface may sound disparate, I find all closely connected to one another as well as to our “mythic imagination.”

So. In the future, I’ll be reporting to you on

Now, back to enjoying these roses!

And then, this summer, June 15 -‐17, we have (co-‐sponsored by the Mythic Imagination Institute) Andrew Greenberg’s “Faerie Escape: Atlanta” with many of our friends returning from our Mythic Journeys™ conferences! Don’t miss this one! Again, here’s my giant thank you to our Guest Editor, Dahna Koth, and to our contributors, especially Terri Windling, for sharing themselves with us.

After working for many years in this field, I have come to the conclusion that all fairy tales endeavor to describe one and the same psychic fact, but a fact so complex and far-‐ reaching and so difficult for us to realize in all its different aspects that hundreds of tales and thousands of repetitions with a musician’s variations are needed until this unknown fact is delivered into consciousness; and even then the theme is not exhausted. This unknown fact is what Jung calls the Self, which is the psychic totality of an individual and also, paradoxically, the regulating center of the collective unconscious.

MARIE-‐LOUISE VON FRANZ

Cinderella: Ashes, Blood, and the Slipper of Glass

Terri Windling Once upon a time there was a rich merchant who had a lovely wife and daughter. But the wife died, and in time, the merchant took a second wife. Now this woman was also fair of face, but cruel and hard inside her heart; and she had two wicked daughters whom she favored above all things. She dressed these two in silk and lace and fed them on white cake and cream. Her stepdaughter she clothed in rags and fed with scrapings from the bottom of the pot. The child became their scullery girl, and slept in the ashes of the hearth for warmth. She soon grew thin and filthy, and they called her Cinderella... So begins one of the most famous stories of all time, "Cinderella" (or "Arne-Thompson tale type 510A," as the folklorists note it), a tale which is found in diverse cultures all around the globe. In English-speaking lands, there are few indeed who would not recognize this classic tale. We've all grown up with the wicked stepmother, the cheerless hearth and the slipper of glass; these images have become an indelible part of childhood for us all.

Yet the Cinderella we know today is subtly

intelligent, very clever" and "good at making

altered from the "Ash Girl" tales handed

pottery on the wheel." Her mother dies, and

down for at least a thousand years. Our

then her father as well, leaving her with the

modern "Cinderella" is a simple (and simple-

father's co-wife and her daughter, both of

minded) rags-to-riches story: the tale of a

whom mistreat Yeh-hsien. Her only friend is

timid, passive girl whose lovely face wins her

a magical golden fish, who appears to her in

the "happy ending" of a wealthy marriage.

the pond. The stepmother discovers this

How did the feisty Ash Girl of ages past turn

source of comfort and promptly kills the

into the feckless creature of the Disney film

fish. Yeh-hsien recovers the bones from the

and countless modern picture books? To

dung heap, and hides them in her room.

examine this, we must go back to the oldest written versions of the story.

The bones are magic, and the fish continues to help her even after death, providing the

The earliest text we know was recorded in

food and drink and warmth that Yeh-hsien's

China in the 9th century, although the

family denies her. When the girl is left

scribe, Tuan Ch'eng Shih, implies that the

behind on festival day, the bones provide

story is old even at this time. Yeh-hsien, the

her with clothes: a cloak of kingfisher

Chinese Cinderella, is described as "very

feathers and tiny golden shoes.

Running home again, the girl loses a shoe.

who subsequently mistreats the child.

It is picked up and sold to a warlord, who

Zezolla complains to her beloved

begins a massive search to find the

governess, who gives the girl the

woman the tiny shoe will fit. (This,

following advice: "When your father

remember, is a culture in which tiny feet

leaves the house, tell your step-mother

were then so highly prized that the brutal

you would like one of the ragged old

art of foot binding was practiced on

dresses she keeps in the big chest. She'll

highborn women.) Yeh-hsien reveals

open the chest and say, 'Hold the lid.'

herself and becomes chief wife in the

While she is rummaging around inside,

warlord's household. The stepmother and

you must let the lid fall suddenly so that

stepsister are subsequently stoned to

it breaks her neck. When she is dead,

deathâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;but their grave, "The Tomb of the

beg your father to take me for his wife,

Distressed Women," becomes a local

and then we shall both be happy."

shrine.

Zezolla carries out these rather startling instructions, and her father marries the

It is not until many centuries later that

governess. At this point, the conniving

the tale makes its written appearance in

woman reveals she already has six

Europe. Giambattista Basile's Italian Cat

daughters of her own, and then proves to

Cinderella, published in Naples in 1634, is

be even more abusive than Zezolla's first

one of the earliest extant western

stepmother. The girl is reduced to

versions of the story. Basile's "La Gatta

sleeping in the ashes of the hearth along

Cenerentola" tells the tale of a rich

with the kitchen cat, and finally, losing

widower and his lovely daughter, Zezolla.

even her name, becomes the Cat

The widower marries a wicked woman

Cinderella.

Our heroine is aided by the "fairies of Sardinia," whose favor she gains through her own quick wits. The fairies give her a magic date tree, from which she requests magnificent clothes in order to attend the local feast-day, where she dazzles a neighboring king. On the third feast-day she loses her shoe, and the story continues in a familiar vein â&#x20AC;&#x201D; but this Cinderella clearly revels in her cleverness and trickery. It is not a gentle or particularly moral tale, and was never meant for children's ears. Basile recounts "La Gatta Cenerentola" in a prose both earthy and florid, rich with double

Cap o' Rushes, as well as "Ash Boy" variants),

entendres and filled with the ribald puns so

abstracted and tabulated, with a discussion

loved by the readers of his day.

of medieval analogues. In 1951, Swedish folklorist Anna Birgitta Rooth published her

Although the Cat Cinderella is the most

Cinderella Cycle; she drew upon over seven

complete of the old European Ash Girl

hundred versions of the story. The German

stories, Straparola and others published

version, "Aschenputtel," was recorded by the

earlier tales which partially resembled

Brothers Grimm in 1812. It begins with the

"Cinderella" as we know it. None of the

usual death of the mother and the entry of a

surviving variants matches the age of the

wicked new wife and her two daughters into

Chinese story above, leading some scholars

the household. The stepchild is sent to live

to speculate that the original tale (whatever

in the kitchen, where she is forced to cook

that might be) must have come from the

and scrub and is subjected to further abuse.

Orient. Wherever the tale began, it

The father goes off to a fair and asks each

certainly succeeded in spreading itself

daughter what present she would like. The

around the world, adapting from culture to

stepsisters choose clothes and jewels; Ash

culture, from teller to teller, yet keeping its

Girl asks for the first twig that brushes

essence intact. In 1883, English folklorist

against his hat. She plants this twig on her

Marian Roalfe Cox published a compilation of

mother's grave and it grows, from the bones,

three hundred and forty-five variants of

into a magical tree. The tree can give her

Cinderella (and the related tales Catskin and

whatever she wishes, but Ash Girl waits,

and bides her time. There are no talking mice, no pumpkin coaches, no twinkly little fairy godmothers—just a stoic, clever girl in a cruel household, aided by the potent magic of the dead. When the King's ball is announced, Ash Girl boldly asks for permission to go. Her stepmother empties a dish of lentils into the hearth, saying, "First you must pick the lentils out of the ashes within two hours. If you succeed, perhaps you'll go to the ball. If you fail, I'll beat you black and blue." The girl calls down the birds from the sky to come to her aid and finish the work. They do so, and the task is fulfilled, but the stepmother will not relent; she tosses two bowls of lentils into the hearth, saying, "Pick them out again within one hour." The birds come again at the Ash Girl's bidding; she fulfills her task, but to no avail. "You're much too filthy and ragged," the stepmother says as she leaves for the ball. Undaunted, Ash Girl requests a golden dress from the tree on her mother's grave. She goes to the ball and dances with the prince, and yet conceals her identity from him (although there has been no magical injunction compelling her to do so). Twice she slips away from him despite his attempts to follow her home. Her father, oddly, makes an appearance here—he suspects her tricks and tries to catch her out, acting enraged, even violent now. The third night the prince resorts to a trick of his own—he covers the stairs with pitch, and one of her silver slippers sticks fast. The Prince proclaims he will marry whichever girl the tiny slipper fits. The first stepsister cannot fit the shoe, until her mother hacks off her big toe. The prince takes her away as his bride, but as they pass the grave the birds cry out: "Look! Look! There's blood in the shoe! The shoe's too small! The right bride is still at home!"

When a second wife entered the house, she often found herself and her children in competition â&#x20AC;&#x201D; often for scarce resources â&#x20AC;&#x201D; with the surviving offspring of the earlier marriage.

Many versions of the tale throughout the world contain this ghostly element: the bird or cow or cat or hound containing the dead mother's spirit, contrasting the strength of the first mother's love with the second mother's wickedness. Fairy tales, Marina Warner has pointed out in her brilliant study From the Beast to the Blonde, often reflect the particular conditions of the society in which they are told. "The absent mother," she writes, "can be read as literally that: a feature of the family before our modern era, when Now the second stepsister tries on the

death in childbirth was the most common

shoe, and it fits—once her mother hacks

cause of female mortality, and surviving

off her heel. Once again the birds warn

orphans would find themselves brought up

the prince he has the wrong girl, and he

by their mother's successor... When a

returns and finds Ash Girl at last. The pair

second wife entered the house, she often

are married—while on the wedding day

found herself and her children in

birds peck out the stepsisters' eyes.

competition—often for scarce resources— with the surviving offspring of the earlier

In "Rushen Coatie," a Scottish version of

marriage.

the tale collected one hundred years ago, the dead mother comes back in the form

"This antipathy seethes in the plots of

of a cow to feed her starving child—until

many 'Cinderellas', sometimes offering an

the suspicious stepsisters discover this and

overt critique of social custom. Rossini's

have it killed. The animal's bones retain

Cinderella opera, La Cenerentola, shows

the potent magic of the dead woman,

worldly-wise indignation at his heroine's

providing the girl with clothes so that she

plight; in her case, at the hands of her

can go to church and meet her prince (i.e.

stepfather, Don Magnifico, who plots to

her ticket, in older societies, to life

make himself rich by marrying off his two

beyond the family walls).

other daughters, ignoring Cinderella.

Tremendous buffoon he might be, but he

This is a women's story, concerned with

treacherously pronounces Cinderella dead

relationships between women: between

when he thinks it will help advance his

Cinderella and her mother on the one

own interests. And when she protests, he

hand, the second wife and her daughters

threatens her with violence. Dowries are

on the other. Yet, as Carter is quick to

at issue here, as they were in Italy in

point out, the father is "the unmoved

Rossini's time; sisters compete for the

mover, the unseen organizing principle.

larger share and Don Magnifico does not

Without the absent father there would

want to cut his wherewithal three ways.

have been no story because there would

As it was gradually amassed, such corredo

have been no conflict." In every version of

(treasure) was stored in cassoni, which

the story I have read, the father casts a

were often decorated with pictures of just

remarkably blind eye over the

such stories as 'Cinderella'."

circumstances of his household. He quickly disappears from the story both emotionally

The Rossini opera is unusual in casting a

and literally. It is not to him that the Ash

man in the stepparent role. Yet the

Girl turnsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;help must come from another

primary male in other talesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Cinderella's

source: from the mother's ghost, or the

natural fatherâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;is an ambiguous figure at

bones of a fish; from a giant stork in a

best. Angela Carter (in her story

Javanese version; from a talking

"Ashputtle" or "The Mother's Ghost") writes, "The father is a mystery to me. Is he so besotted with his new wife that he cannot see how his daughter is soiled with kitchen refuse and filthy from her ashy bed and always hard at work? If he sensed there was a drama in hand, he was content to leave the entire production to the women for, absent as he might be, always remember that it is his house where Ashputtle sleeps on the cinders, and he is the invisible link that binds both sets of mothers and daughters in their violent equation."

doll in a Russian variant; from the king of the frogs in an African "Cinderella" collected in Hausaland; from spiders, eagle-women, and spirits in Native American renditions. A remarkable version of the story was recorded twenty years ago in eastern Iran in which, like the Scottish version, the mother returns in the form of a cow. The story is part of a Muslim women's rite in honor of Bibi Fatimeh (the daughter of Mohammed and wife of Ali, also known as the Lady of Wishes) in which a ritual meal is prepared in supplication for the fulfillment of a wish. The ingredients for the meal must be begged from certain households in a certain way: the begging is done by dark of night by pairs of completely silent women whose identity remains concealed. The food is taken to the mosque. No men may be present there. In the morning the women return and a meal is prepared of foods no men may touch: komaj, a bread of "blessed" flour, and ash, a kind of soup. A widow and a motherless virgin sit side by side in the center of the mosque, surrounded by ten to fifty other women. The widow has a bowl of ash. The young girl has an empty bowl. As the widow spoons soup into the child's bowl, she recites "Mah Pishani," a long and lively variant of "Cinderella." Each time the girl receives a spoonful of ash, she must answer "Yes" to affirm the tale, which is briefly thus:

A rich merchant sends his daughter to religious school. A female teacher at the school convinces the girl to kill her mother and put her in a vinegar jar, and subsequently the teacher marries the widowed father. The new wife bears a child, after which the first daughter is starved and mistreated. The original wife comes back in the form of a cow and gives aid to the girl, who proves herself to be quick-witted and good-hearted after all. The second daughter is vain and lazy and this eventually causes her downfall. The first is rewarded with a moon on her brow, a star on her chin, and a good marriage. The second is cursed with a snake on her chin and a donkey penis on her forehead. At the end of the story, the meal is consumed and the ceremony completed.

Margaret A. Mils, a folklorist who has worked extensively in Iran and Afghanistan, comments on the tale at the core of this fascinating ritual: "In this form of [Cinderella], as in most, the dominant relationships are between women: loyalty and disloyalty between mother and daughter; rivalry between the stepmother and her offspring and the first born daughter. That the girl first betrays her own mother is an important element in the equation of solidarity and redemption, as is the choice of this story as part of a solidarity ritual for women, in which women join together to call on a spiritual "mother," deceased but present, in support of the desires of one or more of their members... The marking of the wicked daughter with a donkey's penis and a snake, in contrastive relation to the good daughter's marking with signs of radiant female beauty, the moon and star, constitutes a strong rejection of male symbols...a direct result of her and her mother's attempted exploitation of other females, human and supernatural, and as an indirect result of her mother's antisocial competition for a male. In this tale about women told exclusively for women, acquisition of male characteristics by a female is a grotesque punishment for disloyalty to women." (For more on this story, see Mils's intriguing essay in Cinderella: A Casebook, edited by Alan Dundes.) When we turn to the French "Cendrillon," written by Charles Perrault and published in Paris in 1697, we find a version of the story that more closely resembles Cinderella as we know her today. Perrault eliminated the mother's ghost, the lentils in the hearth, the blood-drenched shoe, and added a cheery fairy godmother complete with magic wand. The pumpkin coach and the rat coachmen are original to the Perrault version. (The glass slippers have also been erroneously attributed to Perrault, but they turn up in older, non-French sources as wellâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;which ought to end the debate about whether glass and not fur was simply a mistranslation from the old French.) Perrault's "Cendrillon" is elegant and courtly, written for circulation in aristocratic literary salons. The rough edges of the older tales are smoothed and polished in Perrault's

nimble hands. The Ash Girl is more clearly

Children's Literature in Education (#8,

virtuous, and less clearly self-motivated.

1977), Jane Yolen writes that the Golden

The sisters are no longer actively sadistic,

Press picture book based on the Walt Disney

merely vain, self-centered, and spiteful. In

film "set the new pattern for America's

the end, our heroine kindly forgives them,

Cinderella. The book's text is coy and

and arranges good marriages for them, too.

condescending. (Sample: 'And her best friends of all were—guess who—the mice!')

When fairy tales were taken up by the

The illustrations are poor cartoons. And

publishers of Victorian children's books, it is

Cinderella herself is a disaster. She cowers

not surprising that Perrault's version was the

as her stepsisters rip her homemade ball

one they most often turned to. Not only was

gown to shreds. (Not even homemade by

it a kinder, gentler Cinderella, but it was

Cinderella, but by the mice and birds.) She

also funny without being bawdy, filled with

answers her stepmother with whines and

charming incidents, plump white mice, and

pleadings. She is a sorry excuse for a

long-whiskered rats. It was this version Walt

heroine, pitiable and useless. She cannot

Disney drew upon for his animated film in

perform even a simple action to save

1949. This extraordinarily successful film

herself, though she is warned by her friends,

would come to influence the way whole

the mice. She does not hear them because

generations now perceive the tale—as well

she is 'off in a world of dreams.' Cinderella

as influencing subsequent printed editions of

begs, she whimpers, and at last has to be

Cinderella.

rescued by—guess who—the mice!

In an incisive essay first published in

Such editions are responsible for the helpless

films, not of traditional folktales. What has

girl we call by the name Cinderella today; a

the prostitute heroine of Pretty Woman done

Cinderella decried by feminists unaware of

to win her prince or transform her life?

the Ash Girl's bold ancestry; a Cinderella

Precisely nothingâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;except to be beautiful,

who, Dr. Yolen points out, "is not recognized

and in the right place at the right time.

by her prince until she is magically back in her ball gown, beribboned, and bejeweled."

That's no fairy tale. The old tales, as Gertrud Mueller Nelson has succinctly

As a result, a film like Pretty Woman is

expressed it in her Jungian study, Here All

promoted with apparent sincerity as a

Dwell Free, are about "anguish and

modern day Cinderella tale. What makes

darkness." They plunge heroines and heroes

Pretty Woman a fairy tale? To an audience

into the dark wood, into danger and despair

weaned on Disney films, it is that a poor but

and enchantment and deception, and only

beautiful girl grows up to marry a wealthy

then, offer them the tools to save

"prince." Yet the knight-on-the-white-

themselvesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;tools that must be used wisely

charger who swoops into our lives and

and well. (Used foolishly, or ruthlessly, they

relieves us of the need to determine our own

turn back on the wielder.)

fate is a creature of modern Hollywood

The power in fairy tales lies in such self-determined acts of transformation. Happy endings, where they exist, are hard won, and at a price. Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre is a better example of a fairy tale than Hollywood's Pretty Woman. Combining elements of "Cinderella," "Beauty and the Beast," and other tales. Jane is a classic folklore heroine: good-hearted yes, but also clever, resourceful, and determined. In modern parlance, the term "fairy tale" is sometimes used to refer to a lie or fanciful untruth. This describes the modern Cinderellas: the Disney film, and Pretty Woman, and umpteen hundred mass market retellings; 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.

Once upon a time, they say, there was a girl.., there was a boy.., there was a person who was in trouble. And this is what she did... and what he did..., and how they learned to survive it. This is what they did..., and why one failed..., and why another triumphed in the end. And I know that it's true, because I danced at their wedding and drank their very best wine.

ÂŠ 1997, updated 2007 Terri Windling used with permission

Further Reading

Novels •

The Glass Slipper by Eleanor Farjean

•

Just Ella by Margaret Peterson Haddix

•

Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine

•

Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire

•

Bound by Donna Jo Napoli

•

Bella at Midnight by Diane Stanley

•

The Coachman Rat by David Henry Wilson

Short Stories •

"Glass" by Francesca Lia Block (from The Rose and the Beast)

•

"Ashputtle" by Angela Carter (from Burning Your Boats)

•

"The Tale of the Shoe" by Emma Donoghue (from Kissing the Witch)

•

"Recalling Cinderella" by Karen Joy Fowler (from L. Ron Hubbard Presents the Writers of the Future, 2000)

•

"The Prince" by Patricia Galloway (from Truly Grim Tales)

•

"Rosie's Dance" by Emma Hardesty (from Black Heart, Ivory Bones)

•

"The Ugly Sister" by Joanne Harris (from Jigs and Reels)

•

"Switched" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman (from Rotten Relations)

•

"The Reason for Not Going to the Ball" by Tanith Lee (from The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror, Vol. 10)

•

"When the Clock Strikes" by Tanith Lee (from Red as Blood)

•

"Ever After" by Susan Palwick (from The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror, Vol. 1)

•

"Ashputtle" by Peter Straub (from Black Thorn, White Rose)

•

"Cinder Elephant" by Jane Yolen (from A Wolf at the Door)

Poetry •

Disenchantments: An Anthology of Modern Fairy Tale Poetry, edited by Wolfgang Mieder

•

The Poets' Grimm: 20th Century Poems from Grimms Fairy Tales, edited by Jeanne Marie Beaumont and Claudia Carlson

On Fairy Tales •

Cinderella, a Casebook, edited by Alan Dundes

•

The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales by Maria Tatar

•

From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers by Marina Warner

•

Touch Magic: Fantasy, Faerie and Folklore in the Literature of Childhood by Jane Yolen

•

The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales, edited by Jack Zipes

Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand. WILLIAM BUTLER-‐YEATS

Puss in Boots, A Fairy Tale The Drury Lane Collection

Dahna Lorrain Koth

The first Theatre Royal, Drury Lane dates back to 1663, making it the oldest theatre in London and perhaps the most influential theatre in the English-‐speaking world. Its lineage vies with a mere scattering of other Letters Patent theatres, establishments granted monopoly rights to the production of “legitimate dramas” as opposed to performances the likes of opera, dance, or music.

The house was literally

compete with its rival, the

brought down by fire in

Duke’s Company; the

1672, demolition in 1794,

Great Plague of London;

and fire once again in

riots over the abolition of

1809. In her 349-‐year

the theatre’s policy which

history, Drury Lane has

allowed footmen free

been forced to endure

access to the upper

other humiliations: the

gallery; an actor’s revolt;

Puritan Interregnum; the

an assassination attempt

hasty retreat of its patrons

against King George III

when a hail storm

while seated in his royal

punctured the dome over

box; World War II; its

its pit; the Popish Plot;

billing as one of the

legal harangues

world’s most haunted

concerning the definition

theatres; and the ultimate

of “legitimate drama;” the

cabbage-‐throw, the need

forcing of the King’s

to spike the perimeter of

Company to commission

the stage to prevent

flashy, hightech options

audience members from

like moveable scenery to

mounting it.

To understand the dynamics of Dury Lane theatre-‐going, this remark, noted by Alois Nagler in A Source Book in Theatrical History, helps portray the environment. The Pit is an Amphitheatre, fill'd with Benches without Backboards, and adorn'd and cover'd with green Cloth. Men of Quality, particularly the younger Sort, some Ladies of Reputation and Virtue, and abundance of Damsels that haunt for Prey, sit all together in this Place, Higgledy-‐piggledy, chatter, toy, play, hear, hear not. Farther up, against the Wall, under the first Gallery and just opposite to the Stage, rises another Amphitheatre, which is taken by persons of the best Quality, among whom are generally very few Men. The Galleries, whereof there are only two Rows, are fill'd with none but ordinary People, particularly the Upper one.

Moving from intricate

During his tenure, he also

dialogue and intimate

designed costumes for the

delivery to heart

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.

pounding, seat-‐filling spectacle, Drury Lane presented extravaganzas such as finalés featuring a man on horseback escaping a raging inferno via a cataract operated by hydraulics discharging 39 tons of water, a steam-‐ hissing train crashing toward the audience, or a horserace with twelve jockey-‐toting horses pounding their hooves against an on-‐stage treadmill.

The costumes featured in this article are from a production of Puss in Boots, A Fairy Tale, which opened at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in December 1915, and a subsequent production of Puss in Boots also performed at Drury Lane in 1916. These delightful costumes were designed and supervised by Comelli, and form a subset of the collection which once resided in the Archives of

Entwined in her long and

the Theatre Royal, Drury

majestic history was the

Lane. They are now part

major role of costume

of the Drury Lane Design

designer. Atillio Comelli

Collection housed at the

rose to the position of

Victoria and Albert

house designer for the

Museum, London.

Royal Opera House from the 1880s to the 1920s.

Mother Goose

For those who immerse themselves in what the fairy tale has to communicate, it becomes a deep, quiet pool which at first seems to reflect only our own image; but behind it we soon discover the inner turmoils of our soul—its depth, and ways to gain peace within ourselves and with the world, which is the reward of our struggles. BRUNO BETTELHEIM

Fairy Tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.

G. K. CHESTERTON

The Sleeping Beauty

Walter John de la Mare

The scent of bramble fills the air, Amid her folded sheets she lies, The gold of evening in her hair, The blue of morn shut in her eyes. How many a changing moon hath lit The unchanging roses of her face! Her mirror ever broods on it In silver stillness of the days. Oft flits the moth on filmy wings Into his solitary lair; Shrill evensong the cricket sings From some still shadow in her hair. In heat, in snow, in wind, in flood, She sleeps in lovely loneliness, Half-‐folded like an April bud On winter-‐haunted trees.

Do not ask questions of fairy tales. JEWISH PROVERB

Sleeping Beauty Awakes

Carolyn Dunn, Gayle Ross, Heinz Insu Fenkl, Terri Windling A Big Conversation: Mythic Journeys 2004

Fenkl: Hi, I’m Heinz Insu Fenkl, and I was designated parent of this panel… (laughter) Windling: Fairy godfather. Fenkl: …although it’s about women storytellers. I don’t know how they did this. It must be some sort of gender inversion thing. What I’ll do is, we’ll go around the circle and introduce ourselves and then I’ll make a general comment on the theme and each one of us will address the theme briefly. After that we’ll open it up to the floor and have a conversation.

So let me begin by introducing myself. I’m from a Korean and German background and I think the reason that I’m on this panel is because I come from a family where there’s an oral storytelling tradition. I grew up in Korea and my first book, Memories of My Ghost Brother, which was a memoir published as a novel, includes a character, my uncle, who was actually quite a Falstaffian figure who was also a wonderful storyteller. I grew up in a family where he was the major storyteller. In my mother’s village storytelling was a central part of the culture and I have incorporated that sort of theme into my own work. I somehow inadvertently became a folklore specialist largely out of default. So although I teach creative writing and I have a background in anthropology, somehow I became one of the major specialists in Korean narrative folklore. So I think that’s why I’m here. I also have done lots of work in things like literary theory so my approach to folklore comes from both ends of spectrum: on the one hand very abstract and theoretical and academic, but on the other hand having grown up in a family where it was integral to our understanding of who we were and what community we belonged to. So, shall we go around this way?

Dunn: Okay, I’m Carolyn Dunn and I, like Heinz, grew up in a very oral storytelling culture. I’m Creek, Seminole, and Cherokee born and raised in southern California so I’m a diasporic Indian. Primarily I’m a poet and a mom and a musician sometimes. Now we were talking about this last night, I’ve been working on this play for the last three years. I was a playwright in eighth grade. (laughter) I wrote the eighth grade play that we did for a drama that year and I haven’t written a play since. So I thought, well why not? Now’s as good a time as any. The play really explores the themes of diaspora, homeland, allotment in Oklahoma during that period of the early 1900s, and the connection that still remains for native people to their homeland which is as important now as it was a hundred years ago, as it was two hundred years ago, three hundred years ago, a thousand years ago. As a scholar my work is mostly looking at Native American critical theory in terms of literary studies and also as a folklorist—as maintaining the importance of the oral tradition as well as some of the stories of the area which I come from. Gayle and I are neighbors, cultural neighbors as well as sharing— Ross: Traditional enemies.

Dunn: Traditional enemies. But we also share

Dunn: He wishes. Anyway, we digress. So

the same tribal backgrounds.

that’s the work. Also I’m a big fan of

Ross: She’s Creek and Cherokee. That means she’s at war with herself. (laughter)

these three folks who I’m sitting around this panel with, and with the work that they’ve been doing both as creative

Dunn: Always. And I’m in a mixed marriage.

writers and as editors and as scholars. It’s

I’m married to a Choctaw man so it’s a mixed

just amazing work and I feel really lucky to

marriage.

sit here in the same room with these

Ross: Who is the Peacekeeper.

three folks.

Windling: I’m Terri Windling.

throughout the centuries. So

here. I’m an enrolled

Unlike everyone here I didn’t

my particular area of interest

member of the Cherokee

grow up with an oral

is in feminine motifs in fairy

nation. My family is from

tradition. I grew up in your

tales. I’ve worked as an

Tahlequah, Oklahoma, but my

basic working class American

editor in the New York

dad at the end of World War

household in which stories

publishing industry, and I’m

II came to the Dallas-‐Fort

were never told so my

also a writer and a painter

Worth area to go to college.

introduction to fairy tales was

working with fairy tale

He met and married my

through books, the books I

themes. I’ve kind of made it

mother there so like Carolyn, I

had as a child, which were

my mission over the last

grew up away from, about

powerful. I think that even if

twenty-‐five years as an editor

five hours away from, the

you are getting stories on the

to promote fairy tale fiction

Cherokee Nation capital of

printed page rather than

for adults, for children, and

Tahlequah, Oklahoma. I grew

through your ears they can

for teenagers by editing

up in what my relatives like to

still affect you profoundly.

anthologies of fairy tale

call Baja Oklahoma.

fiction, and editing a Webzine

(laughter) Which is Texas.

focusing on fairy tale studies

(laughter)

My interest in fairly tales, despite being told that fairy tales were just for children and I was supposed to lose interest in them as I grew older, I never did. I studied

and fairy tale art. So all of these things are what I’m going to bring to the discussion today.

I was very lucky because as Carolyn is well aware when you are a member either from the urban relocation

fairy tales in college and

Ross: My name is Gayle Ross

programs of the 40s or 50s or

particularly the ways that

and I am a last minute

from individual Indian heads

fairy tales have been used to

addition to the panel because

of families who made the

tell women’s stories

Midori Snyder could not be

decision for economic reasons

to move away from either a

And she was of course much

reservation or a center of

older when I was growing up,

tribal community, you know

but she was the one who told

that you are in danger of

the stories of The Trail of

being disconnected from all

Tears, the one who told the

that—from the Indian

stories of our ancestor Chief

people’s point-‐of-‐view—all

Ross, the one who would

that really makes you Indian,

occasionally—if we behaved

which is the language, the

just so—would tell us the

community, ceremony, and

traditional stories of the

the like.

Cherokee people.

I was lucky in that there were

So I grew up with the love of

trails of breadcrumbs for me

story and that translated as

and my sibs in that our

well into reading fairy tales

Cherokee grandmother lived

and folktales and I began

with our family and she was a

telling stories myself for a

wonderful storyteller, literally

living. What I laughingly call a

a performing storyteller in the

living…. (laughter) …almost

19 teens and twenties. She

thirty years ago. For a long

traveled around this country

time my stories were simply a

telling stories, singing in

product, or a part and parcel,

Cherokee, and she was a

of my involvement in Indian

political activist. She was

community. Then a librarian

speaking on behalf of Indian

one day, who knew I knew

people’s rights, seeking to

stories, asked me to come for

halt the process of allotment.

November, “Hug an Indian

Month” (laughter) to tell stories at her library and when I left she gave me a check. And this big light bulb went on over my head: There is something you know how to do. (laughter) I love story. It is the reason we have survived as a people, as a distinct people. It is an integral part of who we are and how we remain connected to each other and most importantly to the land and all of our other relatives. Heinz: Thanks, Gayle. What we’ll do is we’ll go around and each briefly address this theme, which happens to be about women and storytelling. Windling: And specifically fairy tales. Fenkl: Since we’re sort of looking at the underbelly of I guess what plays out in the United States now as the sort of Disneyfied or the edited version of Grimms that everybody is familiar with. What the panel is designed to do is to look beneath that and look at how the tradition of storytelling among women actually addresses things that have gotten to the—I guess you can think of it as the shadow of fairy tale tradition in a sense. I’ll begin by talking briefly about a couple of cases in Korea because in Korea, in contemporary Korea, it’s pretty much the same phenomena. The oral storytelling traditions are pretty much gone. In the past two decades Korea has become a developed nation with all of the problems of modernization: family structures have disintegrated, traditional architecture has gone, people live in apartment complexes. So the whole extended family structure basically has died. What’s happened in Korea, storytelling has been co-‐opted by television and by the school system, very much like what happens in the United States. Recently I was doing some research on—I’m finishing the compilation of re-‐tellings—and two things occurred to me when I thought about the panel. One was that although in my family the storyteller was my uncle, traditionally, in many traditional households going back as recently as the 60s, if you went to a

rural household in Korea at the end of the day people would come in from their agricultural work and the storyteller was often the grandmother. In Korea the opening formula for a fairy tale or a folktale that happened a long time ago is: In the old, old days when animals talked and tigers smoked tobacco pipes. (laughter) That’s the Korean version of Once Upon a Time. Oddly enough the person telling that story was often an old woman who was sitting on the—there’s an area between the rooms, it’s like an open wooden floor—she would be sitting there smoking a pipe. Women in Korea smoked pipes in traditional times, and she would tell traditional stories. Now in Korea there’s also a continuing tradition of shamanism and although Christianity is the major success story now, the underbelly of Korean culture is shamanic. The practicing shamans are almost all women. The male shamans who practice on the peninsula are often cross-‐dressers. There’s a gender transformation involved.

But the women who are the shamans

soybeans, a common peasant’s food,

trace their lineage through a story,

and she’s given various impossible

which is basically a fairy tale. It’s the

tasks to do. Animal helpers help her

story of the abandoned princess. The

with those tasks. And when she’s

king and queen have wished for a son

upset she goes to a particular tree and

but they have a daughter and they

she weeps beneath it. Instead of a

reject her and she’s banished. But then

fairy godmother we have a cow that

she becomes the savior of the family

comes to her representing her

through lots of privations and self-‐

mother’s spirit. That spirit gives her

sacrifice. It happens to be linked to the

certain advice. She gets fancy clothes

story of Guanyin, the Buddhist goddess

and new shoes; she goes to the

of mercy. Now that’s a very well

festival; she loses a shoe; and the first

understood tradition in Korea.

half of the story goes very much like

What I want to do is talk very briefly about another story whose ending most Koreans have forgotten and whose beginning all of you are basically familiar with because this is the Korean Cinderella. In the first half of the Korean Cinderella all the motifs that we are familiar with are there. There’s the death of the mother, the father remarries, there’s a wicked stepmother, wicked stepsister. Poor Cinderella, in Korea she’s called Kimchi, which means she’s named after

Cinderella. In contemporary times, that’s a story everybody knows.

But there’s a second half to

to a palatial house, she

her own sister to visit her

the Korean Cinderella. For

lives with the magistrate,

house.

practical purposes it’s been

and what happens is her

forgotten. The story was

stepsister and stepmother

texturalized by Confucian

feel very resentful and

scholars of course as a kind

vengeful. So they plot

of pseudo history so it’s

revenge upon her and th

actually written in the 13

they’re full of bitterness.

century. There are written

It’s part of the Korean

versions of this text. But

national character.

the people who know the

(laughter) So they’re full of

second half of the story and

envy and bitterness. They

who can tell it are almost

hatch a plot. Pachi is the

all women. Now it’s

wicked stepsister. Her

curious because the second

name comes from red or

half of the story is a

black beans. It’s a festive

tragedy, and here’s how it

food, a delicacy, and

works.

peasants would only eat

The Cinderella in Korea: Kimchi has married the magistrate and she moves from her humble house. Her father was also a member of the gentry but his situation had become rather humble. She moves

black bean soup for example once a year, so she’s the more privileged and spoiled person. And she wrangles an invitation. Of course Kimchi being the good sister can’t decline; she cannot refuse to invite

So the wicked stepsister visits. When she visits the good sister, the Cinderella figure shows her through the house—all the beautiful lacquer furniture, her silk dresses, and all of it. Then she shows her the lotus pond. At that moment the wicked stepsister realizes how she is going to have her revenge and she invites Kimchi to go swimming with her. The Cinderella figure says, “No, we shouldn’t do that because my husband may return at any moment and we can’t be seen unclothed.” The wicked stepsister says, “No-‐no, don’t worry, he won’t be here that soon.” And she compels Kimchi to go swimming in the lotus

pond. Although Kimchi is afraid of things like snakes in the pond, and Kimchi can’t swim, her wicked stepsister assures her that everything is fine. Then as they’re swimming together, the wicked stepsister pulls Kimchi into the center of the pond and pulls her under and drowns her. And so the Korean Cinderella dies. Now the wicked stepsister comes out of the water, puts on Kimchi’s clothing, and puts on a very thick layer of makeup because she has pockmarks on her face and her makeup has to be extra thick. She waits at the pavilion for the magistrate to come home. The magistrate comes home and she stands in this enticing posture and seduces him. He’s shocked of course because although he probably had lustful thoughts in his heart regarding his wife, it was unexpected that she would be so amorous. The suggestion in the language of the story is that what Pachi offers him is a kind of sex that is forbidden. What happens is that after this amorous moment, he finally sees her face. What happens is that her exertion and the sweat have caused the makeup to drip from her face and the pockmarks are revealed and he’s stunned. He says, “Kimchi, what happened to your face?” She says, “Well, I waited for you so long that I became sunburned and then I tripped and fell on a pile of beans and they are why I have these pockmarks.” Then he declares that he loves her anyway even though her face is now disfigured. This goes on and she continues to seduce him and she takes over the household. She believes that everything now belongs to her and she gets rid of her sister’s belongings. The charade is not undone until a local neighbor who’s an old woman Kimchi has been kind to comes to visit. She’s borrowing small coals to start her kitchen fire, and as she goes to borrow these coals she finds jewelry in the stove. She’s curious about this and she hasn’t seen Kimchi in a while so she figures she can just take it. So she does and she puts it in a special spot in her cupboard. And then she hears a voice issuing from there.

Thematically this is like a relic left over from the cremation of a Buddhist master. So the jewelry now embodies Kimchi’s spirit and the spirit talks to the old woman and explains the situation: that she has been wrongfully murdered, and asks, “Please can you help me?” So the old woman hatches a plan and she invites the magistrate to come and dine at her house and enjoy “humble country cooking.”

When the magistrate accepts the invitation

venereal disease and his lineage is in

for dining, she sets up his plate so that his

jeopardy. The Confucian hearing this, or

chopsticks are mismatched. One is longer

any Korean hearing this, would understand

than the other. He’s trying to eat and he

that this is a major problem.

becomes furious because he can’t pick up the food properly. After a certain point his frustration explodes and he yells at the woman. The woman says, “Well, how is it that you can recognize mismatched chopsticks but you cannot recognize a mismatched marriage?”

He basically gets a confession out of her in the old traditional way which is she’s tortured, drawn, and quartered. Her limbs are put into a huge pickling pot and that is sent to her mother. Her mother receives it; she thinks it’s a great gift from the

He doesn’t know what she’s talking about,

magistrate; she starts to eat it, and then

but then what happens is that there’s a

she sees the note. The note explains what

decorative screen that you find in a lot of

it is that she has just made herself a

Korean households. From behind the

glutton of and the shock kills her.

screen this voice talks to him and he thinks it must be the sound of his wife’s voice. He talks to her and the voice tells him what the situation is. Now he’s aghast because he feels terribly guilty but also the image of pockmarks in Chinese and Korean narratives is often a veiled allusion to smallpox or syphilis. The suggestion is that he has been seduced by a woman with a

So he goes and he exposes the charade.

Then the magistrate goes back and they drain the lotus pond and they find the body of Kimchi in pristine and uncorrupted condition in a bed of fragrant lotuses. Just as they find the body—what happens is there are now two versions of the story.

In one, when the villain is done away with and the body is found and the magistrate expresses the proper remorse, she comes back to life. In another version, what happens is that as they find the uncorrupted body, they see a last issue of breath and then the ghostly figure vanishes and the story is resolved. So this theme is like a Chinese ghost story. In Korea what you find is that during the colonial era and during the times when Korea was occupied either by the Chinese or the Mongols or the Japanese, both halves of the story would have been told. It’s only in recent years, post Korean war and probably not until after the 70s or probably even the early 80s, that the second half of the story became jettisoned because the national character or the national consciousness was far more optimistic and they did not want these sorts of sentimental, tragic endings anymore. But in contemporary times the people who remember the second half of the story are not scholars and the successful businessmen, or even the children, they tend to be the grandmothers because it comes out of their experience. So that’s my illustration of the theme. Terri, if you’d like to…

Windling: Well, I guess I’m here representing the Western European traditions. I think for most of us growing up in America or England, in the English language countries, growing up with Western European fairy tales in the late twentieth-‐early twenty-‐first centuries, the thing that is startling about hearing a story like that is that we’ve come to expect fairy tales to be stories for very small children involving very passive, beautiful young girls who by virtue of being passive, beautiful, and dutiful grow up to marry the rich Prince Charmings. Then hear a story like that which is filled with adult themes, with sexuality, with tragedy, it seems quite alien from our tradition of fairy tales. But in fact, the European tradition has much more in common with the Korean tradition if you go prior to the Disneyfication of fairy tales. First of all, the term fairy tale is confusing. Fairy tales are rooted in the oral folk tradition. European fairy tales are rooted in the world-‐tradition of stories like Cinderella, but have come to us through literary sources beginning in sixteenth-‐century Italy. That’s when fairy tales begin to be written down and published. When they were written down and published, they were published for adult readers not children.

If you go back to those tales from sixteenth-‐century Italy and seventeenth-‐century France, you’ll find that these are very much adult stories with sensuality, with violence, with a lot of themes that pertain particularly to the lives of women and to those who are socially disenfranchised: the poor, the gypsies. It was the literature of the dispossessed. The people who were not in control of socially sanctioned literature, the literature coming out of the academies, were putting their stories into these areas, into fairy tale and folklore, particularly women. Fairy tales as we know them today such as our version of Cinderella come to us first from the Italian versions which were written down by two men, Achille and Straparola, but they were writing down tales told to them by circles of women. Their stories in turn were reinterpreted by French writers in late seventeenth-‐century France. Largely women were writing. The name fairy tales, les contes de fées, was coined in the Parisian salons where fairy tales became a very popular literary form for aristocratic, educated adult readers.

The writers of the French salons who

countryside extracting stories from

were largely women took these old folk

peasants but in fact they got most of their

stories plus the literary versions which

stories from middle class informants,

had been written down by the Italians,

from educated women who were largely

and reworked them in ways that were

hearing these tales from the French and

expressing the concerns of their day.

Italian traditions. But when they, the

These were upper class women who were

Grimms, rewrote and edited the stories,

concerned about things like arranged

they made them even more patriarchal.

marriages, about the fact that they weren’t allowed in education, they weren’t allowed to control their own money, they weren’t allowed to travel on their own. They were putting all of these things into their fairy tales.

twentieth century after they’ve been through Grimms, through Perrault, through Disney, we end up with these fictions where women’s agency has been stripped from them. But if you go back to

There were some men in these salons.

the older stories, the older published

Charles Perrault is the best known. His

stories and then to the oral tales which

tales were privileged in the centuries that

influenced them, you’ll find that they’re

followed. They’re the ones that were

very similar to the story that Heinz just

printed over and over again primarily by

told. They are morally complex and

male editors in the eighteenth,

morally ambiguous. They largely involve

nineteenth and twentieth centuries. And

women’s rites of passage and women’s

his stories were the ones that tended to

trials and tribulations. They don’t always

have the more passive, dutiful girls in

end happily ever after.

them. Then in turn the Grimms took the French stories—the myth is that the Grimms went around the German

So when we come to fairy tales in the

I think it’s a real shame the

The marriage that is often

stop there. I just wanted to

way we’ve come to think of

the end of the fairy tale

define our terms before we

fairy tales in our time

isn’t about finding a man

talk about fairy tales that

because the very thing that

who’s going to take care of

we’re actually not talking

made them important in all

you, it’s about coming into

about Disney’s version of

those centuries is that they

your adult life and creating

Beauty and the Beast or

were stories about the

a new life for yourself. But

The Little Mermaid. That’s

grimness of life, the

those things have been

not what fairy tales are

difficulties of life, and how

stripped out of fairy tales in

about if you start looking at

one survives them. How

our time because they’ve

the history of fairy tales. So

one transforms oneself in

been turned into fictions

when you see all these

spite of the difficulties we

for small children.

books out there about how

encounter. So many of the older stories

to understand when we

were about young people,

talk about fairy tales is that

often a young woman,

these Disney creations that

sometimes a young man,

we all know are not what

being thrust out of their

fairy tales are. They are

family situation by some

modern pieces of art based

real calamities: violence,

loosely on fairy tales, but

sexual or otherwise. Being

they’ve changed them so

thrust out of their home,

dramatically that I almost

having to make their own

hesitate to give them the

way in the world, and find

same name.

their way into a new future.

So the first thing we need

I think I’m just going to

fairy tales are bad for young girls because they’re so sexist and teach them to be obedient and passive, those are by people who don’t understand the history of fairy tales. They don’t understand that this twentieth-‐century gloss, children’s gloss, that was given to them is very recent. And that the old tales really have got quite a lot to say about how

women have lived their

territory with some of the

I’ve done a lot of work

lives, how they continue to

glossing over of these

very recently with some of

live their lives today.

particular stories.

the Deer Woman stories

Dunn: I’ve always loved the

Where we come from

original stories and through

there’s a home saying that

my friendship with Terri

people have. If someone is

I’ve only recently been able

misbehaving or if

to look into those. With

someone’s not acting in

the work that she’s done in

the way that they should

terms of some of these

be, we say about them,

original endings, and as a

“They just don’t know how

storyteller and as a literary

to act. “ And that’s what it

critic, it’s always important

is. They literally do not

to look at the story art and

know how to act because

to know that they don’t

they don’t have any home

always end happily

training. A lot of that

because that’s life. Life

home training comes from

doesn’t always end happily.

being able to know these

And these stories don’t

stories—that these stories

always end that way.

do exist and they do serve

Especially I think of The

a purpose, like Terri was

Little Mermaid and

saying and Heinz was

Pocahontas, you know, all

saying. They do serve a

these Disneyfied stories,

purpose because they

Mulan, that we’re getting

teach us how to act in the

into different cultural

world.

from where Gayle and I come from. Basically these Deer Woman stories are a puberty narrative. It teaches men and women how to act or how not to act. The basic gist of the story with the Deer Woman is that she’s very beautiful, very beautiful, very sexy, and easy to follow. It’s easy to give in to some of these carnal urges that you may have. But again, like I said she’s very beautiful, and they say she turns men to madness and to prostitution and women as well. If you look down at her feet, she’s a beautiful woman in body, and if you look down at her feet then

you see that she has deer hooves. So then you know this is Deer Woman. So I know I need to be careful and get away from this if this is the kind of life that I don’t want to lead. As a puberty narrative it teaches us appropriate people to marry and inappropriate people to marry because what’s at stake for us is the survival of the nation. What’s at stake for us is the survival of the people. Hereditarily all of our kinship systems, all of our ways of life, and the way that we ordered the world came through the maternal line and that’s how we establish our clan systems with one another. That’s how we knew who our mother was, because of those particular clan systems.

Well, prior to removal and

children? Who is going to

European fairies, to the

after removal, a lot of those

be the appropriate teacher

Celtic fairy folk. There’s a

systems were done away

of the family? And who is

story that we used to hear

with but we still had

going to be the appropriate

when we were young

women who were the

carrier of the knowledge?

where you don’t walk over

center of power in the

Traditionally, if you marry

puddles because that’s

home having been raised by

outside then your children

where Deer Woman lives,

strong grandmothers and

will have no clan, your

that’s where she comes out

mothers. We joke around

children will have no

of. The reason why, again,

that you cannot tell a

relationship within the

is how to act. You don’t

Cherokee woman, you

community.

walk over puddles or you

cannot tell a Creek woman, and you can not tell a Choctaw woman how to act in her own home because she knows. The mother is the head of the household regardless and her word is law, even though we’ve lost a lot of those traditional clan systems. So the Deer Woman story teaches men: Who is the appropriate partner? Who is going to be the appropriate mother of your

So it’s easy to look at the beautiful, gorgeous, very sexy, very scintillating woman over here in the corner telling you, “Come over here, honey,” or are you going to marry the woman who is going to be the mother of the nation? So that’s where a lot of these stories come from. Deer Woman originally is one of the little people, which is akin to the

don’t walk through puddles in the rain because you can get sick. You know? What’s the first thing kids— my kids are the first ones to go into the puddle and jump up and down and my husband as a child was the first—it’s hereditary. They’re southeastern people; they love water. They have to go there. So there’s a reason behind the story. There’s a practical reason and then

there’s a mythological reason.

know the next one that I’m

There’s a folkloric reason

working on, which uses Gayle

behind it. So you don’t cross

as a model for one of the

over a puddle because Deer

characters, she’s going to find

Woman can reach up and

her way into that too. But I

grab you and pull you down

just let her because she wants

into the water. And you’ll

the story to be told. And they

never be seen again.

really do have to be told.

I try to get away from Deer Woman but I can’t. And everything that I do, that spirit is there because she just wants a voice. The first book of my own stand-‐alone book

their own. And the “life of their own” is the fact that the key to it is the survival of the nation, the survival of the people.

of poetry was a dialogue

You look to the women as the

between the Deer Woman

key to that survival because

spirit and Coyote spirit of

all of your lineage, all of your

northern California. Those

clan systems, everything is

two were always trying to

run through the line of the

outdo each other. So she

mother. So if you don’t have

appears there. In the novel

that, you don’t have a people,

that I’m working on, strangely

you don’t have a nation, you

enough called Deer Woman,

don’t have a community

she’s there. The play that I

anymore.

just finished, strangely enough she’s there. And I

These stories have a life of

Ross: There’s a wonderful

native cultures; it’s a

closer all of a sudden all

writer, she’s in Wisconsin

common belief that stories

seven birds stood up and

now, named Betsy Hern.

are living spirits. They live

ruffled their feathers and

Betsy was doing an

on the breath—that’s why

then used them and lifted

interview with a Cree elder

tellers have to be trained

off and flew away into the

named John Rains and she

traditionally—they live on

sky. John and Betsy just

went to visit him and it was

the breath of the teller.

stood there with their

the wintertime and they had been in the cabin recording a long interview. When the clouds broke and the sun came through—it had been a bitterly cold winter—he suggested they leave the close confines of the cabin and take a walk outside for a while before continuing to talk. Betsy was talking with him about native stories and he was explaining to her that stories are living spirits.

So they were walking across a snow covered field and up ahead they saw seven black splotches on the snow. They went closer and there were seven dead crows lying there—what appeared to them to be dead crows. It looked as though they had flung themselves against a great invisible windshield in the sky and fallen crumpled to the Earth.

mouths hanging open. Finally John turned to Betsy and said, “Some story will come along and know just where to put that.” And Betsy said, “You mean you and I will describe what we saw and a storyteller will put it in a story.” John said, “Oh no. Some story will come along and know just where to put that.” Betsy said, “Well, I know you said your stories are living spirits and that they live on

This is a common belief

Both of them were

the breath of the teller, but

phrased in many different

wondering what could have

are you telling me that

ways, expressed in many

caused the death of these

they’re living even when

different ways, among

birds and as they drew

they’re not being told?”

“Oh yes, “ John said. Rather flippantly Betsy said, “Well, what do they do when you’re not telling them?” And John said, “I think they live in a village somewhere. And they tell each other to each other.” (laughter) I don’t want to give you the false impression that this is wisdom that I learned at a campfire somewhere sitting at my grandmother’s knee. My grandmother was a very strong and proud Cherokee woman, but she was also a product of her time as am I, very assimilated in many ways. This comes from years and years of moving within the stories and moving within the culture itself. We have to reclaim the true power of the stories in much the way Terri was talking about uncovering the essence of European folk and fairy tales that have been manipulated in some way to suit certain social, economic, and political agendas. Which is what I think happens. And I don’t think it happens to make them suitable for children, I think that what has happened is that we have redefined what is suitable for children. In our culture, some of the funniest and favorite stories that kids love and ask for involve Coyote poking burning sticks up his ass and Witzehatzick (phonetic spelling) trying to make love to his sister-‐in-‐law and her hanging a snapping turtle on his penis in the sweat lodge. These are children’s stories. And this used to be a common thing not just among native culture, but among all cultures. I have my own theory about the particular manipulations that happen in cultures as they change as a result of organized religion and other kinds of social pressures that are brought to bear. But it is inherent upon us because children eventually will rebel against the very homogenized dried powder—what child wouldn’t want to squirt cow’s milk right from the udder into their mouth as opposed to powdered milk bought off the shelf? In many ways what I see happening with young people in this culture today is a silent cry against what they perceive of as the culture we have prepared for them.

One thing you said that I thought you should know… (to Heinz Insu Fenkl) I was going to tell you a little quick story. I was doing two videoconferences for the US State Department at the opening of the National Museum of the Native American in Washington. These videoconferences were with colleges around the world that were interested in the museum’s opening and wanted to have an opportunity to interact with some of the Indian performers who came to Washington for it. On the morning I talked to college students from Oman in the Middle East and in the afternoon I talked with college students from South Korea. I thought it was almost a frighteningly neon example of what happens when forces of political and economic rigidity in a region begins to subvert natural human processes of culture and story and the like to the service of a very Darth Vaderish kind of point of view. All the students f rom Oman wanted to talk about were stories that reflected genocide in America. How did Indian people feel about living in a country that had perpetrated 500 years...? I mean they were very strident and

wanted to talk about only political issues. And in South Korea all the students wanted to talk about—they had been given a copy of my rabbit storybook—and all they wanted to talk about was the stories that they had. So I spent the hour trying to discuss tribal sovereignty and the survival of our individual cultures within the context of the larger American mosaic, remembering that the state department is cutting my check (laughter) and they will have a copy of this, you know, so I was trying to be truthful and tactful at the same time which is something that if you know me, you know is not my strong suit (laughter). But with those South Korean kids it was just this wonderful exchange where I would tell them a story and then one of them would stand up and tell me a story that they had heard as a child. They were very interested in the way that story is a vehicle for the survival of the culture of a people. So I wanted to tell you, you don’t have to be completely hopeless and bitter about the prospect because the young people that I talked to were delightful. But that underside, that underside of keeping the true culture alive because Indian people were in that process of seeing our stories, our spirituality, our traditions appropriated and exploited by the larger culture. It’s an ongoing battle that we’re f acing now and that we deal with on a day-‐to-‐day basis. Windling: Can I jump in here? Ross: Please. Go, go, I’m done! Windling: Not in any way to denigrate the struggle of Indian people, but I can relate to that in terms of fairy tale histories by women through reclaiming our stories, our fairy tales as women. Because you know for centuries and centuries and centuries, our history has been suppressed.

Ross: Exactly. Winding: Ignored. Denigrated. And by going back to try to uncover the ways that these stories have been told by our great and great and great and great grandmothers and the uses to which they put those stories—the tellers in each generation, the things that will be important in any given story like Cinderella—will change from generation to generation depending on the issues of that day. And if we can get back to the story, start to uncover the tellings that happened prior to the issues that Perrault decided were important or the Grimms decided were important or the male Victorian editors decided were important, we can start hearing our ancestors voices… Ross: Or Rush Limbaugh thought were important. (laughter)

speak to us. As much as I denigrate Disney children still love them, adults still love them. The fairy tales I read as a child, they were perhaps a little more… Ross: Meaty. Windling: …meaty. Yeah, that’s a good word. I didn’t get the Disney versions. I read a book called The Golden Book of Fairy Tales which was translated by Marie Ponsot from a French edition, and they were a little more of the real thing than the pure Disneyfied versions. But even so they were watered down. Yet such is their power that the symbols come through, the information comes through. Reading a modern version of “Donkeyskin” in which it’s never made explicit that what is going on is that a king is trying to have

Windling: …we can start connecting to

sex with his own daughter, even when

women’s lives in centuries before.

that’s watered down, watered down,

One thing that I find extraordinary about fairy tales though is that such is their power that even in the incredibly diluted versions

that we have, even the Disney versions

watered down to just a simple tale in which a king wants to marry his own daughter and the sexuality is never talked about, still a child in a sexually abusive

situation can decode that. The symbols are there. The symbols are so powerful that if you’re a child growing up in any kind of difficult circumstance, fairy tales contain a lot of information about family dysfunction, about violence, about how to set yourself off on your own road after a family calamity and having the fortitude to be good and pure and keep on going and to look for those fairy godmothers and to learn to tell the false friend from the true friend and the false helper from the true helper.

It’s extraordinary for me to meet people all the time, women all the time, who in spite of Disney, in spite of what Andrew Lang and some of the others did to fairy tales in watering them down, they still found in them messages that helped them create lives for themselves. They certainly did that for me growing up in a violent household where you lived on television at the time, you know, the Brady Bunch, and some of these fantasies about what family life was supposed to be about. They had nothing that spoke to what I was experiencing in my home. But I looked at fairy tales and I found fathers who lopped off their daughter’s hands, and mothers who ordered huntsmen to take their daughters into the woods and pull out their hearts just because they were jealous of them. These complex family situations that come through even the watered down versions make you understand, oh, there are wicked fathers, there are wicked mothers, and people have survived them. Ross: My friend, Elizabeth Ellis, who is a very gifted storyteller from Dallas, Texas says that all of that needed to be in there so that children could be at ease with the violence in themselves, with the dark sides of themselves, that we deny it. That we say it comes into them from the outside as opposed to coming from all of us when we are children from the inside out. And if you don’t give them a way to process, if you make them frightened of themselves, of their own interior landscape, then you have this severe disconnect. You d on’t ever learn how to act. You don’t ever integrate and deal with your own inner aspects of the dark and the light, which in native culture is very clearly understood that there must be the dark. We have so many stories from different tribes about the world being all light and how the dark came, or all dark and how the light came. And it’s very clear that there must be a balance between dark and light. That’s an integral part of our story.

When Carolyn said we say, “You don’t know how to act,” my Navajo friends say it even better. They say, “You act like you ain’t got no relatives.” (laughter) See, you’re never alone. The great American mythic figure of rugged individualism, individual accomplishment, is diametrically opposed.

Audience Member #1: First thank you very much. This has been a fascinating conversation. My name is Jeff. My question is, now that we’ve explored a little bit of the problem, I’d like to hear from each of you what we can do in our own families and in

Windling: But that’s a very masculine feeling

our own cultures going forward to try to

because women survive in community.

reclaim what was lost, the stories that were

Ross: You cannot behave—any time you behave badly it is not just your own self you are bringing shame on. You are by extension bringing shame on your entire

lost, so that the generation to come can have a sense of connection with the past and so that they can know how to act with relatives?

family and that’s the way our whole clan

Dunn: It’s almost like what Terri was saying,

system works. The Blood Law was such that

is that there is some essence of the original

if you murdered somebody and did not take

story there. I mean I grew up on fairy tales

responsibility for it, your clan would have to

too. I grew up on the same book, but still

offer up a life in order to balance the life

knowing that there was something else in

that was taken.

the story that was involved. Going back as a

Dunn: That was common to all of what we call the Five Civilized Tribes. All of us in the southeast, that was pretty much standard and later abolished, but pretty much standard.

Fenkl: Shall we open it up for questions?

college student and starting sort of this formal study of native literature, really what do we have? Mooney and Kilpatrick? Who’s that other one? Swanton? You know a lot of these anthropologists went in in the early 1800s to these traditional

communities of the southeastern tribes and

walk up to me one time, “Well of course

recorded these narratives. But they’re

you’re a storyteller, look at you, you’ve got

fragments and they’re also filtered through

this wonderful heritage, you’ve got these

those Western eyes, western European

great ancestors, you’ve got these people

male eyes.

who got shoved twelve hundred miles away

Ross: They wouldn’t print some of my very favorite ones because they were just too vulgar. Dunn: Right, but at some point there is an essence of that story that’s in there. You know like Gayle was saying the kids all love to hear burping and farting and snapping turtles on a penis. I mean they love that stuff. There is that essence of it there. You

have great stories.” (laughter) “Look at me, I’m just a little white woman from Milwaukee.” I went, “No you’re not. You know, you’re not originally from Milwaukee. Trust me, I know the people that are. (laughter) Go back. Go back. Recover the people in your family.”

know not everybody has access to the oral

Windling: European Americans have a

tradition, not everybody has access to a

heritage too and their own ethnic

Gayle Ross.

background.

Ross: But you can create one. I would

Ross: All these stories originally come from

answer your question by saying recover

our collective understanding of each other

your family story, recover stories of the

as people. There wasn’t one person, I don’t

people in your family, the places in your

believe, who sat down and went “here’s a

family, the significant events in your family.

great idea for a story” and wrote it down

They are there.

and Cinderella was born. There are over

I had this lovely little woman in Milwaukee

from home, died like flies on the way—you

four hundred versions of Cinderella around the world. It’s part of our collective, this

place that we all go as two-‐legged beings

Windling: I think the oral tradition is really

and we draw from this. So everybody has a

important and I totally agree with making

great heritage of story, of travels, of people

sure that within your own families you do

and family.

tell stories in addition to reading them. I

Create an oral tradition in your own family that is authentic; that is genuine. Don’t be afraid to hear, you know, when your son says, “I’m going to kill my little sister,” take out a book or a story that talks about that. Don’t say, “Oh you don’t mean that.” Yeah, he probably does. (laughter) If he’s anything like my son. Dunn: Let me piggyback, because my son just said that recently. Talking about resources, Gayle, here’s the point for the plug. We all have books next door.

tradition as well because we are living in a golden age now of fairy tale scholarship and fairy tale resources. Things have changed enormously in twenty, twenty-‐five years. Particularly if you’re looking for stories for children I would recommend Jane Yolen’s collection, her Favorite Folktales from Around the World, because Jane is a scholar who goes back to the older versions. She’s also got two terrific books. One is…oh…No Damsels in Distress? Anyway, if you look up her books there’s one of Jane

Ross: Oh yeah, I missed a chance for crass

Yolen’s collections called World Folktales

commercialism. (laugher) And I’m an

for Strong Girls and one that’s World

American. How dare me? Yeah, we do have

Folktales for Strong Boys. They are terrific

CDs of stories.

collections for giving to kids to get them

Dunn: But maybe we could talk about some

interested in the meatier versions of

of the sources too; Terri and Heinz are some

folktales.

great sources.

also want to make a plug for the literary

If as adults you want to

another resource we can

and fiction children’s books

start looking at the older

all refer to. Also I would

that work with fairy tale

traditions in fairy tales, look

recommend Sur la Lune

themes.

at Angela Carter’s

fairy tale Website. This is a

collections.

fantastic resource. Many

Ross: Yes.

com?

familiar with are archived

Windling: No,

Windling: She’s another

there with links to earlier

surlalunefairytales.com.

person who before she died

sources and discussions.

Fenkl: Also if you’re an

Windling: Yeah, the

academic, like when I was

histories of the tales.

in the anthropology

went around looking for the older versions of tales. If you’re interested in fairy tale history… Ross: And if you’re

Fenkl: It’s called Sur la Lune.

program beginning as a folklorist, I immediately arrived at the central irony

intimidated by telling the

Windling: And here are

of folklore scholarship

story, which a lot of people

postcards you can pick up

which is the fact that if

are because they don’t

after the panel is over for

you’re a folklorist you have

understand that they have

the Endicott Studio. We do

to go back to “the earliest

an innate ability to do that,

articles on the history of

source” but that earliest

reading aloud is a great

fairy tales. We also do

source was the written

place to start from these

articles on writers and

text, which basically

resources. Read these

painters and dramatists

represented the death of

books aloud.

working with fairy tales

the living tradition.

Fenkl: I’ll make a plug for the Endicott Studio. This is

of the stories that you’re

Dunn: S-‐u-‐r-‐l-‐a-‐l-‐u-‐n-‐e dot

today. And we also have reading lists of recommended non-‐fiction

But the irony has a remedy, which is if you look at what’s been happening in the past twenty years or so, people have gone back to the earliest written text or begun with the most conventionally available text and then begun to do their written retellings. That now represents a kind of dynamic living tradition which is like an oral tradition but it happens to be in text. If all of you want to recover the storytelling tradition and to do something with fairy tales what I would do is encourage you to participate in both. Tell your family stories but also don’t just read stories to your children, feel free to elaborate on them, feel free to manipulate them. Because the oral storytelling tradition and the fairy tale tradition were always dynamic, it was being changed and transformed and reconfigured for particular contexts continuously. Windling: And both those traditions have been interlinked. Sometimes people in the fairy tale field want to privilege one over the other: the oral tradition is the right one or the literary tradition is what fairy tales are. In fact through the centuries, fairy tales have gone in and out of the oral tradition, the literary tradition, and it was affecting the oral tradition affecting the literary tradition. They are so intensely interlinked and that’s one of the things that makes it interesting. Ross: I would qualify that with one, there are among native people, certain stories that are told a certain way, that are taught a certain way, that are not allowed to be changed.

Windling: I guess that I’m speaking specifically of the fairy tale tradition rather than the folktale tradition. Ross: There are the wonder stories, certain ceremonial versions of certain stories, and they’re told and taught so that they don’t change for a reason. Certainly all the other stories do change continuously. Windling: I wouldn’t categorize them under fairy tales though. Fairy tales are specifically wonder tales. Ross: Yeah. Windling: When you get into ceremonial tales, you know, that’s a whole different kettle of fish. Fenkl: Do we have another question? Audience Member #2: Yeah, my name is Diana. I talked to Carolyn and was in your session yesterday. I have a couple of comments. One, I liked when you were talking about the sort of generation we grew up in. What I was thinking about when we talked about what had happened, the Disneyfication that happened to fairy tales, I think it goes back to what Heinz was saying at the beginning, it’s a reflection of the general collective consciousness of the culture and the fact that when we were growing up, the baby boomer generation, America was all about how the future is going to be bright and wonderful, the war’s over hurray for America. I think part of that mentality was that we pretended that things like rape and incest and sexual abuse didn’t exist. I grew up totally oblivious to that in the world. I think culture has shifted to where that’s open and talked about now. I think along with that is sort of a collective willingness to go back to the roots of the folktales and the fairy tales because now in our culture those are things that it’s okay to talk about. For a generation of us it got swept under the rugs in real life just as it did in the fairy tales.

Windling: That’s true. Audience Member #2: So I think there’s a willingness to embrace that again and I think that’s reflected in our generation as we’ve become adults. I’m a high school language arts teacher. I teach American literature. One of the things I’ve always done is include Native American literature which only recently has started to appear in textbooks, which is a wonderful step. But I always try to expand that to beyond American literature to folktales. One thing I always try to do in any literature with my kids is see the connections between different genres, different cultures, and so to come back to what you had asked about: How do we move forward? I think a really big piece of that is that connectedness. The fact that there are four hundred Cinderella stories from four hundred different cultures around the world, that’s really important. This isn’t a uniquely American idea or a uniquely Korean idea or a uniquely European idea, this is a universal human idea and it rose throughout the world because that’s a part of being human. Teaching that to our children, whether it’s your own little kids at home or if you’re like me and you’re dealing with adolescents every day in a classroom, reinforcing that message because I think they need to hear that idea of connectedness and empowerment and all the wonderful messages that are in folktales. Ross: Uh huh, un huh. Audience Member #2: The other question that I had earlier and wanted to quick cycle back to is for Heinz. We talked about how as the tales had been changed throughout the centuries it was a reflection of the political and the forces that surrounded them. I think with feminization, the whole feminine mystique thing that’s coming back, we’re looking more at the feminine in spirituality and feminism. And I think that’s feeding back into the folktale resurgence.

What is happening in the culture in Korea?

standards but also virtuous by old Korean

You know they’re on a different part of the

and Confucian standards, and also to be

wave as America. Could you do the same

more liberated individuals. All of these

sort of connections historically with

pressures are coming together and it’s

women’s roles in society and what’s

creating horrible dysfunction.

happening with fairy tales and folktales? Fenkl: Well in Korea right now what’s

attractive young woman was said to have

happening from my point of view is rather

what we called muja: she had calves like

troubling because the major representation

turnips. So when I was a child that was a

of Korean culture right now is Korean film.

compliment. By the time I was a teenager

In the Pacific Rim there’s a whole

that was derogatory. I left Korea in ‘72 and

phenomenon called the “Korean Wave.”

when I went back in ‘84, anorexia was

Korean film actually dominates the Pacific

rampant because the Korean women who

Rim right now; Hollywood is now second

were naturally large and kind of plump were

fiddle to that. But the sorts of products

all being forced into this Western model of

coming out of Korea seem to suggest a

thinness. By the time I went back in 1995,

deeply troubled social consciousness.

bulimia, anorexia, all of these things, it was

What’s coming out of the woman’s tradition is actually kind of like an amplification of the second part of the Korean Cinderella that I talked about. The psychological problems

I remember very clearly when I was a kid an

just horrific. It’s not happening in the folk tradition now, what you’re seeing is that in the popular culture these sorts of things are happening.

are generally conveyed as genre horror but

I just translated a story by a Korean woman

what they’re really reflecting is this dual

writer who is one of the most popular

pressure that Korean women are under now

writers right now. She’s in her mid thirties

not only to be attractive by Western

and it’s a story kind of like Nikolai Gogol’s

Diary of a Madman but what it represents is

to figure out what a woman was supposed

this woman who’s under so much pressure

to be and I would impersonate what I saw.

that she’s become, I guess in our

Therefore today, I’m supposed to be a brain

interpretation she would be a manic-‐

surgeon who takes my kid to the

depressive individual, and she lives in her

orthodontist and I’m doing surgery in high

own psychological world. This is the major

heels and I’ve got beautiful fingernails. I

sort of popular representation now.

mean the advertising when I was coming of

So it’s ironic, more Korean women are writing, they’re going back to the old folk traditions, but the way they’re reinterpreting them has highlighted all these problems and instead of the culture looking at those and responding to them, what the culture does is turn them into commodities. They become popular fiction. And I think it’s, whenever a culture is under a certain type of pressure it has to come out

him a good meal he’ll buy you a refrigerator.” We definitely were truncated beings who didn’t have power. Our power came through the one who had power. But we would manipulate them. And women didn’t like other women because if she’s prettier than me, she’ll get my power. And that was scary. So we didn’t even support one another.

somewhere and the mainstream culture

And our grandmothers… there was a silence

tries to coopt that, but eventually it falls

in my family. I’m Jewish. There was a lot of

apart and it has to be addressed more

holocaust terror. But I interviewed my

directly. So I think in Korea we’re at a stage

mother before she died and that’s

just before that.

something I would recommend. We all

Audience Member #3: I wanted to say something. I am a female impersonator. I was born in 1939 and I looked at advertising

age taught us to manipulate. “Oh if you fix

have tape recorders, and to pass this on to our children and grandchildren. Her stories were too good to lose. She’s dead; if I hadn’t interviewed her they would have

gone. Then I interviewed her older brother who lived to a hundred-‐and-‐two bless his heart, and he read my mother’s story and he said obviously she was the girl child because they saw their parents so differently and they saw their lives so differently. So if we grow to be authentic because we all have one author, like the word authentic comes from author, and if we live our truth and forget to share it, then every one else has to relive our difficulties, our pain, our boys will marry deer women, and then divorce them— Dunn: Or not. Audience Member #3: Or not. (laughter) Or I would grow to be a Deer Woman and that wasn’t me. You know? Thank you. Dunn: When I listen to you I think that’s so beautiful. There are so many stories in families. My aunt was interred during World War II in a Japanese-‐American internment camp. And my cousins, we all interviewed her for our high school projects. That was so important because interviewing her as a child in ninth grade and then interviewing her as a graduate student in a folklore class was very different. My family all grew up in Los Angeles before it was LA. So hearing their stories about this place before it became LA in the cultural imagination is going to be very important, and the migration stories as well are important. Hearing those, you know, looking at the stories within our families are going to become very important because that connects us, like Terri was saying, with a literary tradition and an oral tradition. Windling: One thing that you said that sparks something in me is this idea of you individually, by yourself, unconnected with other women, trying to figure out what authentically being a woman was. This isn’t new to the twentieth century or the twenty-‐first century. If you look at what women in seventeenth-‐century Paris were doing with fairy tales, they were trying to tell each other how to live. The whole notion of the fairy godmother, you don’t really find it in the

European oral tradition prior to the seventeenth century. It was kind of a literary construct by these women writers who were creating these characters who were wise older women who were advising the young heroine how to behave, how to get through, how to survive in the world. That idea of mentoring was really important to those women. I think it’s important today. One thing I find fascinating about fairy tales is how when we read them as children, we focus on certain aspects of them and certain characters and to me it was the young heroines heading off on the road trying to find how she was going to live her life. Now coming back as an older woman, I’m really interested in those mentor characters, those fairy godmothers, those witches in the woods. They become important as we relate to the younger women in our lives. The way we find out how to be women is through other women. In America particularly where we have this idea of individuality, it’s really important to remember community and mentoring. I mean all of us that came out of the feminist movement of the 60s and 70s understand the necessity of political activism as a collective. But I see a lot of faces in this room of women about my age and I think this is something that we can look to fairy tales for now. It’s to look at all these roles for older women and how we translate that into our lives as we speak to women in their teens, their twenties. And the concerns they have about how to be women today. Audience Member #4: My name’s Karen. First of all I’d like to say thank you, this is an opportunity for me to thank the Native American storytellers for reminding us that we have a culture and we have stories as Westerners. Because I sort of discovered that by hanging around in the late 80s in the New Age movement in the sweat lodges. Ross: Uh oh. Lucky to be here, aren’t you? (laughter)

Audience Member #4: Yeah. Then one day

work you’ve done because I feel you’re a

in the early 90s I went, oh I have a culture,

big part of the renaissance and the

you know, and what happened to it. Where

retrieving of those stories. I cannot

are the stories? So I spent the last fifteen

remember if it was you or Ellen Datlow

years or so digging into them and now I’m in

who… it was in one of the introductions to

conventional academia in a masters

one of your books, like the Snow White,

program where I’ve been able to look at

Blood Red or…

that quite a bit. I wanted to say that’s one of the ironies because while you have clung and as you have described held onto your identity and that sort of thing, that there’s

who have both our names on them. Ellen is not a writer.

been sort of a sideline result of that, for the

Audience Member #4: I’m in the

rest of us have realized how our stories have

conventional scholarship mode with a lot of

been subverted by the dominant culture:

the stuff right now and there is a weird—

Disneyfication, commodification, etc. So I

trying to bridge—trying to write about

wanted to thank you for your holding onto

shamanism at LSU, I mean it’s always a trick.

your culture and inspiring the rest of us.

But because you go back to those origins

Because we probably don’t deserve it. But

that’s where you end up when you go back,

any way, thank you.

but I wanted to say that in the original Snow

A couple of things. One is I want to highly recommend Terri Windling’s introductions to her anthologies. Ross and Dunn: Yeah, yeah. Audience Member #4: Thank you for the

Windling: I write all the intros even the ones

White, maybe it’s you that told us, that it is the birth mother and not the stepmother who sends the hunter out. And that was something that the Grimms brothers changed. Because they thought it was too—

Windling: It was— Audience Member #4: But you know what? In Tolkien’s famous essay on fairy tales it’s the consulatio for those of us who had a birth mother who would send us out with

in spite of that. So anyway, I just wanted to thank you for your work in digging and for inspiring the rest of us, and for your wonderful introductions.

the hunter. I never knew that and I used to

I had a question but I don’t remember

always tell people, you know it’s weird, my

what it was… (laughter) And I’m probably

mother is like the stepmother in Snow

running out of time anyway. So thank you.

White. Why is she that way? And I used to think it’s so strange, there was something wrong with me that I had this kind of

Windling: I’d like to make a plug about a few other books.

ruthless, jealous, mirror-‐mirror-‐on-‐the-‐wall

Audience Member #4: Oh please.

type of mother.

Windling: I’m sure you’ve already read

Then finally as a forty-‐something adult

them since you’re well read in this area but

woman, I realized that there was actually a

one is Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ Women Who

story in my tradition to help little girls like

Run with the Wolves. It got a little bit of

me to understand that sometimes it’s just

bad press because it was so popular and

that way in life. There’s brutality in life, you

it’s actually a fabulous resource for

know. Life is brutal and bad things happen,

women’s tales.

but guess what, you’re gonna get help,

Audience Member #4: Oh yeah.

you’re gonna get friends. Dwarves are gonna come help you. (laughter & applause)

I’ve made it. I’m here. And I’m doing great

Windling: Women Who Run with the Wolves. I really respect that book and

And birds in forests, and the fairy

what she has done as a storyteller. The

godmother’s gonna materialize. I mean, the

other is a collection of essays called Mirror

tree’s gonna help you. And so you know,

Mirror On the Wall: Women Writers

Explore Their Favorite Fairy Tales, edited by Kate Bernheimer. And it contains essays by writers like A. S. Byatt, Margaret Atwood, all kinds of people. Me. Talking about the ways fairy tales influenced our lives as writers and as women. Audience Member #4: Okay my question, I remembered it. Do you think we can go all the way back to Marie de France? I mean don’t you think we can go that far back to her versions of the romance cycle lady’s story where the shapeshifting woman in the forest trains the knight to behave properly? I mean that goes farther back than the fifteenth or sixteenth century. Windling: That’s a very good point. Audience Member #4: The Breton lais, I really think we can go back that far. Windling: Scholars go crazy trying to determine what’s a myth, what’s a legend, what’s a fairy tale. I’m not gonna go there myself. But a lot of people put her in the myth and legend category rather than fairy tale. But honestly as you bring it up I don’t know why because some of her stories are very much in the fairy tale tradition. Certainly in some of her stories you can see links to tales such as Bluebeard. But that’s a good point. I don’t know why she’s not considered one of the early fairy tale writers. Heinz: Do we have time for one more question? Ross: You’ve been waiting a long time. Did you have a question? Audience Member #5: First I want to thank the panel. Every one of you have been so incredible in sharing your insights into storytelling and I’m from Hawaii and I used to be involved with children’s television in the area of Hawaiian studies and also I was involved with—our class was ’69 so I’m over fifty but when we graduated we all got together and raised thirty thousand dollars for our school to have a storytelling gift. I’m still in touch with trying to

check it out and see how it’s coming. So this is very informative and helpful for me as I continue to represent our classmates to see how we select. You see it’s really timely ‘cause I’m going back, I return on the twentieth. I moved here six years ago but I go back every year or two to continue working with the schools and all that. It reminds me of the hula in that the hula is the archive of Hawaiian history in the sense that there’s the ‘auana, which is the modern, contemporary hula and then there’s kahiko, the chants. And certain chants are forbidden and only certain hula teachers will share that with the hula students they select. But then others are vital to carrying on the history and honoring all those— Ross: A sense of place. Audience Member #5: A sense of place. The love stories and the Pele chants, that is like a certain school of hula, the Kanaka Aia La ‘O Pele. They live in the island of Hawaii, and probably everyone, you may have heard of Pele and she’s just the source of such inspiration. She’s so sacred. And it’s still so much alive there. So anyway, it reminded me of my Kuma Hula, the teacher of my hula school. She lives in Kauai and she would not enter into any competition where there’s any—actually there’s a famous, it’s called the Monarch Festival and King Kamehameha when he was coronated at the turn of the century—before the turn of the century hula was banned because it was considered pagan and all this kind of stuff that happened, so that it was underground. When the king was coronated he said we’re having it back. So every April in the springtime there’s the Merrie Monarch Festival where many halau hula schools come together, even some from the mainland because many Hawaiians now live away from Hawaii. T hey come to compete but my hula teacher would not enter into that because although that keeps it alive

and keeps it visual, there’s so much of the television that can link, and you can send the videos back to friends and family, but she said that she didn’t want the television to determine what was the most popular because each year she would notice that part of the hulas that were coming in were ones that kind of had some of the flairs of the previous years. So that was starting to change some of the kahiko. But otherwise that has a creative base. It can enlarge your audience and share it to schools. You keep it alive by modernizing some of the myths that we see. But anyway, I do think that’s part of the storytelling, I love it, the oral traditions of y our family and also keeping them. Like I grew up on Sharp Ears, The Baby Whale because my mother taught me. She kept reading it and that was my story. Now it’s obscure and it’s no longer probably available. And then the fairy tales. But I love what you’re sharing as far as being critical about what we select and so I’m really going to bring that back home to my colleagues. So thank you so much. Dunn: So how about that one last question? Fenkl: Did we have one last question? Audience Member #6: It had to do with being able to break through the modern mother-‐ daughter relationship which now as soon as you open your mouth—I have this son and he will listen coming from a different place, but I see so many young people without any direction and if a parent would try to give them some tradition even though they desperately need it… I don’t know where that’s going to come from. Windling: Well, I speak from a particular perspective as a fantasy editor and writer but I think fantasy does a heck of a job of reaching kids—fantasy that’s rooted in myth and fairy tales, which there’s a lot of these days by some very knowledgeable and heart-‐centered writers.

I think that if you’re talking about kids who read at all that this is one way that mythic knowledge and fairy tales can come to them through the pages of fantasy books. Audience Member #6: They should present them with a book instead of a lecture. Fenkl: Or forbid the book and then they’ll really— (laughter) Ross: And then leave it lying around. (laughter) Dunn: Just a quick plug ‘cause I have taken on Miss Ross’ mantle today. I guess I’m the— Ross: You’re the crass commercial— Dunn: I’m the driver today. Ross: Okay. Dunn: She and I are doing a book signing today at one o’clock next door. Ross: I was just going to say that if you’re interested there are CDs of stories and songs at the Mythic Journeys booth, not the Phoenix and Dragon bookstore, they have the books. The CDs of her songs and my stories are at the Mythic Journeys booth. Windling: And if you want to learn more about Korean fairy tales in particular, Heinz has several articles on the site. Fenkl: So thank you all for coming. (applause)

Deeper meaning resides in the fairy tales told to me in my childhood than in any truth that is taught in life.

FRIEDRICH SCHILLER

I was Snow White, but then I drifted.

MAE WEST

Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. C. S. LEWIS

Lorem Ipsum Dolor

Issue #, Date

Rapunzel Rapunzel Let Down Your Hair

Rapunzel Rapunzel

Let Down Your Hair

Terri Windling Maiden-‐in-‐a-‐Tower stories

believed that their "Rapunzel"

than anonymous folk stories

can be found in folk traditions

was neither German nor a

passed orally from teller to

around the world—but

proper folk tale. Scholars

teller. The Grimms'

"Rapunzel," the best known

have shown that a number of

"Rapunzel," for example, was

of these stories, comes from

the storytellers from whom

derived from a story of the

literary sources. The version

the Brothers Grimm obtained

same name published by

of "Rapunzel" we know today

their material were

Friedrich Schultz in 1790—

was published as a German

recounting "authored" tales

which was a loose translation

folk tale by the Brothers

from German, French, and

of an earlier French story,

Grimm in 1857—but it's now

Italian literary sources rather

"Persinette" by

Charlotte-‐Rose de La Force,

Each writer in this chain used

"Rapunzel" in one category or

published in 1698 at the

folk motifs drawn from oral

another—for after the Basile,

height of the "adult fairy tale"

tales (associated with

La Force, and Schultz

literary movement in Paris.

peasants and the

publications, "Rapunzel"

La Force's tale was influenced

countryside), reworking them

slipped into the oral tradition

by an even earlier Italian

into literary tales (for adult

of storytellers throughout the

story, "Petrosinella" by

readers who were educated,

West, where it's now part of

Giambattista Basile, published

urban, and upper-‐class). It is

our folk culture even though

in 1634 in his story collection

difficult, however, to draw a

it didn't start there.

Lo Cunto de li Cunti (also

sharp line between folk tales

known as the Pentamerone).

and literary fairy tales, placing

Let's go back to the start, however, with

The woman threw herself on her neighbor's

Giambattista Basile's "Petrosinella." Basile,

mercy, but the ogress was not appeased. "I

born near Naples, drew plots and characters

will spare your life only if you give me the

from the folk tales of the region, re-‐working

child you carry, be it boy or girl." The

them into courtly tales for the Italian

frightened woman agreed and slunk back

aristocracy. What follows is a bare-‐bones

home, pockets full of parsley.

summary of his story, without the clever

She soon gave birth to a beautiful baby girl

turns of language that make Basile's work so sprightly and distinctive. (I suggest reading Basile's story in full in a good English translation—such as the one provided by Jack Zipes in his book The Great Fairy Tale Tradition.) Once upon a time, the tale begins, a woman looked out her window at the garden of her neighbor, an ogress, and developed a terrible hunger for the fine parsley growing there. Now, this woman was pregnant, and it was widely believed that denying the cravings of a pregnant woman could cause grave harm to mother and child—so she snuck into her neighbor's garden, not once, but over and over. The ogress laid a trap

and named her Petrosinella (derived from the word for parsley in the Neapolitan dialect). By the time the child was seven years old, her mother had forgotten all about her promise. But when Petrosinella started school, her path took her by the ogress's house. Each time that Petrosinella passed, the old ogress called out to her: "Tell your mother to remember the promise she made to me, Petrosinella!" The child did as she was told. Her mother grew more and more frightened, until one day she cried out: "Tell that woman my answer is: 'Take her!'"

and caught her. "What do you have to say

for yourself, thief?"

When Petrosinella delivered this message, the

happened that a prince, who was hunting

ogress grabbed her by the hair, carried her

nearby, became separated from his fellows.

deep into the forest, and locked her in a tall

He stumbled through the forest, lost, and

stone tower. The tower had no door or stairs,

came upon the tower. The ogress was away

just a small window at the very top, and there

and Petrosinella sat in the window sunning

the child would sit, straining to catch a small

her hair. She was the most beautiful young

ray of sun. The girl grew up in this lonely

woman the prince had ever seen, and he

place. The ogress was her only company,

instantly fell in love. He called up to

climbing in and out of the tower on the long,

Petrosinella, and for several days they

gold braids of Petrosinella's hair.

conversed and sighed and pledged their love.

Then Petrosinella proposed a plan to meet

Years passed, and Petrosinella grew into a

when the moon had risen. That night, she

beautiful young woman, her golden braids so

gave the old ogress a dose of poppy to make

long they coiled on the ground below. It

her sleep then she threw her braids over the

windowsill and pulled the

They hadn't gone very far

prince's own kingdom, where

young man up. The prince

when the ogress woke and

"with the kind permission of

then "made a little meal out

discovered the girl's escape,

his father, the prince made

of the parsley sauce of love."

using her magic to catch up to

Petrosinella his wife and

More nights of lovemaking

the fleeing lovers in no time.

proved that, after many trials

Petrosinella threw down the

and tribulations, one hour in a

first acorn. It turned into a

safe harbor can make you

ferocious dog—but the ogress

forget one hundred years of

drew bread from her pocket

storm."

and fed the dog so it let her

Sixty years after Basile's

followed until an old gossip got wind of this. She told the ogress what was going on, warning her that her "daughter" might up and fly if she didn't act quickly. The ogress was unperturbed, saying: "She won't be able to get very far without the use of my magic acorns, and I've carefully hidden them in a little spot above the rafters." Petrosinella had been listening at the window, and she quickly made a plan. She told her lover to bring some rope then she drugged the

pass. Petrosinella threw down the second acorn. It turned into a raging lion. The ogress stole the skin from a grazing ass and charged into the lion, which reared back from this monstrous apparition and fled in fright. Petrosinella threw down the third acorn. It turned into a hungry wolf, which quickly gobbled up the ogress before she could use her magic again to save herself.

"Petrosinella," the French writer Charlotte-‐Rose de La Force borrowed elements from it to use in her own Maiden-‐in-‐a-‐Tower story, "Persinette," published in her fairy tale collection Les Contes des Contes in 1697. (This, of course, was a practice much more common in the days before copyright laws; particularly among writers of fairy tales, where the practice

ogress to sleep again, stole

continues to this day.) La

the three acorns, and used

Now the lovers were safe.

Force was part of a group of

the rope to leave the tower.

They traveled on to the

writers (including Madame

D'Aulnoy, Madame de Murat,

legal right, and there was no

and Charles Perrault) who

possibility of divorce. Young

created a vogue for adult fairy

girls could find themselves

stories in the literary salons of

married off to men many

Paris. Like Basile, La Force

years their senior or of vile

was writing for an educated,

temper and habits;

aristocratic audience, creating

disobedient daughters could

stories that were meant both

be shut away in convents or

to entertain and to comment

locked up in mad-‐houses.

on issues of contemporary

Little wonder, then, that

life.

French fairy tales are filled

One issue of particular

with girls handed over to

concern to women of the period was the common practice of arranged marriages, particularly among the upper classes. Women

various wicked creatures by cruel or feckless parents, or locked up in enchanted towers where only true love can save them.

had no legal say in these

La Force and other writers of

arrangements, often

the period championed the

conducted as business

idea of consensual,

transactions between one

companionate marriages

aristocratic family and

ruled by love and civility.

another. Daughters were

(Some also believed that Fate

used to cement alliances, to

intended certain souls to be

curry favor, and to settle

together.) The emphasis on

debts. Sex was a husband's

love and romance in their

stories can seem quaint and saccharine

see why the tale of a girl locked away in a

today, but such stories were progressive,

tower would have appealed to her.

even subversive, in the context of the time.

Once upon a time, the tale begins, a young

La Force herself was an independently minded woman from a noble family who caused several scandals in her quest to live a life that was self-‐determined. She fell in love and attempted to marry a young man without parental permission. When his family locked him up to prevent an elopement, she snuck into his room dressed as a bear with a traveling theater troupe! The couple escaped, and married—but the law eventually caught up to them and the marriage was annulled. She then got caught publishing satirical works critical of King Louis XIV. La Force was exiled to a convent for this crime—where she wrote her book of fairy tales and a series of popular historical novels. Eventually released, she spent the rest of her life earning her own living through her writing. Like all of La Force's fairy tales, "Persinette"

couple prepares for the birth of their child, and all is well until the wife conceives a passionate craving for parsley. Her doting husband steals the parsley out of a fairy's enchanted garden. (The gate stands temptingly open, implying the fairy knows very well what will happen—and may, indeed, have magically caused the craving that sets the tale in motion. Fairies are well known, after all, for their penchant for stealing infants.) The second time the husband sneaks into the garden (again he finds the gate open), the fairy catches him and demands his unborn child as payment. The man agrees "after a short deliberation." When his wife gives birth to a beautiful baby girl, she promptly hands the child over to the fairy without a word of protest. The fairy raises the child tenderly until

is a sensual, sparkling confection with a sly,

Persinette (as she's come to be called)

sharp humor at its center. It's not hard to

reaches the age of puberty. Then, in order

to keep the girl safe from harm (the eyes

village and learns that the girl is a fairy's

and attention of men), the fairy builds a

prisoner.

magnificent silver tower deep in the forest.

It contains all that the girl could desire: large

The prince returns, waits, and watches how

and airy rooms elegantly furnished;

the fairy goes in and out of the tower. The

wardrobes full of sumptuous clothes;

next day, when the fairy is gone, he stands

delicious meals that are gracefully served by

and calls out in the fairy's voice:

invisible fairy servants; books, paints, and

"Persinette, let down your hair." Her long

instruments so Persinette need never be

gold hair comes tumbling down; he climbs,

bored. What it doesn't have is a door or

and steps into the tower. Persinette is

stairs, so whenever the fairy comes to call

frightened once again—but she soon

she says, "Persinette, let down your hair,"

recovers her aplomb as the prince

and she climbs up through the window.

persuades her of his love. He proposes to

marry her there and then, and she

Years pass, and one day the son of the king

"consented without hardly knowing what

is hunting in the forest nearby. He hears the

she was doing. Even so," writes La Force

maiden singing and falls in love with her,

archly, "she was able to complete the

sight unseen. He finds his way to the tower

ceremony."

and spies a shadowy figure far above—but

when he calls to her, Persinette takes fright.

The prince continues to visit the tower, and

It's been many years since she's seen a man,

before long Persinette grows fat. Innocent,

and the fairy has told her that some are

she doesn't know she's pregnant—but the

monsters who can kill with a single look.

fairy certainly does. Furious, the fairy takes

The prince leaves discouraged, but he

up a knife and cuts off Persinette's long

cannot forget the sound of that lonely,

braids then she sends her off in a flash of

lovely voice. He makes inquiries in a nearby

fairy magic to a remote place.

The fairy hangs the braids from the tower window and waits for the prince to come. He clambers over the windowsill and is shocked to find his lover gone. The fairy angrily informs the prince he'll never see Persinette again, and she flings him from the tower. He lands in briar thorns, which blind him. For several years the prince wanders the world, living on charity, till at last he reaches a remote place where he hears his wife singing. Persinette now has twin children, who instantly recognize the blind man as their father. Persinette cries with joy, and her tears magically restore his sight.

But wait! The fairy is still angry, and not yet

Schultz merely re-‐tells La Force's tale rather

prepared to leave them be. The food in the

than spinning it into something new.

larder turns into stones, the well fills up with

venomous snakes, the birds in the sky above

The oral version of "Rapunzel" collected by

turn into dragons breathing fire. The little

the Grimms half a century after the Schultz

family huddles together, preparing to die of

publication follows the Schultz and La Force

the fairy's wrath—but the lovers are happy,

plot, and is clearly derived from one or

nonetheless, to have found each other at last.

both. But the Grimms made several

At this, the fairy's heart finally melts. She sees

changes before they published their

that their love is strong and true. She forgives

"Rapunzel" in 1857. Once again, the story

them, blesses their marriage, and transports

begins with the overwhelming cravings of a

them to the king's castle, where the king and

pregnant woman. She craves rapunzel (a

queen welcome their son and his family with

form of lettuce), which grows in the garden

open arms.

of a sorceress. (The Grimms often edited

fairies out of their stories, for they

Friedrich Schultz's "Rapunzel," published in

considered the creatures to be too French.

Germany one hundred years later, faithfully

It was not until later English versions that

follows La Force's plot while toning down the

the sorceress became a witch.) When she

flowery language common to fairy tales of the

reaches the age of puberty, the girl is locked

earlier period. The only marked change Schultz

up in a tower by the woman she now calls

makes to the story is that the fairy is portrayed

Mother Gothel (a generic name for a

with greater sympathy. Confronting

godmother). The tower has no door or

Rapunzel's pregnancy, she's more

stairs, and the only way to enter it is to

Disappointed Mother than Vengeful Fury; and

stand and deliver the famous line:

she doesn't throw the prince from the tower—

"Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair."

he leaps himself, in a fit of despair. Overall,

The prince hears the maiden singing, finds the tower, and cannot get into it. He rides home again, but returns each day, compelled by the beauty of her song. When he sees the sorceress come and go, he learns at last how the tower is entered. "If that's the ladder one needs," he says, "I'm also going to try my luck." He enters the tower, calms the frightened princess, and declares his undying love for her. He offers her his hand in marriage, and Rapunzel chastely accepts. Thereafter, he visits Rapunzel each evening when Mother Gothel is safely away. Each time he comes, he brings a skein of silk so she can weave a ladder to escape.

One day, as the sorceress climbs her hair, Rapunzel absentmindedly asks her why is she so much heavier than the prince? Mother Gothel guesses all and flies into a terrible rage. She cuts off Rapunzel's hair, banishes her to a distant wilderness, and waits for the prince to come that night, where she confronts him with his crimes. He leaps from the tower, is blinded by the thorns, and then wanders the world seeking Rapunzel—who's now referred to as his "wife." They re-‐unite, his sight is restored, and he learns he has two children. He takes them home to his father's court, and no further mention is made of Mother Gothel.

Although the Grimms

moral. Thus, in their version

As fairy tales continued to be

originally expected their folk

of "Rapunzel," they glide right

pushed to the children's

tale collection to be of

over the conception of the

shelves in the 20th century,

interest primarily to scholars,

twins, and over the fact of her

the Grimms' version of

they soon realized they had a

pregnancy, until the children

"Rapunzel" was re-‐told over

large and lucrative readership

appear, without explanation,

and over in countless picture

among children and their

at the story's end. Because of

books—sometimes edited

parents. With each

the worldwide popularity of

further to delete the

subsequent edition, they

the Grimms' now-‐classic

existence of those awkward

edited the stories further to

volume of tales, this

twins altogether. In the

make them more appropriate

children's version of

public mind, Rapunzel's tale

for young readers, deleting

"Rapunzel" is the one best

was one intended for very

sexual references, and making

known today.

young readers—with few

heroines more virtuously

realizing that at its root this is

a story about puberty, sexual desire, and the

three different points of view: Zel

evils of locking young women away from life

(Rapunzel), her mother (combining the role

and self-‐determination. In the children's

of mother and witch), and Konrad (the son

version, Rapunzel is just another passive

of a count). This is a dark, psychologically

princess waiting for her prince to come. In

complex story, delving deep into each

the older tales we glimpse a different story:

character's psyche: a mother unhinged by

about a girl whose life is utterly controlled

the possessive nature of her love, a

by greedy, selfish, capricious adults... until

daughter scarred by imprisonment, a young

she disobeys, chooses her own fate, and

man obsessively in love with a girl he barely

bursts from captivity into adult life,

knows. It's a taut, beautifully written novel

symbolized by the birth of her own children

and highly recommended.

in a distant land.

In her story "Touk's House," Robin McKinley

In the latter decades of the 20th century,

uses elements from "Rapunzel", but re-‐

Rapunzel's story began to change again as

works the plot extensively. Here, a

fairy tales began re-‐appearing in poetry and

woodcutter's newborn daughter is the price

fiction for adult readers. This new literary

he pays for stealing healing herbs. The

fairy tale movement was pioneered by

witch is a sympathetic figure, raising the girl

feminist writers such as Anne Sexton, and

like her own daughter, and teaching her the

Angela Carter, and by genre writers such as

herb lore with which she'll eventually win

Robin McKinley, Jane Yolen, and Tanith Lee.

the hand of a prince. But the girl doesn't

want the prince in the end, choosing the

Donna Jo Napoli's Zel, for example, is one of

witch's sweet son instead. Gregory Frost's

the very best renditions of the "Rapunzel"

"The Root of the Matter," by contrast, is a

fairy tale. The novel is set in Switzerland in

dark and very adult tale exploring the

the middle of the 16th century, told from

sexual tensions inherent in the story, and its

consequences. Here Mother Gothel is a

bloody, her body still seeping), her

woman deeply damaged by a history of

Godmother has turned into a different

abuse, and she damages the child she has

creature, pushing her into the tower at

forcibly adopted in turn. The story is told

knife point, and walling up the door with

from three points of view: Mother Gothel,

stones.

Rapunzel, and the Prince—the latter two

undergoing true transformation by the

The heroine of Emma Donoghue's "The Tale

story's end.

of the Hair" has chosen to live in a crooked

stone tower. She's blind, and she has come

Abuse also factors into Esther Friesner's

to fear the sounds of the forest around her.

darkly comic story "Big Hair," about a girl on

"Block up the windows and doors," she tells

the beauty pageant circuit, her life

the wise-‐woman who is her guardian and

controlled by her witch-‐like mother. The

companion. One night a prince hears her

"prince" is a newspaper reporter who sneaks

singing, climbs up the tower, and introduces

past the watchful mother's guard, and here,

her to love. But soon she learns that the

too, we see how abuse is cycled and a

unseen prince is not quite what she

maiden can become a witch.

thought…

Lisa Russ Spaar's story "Rapunzel's Exile" is

Elizabeth Lynn's delightful "The Princess in

brief but packs an emotional wallop. Spaar

the Tower" is set in an obscure and remote

imagines Rapunzel's journey as her

village somewhere in the hills of Europe: a

Godmother leads her into the forest, and

place with fabulous, fattening food, and

her dawning horror as she realizes that the

where zaftig women are prized. Poor

tower will be her fate. For twelve years her

Margeritina is so slim that everyone thinks

Godmother raised her kindly—but now, with

she's ill and hideous.

the onset of menstruation (her skirts still

She stays in the family house in shame, trying to no avail to put on weight—until a young man stumbles into the village, hears her singing from her high window, falls in love, and whisks her away to marry him and start a restaurant. The charm of the story lies in Lynn's telling, and in the sumptuous food descriptions.

Anne Bishop's "Rapunzel" is a moving tale that is broken into three distinct parts: the mother's story, the witch's story, and finally Rapunzel's story. The first two parts are contrasting narratives of jealousy and greed; the third follows Rapunzel to the wilderness, where she finds new life beyond the tower. Contemporary poets have also looked at the tale through the eyes of its different characters, finding in the story's themes issues relevant to our lives today.

Carolyn Williams-‐Noren gives voice to the least sympathetic character in the story in "Rapunzel's Mother": I can't explain why I wanted that simple thing so much: dark green rampion leaves, the curled coverlets of them stacked together on the sideboard, the rainy steam of them cooking, the hot full softness and the bittersweet bite in my throat, mouthful after mouthful. It was as if there was no other way to keep alive. Nicole Cooley reflects on a troubled mother-‐daughter relationship in her poem "Rampion": Tiny blue flowers furred with dirt are all the woman desires in the story my mother reads over and over. Once upon a time a woman longed for a child, but see how one desire easily replaces the next, see her husband climbing the tall garden wall with a handful of rampion, flowering scab she's traded for a child. Look, my mother says, see how the mother disappears as rampion's metallic root splits the tongue like a knife and the daughter spends the rest of the story alone.

Dorothy Hewett's chilling poem "Grave Fairy Tale" looks at the witch, through Rapunzel's eyes: She was there when I woke, blocking the light, or in the night, humming, trying on my clothes. I grew accustomed to her; she was as much a part of me as my own self; sometimes I thought, "She is myself!" a posturing blackness, savage as a cuckoo.... Both Anne Sexton and Olga Broumas cast the relationship between Rapunzel and Mother Gothel as a sexual one. In Sexton's "Rapunzel," she writes of a lesbian affair between a student and her mentor, which the younger woman ends when a "prince" offers her a more socially acceptable life: As for Mother Gothel, her heart shrank to the size of a pin, never again to say: Hold me, my young dear, hold me, and only as she dreamt of the yellow hair did moonlight sift into her mouth.

Broumas, by contrast, celebrates such relationships in her answering poem "Rapunzel," writing in the voice of a younger woman who has no such temptation to stray: Climb through my hair, climb in to me, love hovers here like a mother's wish. ...How many women have yearned for our lush perennial, found themselves pregnant, and had to subdue their heat, drown out their appetite with pickles and hard weeds. David Trinidad's "Rapunzel" grows desperate in her isolation: Like hair, the days and nights are growing longer and longer. ....And each evening the crone comes. Her crackled fingers appear pinching the key... If only once she'd say: "Here, take this pair of scissors and cut your hair before it twists into spaces between the bricks like vines." I'd slit my wrists.

In Liz Lochhead's "Three Twists," on the other hand, Rapunzel discovers there are worse things than solitude—like a prince who hasn't got a clue about what she really needs: ...and just when our maiden had got good and used to her isolation stopped daily expecting to be rescued, had come almost to love her tower, along comes This Prince with absolutely all the wrong answers The prince in Sara Henderson Hay's "Rapunzel” is all too skilled at the language of love: Oh God, let me forget the things he said. Let me not lie another night awake Repeating all the promises he made.... I knew I was not the first to twist Her heartstrings to a rope for him to climb. I might have known I would not be the last.

Alice Friman's poem "Rapunzel" displays a bit more sympathy for the prince: If she was unwise about such things that girls are taught of men with chocolate kisses / who offer lifts to lessons who stand too close in subways playing with their change then what was he? Caught in that small room, the braid coiling the floorboards like a snake, and she all Rubens—ripe and curious. Oh, the tower—singing on the wheezy couch. Forbidden fruits in platters of her flesh and he with scars to touch along his side and many wondrous things to name.

Bruce Bennett's "The Skeptical Prince" wants proof that there's really a maiden in that tower: The town has grown accustomed to the sight: he drinks by day, then hangs around at night, purveying sad and antiquated lore, insisting he will act once he is sure In "Rapunzel" by Arlene Ang, we never quite know what it is the prince encounters when he climbs into the tower. Is it the witch with Rapunzel's braids, or Rapunzel herself who is terrifying?: The twelfth prince climbed the tower on golden tresses he knew were here. When he penetrated her window, she turned away to light the fire. His eyes blinded by hair that mirrored the leap of flames she stoked, the prince failed to see the woodpile of chewed bones at the corner of the hearth.

Essex Hemphill's "Song of Rapunzel" reminds us that sometimes men need rescuing too: His hair almost touches his shoulders. He dreams of long braids, ladders, vines of hair. He stands like Rapunzel, waiting on his balcony to be rescued from the fire-‐breathing dragons of loneliness.

Rosemary Dun's "Rapunzel" rescues herself from prince and tower alike: ...I cut off the long hank of my just-‐for-‐him hair with golden shears, so that no more would he climb, prick my finger, nor ravish me awake. Instead, my howls which once had filled my madwoman's attic with despair. announce the birth of my daughter. We hold hands and jump.

Lisa Russ Spaar's "Rapunzel Shorn" is a young woman tasting sweet freedom at last: I'm redeemed, head light as seed mote, as a fasting girl's among these thorns, lips and fingers bloody with fruit. Years I dreamed of this: the green, laughing arms of old trees extended over me, my shadow lost among theirs. Gwen Strauss' "The Prince" is an old man now, living with his beloved wife and looking back over the events of his life: For a long time I was blind, even before the thorns tattered my eyes. I was bored, handsome, a Prince. The thrill was in what I could get away with. ...All my childhood I heard about love but I thought only witches could grow it in gardens behind walls too high to climb.

Rapunzel's story has become part of our folk tradition because its themes are universal and timeless. We've all hungered for things with too high a price; we've all felt imprisoned by another's demands; we've all been carried away by love, only to end up blinded and broken; we all hope for grace at the end of our suffering, and a happy ending. The story has additional resonance, of course, for those of us who were given up by one or both of our birth parents, as it does for those raised by parents who are over-‐protective or over-‐controlling. In the end, the story tells us, we have to leave the tower one way or another, weave a ladder or leap into the thorns. We can't stay in childhood forever. The adult world, with all its terrors and wonders, waits for us just beyond the forest.

Further Reading Short Stories •

"Rapunzel" by Anne Bishop, from Black Swan, White Raven (Avon, 1997)

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"The Tale of the Hair" by Emma Donoghue, from Kissing the Witch (HarperCollins, 1997)

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"Big Hair" by Esther Friesner, from Black Heart, Ivory Bones (Avon, 2000)

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"The Root of the Matter" by Gregory Frost, from Snow White, Blood Red (Avonova Book) (Avon, 1995)

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"The Golden Rope" by Tanith Lee, from Red as Blood or Tales From the Sisters Grimmer (DAW, 1983)

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"Rapunzel" by Tanith Lee, from Black Heart, Ivory Bones (Avon, 2000)

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"Rapunzel Dreams of Knives" by Beth Adele Long, from Strange Horizons (October 17, 2005 issue)

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"The Princess in the Tower" by Elizabeth Lynn, from Snow White, Blood Red (Avonova Book) (Avon, 1995)

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"Touk's House" by Robin McKinley (from A Knot in the Grain and Other Stories , (Greenwillow, 1994)

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"The Girl in the Attic" by Lois Metzger, from Swan Sister: Fairy Tales Retold (Simon & Schuster, 2003)

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"Melisande" by E. Nesbit, from Nine Unlikely Tales (Fisher Unwin, 1901)

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"Thy Golden Stair" by Richard Parks, from Twice upon a Time (DAW 1999)

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"Rapunzel's Exile" by Lisa Russ Spaar, from Ploughshares, Vol. 22, No. 4, and The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Tenth Annual Collection (St. Martin's Press,1997)

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"Maiden in a Tower" by Wallace Earl Stegner, from The City of the Living, and Other Stories (Short Story Index Reprint Series) (Houghton Mifflin, 1956) Children's Novels

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Golden: A Retelling of "Rapunzel" (Once Upon a Time) by Cameron Dokey (Simon Pulse, 2006)

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Stone Cage by Nicholas Stuart Gray (Dennis Dobson, 1963)

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Letters from Rapunzel by Sara Holmes (Harper Collins, 2007)

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Zel by Donna Jo Napoli Picture Books

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Rapunzel by Alix Berenzy (Henry Holt, 1995)

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Rapunzel by Barbara Rogasky, illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman (Holiday House, 1982)

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Petrosinella. A Neapolitan Rapunzel. by Diane Stanley (Puffin Reprint, 1997)

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Rapunzel (Caldecott Medal Book) by Paul O. Zelinsky (Dutton, 1995)

Poetry •

The Poets' Grimm: 20th Century Poems from Grimm Fairy Tales edited by Jeanne Marie Beaumont and Claudia Carlson, containing fourteen Rapunzel poems (Story Line Press, 2003)

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Rapunzel, Rapunzel: Poems by Janet Charman by Janet Charman, containing a cycle of Rapunzel poems (Auckland University Press, 1999)

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"Rapunzel" by Faye Kicknosway, from American Poetry Since 1970: Up Late (Four Walls, Eight Windows, 1989)

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Disenchantments: An Anthology of Modern Fairy Tale Poetry , edited by Wolfgang Mieder, containing seven Rapunzel poems (University Press of New England, 1985)

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"Rapunzel" by William Morris, from The Defence Of Guenevere And Other Poems (Ellis & White, 1858)

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Rapunzel's Hair by Judy A. Rypma, chapbook (All Nations Press, 2005)

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Glass Town: Poems by Lisa Russ Spaar, containing a cycle of Rapunzel poems (Red Hen Press, 1999)

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"The Golden Stair" by Jane Yolen, from The Faery Flag: Stories and Poems of Fantasy and the Supernatural (Orchard, 1989)

Nonfiction •

Out of the Woods: The Origins of the Literary Fairy Tale in Italy and France , edited by Nancy L. Canepa (Wayne State University Press, 1997)

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Clever Maids: The Secret History of The Grimm Fairy Tales by Valerie Paradiz (Basic Books, 2004)

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The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales by Maria Tatar (W.W. Norton & Co., 2002)

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Rapunzel's Daughters: What Women's Hair Tells Us About Women's Lives by Rose Weitz (FSG, 2005)

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The Great Fairy Tale Tradition: From Straparola and Basile to the Brothers Grimm by Jack Zipes (W.W. Norton & Co., 2001)

Music •

"Rapunzel: What the Prince Saw at the Top of the Hair" by Jennifer A. Conner and Tom Trenney, from Organa Americana Organa Americana (Pro Organo, 2005)

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“Rapunzel: An Opera in Six Acts” by Lou Harrison: Rapunzel and Other Works , Lou Harrison (New Albion Records, 1952)

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"Rapunzel" by The Dave Matthews Band, from Before These Crowded Streets (RCA, 1998) On the Web

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Rapunzel on D. L. Ashliman's "Folktexts" site

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Rapunzel on Heidi Anne Heiner's "Surlalune Fairy Tales" site

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Rapunzel art installation by Jennifer Steinkamp, 2005

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Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let Down Your Hair art exhibition at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, 2001— 2002

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Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm, prints by David Hockney, 1969

It is one of the important functions of the fairy tale to enable people to identify with, and enter into, archetypal situations and experiences, such as the conflict of good versus bad, courage versus cowardice and pitting one’s wits against superior forces. This identification and participation helps to eliminate the feelings of isolation and loneliness to which humanity is so prone, and in so doing makes the person feel part of a greater whole; while the happy ending to the tale gives a pleasing sense of being a successful part of the whole.

J. C. COOPER

Myths and fairy tales seem to know something that we do not know.

JACK ZIPES

The May Queen Alfred, Lord Tennyson

You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear; To-‐morrow 'ill be the happiest time of all the glad New-‐year; Of all the glad New-‐year, mother, the maddest merriest day, For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. There's many a black, black eye, they say, but none so bright as mine; There's Margaret and Mary, there's Kate and Caroline; But none so fair as little Alice in all the land they say, So I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. I sleep so sound all night, mother, that I shall never wake, If you do not call me loud when the day begins to break; But I must gather knots of flowers, and buds and garlands gay, For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.

As I came up the valley whom think ye should I see But Robin leaning on the bridge beneath the hazel-‐tree? He thought of that sharp look, mother, I gave him yesterday, But I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. He thought I was a ghost, mother, for I was all in white, And I ran by him without speaking, like a flash of light. They call me cruel-‐hearted, but I care not what they say, For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. They say he's dying all for love, but that can never be; They say his heart is breaking, mother—what is that to me? There's many a bolder lad 'ill woo me any summer day, And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. Little Effie shall go with me to-‐morrow to the green, And you'll be there, too, mother, to see me made the Queen; For the shepherd lads on every side 'ill come from far away, And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.

The honeysuckle round the porch has woven its wavy bowers, And by the meadow-‐trenches blow the faint sweet cuckoo-‐flowers; And the wild marsh-‐marigold shines like fire in swamps and hollows gray, And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. The night-‐winds come and go, mother, upon the meadow-‐grass, And the happy stars above them seem to brighten as they pass; There will not be a drop of rain the whole of the livelong day, And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. All the valley, mother, 'ill be fresh and green and still, And the cowslip and the crowfoot are o ver all the hill, And the rivulet in the flowery dale 'ill merrily glance and play, For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May. So you must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear; To-‐morrow 'ill be the happiest time of all the glad New-‐year; Of all the glad New-‐year, mother, the maddest merriest day, For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o ' the May.

Fairy tales actually tell us about figures of the unconscious, of the other world. One could say that in myth the figures are confused with the gods of religion; they correspond to what Lucien Lévy-‐Bruhl calls the représentations collectives. Fairy tales, on the contrary, migrate and cannot be linked up with a national collective consciousness. They rather contain a tremendous amount of compensatory material and usually contradict or compensate collective conscious ideas.

MARIE LOUISE VON FRANZ

Contributors

Cover Art

Mystic Rose

Michael Green

Michael Green, the designer of the mystic rose used on the cover of this issue of Mythic Imagination, was the Environmental Designer for our Mythic Journeys Conference and Performance Festival held in 2006. Born in 1943, Michael Green studied at the New York University film school and the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil, and then hitchhiked around the Amazon. A "contentious objector” during the Vietnam War, he went on to join the Castalia Foundation in Millbrook, N.Y., and worked on germinal light shows with Tim Leary. Mr. Green has participated in various tribal and communal societies, lived in a mountaintop tipi in Woodstock, New York, and finally moved to Pennsylvania to study with the Sufi master Bawa Muhaiyaddeen. For the last twenty-‐five years, Michael Green has pursued a mixed career as an artist and craftsman. Working as a sign painter, landscaper, television art director, and as a fine artist and sculptor, he eventually turned to creating visual books as the artist, writer and designer. "I have always favored the bookstore as a superior and more accessible gallery," says Michael. "I've tended to skirt the reefs and shifting tides of the art establishment. So far so good: there are over 2,500,000 copies of my books (The Illuminated Rumi; One Song: The New Illuminated Rumi; The Illuminated Prayer: The Five-‐Times Prayer of the Sufis; Zen and the Art of the Macintosh; The I-‐Ching Records; Unicornis and The Book of the Dragontooth) currently in print."

The Faerie Queens

Rainbow Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I

Isaac Oliver

Title: Rainbow Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I Artist: Attributed to Isaac Oliver (1556—1617) Date: c. 1600-‐1602 Medium: oil on canvas Dimensions: 127 x 99.1 cm (50 x 39 in) Location: Collection of the Marquess of Salisbury—on display at Hatfield House; Hatfield, Hertfordshire. Notes: Isaac Oliver painted the Rainbow Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I in about 1600 when she was 67 years old. In 1596 the Privy Council had issued orders that all “unseemly portraits” of the Queen be destroyed. Thereafter the Queen was pictured solely in the “Mask of Youth” and was portrayed as untouched by age. Elizabeth I often referred to the sorrows of her aging body, thus it was not vanity that prompted this edict, rather a wish to portray the monarch as perpetually potent and ageless—traits considered critical for maintaining the authority of an unmarried Queen who would never produce a male heir. Allegorically, the image portrays Elizabeth as Astrae, the goddess of justice. She wears pearls, the symbol of virginity; English wildflowers to symbolize her youth and virtue; a serpent on her left sleeve to represent wisdom. The serpent has a heart-‐shaped ruby in his mouth, indicating that Elizabeth’s speech is ruled by wisdom, not emotion. Elizabeth’s mantle is covered with ears and eyes, indicating that the Queen sees and hears all. In her right hand she holds a rainbow, a symbol of hope, wisdom, faith and peace. During the European Renaissance, Astraea became associated with the general spirit of cultural renewal occurring at that time, particularly in England, where the goddess became poetically identified in literature with the figure of Elizabeth I as the virgin queen reigning over a new Golden Age.

The Faerie Queens

Sophia Alekseyevna of Russia

Unknown

Title: Sophia Alekseyevna of Russia Artist: Unknown Notes: This portrait is a seventeenth-‐century representation of Sophia Alekseyevna, Tsarevna of Russia. The future tsarevna was born on September 17, 1657. Her strategic alliance with Prince Vasily Galitzine led to her installation as a regent during the minority of her brothers, Peter the Great and Ivan V. Her later reign was characterized as a velvet hammer since violence was often necessary to maintain her sovereignty; yet her iron fist was softened by a keen intellect, an active and educated mind, and a strong desire for political and religious harmony. Simeon Polotsky, a Russian monk, observed that Sophia had an “accomplished masculine mind,” high praise for the time. Since most upper-‐class Muscovite women were confined to the upper-‐ floor terem, veiled and guarded in public, and invariably kept from any open involvement in politics, it is remarkable that Sophia Alekseyevna began her career by sitting in on state council meetings. It was there that she became acquainted with a number of the powerful boyars, something royal young ladies were not expected to do. During the course of bloody coups and fevered uprisings, Sophia Alekseyevna rose to power to become the first woman to rule the Russian Empire. Over the course of paranoid familial relations, her brother, Peter I, had her arrested and sent to a convent, where she eventually took the veil. A rebel faction attempted to restore her to power, but she died on July 14, 1704 as a simple religious sister.

The Faerie Queens Julie LeBrun as Flora

Marie Louise Élisabeth Vigeé Le Brun

Title: Julie Le Brun as Flora Artist: Marie Louise Élisabeth Vigeé Le Brun (1735-‐1842) Date: 1799 Medium: oil on canvas Dimensions: 51 3/8 x 38 1/2 in Location: Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, Florida Notes: Élisabeth Vigeé Le Brun is considered to be one of the finest and most famous portrait painters of her time. Those who sat for her included many of Europe’s royalty. Vigeé Le Brun was born in Paris to modest circumstances; although her father was a portrait artist, she was largely self-‐taught. Her classroom was a variety of museums and galleries where she made copies of the great works. Known for her fine talent as well as her beauty and charm, by the age of 15 she found herself receiving commissions from wealthy Parisians. Although she was forced to flee France during the French Revolution, her talents found her welcome across Europe. She continued painting until she was well into her fifties. This portrait of Julie Le Brun was painted by her mother when Julie was 19 years old. Mythically, Flora is the goddess of flowers and blooming vegetation; she is the beloved of Zephyrus, the wind, whose image may be seen in the clouds sailing behind Julie. Vigée Le Brun left a legacy of 660 portraits and 200 landscapes. In addition to private collections, her works may be found in major museums such as the Hermitage Museum and London's National Gallery, as well as other institutions in Europe and the United States.

The Faerie Queens Primavera

Sandro Botticelli

Title: Primavera Artist: Sandro Botticelli (1445-‐1510) Date: c. 1482 Medium: Tempera on panel Dimensions: 203 cm × 314 cm (80 in × 124 in) Location: Uffizi, Florence Notes: Primavera, also known as Allegory of Spring, is an Italian Renaissance painting by the artist Sandro Botticelli. It is considered one of the most popular paintings in Western art, as well as highly controversial due to the variety of interpretations stemming from its mythological, multivalent layers. Among its allegorical aspects, the work is sometimes cited as illustrating the ideal of Neoplatonic love. It may have been inspired by a poem by Poliziano. The history of the painting is not known for certain, although it was apparently commissioned by one of the Medici family. The painting has been part of the collection of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy since 1919.

The Faerie Queens The Boyarina

Konstantin Makovsky

Title: The Boyarina Artist: Konstantin Makovsky (1839-‐1915) Date: 1885 Medium: oil on canvas Dimensions: 37 × 26.25 in (94 × 66.7 cm) Location: Private Collection Notes: Konstantin Yegorovich Makovsky, was born on September 17, 1839. He grew to become an influential Russian painter, affiliated with the Peredvizhniki (Wanderers). Many of his historical paintings, such as The Russian Bride's Attire (1889), show an idealized view of Russian life of prior centuries. He is often considered a representative of Salon art. Konstantin was born in Moscow to the Russian art figure and amateur painter, Yegor Ivanovich Makovsky. Mr. Makovsky was the founder of Natural Class, the art school that later became the famous Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. Among the friends of his family were Karl Briullov and Vasily Tropinin. All of Yegor Makovsky’s children became notable painters; Konstantin, the painter of The Boyarina, was his eldest child. Later Konstantin wrote: “For what I became, I think I should thank not the Academy or Professors but only my father.” In 1851 Konstantin entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture where he became its top student, easily receiving all of the available awards. Other of his paintings include Ophelia, The Russian Bride Attire, and the Satyr and Nymph.

The Faerie Queens Princess Badoura

Edmund Dulac

Title: Princess Badoura Artist: Edmund Dulac (1882-‐1953) Date: 1913 Notes: Edmund Dulac’s illustration of Princess Badoura was created as an illustration for the fairy tale Princess Badoura, a tale from Arabian Nights. The story is Laurence Housman's retelling of the classic tale attributed to Scheherezade, the daughter of the Grand Vizier to Sultan Shahriar. In the story, Princess Badoura rules the lands during her husband’s absence. When he returns, Badoura requests that her husband, Prince Camaralzaman, take the Princess Haiatelnefous as another wife. He consents and the two queens live in sisterly harmony and each bear a son for their husband-‐king. Edmund Dulac was born in Toulouse France. He began his career by studying law at the University of Toulouse then switched to art when law studies bored him, and after winning prizes from the Ecole des Beaux Arts. In London, the 22-‐year old was commissioned to illustrate Jane Eyre, and also commissioned by the Leicester Gallery, where his artwork was sold and the rights to the paintings were purchased by Hodder & Stoughton, who used them as book illustrations. Books produced under this arrangement include Stories from The Arabian Nights; an edition of William Shakespeare's The Tempest; The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam; The Sleeping Beauty and Other Fairy Tales; Stories from Hans Christian Andersen; The Bells and Other Poems by Edgar Allan Poe; and Princess Badoura.

The Faerie Queens The End of the Ball

Rogelio de Egusquiza

Title: The End of the Ball Artist: Rogelio de Egusquiza (1845-‐1915) Location: Unknown Notes: As one of the most celebrated Spanish painters of the 19th Century, Rogelio de Egusquiza began working with the academic painter Leon Bonnat and went on to enjoy a highly successful career. From Spain he moved to Italy where he became a central figure of the Spanish artistic colony, and interacted with a circle of artists that included Mariano Fortuny and the Madrazo brothers. De Egusquiza successfully collaborated with the Italian painter, Mariano Fortuny, and his style became more colorful and precise as a result. In Italy he also met the composer Richard Wagner where the two developed a friendship that was to have an important influence on his more grandiloquent and tragic works. The End of the Ball reveals the artist at the height of his skill, both compositionally and stylistically. Dressed in traditional 19th Century costumes, the couple dances a waltz, a popular dance at the end of the century. Egusquiza masterfully combines the depiction of elegantly dressed woman with beautiful roses, and the atmosphere of the Belle Epoque. From his view of the room, Egusquiza focuses not only on the entertainers in the foreground but also on what is happening behind the scene. As such, the viewer’s eye is drawn to the back of the room and beyond to the activity behind the curtains. On November 13, 2007, The End of the Ball sold at Bonhams Auctions for approximately $93,000.

The Faerie Queens Queen Mary

Unknown

Title: “Queen Mary” Artist: unknown photographer Date: 1911 Medium: film Notes: Queen Mary, or Mary of Teck, was born Victoria Mary Augusta Louise Olga Pauline Claudine Agnes on May 26, 1867. She was the queen consort of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions; and Empress of India, as the wife of King-‐Emperor George V. Technically a princess of Teck in the Kingdom of Württemberg, she was born and brought up in the United Kingdom. Her parents were Francis, Duke of Teck, who was of German extraction, and Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, a member of the British Royal Family. To her family, she was informally known as "May," after her birth month. At the age of 24 she was betrothed to Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, but six weeks after the announcement he died of pneumonia. The following year she became engaged to Albert Victor's next surviving brother, George, who subsequently became king. After the difficulties of the First World War, and her husband’s death in 1936, her eldest son Edward became King-‐Emperor, but to her dismay he abdicated the same year in order to marry twice-‐divorced American socialite Mrs. Wallis Simpson. Her second son, Albert, succeeded to the throne as George VI, where he ruled as monarch until his death in 1952. She died the following year, at the beginning of the reign of her granddaughter, Elizabeth II. For a brief time, there were three queens in the country: Mary, her daughter-‐in-‐law; Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother; and Elizabeth II. The photograph shows Queen Mary in her coronation robes which depict an allegorical pond-‐and-‐vegetation scene with roses, thistles, and shamrocks.

The Faerie Queens La Licorne

Gustave Moreau

Title: La Licorne Artist: Gustave Moreau (1823-‐1898) Date: c. 1885 Medium: oil on canvas Dimensions: 50 by 34.5 cm, 19¾ by 13½ in Location: unknown, formerly at auction Sotheby’s London on May 30, 2008 Notes: Gustave Moreau was born in Paris, France on April 6, 1826. As a French Symbolist painter, his main emphasis was on the illustration of biblical and mythological figures. His paintings struck a cord and appealed to the imaginations of various Symbolist writers and artists. Gustave’s father, Louis Jean Marie Moreau, was an architect and as such recognized his talent, as did his mother, Adele Pauline des Moutiers. Moreau initially studied under the guidance of François-‐Édouard Picot and became a friend of Théodore Chassériau, whose work strongly influenced his own. Moreau had a 25-‐year personal relationship, possibly romantic, with Adelaide-‐ Alexandrine Dureux, a woman whom he drew on several occasions. His first painting was a Pietà which is now located in the cathedral at Angoulême. He showed A Scene from the Song of Songs and The Death of Darius in the Salon of 1853. In 1853 he contributed Athenians with the Minotaur and Moses Putting Off his Sandals within Sight of the Promised Land to the Great Exhibition.

The Faerie Queens Queen Elizabeth I

Unknown

Title: Queen Elizabeth I Notes: Elizabeth I was born September 7, 1533. She was the queen regnant of England and Ireland from November 17, 1558 and ruled until her death during the time of spring equinox in 1603. Called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty. As the daughter of Henry VIII, she was born a Tudor princess, but when her mother, Anne Boleyn, was executed two and a half years after her birth, Elizabeth was declared illegitimate. Her half-‐brother, Edward VI, bequeathed the crown to Lady Jane Grey, cutting his half-‐ sisters out of the succession. Edward’s will was later set aside, Lady Jane Grey was executed, and in 1558 Elizabeth succeeded her sister, the Catholic Mary I, who had been imprisoned for nearly a year on suspicion of supporting Protestant rebels.

The Faerie Queens Margaret of Valois

Unknown

Title: Margaret of Valois Artist: Unknown Notes: Margaret of France, known as Marguerite de France and Marguerite de Valois, was born on May 14, 1553 as a royal princess. She was later crowned Queen of France and of Navarre, and was the last of the House of Valois. As the daughter of King Henry II of France and Catherine de' Medici, Margaret was twice queen since she married King Henry III of Navarre who became King Henri IV of France. Aside from being twice a queen, Margaret was famous for her wit, beauty, and sense of style. She was considered one of the most fashionable women of her time, influencing most of Europe's Royal Courts with her attire. Margaret was also a gifted poet and writer—noted for her scandalous behavior—she took many lovers during her marriage and after its annulment—and for revealing the scandalous behavior of others. When imprisoned in the midst of craggy summits by her brother for eighteen years, she took advantage of the time to write her memoirs in a series of letters containing the secret history of the Court of France. These “scandalous” memoirs were published posthumously in 1628. Her life has inspired a variety of authors and artists over the centuries, beginning with Shakespeare's comedy Love's Labour's Lost written during her lifetime; Alexandre Dumas’ 1845 novel, Queen Margot; and the 1994 movie La Reine Margot, which was nominated by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for Best Costume Design.

The Faerie Queens Mary of Burgundy, Tyrol

Master H.A. or A.H.

Title: Mary of Burgundy, Tyrol Artist: Master H.A. or A.H. Date: 1528 Medium: oil on conifer panel Dimensions: 17 x 12 ¼ in Location: Robert Lehman Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art Notes: Mary, the duchess of Burgundy, was born in 1457. At the age of twenty, she married Emperor Maximilian I. In this profile portrait— extremely rare in the Netherlands and France during the fifteen century— the duchess wears a tall hennin, or steeple headdress, characteristic of the 1470s fashion. The headdress’ thick band of material is pinned to its base by an agrafe, an ornamental clasp. Her features closely match Maximilian's description of his young bride: "snow white complexion, brown hair and gray eyes, pretty and bright… Her mouth is rather high, yet clear and red." The attribution of the Lehman portrait to Master H.A. or A.H. is based on a monogram on the reverse of the panel that, until recent technical investigation, had been hidden beneath a later painting of the Virgin. The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s portrait, which dates to the late 1520s, attests to the popularity of images of Mary of Burgundy well after her death since the Habsburgs owed their Netherlandish territories to Mary’s marriage to Maximilan.

The Faerie Queens Queen Anne of Cleves

Hans Holbein the Younger

Title: Queen Anne of Cleves Artist: Hans Holbein the Younger Notes: Anne of Cleves was born on the fall equinox of 1515. She became the Queen of England after becoming the fourth wife of Henry VIII. Her father, John, Duke of Cleves, was the leader of the German Protestants. After the death of Jane Seymour, Cromwell considered Anne to be a suitable wife for Henry VIII. Anne of Cleves spoke no language but her own, had no looks, no accomplishments and no dowry; her only recommendations were her proficiency in needlework and her gentle temper. Nevertheless her picture, painted by Holbein at the king's command, pleased Henry and a marriage was arranged. A treaty to that effect was signed on September 24, 1539. However when the princess arrived in England, Henry was so taken aback by her appearance that he forgot to present his gift. The next day he openly expressed his dissatisfaction with her looks: "She was no better than a Flanders mare." Feeling forced to marry Anne under political pressure; Henry bitterly acquiesced, declaring on his wedding morning that no earthly thing would have induced him to marry her but the fear of driving the Duke of Cleves into the arms of the emperor. Henry had reason to regret the policy that had identified him with German Protestantism and thus denied his reconciliation with the emperor. After the Duke of Norfolk’s insertion of a beautiful, nineteen year old, Catherine Howard, into court, Cromwell's fall was swift. Now that the chief obstacle to divorce was removed, Henry declared that his marriage to Anne of Cleves had not been and could never be consummated, while also casting doubts on his wife's honor. The marriage was then declared null and void by religious convocation, and an act of parliament to the same effect was passed immediately.

Year of the Roses Honora Foah

Author

Honora Foah is the President and Creative Director of the Mythic Imagination Institute as well as a member of its Board of Directors. Ms. Foah headed the development group for the Mythic Journeys Conference and Performance Festivals held in 2004 and 2006. She was also the chief producer and designer for the UN Pavilions featured in the 1992 World Expo in Genoa, Italy, and the 1993 World Expo held in Taejon, South Korea. As the artistic force behind Visioneering International, Inc., Ms. Foah brings to every endeavor her extensive training and professional experience in the fine arts, including dance, music and theater. Ms. Foah received her bachelor of arts and master of arts degrees from the University of North Carolina. In addition to her university education, Foah studied dance under such greats as Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham, trained extensively in drama and music, and is an accomplished performer in each of these areas. She employed her love for the arts, as well as her flair for audio visual creativity, as co-‐ director of her own dance theater company from 1976 to 1986. Schene/Hill Dancing, one of the most innovative dance companies in New York City, was known for combining multi-‐ media images, set design, dance, photography and voice. In 1982, Ms. Foah was awarded a prestigious grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. After seven years at the helm of Schene/Hill Dancing, Honora Foah, a teacher since the age of 15, immersed herself in educational studies for a Ph.D. She considers teaching and art to be her two professional passions and believes that the perfect combination of these talents is her work, which uses creative, artistic tools in an educational manner. In 1987, Honora Foah teamed up with her husband, Robert Foah, to produce imaginative high-‐tech audio visual projects that are on the cutting edge of the industry. Together, they have grown in this capacity and serve as the principal multi-‐media consultants to the United Nations and several Fortune 500 companies.

The Path of Needles or Pins Terri Windling

Author

Terri Windling is a writer, editor, and artist specializing in fantasy literature, fairy tales, and mythic arts. She has published more than forty books for adults, teens, and children, winning nine World Fantasy Awards, the Mythopoeic Award (for her mythic novel The Wood Wife), the Bram Stoker Award, and placing on the short list for the Tiptree Award. She also received the 2010 SFWA Solstice Award for "outstanding contributions to the speculative fiction field as a writer, editor, artist, educator, and mentor," and has recently been nominated for the 2012 Shirley Jackson Award. Her essays on myth, fairy tales, literature and art have appeared in magazines, art books and reference texts in the United States and Europe. Ms. Windling co-‐edited The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror annual anthologies (with Ellen Datlow) for sixteen years, and The Journal of Mythic Arts (with Midori Snyder) for eleven years. Terri Windling works in the New York publishing industry, but lives in a small Dartmoor village in England's West Country, with her husband (English dramatist Howard Gayton), their daughter, and a dog named Tilly. For more information about her books and art, visit her website, her blog: The Drawing Board, or her Etsy shop. Please visit Terri Windling on the web at www.terriwindling.com.

The Path of Needles or Pins

Haleigh Walsworth

Artist

Haleigh Walsworth is a graduate of The American University of Paris. She is a professional digital strategist, community manager, and creative content producer known for producing creative reality documentaries and short films. Originally from Southern California, Ms. Walsworth is now based in Paris and speaks English and French. She is a photo, copy, and film contributor to various entities including Dujour Magazine and Matchbook Magazine Lionsgate, Can't Forget Italy, and more. Her website, Making Magique, is a fashion and lifestyle blog founded in 2010, formerly known as Bardot in Blue. It focuses on Parisian fashion and jetset lifestyles across the globe. It is created and run by Ms. Walsworth whose style is a mix of French sophistications and American quirks that “aims to keep fashion fabulous and fun.” The images used in “The Path of Needles or Pins” are courtesy of Ms. Walsworth. These photographs of her, envisioned as a contemporary interpretation of “Little Red Riding Hood,” are from a photo shoot taken on October 12, 2011. Please visit Haleigh Walsworth on the web at makingmagique.com.

The Better to Eat You With D. L. Ashliman

Author

As a folklore researcher, D. L. Ashliman has provided immeasurable benefits to his audiences and colleagues regarding Germanic myths, legends and sagas, as well as Indo-‐European folk and fairy tales. Dr. Ashliman received both his master’s degree and Ph.D. from Rutgers University. Further study was conducted at the Georg-‐August Universität in Göttingen, Germany as well as at the Rheinische Friedrich-‐Wilhelms-‐Universität in Bonn, Germany. His works include Fairy Lore: A Handbook; Folk and Fairy Tales: A Handbook; an edition of Aesop’s Fables which he edited, introduced, and for which he provided notes; Voices from the Past: The Cycle of Life in Indo-‐European Folktales; Once upon a Time: The Story of European Folktales; and A Guide to Folktales in the English Language: Based on the Aarne-‐Thompson Classification System. He has also written and published numerous articles on the subject of fairy tale and folkloric stories and traditions. Dr. Ashliman retired from the University of Pittsburgh in 2000 and now conducts his folklore research from southern Utah. The stories compiled in the section entitled “The Better to Eat You With” are courtesy of Dr. Ashliman. He can be contacted at ashliman@hotmail.com. Most of his web-‐based information is on the University of Pittsburg’s website. Please find Dr. Ashliman on the web by doing a search using D. L. Ashliman as the search criteria.

The Better to Eat You With Jeune Femme à la Coiffe

Serge de Solomko

Title: Jeune Femme à la Coiffe Artist: Serge (Sergei) de Solomko (1867-‐1928) Medium: oil on canvas Dimensions: 13.8 x 10.6 in, 35 x 27 cm Location: Unknown, sold at auction on March 30, 2007 Notes: The end of the 19th century found the Russian artist Serge Solomko working as a graphic designer, illustrator, and costume designer. His artwork includes The Procurator of Judea shown in 1919, Medieval Ceremony, Signore Eleganta, Young lady walking through snow, and Portrait of Ivan Mazepa. He participated in several newspapers and illustrated numerous children’s stories. After 1910, Serge Solomko was based in Paris where he illustrated numerous books by French and Russian authors. His illustrations were used in Mademoiselle de Maupin, written by Théophile Gautier and published in 1914; and his lithographies appeared in Fetes Galantes by Paul Verlaine. He is buried in the Russian cemetery of Sainte Genevieve des Bois.

The Better to Eat You With Mary I, Queen of England and Ireland

Unknown

Title: Mary I, Queen of England and Ireland Notes: Mary I was born on February 18, 1516, and later reigned as Queen of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death on November 17, 1558. She was the only surviving child of the difficult marriage between Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, which ended in divorce and her mother’s estrangement from her. Catherine of Aragon was a staunch Catholic and Mary followed in her footsteps. Her younger half-‐brother, Edward VI, succeeded Henry in 1547. But by 1553, Edward was mortally ill and because of religious differences between them, he attempted to remove Mary from the line of succession by naming their cousin, Lady Jane Grey, as his successor. On his death in 1553, Lady Grey became the de facto monarch of England from July 10 until July 19, hence creating the sobriquet of The Nine Days’ Queen. To secure the line of succession, Mary assembled a force in East Anglia and successfully deposed Jane, who was ultimately beheaded. Mary married Philip of Spain in 1554 and thus became queen consort of Habsburg Spain on his accession in 1556. As the fourth crowned monarch of the Tudor dynasty, Mary is remembered for her restoration of Roman Catholicism after the short-‐lived Protestant reign of her half-‐brother. During her five-‐year reign, she had over 280 religious dissenters burned at the stake in the Marian Persecutions. This led to her Protestant political opponents endowing her with the nickname "Bloody Mary." Her re-‐establishment of Roman Catholicism was reversed after her death in 1558 by her successor and younger half-‐sister, Elizabeth I.

The Better to Eat You With Beauty with a Parasol at a Garden Wall

Alex Belles

Title: Beauty with a Parasol at a Garden Wall Artist: Alex Belles (19th century) Date: c. 1800s Medium: oil on canvas Dimensions: 28.75 in x 23.50 in, 73.00 cm x 59.70 cm Location: unknown, auctioned at Waddington’s Toronto in 2009 Notes: Victorian Art refers to a variety of artistic styles developed during the second half of the 19th century. The spirit of the age is personified by the image of Queen Victoria and transverses her 64-‐year reign from 1837-‐1901. It encompasses Classicism, Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Impressionism, and Post-‐Impressionism. The impact of the era includes the development of photography and new technologies in architecture. In the midst of these artistic movements, painters Dante Rossetti and William Holman Hunt formed the Pre-‐Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848. These avant-‐garde artists banded together with the common vision of recapturing the style of painting that preceded Raphael, famed artist of the Italian Renaissance. For the purposes of appreciating Beauty with a Parasol at a Garden Wall, the Victorian influence appears synthesized in this artwork: the eclectic revival of historic styles mixed with the introduction of Middle East and Asian influences. From the Victorian era forward, parasols have inspired artists, symbolically resonating with mirth and mystery, isolation and sorrow.

The Better to Eat You With A Difficult Answer

Sergey Solomko

Title: A Difficult Answer Artist: Serge (Sergei) de Solomko (1867-‐1928) Date: 1910 Medium: paper Dimensions: postcard Location: for bid on delcampe.net until May 2, 2012 Notes: The end of the 19th century found the Russian artist Serge Solomko working as a graphic designer, illustrator, and costume designer. His artwork includes The Procurator of Judea shown in 1919, Medieval Ceremony, Signore Eleganta, Young lady walking through snow, and Portrait of Ivan Mazepa. He participated in several newspapers and illustrated numerous children’s stories. After 1910, Serge Solomko was based in Paris where he illustrated numerous books by French and Russian authors. His illustrations were used in Mademoiselle de Maupin, written by Théophile Gautier and published in 1914; and his lithographies appeared in Fetes Galantes by Paul Verlaine. A Difficult Answer was printed as a Russian postcard in 1910.

The Better to Eat You With Hélène De Troie

Gaston Bussière

Title: Hélène De Troie Artist: Gaston Bussière (1862-‐1928) Date: 1895 Notes: Gaston Bussière was born in Cuisery, France on April 24, 1862, and died at Saulieu, France on October 29, 1928. He was French Symbolist painter and illustrator who studied at l'Académie des Beaux-‐Arts in Lyon before entering the École des Beaux-‐Arts in Paris. The most famous of this grouping of schools is the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-‐Arts, now located on the left bank in Paris, across the Seine and the Louvre. The school’s history spans more than 350 years, and was the site of training for many of the great artists in Europe. Beaux Arts style was modeled on classical "antiquities," preserving and passing on these idealized forms and style. At the École des Beaux-‐Arts he studied under Alexandre Cabanel and Pierre Puvis de Chavannes. He was honored as the recipient of the Marie Bashkirtseff prize in 1884. Close to Gustave Moreau, Bussière also found inspiration in the work of French composer Hector Berlioz (La Damnation de Faust) as well as in the works of Shakespeare and Wagner. He produced illustrations for Honoré de Balzac’s Splendours and Miseries of Courtesans published in 1897, Théophile Gautier’s Émaux et camées, and Oscar Wilde’s Salome. He also illustrated several works by Gustave Flaubert. In Hélène De Troie, Bussière has Hélène adorned with rich accessories and lavish jewels. The ideals surfacing through the work center around the concept of “the dream in contrast to the reality; the ideal in contrast to the common.”

The Better to Eat You With Flora

Alexander Roslin

Title: Flora Artist: Alexander Roslin (1718-‐1793) Marie Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (1755-‐1842) Date: 18th century Medium: oil on canvas Dimensions: 91.5 × 72.5 cm (36 × 28.5 in) Location: Musée des Beaux-‐Arts de Bordeaux Notes: Alexander Roslin was born on July 15, 1718 in Malmö, Sweden, and died on July 5, 1793 in Paris, France. Although he was Swedish, he painted portraits of aristocrats across Europe during the mid-‐eighteenth century. Born the son of army doctor, he first studied shipbuilding. After learning to draw from Erhenbill, captain of the Admiralty, he devoted himself to the study of miniature. Having resolved to become a painter, he left home at the age of sixteen to live in Stockholm. The Swedish capital was then a major intellectual and artistic center. Queen Christina of Sweden had established close relations between Paris and Stockholm and many French artists and intellectuals had moved there and thereby popularized French art and literature. Over the course of his travels Roslin visited Venice, Bologna, Ferrara, Rome and Naples. When he arrived in Florence, he was asked to present his portrait to the Uffizi Gallery. A special exhibition of his works was made available at the Palace of Versailles in the spring of 2008.

Notes From the Editor

Mary Davis

Author

Mary Davis chairs Publications for the Mythic Imagination Institute and serves as the Editor of Mythic Imagination Magazine. Ms. Davis was elected five times to the Atlanta City Council, serving there twenty years, making a difference for the people of Atlanta. Consultant in public policy, campaigns, strategic planning, public relations, marketing, writing, editing, and real estate; yoga teacher; actress; fundraiser; manager; civic leader and activist. "You name it, I have done most of it!" she says. Mary especially enjoys her three adult daughters, seven young grandchildren and her friends, plus, of course, her involvement with the Mythic Imagination Institute, Emory University, and the Jung Society of Atlanta.

Notes From the Editor

A Silver Rose for You!

Mario Lapid

Title: “A Silver Rose for You!” Artist: Mario Lapid (Lapidim) Date: May 12, 2005 Medium: photography Location: archived on flickr Notes: All of the images used in “Mythic Imagination Roses” are courtesy of Mario Lapid. “A Silver Rose for You!” was taken on May 12, 2005. His comments: “A Silver Rose for you from my black and white garden.” “Ladies in Red” was taken on February 22, 2005. His comments: “Karis Mata Temple, Deshnok, India. Cutout: Ladies in Red is in one of the most venerated shrines in India.” “Ponte del Diavolo” was taken on August 16, 2007. His comments: “Venice, Italy.” “Nostalgia II” was taken on August 17, 2005 at Comillas, Cantabria, Spain. His comments: “In remembrance of a time, when mankind still believed in ‘Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité,’ before World Wars and endless terrorism…” “Torso” was taken on September 5, 2005. His comments: “I found this incredible natural sculptured tree in broad moonlight while walking one night in Tel Aviv. A real marvel in the purest Botticelli style.” Mario Lapid is a photographer with a portfolio of 150 images available for review on Flickr. The images used in “Mythic Imagination Roses” are courtesy of Mario Lapid under the flickr Creative Commons license with some rights reserved. Please use his flickr name, lapidim, when searching for his work on flickr.

Fairy Tales for Writers

Lawrence Schimel

Author

Lawrence Schimel is an author and anthologist whose work embraces many different genres. Born in New York in 1971, he received his bachelor of arts in literature from Yale University. His short stories, poems, and essays have appeared in numerous periodicals including The Wall Street Journal, The Saturday Evening Post, The Boston Phoenix, Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, and Physics Today. Fairy Tales for Writers was published in 2007. Mr. Schimel’s work has also been incorporated into more than 140 anthologies including The Random House Book of Science Fiction Stories, Best Gay Erotica 1997 and 1998, The Mammoth Book of Fairy Tales, Black Thorn, White Rose, The Sandman Book of Dreams, Weird Tales from Shakespeare, Gay Love Poetry, and The Random House Treasury of Light Verse. He is a member of the National Book Critics Circle and the Academy of American Poets, as well as a founding member of the Publishing Triangle, an organization of lesbians and gay men in the publishing industry, which he chaired for two terms from 1996 to 1998. Mr. Schimel has received the Rhysling Award and the Lambda Literary Award twice. He was a juror for the 2010 James Tiptree, Jr. Award, and was also a volunteer judge for the 2011 Lambda Literary Award. Mr. Schimel is a regular lecturer at Princeton University, Yale University, Brown University, Rutgers University, and Wayne State University. His poetry contributions to Mythic Imagination are from his collection, Fairy Tales for Writers. They include “The Princess and The Pea,” “Sleeping Beauty,” and “Little Mermaid.” The poems are copyright Lawrence Schimel with all rights reserved. Please find Lawrence Schimel on the web on Google+.

Fairy Tales for Writers

Jay Goldman

Artist

Title: “Fairy Tale” Artist: Jay Goldman Date: October 2, 2011 Medium: photography Location: archived on flickr Notes: “Fairy Tale” was taken in Trinity Bellwoods, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. “Fairy Tale” is used courtesy of Jay Goldman under the flickr Creative Commons license with some rights reserved. Please visit Jay Goldman on the web at www.flickr.com.

Fairy Tales for Writers

Mario Lapid

Artist

Title: “Fairy Tale” Artist: Mario Lapid (Lapidim) Date: April 24, 2004 Medium: photography Location: archived on flickr Notes: “Fairy Tale” was taken at Alcázar de Segovia. It is a photograph of the Castilla y León in Spain. Mario Lapid is a photographer with a portfolio of 150 images available for review on Flickr. “Fairy Tale” is used courtesy of Lapidim under the flickr Creative Commons license with some rights reserved. Please find Mario Lapid on the web at www.flickr.com using his flickr name Lapdim.

Fairy Tales for Writers

David Andersen

Artist

Title: “Fairy Tale” Artist: David Andersen (dawe2k5) Date: May 6, 2011 Medium: photography Location: archived on flickr Notes: “Fairy Tale” was taken at the Royal Garden in Copenhagen, Sweden using a Canon PowerShot G10. Mr. Andersen refers to the dark silhouettes in the photograph as “gargoyles” or “rooftop statues.” David Andersen is a photographer with a portfolio of 935 images available for review on Flickr. “Fairy Tale” is used courtesy of David Andersen under the flickr Creative Commons license with some rights reserved. Please find David Andersen on the web at www.flickr.com.

Cinderella: Ashes, Blood, and the Slipper of Glass

Christian Louboutin Designer

Christian Louboutin was born on January 7, 1963. As a French footwear designer, he is known for his signature red-‐lacquered soles. Louboutin began sketching shoes in his early teens. His limited amount of formal training entailed drawing and decorative arts at the Académie d'Art Roederer. Louboutin’s fascination with shoes began in 1976 when he visited the Musee national des Arts d’Afrique et d’Oceanie where he saw a sign from Africa forbidding women wearing sharp stilettos from entering a building because of the wood flooring. This image stood out in his mind and he later used this idea in his designs. "I wanted to defy that," Louboutin said. "I wanted to create something that broke rules and made women feel confident and empowered." Fascinated by world cultures, he ran away in his teens to Egypt and spent a year in India. He returned to Paris in 1981 where he created a portfolio of elaborate high heels, which he took to the top couture houses. The effort resulted in employment with Charles Jourdan. Subsequently, Louboutin met Roger Vivier, who claims to have invented the stiletto or “spiked-‐heel” shoe. Louboutin became an apprentice in Vivier's atelier. He later served as a freelance designer for Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent, and Maude Frizon. His first customer was Princess Caroline of Monaco and other customers include Diane Von Furstenburg, Catherine Deneuve, Jennifer Lopez, Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kim Kardashian, and Sarah Jessica Parker. Louboutin is credited with bringing stilettos back into fashion in the 1990s and 2000s, designing dozens of styles with heels of 4.72 inches and higher. His single biggest client is Danielle Steel, who is reputed to own over 6,000 pairs and is known to have purchased up to 80 pairs at a time while shopping at his stores. Please visit Christian Louboutin on the web at eu.christianlouboutin.com.

Cinderella: Ashes, Blood, and the Slipper of Glass

Gianmarco Lorenzi Designer

Gianni Renzi was born to an Italian family that owned a specialist children’s footwear factory. Sketching his first shoe designs at the age of five, he eventually joined the Renzi family business. In the 1970s, he and his brothers, Marco and Renzo, decided to try some innovative approaches. These new concepts were to revolutionize the company and bring fresh ideas to the industry as a whole. It was during the shift from focusing on children’s shoes to women’s luxury footwear that the label Gianmarco Lorenzi evolved. Gianni Renzi is now the creative director of Gianmarco Lorenzi. Because of the family’s long history in the business, Renzi feels that they have an innate understanding of shoes and a good sense of where women’s footwear is headed. Their headquarters are located in Porta Sant’Elipidio in Italy’s Marche region, renown as a center of excellence in the footwear industry. Please visit Gianni Renzi on the web at www.gianmarcolorenzi.com.

Cinderella: Ashes, Blood, and the Slipper of Glass

Prada Designer

Mario Prada and his brother Martino started Prada in 1913 as a leather goods shop, Fratelli Prada (Prada Brothers), in Milan, Italy. Initially, the shop sold leather goods and imported English steamer trunks and handbags. As a product of his times, Mario did not believe that women should have a role in business, so he prevented female family members from entering the company. Ironically, Mario's son harbored no interest in the business, so it was his daughter Luisa Prada who took control of Prada as Mario’s successor and ran it for almost twenty years. Her own daughter, Miuccia Prada, joined the company in 1970 and eventually took over for her mother in 1978. Miuccia inherited the company in 1978 by which time sales were up to $450,000. She released her first set of backpacks and totes in 1979. They were made out of a tough military spec black nylon that her grandfather had used as coverings for steamer trunks. Initial success was not instant, but the line would go on to become her first commercial hit. Next, the house of Prada sought accounts in upscale department stores and boutiques. In 1983, Prada opened a second boutique in Milan with a sleek, modern look. Expansion began across continental Europe with locations opening in Florence, Paris, Madrid, and New York. A shoe line was also released in 1984; and in 1985, Miuccia released the "classic Prada handbag" which became an overnight sensation. Prada’s ready-‐to-‐wear collection debuted in 1989, and the designs became famous for their dropped waistlines and narrow belts. Prada’s popularity also skyrocketed because of their designs’ strong, clean lines; opulent fabrics; and basic colors. The logo for the label was not as obvious a design element as those on bags from other prominent luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton. Prada tried to market its lack of prestigious appeal, including apparel, with an image of "anti-‐status" or "reverse snobbery." Please visit Miuccia Prada on the web at www.prada.com.

Cinderella: Ashes, Blood, and the Slipper of Glass

Lauren Tennenbaum Designer

Lauren Tennenbaum is a young, New York designer who was formally trained in cognitive science and then started her blog (IN)DECOROUS TASTE three years ago and shepherded it into an online store featuring her wild creations. Borderline fetish, her intensely spiked, exaggerated heels, and unpredictably aggressive jewelry, combines feminine and the overtly hostile into dynamic accessories and interiors. In a recent interview with Kate Kelsali of Don’t Panic, Lauren Tennenbaum describes her beginnings this way: “Design was always part of my life. I come from a family that constantly indulges wacky aesthetic experiments. Both my mother and grandfather were classically trained painters, and so it's something that happened very naturally for me, even if my focus in college was seemingly on a different track (cognitive science). I do think that people crave opulence in times of economic hardship, I also think that (IN)DECOROUS TASTE as a philosophy supports a different kind of opulence. It's about looking in unconventional places and using your own preferences as a guide to create your own decadence, not about spending lots of money to purchase the ‘whole designer look’ from top to bottom. Opulence is found, not purchased. Celebrating the beautiful and delightful is opulent.“ Please visit Lauran Tennenbaum on the web at www.indecoroustaste.com.

Cinderella: Ashes, Blood, and the Slipper of Glass

Maison Martin Margiela Designer

Martin Margiela was born on April 9, 1957 in Genk, Belgium. He studied at Antwerp's Royal Academy of Fine Arts along with the legendary avant-‐garde fashion collective the Antwerp Six. From 1985 to 1987, Margiela worked for Jean Paul Gaultier before showing his first collection in 1989. Between 1997 and 2003 he was the creative director for Hermès. During the 1980s, the Japanese avant-‐gardists, with Rei Kawakubo—creator of the label Comme des Garçons—had turned the fashion scene upside down with their eccentric and groundbreaking designs. Martin Margiela and the Antwerp Six carried on their work, revolting against the luxurious fashion world with garments of oversized proportions such as long arms, and with linings, seams, and hems on the outside. Margiela famously redesigns objects such as old wigs, canvases and silk scarves into couture garments. Throughout his career, Martin Margiela has maintained an extremely low profile. He has never had his picture taken and remains backstage after his shows. All media contact is dealt with via fax. Maison Martin Margiela’s ultra discreet trademark for years consisted of a piece of cloth with the numbers 0-‐ 23. For their 20th anniversary, the anonymous tag was replaced by a traditional logo style. Diesel acquired Mason Martin Margiela in 2002. Please visit Martin Margiela on the web at www.masonmartinmargiela.com.

Puss in Boots, a Fairy Tale

Dahna Lorrain Koth

Author

Dahna Lorrain Koth serves as Marketing Director and Fellow of the Mythic Imagination Institute. In this capacity, she has produced and co-‐written with Honora Foah over a dozen full-‐length podcasts; served as a creative consultant for Mythic Imagination Magazine; and designed and implemented the layouts for all of the collateral material in the Mythic Imagination online store. Ms. Koth is Director of Creative Services for the international business group, DLK Ltd. As a writer and creative director, her clients in corporate communications and business theater have included Fortune 500 companies such as Coca-‐Cola, BellSouth, Eli Lilly, SAAB, Ritz-‐ Carlton, Delta Airlines, Cingular, and Nortel Networks. Prior to joining DLK Ltd., Ms. Koth was Creative Director for two of the nation’s top corporate communications firms, PGI and The Jack Morton Company. At Conduit Communications, she served as Vice President of Marketing & Development specializing in television programming and joint venture relations with New World Entertainment. For seven years, Ms. Koth worked as Development Project Manager for the Dollywood Company where she focused on the development of a world-‐class resort for Dollywood, a $4.5 million themed dinner extravaganza called Dixie Stampede, and Dollywood theme park expansions. After leaving Dollywood, she was commissioned by Dolly Parton to write two movie scripts, and by Dollywood to write two musicals. Other unique projects have included entertainment zones for the states of New Mexico and Georgia, a major expansion of Marineland, Florida, and a concert series for the United Nations Earth Summit Committee, Ireland. Ms. Koth is the guest editor of this issue of Mythic Imagination Magazine. She is currently working with Honora Foah on a newly awakening project called The Art of Myth.

Puss in Boots, a Fairy Tale

The Drury Lane Collection

Victoria and Albert Museum

In June 2007, the Victoria and Albert Museum celebrated the 150th anniversary of its opening in South Kensington. As the world's leading museum of art and design, the V&A promotes knowledge, understanding, and enjoyment of the designed world to inspire creativity. To reflect this and to mark the occasion of its anniversary, the V&A invited 150 leading designers, architects, photographers, fashion designers and artists to contribute a page to an anniversary album. Selected prints were then made available to purchase to support the next 150 years of the V&A. Over two million people visit the V&A museum annually. In 2006, V&A exhibitions were shown in nine venues across the UK and 12 international venues, including Melbourne, Bangkok and San Francisco. In addition to these touring exhibitions, approximately 2,300 V&A objects were on loan to UK venues in 2006 and 700 objects were on loan overseas. Over 19 million visits are now made to the V&A website annually; there are more than 100,000 pages available in their Internet archive. Archival categories at the V&A range from architecture, drawings, fashion and sculpture to photography, ceramics and textiles. The museum has a unique category called Theatre and Performance. Sir Henry Cole, (1808 -‐ 1882) organized and conducted the two museums from which the V&A grew: the Museum of Oriental Art and the South Kensington Museum, which was its name when it was established in 1857. It was renamed the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1899 when Queen Victoria laid the foundation stone for a new building. Please visit the Victoria and Albert Museum on the web at www.vam.ac.uk.

Sleeping Beauty Awakes

Heinz Insu Fenkl

Panelist

Heinz Insu Fenkl is an associate professor of English and Asian Studies at SUNY New Paltz. He previously served as coordinator of the school's Creative Writing Program and was formerly the director of ISIS: The Interstitial Studies Institute, also formerly at New Paltz. After graduating from Vassar College, Fenkl studied folklore and shamanism as a Fulbright Scholar in Korea, and also studied dream research under a grant from the University of California. Fenkl holds an M.A. in creative writing from the University of California, Davis, where he was also a Ph.D candidate in cultural anthropology. Before his appointment to his current position at SUNY, Fenkl taught a wide array of creative writing, folklore, and Asian literature courses at Vassar College, Bard College, Eastern Michigan University, Sarah Lawrence College, and Yonsei University (Korea). At New Paltz, Fenkl regularly teaches creative writing in addition to courses on Asian literature and film, as well as folklore. His fiction includes Memories of My Ghost Brother, an autobiographical, Interstitial novel about growing up in Korea as a bi-‐racial child in the 1960s. On the strength of this book he was named a Barnes & Noble "Great New Writer" and PEN/Hemingway Award finalist in 1997. His second novel, Shadows Bend (a collaborative work, published under a pseudonym) was an innovative, dark 'road novel' about H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and Clark Ashton Smith. He has also published short fiction in a variety of journals and magazines, as well as numerous articles on folklore and myth. Fenkl is currently at work on a sequel to Memories of My Ghost Brother, and on a volume of Korean myths, legends, and folk tales: Old, Old Days When Tigers Smoked Tobacco Pipes. He also writes regular columns on mythic topics for Realms of Fantasy magazine and the Endicott Studio Journal of Mythic Arts. Please visit Heinz Insu Fenkl on the web at www.heinzinsufenkl.net.

Sleeping Beauty Awakes

Carolyn Dunn

Panelist

Carolyn Dunn is an American Indian artist of Cherokee, Muskogee Creek, and Seminole descent on her father’s side; and Cajun, French Creole, and Tunica-‐Biloxi on her mother’s. Primarily a poet and a playwright, Carolyn began telling and writing stories at a very young age, being exposed to storytelling traditions from all aspects of her very Southern and very Western background. Her work has been recognized by the Wordcraft Circle of Storytellers and Writers as Book of the Year for poetry (Outfoxing Coyote, 2002) as well as the Year’s Best in 1999 for her short story “Salmon Creek Road Kill,” Native American Music Awards (for the Mankillers CD Comin to Getcha) and the Humboldt Area Foundation. In addition to Outfoxing Coyote, her books include Through the Eye of the Deer (Aunt Lute Books, 1999), Hozho: Walking in Beauty (McGraw Hill, 2002) and Coyote Speaks (H.N. Abrams, 2008). As an academic, Carolyn’s work has primarily focused on American Indian women’s literature (poetry, prose, and drama), and urban American Indian identity formation in California. She received her Doctorate in American Studies (with a focus on American Indian Literature and Theater) from the University of Southern California, where she was a James Irvine Fellow, and an M.A. in American Indian literature and folklore from UCLA. Her essays have appeared in the American Indian Culture and Research Journal, Belles Lettres, and the anthologies American Indian Performing Arts: Critical Directions, Reading Native American Women, and Cultural Representation and Contestation in Native America. Currently, Carolyn is a Visiting Lecturer at San Francisco State University, where she teaches American Indian Oral Literature, and serves as the Managing Director of the American Indian Resource Center and the Ethnic Resource Centers at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She lives in a redwood forest with her family. Please visit Carolyn Dunn on the web at www.carolyndunn.com.

Sleeping Beauty Awakes

Gayle Ross

Panelist

Gayle Ross is a direct descendant of John Ross, chief of the Cherokee Nation during the infamous "Trail of Tears" relocation. Through stories she learned from her grandmother, Gayle Ross has been telling her people's myths and legends at schools, colleges, and festivals across the United States. Ms. Ross is a master storyteller who can provoke laughter with trickster stories (How Rabbit Tricked Otter and Other Cherokee Trickster Stories) or move listeners to tears with haunting Cherokee creation myths. Ms. Ross has appeared at almost every major storytelling and folk festival in the United States and Canada, as well as theaters and performance arts halls throughout the U.S. and Europe. The prestigious National Council of Traditional Arts included Ms. Ross in two of their touring shows, “The Master Storyteller’s Tour” and the all Indian show, “From the Plains to the Pueblos.” Internationally acclaimed musician and composer Peter Buffet featured Gayle and her stories in his epic stage performance “500 Nations,” based on the CBS mini-‐series produced by Kevin Costner. Ms. Ross also produced and directed an all-‐Native show entitled “Full Circle,” which featured the Grammy award-‐winning Mohegan musician Bill Miller, as well as the singing and dancing of Rob Greyhill, Jennifer Meness and the Great American Indian Dance Theater. She was chosen by Vice President Al Gore, later the White House, the Kennedy Center and the Library of Congress to present Native American tales. In 1995, Gayle was featured in a two-‐hour segment of the documentary How The West Was Won on the Discovery Channel. Gayle Ross' voice may be heard telling stories on National Public Radio programs such as Mythic Journeys, Living On The Earth, and Mountain Stage. Please visit Gayle Ross on Facebook at www.facebook.com.

Sleeping Beauty Awakes Terri Windling

Panelist

Sleeping Beauty Awakes

Alexander McQueen

Artist

Lee Alexander McQueen was born on March 17, 1969, in Lewisham, London, to Scottish taxi driver Ronald McQueen and social science teacher Joyce McQueen. He was the youngest of six children. McQueen was a British fashion designer and couturier best known for his in-‐depth knowledge of British tailoring, his tendency to juxtapose strength with fragility in his collections, and the emotional power and raw energy of his provocative fashion shows. He worked as the chief designer at Givenchy from 1996 to 2001. From there he went on to found the Alexander McQueen label. His achievements in fashion earned him four British Designer of the Year awards (1996, 1997, 2001 and 2003), as well as the CFDA's International Designer of the Year award in 2003. As part of his creative genius, McQueen started every collection with an idea or a concept for the runway presentation before the fashion. After the initial concept, he would create an elaborate storyboard with various references from art, film, and music. His creative process in terms of clothing was such that he often designed directly on the mannequins. McQueen was known for not only high fashion, but for viewing life cinematically; and for having a profound love of nature in no small part because of its unpredictability. McQueen’s fashions often referenced the exaggerated silhouettes of the 1860s, 1880s, 1890s, and 1950s, but his technical ingenuity imbued his designs with an innovative sensibility that kept him at the vanguard. Alexander McQueen died on February 11, 2010. Please visit the McQueen house of design on the web at www.alexandermcqueen.com.

Sleeping Beauty Awakes

Savage Beauty

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Savage Beauty, the exhibition organized by The Costume Institute, celebrated the late Alexander McQueen’s extraordinary contributions to fashion. The exhibition featured approximately one hundred ensembles and seventy accessories from McQueen’s nineteen-‐ year career. The fashions were drawn primarily from the Alexander McQueen Archive in London, with some pieces coming from the Givenchy Archive in Paris as well as private collections. The exhibition that was held from May 4 to August 7, 2010 was organized by Andrew Bolton, curator, with the support of Harold Koda, curator in charge, both of The Costume Institute. Sam Gainsbury and Joseph Bennett, the production designers for Alexander McQueen’s fashion shows, served as the exhibition’s creative director and production designer, respectively. All head treatments and masks were designed by Guido. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, known as The Met, is an art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided among nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is by area one of the world's largest art galleries. There is also a much smaller second location at "The Cloisters" in Upper Manhattan featuring medieval art. The Metropolitan Museum of Art's earliest roots date back to 1866 in Paris, France, when a group of Americans agreed to create a "national institution and gallery of art" to bring art and art education to the American people. We are grateful to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for allowing us to use images from Savage Beauty under their Educational License. The show is copyright The Metropolitan Museum of Art with all rights reserved. Please visit The Metropolitan Museum of Art on the web at www.metmuseum.org.

The Sleeping Beauty

Walter John de la Mare

Author

Walter John de la Mare was born on April 25, 1873 in Kent, England. He was descended from a family of French Huguenots and later became an English poet, short story writer, and novelist. De la Mare described two distinct types of imagination: the childlike and the boylike. It was at the border between these two that he felt Shakespeare, Dante, and the rest of the great poets lay. He suggested that all children fall into the category of having a childlike imagination at first. In his lecture, "Rupert Brooke and the Intellectual Imagination," he argued that children "are not so closely confined and bound in by their groping senses. Facts to them are the liveliest of chameleons. They are contemplatives, solitaries, fakirs, who sink again and again out of the noise and fever of existence and into a waking vision." Doris Ross McCrosson summarized this passage as: "Children are, in short, visionaries." This visionary view of life can be seen as either vital creativity and ingenuity, or fatal disconnection from reality—or, in a limited sense, as both. The increasing intrusions of the external world upon the mind, however, frighten the childlike imagination, which "retires like a shocked snail into its shell." From then onward the boyish imagination flourishes, the "intellectual, analytical type." De la Mare proposed that by adulthood, the childlike imagination has either retreated forever or grown bold enough to face the real world. Thus emerge the two extremes of the spectrum of adult minds: the mind molded by the boylike is " logical" and "deductive," that shaped by the childlike is "intuitive,” and “inductive." De la Mare's summary of this distinction is, "The one knows that beauty is truth, the other reveals that truth is beauty." The Sleeping Beauty is copyright Walter John de la Mare. It is used by permission of the Trustees of Walter de le Mare, and the Society of Authors as their representatives. Please find Walter John de la Mare on the web at www.walterdelamare.co.uk.

The Sleeping Beauty

Kara Allyson

Artist

Title: “Lost in Winter 4/365” Artist: Kara Allyson Date: December 22, 2010 Medium: photography Location: archived on flickr Notes: “Lost in Winter 4/365” was taken after a snowstorm on December 22, 2010. Ms. Allyson writes: I just got lost and slept right through the dawn And the world spins madly on. Kara Allyson has a portfolio of 540 images available on Flickr. “Lost in Winter 4/365” is used courtesy of Kara Allyson under the flickr Creative Commons license with some rights reserved. Please visit Kara Allyson on the web at www.flickr.com.

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let Down Your Hair

Terri Windling

Author

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let Down Your Hair

Moria Chappell

Artist

Moria Chappell, the model for Rapunzel in “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let Down Your Hair,” is a world renowned bellydancer who graces stages around the globe bringing the art of Tribal Fusion Bellydance to its utmost in elegance and intensity of expression. Creating a mixture that is enchanting darkness, Ms. Chappell embodies the mythos of a modern industry and a forgotten ancestry. Ms. Chappell performs with Bellydance Superstars, the world’s premiere professional bellydance troupe, which was formed in 2002 by producer and manager Miles Copeland. In its first six years of touring, Bellydance Superstars presented 700 shows in 22 countries. Specializing in Tribal Fusion, Ms. Chappell also studies and instructs in a variety of dance forms from Polynesian ethnic to classical Indian Odissi. Originally from Atlanta, Georgia, Moria attended the University of California at Irvine where she earned a degree in English, graduating summa cum laude. Her love of the arts is underpinned by her love of the mythic, which she incorporates into her choreographies and costumes designs—and shares with her students in workshops such as Archetypes and the Dancer and The Dance of the Chakras. The photographs used in the article were taken by Dahna Koth at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens in Birmingham, Alabama. The images are copyright Dahna Lorrain Koth with all rights reserved. They are used with permission. Please visit Moria Chappell on the Web at www.moriachappell.com.

The May Queen

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Author

Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, was born on August 6, 1809. He was to become the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular poets in the English language. Tennyson excelled at penning short lyrics, such as "In the Valley of Cauteretz," "Break, Break, Break," "The Charge of the Light Brigade," "Tears, Idle Tears," and "Crossing the Bar." Much of his verse was based on classical mythological themes, such as Ulysses, although In Memoriam A.H.H. was written to commemorate his best friend Arthur Hallam, a fellow poet and fellow student at Trinity College, Cambridge, who was engaged to Tennyson's sister, but died from a brain hemorrhage before they could marry. Tennyson also wrote some notable blank verse including Idylls of the King, "Ulysses," and "Tithonus." During his career, Tennyson attempted drama, but his plays enjoyed little success. A number of phrases from Tennyson's work have become commonplaces of the English language, including "Nature, red in tooth and claw," "'Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all,” "Theirs not to reason why, / Theirs but to do and die," "My strength is as the strength of ten, / Because my heart is pure," "Knowledge comes, but Wisdom lingers," and "The old order changeth, yielding place to new."

The May Queen

Silvia Padovan

Artist

Title: “Like a Fairy Tale” Artist: Silvia Padovan (Siza Padovan) Date: February 13, 2010 Medium: photograph Location: archived on flickr Notes: “Like a Fairy Tale” was taken at the Venice Carnival. Ms. Padovan is a photographer with a portfolio of over 650 images available for review on Flickr. “Like a Fairy Tale” is used courtesy of Silvia Padovan under the flickr Creative Commons license with some rights reserved. Please visit Siliva Padovan on the web at www.flickr.com.

The May Queen

Sam 17

Artist

Title: “Fairy Tale” Artist: Sam 17 Date: January 10, 2009 Medium: photograph Location: archived on flickr Notes: “Fairy Tale” was taken in Poitiers, Poitou-‐Charentes, France, using a Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z10. He comments that the upright columns are “ice stalagmites,” and he adds, “When I discovered this place, it really felt like a fairy tale.” Sam 17 has a portfolio of over 140 images available on Flickr. “Fairy Tale” is used courtesy of Sam 17 under the flickr Creative Commons license with some rights reserved. Please find Sam 17 on the web at www.flickr.com.

The May Queen

Alice Popkorn

Artist

Title: “Are We Alone?” Artist: Alice Popkorn (Cornelia Kopp) Date: February 12, 2008 Medium: photograph Location: archived on flickr Notes: “Are We Alone?” was taken using a Conon PowerShot A720 IS. Ms. Popkorn has a portfolio of over a thousand images available on Flickr. “Are We Alone?” is used courtesy of Alice Popkorn under the flickr Creative Commons license with some rights reserved. Please find Alice Popkorn on the web at www.flickr.com.

The Land of Faery, Where nobody gets old and godly and grave, Where nobody gets old and crafty and wise, Where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue. WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

THE SUBJECT WAS ROSES

MYTHIC Imagination

president, publisher

Honora Foah

honora@mythicjourneys.org

editor

Mary Davis

mary@mythicjourneys.org

guest editor

Dahna Lorrain Koth

dahna@mythicjourneys.org

Leadership content Bill Bridges, John Bridges education Jeanna Collins, Margaret Mortimer finance/ project development Kathleen Bingaman fundraising writer Thomas Ricks marketing/special projects Dahna Lorrain Koth operations Andrew Greenberg public relations Anya Martin [film series], Dawn Zarimba [social media] publishing Mary Davis registration Dennis Papp website Meldrena Chapin

Board of Directors chairperson Jacqueline Damgaard Ari Berk, Dahlan Robert Foah, Honora Foah, Michael Karlin, Jeff Morgan

Mythic Imagination Institute™ 659 Auburn Ave, Suite 266 Atlanta, GA 30312

Terri Windling

Every life is a story. And a story can change the world.

If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales. ALBERT EINSTEIN

Join us in The Year of the Roses Our next issue will be Guns & Roses Please submit articles, poetry, artwork, music, or suggestions to: info@mythicimagination.org