Misogyny in Fairy Tales?

 

Does the illustration at the head of this post make you feel uncomfortable? It does me; the prince looks a real voyeur, and knowing the earlier versions of this fairy tale in which he doesn't wake her, he just rapes her, doesn't help one bit. (Although I argue elsewhere that the version I read as a child and love best, the Grimms' Briar Rose, isn't about people at all: it's about the century of sleep.) Anyhow, what about all the other princesses who need rescuing? What about the ugly crones, evil queens, wicked witches and cruel stepmothers? Don’t they show that fairy tales are riddled with misogynistic tropes? 

I can't argue that there is no misogyny in fairy tales, any more than I can argue that it doesn't exist in real life, but I do know that there are plenty of active, admirable female characters in fairy tales, many of whom are unknown to the general public. This is the first of two posts: in this one I’m talking about some of the young women and female children in fairy tales; in the second I'll be looking at the different ways older people of both sexes, though mainly women, are presented and apprehended in that parallel world of faerie which holds up the mirror to our own.

And just as in our own world, things are never simple. Firstly, of the two hundred and ten stories in Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s unassumingly named Kinder- und Hausmärchen (‘Children’s and Household Tales’, 1857), approximately half are not not what we think of as fairy tales at all. They are fables about animals (The Dog and the Sparrow) or household objects (The Straw, the Coal and the Bean), comical tales (Frederick and Catherine), cautionary tales (The Wilful Child), nonsense tales (Fair Katrinelje and Pif-Paf-Poultrie), tall tales, stories about the Devil or Saint Peter, pious legends (Our Lady’s Little Glass) and jokes (The Maid of Brakel). These deliver a single, memorable point – a warning, a lesson or a laugh. Often they fail today because we reject the message, the humour or the punch-line – we no longer think children should be beaten, for example – and they offer nothing more.

By contrast, a fairy tale is an adventure story, a sequence of marvellous events occurring to (usually) a single protagonist (by no means always a prince or a princess) who overcomes difficulties to live happily ever after (this may involve a royal marriage but doesn’t have to). The wicked are (usually) punished, but the fairy tale has no didactic intention and no single message. Like poems, fairy tales generate an emotional and interpretative response.

And women, it turns out, play a strong part. Out of the 100+ stories in the Grimms’ Household Tales which fit the category of the classic fairy tale, forty-three have women as main or prominent characters, thirty-two of whom rescue brothers, sisters, sweethearts, fathers and sometimes themselves, gaining wealth and happiness by their own endeavours.

Breaking those 100+ stories down further I looked to see by what means their heroines and heroes achieve success. It came out like this.

 

Means of success                    Heroines          Heroes

Magical assistance                  44%                 65%

Luck/wit/ruse                          35%                 20%

Innocence/simplicity               16%                 14%

Personal strength                     0%                   11%

Personal magical skills           14%                 0%

Endurance                               35%                 11%

Saved by female                      0%                   21%

Saved by male                         12%                 0%

 

Magical assistance is generally provided by old women, young women, ‘little men’, animals or supernatural helpers and is often given in reward for some generous gesture. A character may be gifted with a magical object like a wishing table, or a goose that lays golden eggs. Birds, insects or even dead men whom a character has helped will offer help in return, and magic-workers provide advice or aid in the performance of impossible tasks. Heroes need this kind of assistance more often than heroines, probably because many heroines are magic-workers themselves. (Interestingly, none of the Grimms’ heroes are magic-workers. Acquiring an object like a cloak of invisibility is magical assistance, not native skill.) 

Max Lüthi speaks of the ‘isolation and universal interconnection’ of the fairy tale: protagonists are often outcasts or outsiders ‘not linked by a vital relationship to any family, people or other kind of community’ and therefore free to set out and establish new bonds with whomever they meet. Many fairy tale characters are underdogs – orphans, simpletons, ill-treated step-children and so on – which evens out any physical disparity between the sexes. In the Grimms’ tales, few heroes succeed through physical strength, and battle of any kind is rare. Women excel at sheer endurance: going on seven-year quests to find lost lovers, knitting nettle shirts, climbing glass mountains, chipping themselves out of towers. Both sexes often succeed through quick wits and the ability to seize a chance, but the heroines have the edge. Characters of both sexes succeed through innocence and lack of guile: good-hearted simpletons or pure-hearted maidens. Finally, in those tales in which they are the main or prominent character, heroes do not save as many maidens/princesses, as heroines save brothers, lovers, fathers or princes.

But who is the ‘main or prominent character’? In some tales it’s obvious. No one would argue that Cinderella and Snow White are not the main characters in the stories that bear their names. The princes they marry are mere ciphers. Snow White returns to life when one of the servants carrying the glass coffin trips, jerking the scrap of poisoned apple out of her throat; it's a happy accident, not a rescue and the prince can hardly be said to have saved her. In fact, as a rule of thumb if the main character in a story is female, then her eventual marriage-partner will have no more than a walk-on part, and the same applies in reverse. Many so-called ‘passive princesses’ are merely the walk-on partners of main characters who happen to be male. To criticize these subsidiary characters as nonentities is to misunderstand the ruthlessly concise nature of fairy tales, which seldom have room for more than one protagonist. 

 

 

There are exceptions. In fairy tales the parent-child relationship is weak. Parents die, or are ineffective, like Hansel and Gretel’s father, or malevolent, like their mother. The sibling relationship is stronger, and though siblings of the same sex may be rivals, relations between brothers and sisters are usually close and tender. What often happens is that the focus switches mid-story from brother to sister. At the beginning Hansel comforts and protects Gretel, and lays the trail of white pebbles to lead them home. But once the witch has locked him up, it’s Gretel who shoves her into her own oven to burn to death, and calls a white duck to carry them across the river on their journey home. Both children have agency, but Hansel’s efforts fail and Gretel’s succeed. She rescues him.

And it nearly always is sisters who rescue their brothers – far more than the other way around. Just as in ‘Hansel and Gretel’, the Grimms’ tale ‘Brother and Sister’ begins with the brother...

Little brother took his little sister by the hand and said: ‘Since our mother died we have had no happiness; our stepmother beats us every day and if we come near her she kicks us away with her foot. Our meals are the hard crusts of bread that are left overs, and the little dog under the table is better off, for she often throws it a choice morsel. God pity us, if our mother only knew! Come, we will go forth together into the wide world.’

 

Having precipitated their departure though, the brother ceases to have any useful narrative function. The stepmother is a witch; she creeps after them and bewitches all the brooks in the forest. Little sister can hear the voices of the brooks warning them not to drink: whoever does so will be turned into a wild beast. Her brother cannot hear the voices: too thirsty to listen to his sister, he drinks from the third stream and is transformed into a roebuck. His sister looks after him, finds shelter and food, and protects him from the King’s hunt. On the King’s promise to let this tame roebuck come to the palace with her, the sister marries the King (children grow up quickly in fairy tales), gives birth to a little son and is murdered by the witch, who enchants her own daughter to take her likeness and her place. But the dead Queen visits three nights running as a midnight apparition, asking after the welfare of her child and her brother the roebuck. On the last occasion the King recognises her, the witch is burnt to ashes, the Queen is restored to life and her brother regains his human shape. 

The little sister or Queen's power to hear the voices of the brooks, and to return as an apparition, borders on magic. Some sisters are themselves magic workers. Like Lina in the Grimms’ ‘Fundevogel’ and Gilla in the Irish fairytale ‘Gilla of the Enchantments’, they use their powers of transformation to save brothers whose lives are threatened by witches. Other sisters set out on long quests to locate and rescue whole bands of brothers who‘ve been banished and transformed into swans or ravens, usually at their sister’s birth or christening. In these tales some kind of sacrifice is often demanded of the sister: she cuts off her little finger to use as a key to unlock the glass mountain in which they are imprisoned, or spends years weaving and sewing each brother a shirt of nettles, never speaking a word until the task is done. If you feel the urge to label this behaviour ‘passive’, think again. The sisters who perform these acts are full of grit and determination. 

 

In ‘The Six Swans’ a wicked stepmother changes her six stepsons into, you guessed it, swans. Their sister tells her father what has happened. But he doesn’t believe her, so she sets off into the forest to look for them and shelters in an empty hut. Her brothers fly down to warn her that the hut belongs to robbers, but as swans they cannot protect her. ‘Can you not be set free?’ she asks. ‘Alas, no,’ they answer, ‘the conditions are too hard! For six years you may neither speak nor laugh, and in that time you must sew together six little shirts of starwort for us. And if one single word falls from your lips, all your work will be lost.’ With this, they fly away.

The maiden, however, firmly resolved to deliver her brothers, even if it should cost her her life. She left the hut, went into the midst of the forest, seated herself in a tree, and there passed the night. Next morning she went out and gathered starwort and began to sew.

Nobody asks her to do this, her brothers don’t expect it. It’s she who is active, she who makes the decision. 

 

Finally there are stories in which the main character, the person who does everything – is obviously the girl or maiden, but owing to the unconscious bias of readers, editors and scholars, this gets overlooked. Examples from the (otherwise wonderful) Aarne Thompson Tale Type Index demonstrate the tendency. Stories such as the Norwegian ‘East of the Sun, West of the Moon’ or 'White Bear King Valemon' in which a young woman journeys to find and win back her husband or lover – in 'White Bear King Valemon' she climbs a glass mountain with the aid of steel claws! – are listed as Tale Type 425: ‘The search for the lost husband’. The woman doing the searching is inferred but not named. Yet stories in which a young man similarly journeys to seek his wife or sweetheart fall under Tale Type 400: ‘The man on a quest for his lost wife’ – which not only credits the man but elevates his journey to a ‘quest’. Tale Type 311 is called ‘Rescue by their sister’, which prefers the male rescuees to the female rescuer. It should be ‘Sister rescues her brothers’. And although Tale Type 313: ‘The girl as helper in the hero’s flight’ at least acknowledges the girl’s existence and role, the word ‘helper’ relegates her to a subsidiary position which is in no way an accurate description of such dynamic characters as the eponymous‘Mastermaid’ in the Norwegian fairy tale of that name. A better wording might be ‘Magic-working heroine directs prince’s escape.’ 

A last example is Tale Type 870: ‘The princess confined in the mound’ which places emphasis on her status as victim: but in these tales the princess always digs herself out, so it would be better named ‘The princess escapes from the mound’.

This kind of unconscious bias may colour our perception of some familiar fairy tales. Rapunzel isn’t the brightest of heroines, but the prince who woos and impregnates her doesn't rescue her – he doesn’t even try – and his repeated visits cause a catastrophe. Blinded by thorns, he wanders for years in the forest until Rapunzel’s tears restore his sight. Who saves who? Cinderella is an agile young woman who can outrun the King’s son; in the Grimms’ version she also climbs walls and trees and performs lightning costume changes. No magic-worker herself, she inherits supernatural aid/magical assistance from a fairy godmother (in Perrault), from her dead mother’s spirit (in the Grimms): female forces both. The prince is Cinderella’s trophy; she wins him. He is the symbol of her success. 

Next time, wicked queens, cruel stepmothers, old witches and ‘little old men’.

 

Picture credits

Sleeping Beauty - Walter Crane

Hansel and Gretel - Alexander Zick

Little Sister and Little Brother - Arthur Rackham

The Six Swans - Walter Crane

White Bear King Valemon - Jenny Nystrom 

The Mastermaid - Charles Folkard

Strong Fairy Tale Heroines #7: THE MASTERMAID

This fast-moving Norwegian fairy tale from Asbjørnsen and Moe was translated into English by Sir George Dasent in ‘Popular Tales from the Norse’ (1859). Nineteenth century translations can feel a little stiff nowadays and we tend to read them with too much respect. I decided to tell this story aloud a few months ago, but it came to life for me when I tweaked it a bit and told it in a strong Yorkshire accent (which is where I'm from). Traces of this should be obvious in the version below. This helped me bring out not only the Northern-ness of the tale, but also the sheer fun and naughtiness of the original, such as the bit near the end, where the Mastermaid takes various men to bed with her only to make them stand up all night gripping such suggestive items as a poker or a calf’s tail...

The story begins as if it’s all going to be about a prince, but though he’s an attractive, cheeky lad, he can’t achieve anything without the Mastermaid (the clue’s in her name)! The tale is classed as Aarne–Thompson type 313A, 'the girl helps the hero flee', a category which in my opinion ought to be renamed 'the heroine rescues the boy'. The Mastermaid saves the prince's life four separate times, provides him with invaluable advice, organises his escape, saves him from marrying a troll, and generally sorts everything out with tremendous aplomb.

There was once a king’s son who had a fancy to see the world. Off he set, and after travelling for several days he found a door that was built into the mountain. It was the door to a troll’s house; he spent the night there and hired himself out next day as the troll’s servant.

            In the morning, before the troll went out to graze his herd of goats on the mountain meadows, he told the king’s son to shovel out the stable. ‘I’m an easy-going master,’ he said, ‘when you’ve done that, you can have the rest of the day off, but do your work well, and don’t go poking into any of the other rooms in the house, or I’ll tear your head off.’ 

‘He does seem an easy master!’ said the lad to himself. He thought he’d have plenty of time, so he walked about humming, and then he thought he would take a look into some of the other rooms. What might the troll be hiding? 

In the middle of the first room a big cauldron was boiling and bubbling away with no fire under it! ‘What’s cooking?’ the king’s son wondered, and he looked in, a piece of his hair swung down into the broth and came out with each strand bright as copper.

‘Funny soup, that!’ said the lad, ‘if anyone sipped it, they’d have copper lips!’ and he went into the second room.

Here was another cauldron simmering away with no fire. ‘I’ll try this one too,’ he says and dips a second lock of hair in. Out it comes, shining silver. ‘Expensive soup!’ says he, ‘we’ve nothing like it my father’s castle, but how does it taste?’ and he went into the next room where there was a third cauldron bubbling and steaming. 

The lad dipped another lock of hair in, and this time it came out gleaming gold. ‘Anyone who drank that would get a gilded gullet!’ he said, ‘but if that’s gold, what’ll I find next?’ and he opened the door to the fourth room, and in it a girl was sitting on a bench, the loveliest lass the lad had ever seen. 

‘God in heaven,’ she says, ‘what do you want? And what are you doing here?’

‘I’ve just been hired by the troll,’ he says.

‘Have you any idea what you’ll have to do for him?’ she asks.

‘Oh he’s an easy sort of chap,’ says the king’s son. ‘All I have to do is muck out the stable, nothing hard, and then I can take time off.’ 

‘You think that’s easy? If you set about it the usual way, ten shovelfuls will fly in for every one you chuck out. I’ll tell you what to do: turn the pitchfork around and shovel with the handle, then all the muck will fly out by itself!’

He’d do that, all right, thought the king’s son, and then the two of them sat chattering away, falling in love, till as evening came the lad thought he’d better go out and do his work, and as soon as he turned the pitchfork upside down, all the muck flew out by itself to the dungheap and the stable was as clean as clean.

Troll comes back with the goats. ‘Have you shovelled out t'stable?’ he asks

.

‘I have that, it’s as clean as clean.’

‘I’ll see for myself!’ says the troll, and he came and saw, and he says, ‘You must have been talking to my Mastermaid! You haven’t got enough between the ears to have managed it yourself.’  

‘Mastermaid?’ says the lad, pretending to be thick, ‘what sort of a thing is that? I’d love to see it. Can I see it?’

‘You’ll see soon enough,’ says the troll. 

Next morning the troll gave the lad instructions to go up the mountain and bring down the horse which was grazing up there. ‘When you’ve done that you can take things easy the rest of the day, but don’t go into any of the other rooms, or I’ll wring your head off!’ 

‘Kind master or not,’ thought the king’s son, ‘I’ll talk to the Mastermaid all the same. Yours, is she? What if she’d rather be mine?’ and he went to see her.

‘What work has he given you today?’ she asks.

‘Nowt much,’ says the king’s son. ‘Just go up the mountain to fetch his horse.’

‘And how are you going to do that?’

‘Shouldn’t be hard, should it? I’ll bet I’ve ridden better horses than his!’

‘It won’t be as easy as you think,’ said the Mastermaid, ‘but I’ll tell you what to do. It’ll rush at you as soon as it sees you, breathing fire and flame, but if you take that bridle hanging there by the door and throw it over its head, it’ll calm down and follow you like a lamb.’

Well, the lad would certainly take her advice, and so they sat chatting and thought how wonderful it would be if they could get away together and escape the troll… and he would have forgotten all about going to fetch the horse if the Mastermaid hadn’t reminded him as evening came on, so he took the bridle and climbed the mountain, and as the horse came rushing at him with blazing eyes and flaming jaws he threw the bridle over its head, and then it was tame and followed him back like a lamb.

Troll comes home. ‘Is horse in’t stable?’

‘Oh aye,’ says the lad. ‘A nice quiet nag, I rode it back and shut it in the stall, I did.’ 

‘I’ll see for myself!’ says the troll. And there was the horse, just as the lad had said. ‘You must have been talking to my Mastermaid!’ said the troll. ‘You could never have worked that out for yourself!’

‘Mastermaid? Mastermaid? You said that yesterday, and still I don’t know what a Mastermaid is. I wish you’d show me, master, indeed I do,’ said the king’s son, thick as a brick. 

‘You’ll find out soon enough!’ said the troll. 

Next day the troll went out with his goats as before. ‘Today it’s off to hell with you, to fetch the fire-tax,’ he said to the lad. ‘You can take it easy the rest of the day! Lucky for you I’m such a kind master.’ Off he went.

‘Oh aye, very kind,’ says the lad, ‘to give me all the dirty jobs. I’d better find the Mastermaid.’ And he went to her. ‘What’ll I do? I’ve never been to hell. I don’t know the way! And I don’t know how much to ask for!’

‘Oh, I can tell you all that. Go to the cliff face below the mountain, take this club with you and knock on the wall with it. Then someone will come out with sparks flying off him. Tell him your errand, and when he asks how much you want, you say, “As much as I can carry!”’  

Well, the lad thought he could do that, and then they sat talking all day long and he would be sitting there still if the Mastermaid hadn’t reminded him to go and fetch the fire tax before the troll came home.

Off he went and knocked at the cliff with the club, and out came someone swarming with sparks, fire flying from his hair and eyes and nose. ‘What do you want?’

‘I’ve come from the troll, for the fire tax!’

‘How much?’

‘Oh, just as much as I can carry.’

‘You’re lucky you didn’t ask for more. Come with me!’ So he led the king’s son into the hill, and there were piles of gold and silver like stones in a rockfall, and the lad took as much as he could carry and went home. 

Troll comes back. ‘Where’s fire tax?’

‘In that sack by wall!’

‘I’ll see for myself!’ said the troll, and he looked in the sack and it was full to the brim with gold and silver. ‘You’ve certainly been talking to my Mastermaid – and if you have, I’ll wring your head off!’

‘Mastermaid?’ said the lad. ‘You keep talking about this Mastermaid. I wish I could see the thing. I really do!’

‘You’ll have your wish,’ said the troll. ‘I’ll take you to see her tomorrow.’

Next day troll takes the king’s son to t’ Mastermaid and says to her, ‘Get on and butcher him, and cook him up in’t big cauldron while I have a nap. When broth’s ready, call me!’ He lay down on’t bench and went to sleep, snoring so loud it shook the mountain. 

The Mastermaid takes a knife, cuts the lad’s finger and lets three drops of blood fall onto a three-legged stool. She piles up all the old rags and worn-out shoes and rubbish she can find, and drops them into the cauldron. She fills up a box with powdered gold, grabs a block of salt and a flask of water. Then she catches up a golden apple and the troll’s two golden hens, and off she goes wi’t king’s son, fast as they can, till they come to t’ sea, jump on board ship and set off over the waves. 

Back home, the troll stretches a bit and stirs.  ‘Is broth ready yet?’

‘Just started to boil,’ said the first drop of blood and the troll goes back to sleep. After a while he stirs again. ‘In’t it ready yet?’

‘Half-cooked!’ says second drop of blood. So the troll goes back to sleep. Hours later he yawns and rubs his eyes. ‘Is it done?’

‘Ready!’ says third drop of blood. So the troll got up and he couldn’t see the Mastermaid, but the cauldron was steaming, and he was clemmed. Hungry! He took the ladle and tried the soup, and it’s nothing but mashed up rags and old leather, and he was so angry he didn’t know what leg to stand on, and he set off after the Mastermaid and the king’s son as fast as he could go. Soon he comes to the edge of the fjord, and he can see the two of them far off on the ship, but he can’t cross the water. So he calls his River-sucker, and the River-sucker lies down at the fjord’s edge and sucks and sucks till the fjord’s almost dry. 

‘Throw out that block of salt!’ cries the Mastermaid, so the king’s son threw out the block of salt behind the ship, and it turned into a mighty mountain too high to climb, that blocked the way. ‘I’ll call for my Mountain-borer!’ yelled the troll, and his Mountain-borer came and bored a hole right through the mountain, but just as the troll was scrambling through it the Mastermaid cried, ‘Pour out the flask of water!’ and the king’s son did, and the tunnel filled with water and the troll was swept away and drowned.

So now the lad wants to take Mastermaid back to his father, but he wants to do it in style. ‘Just wait for me here, while I go on. There’s seven grand horses in my father’s stable, and a carriage. I’ll fettle them up and bring them for you.’

‘Oh no, don’t do that!’ said the Mastermaid, ‘if you go home without me, you’ll forget me, I know you will.’

‘How could I forget you after all we’ve been through together and when we love each other so much?’

‘All right’ said the Mastermaid, ‘go if you will, but don’t speak to anyone and whatever you do don’t have a bite to eat – if you do, it’ll be bad luck for both of us.’ He said he wouldn’t, and off he went.

But when he got to his dad’s castle, one of his brothers had just got married and they were all celebrating. They were right glad to see him and asked him to join the feast, but he wouldn’t say nowt, he brushed them off and went to t’ stables to hitch up the horses. Well, this woman comes after him, she’s the bride’s step-sister, and she chucks him an apple, ‘If you won’t stay with us, have a bite of that,’ she cries, and as he were hungry and thirsty he took a bite, and all at once he forgot the Mastermaid and all that had gone on wi’ him and her. ‘I must have gone mad. What do I want these horses for?’ And he went back into t’ castle, and no time at all he was engaged to marry the woman who gi’en him the apple, who was really a troll.

The Mastermaid waited and waited, but as king’s son didn’t come she walked along till she came to a dirty little cottage close by the king’s meadows. In she goes and lights a fire, and then she takes out the box of gold dust and chucks half of it on’t fire so it spits and splutters and gilds the whole cottage inside and out, till it shines like the sun. 

Who should come riding by but the Constable? He was so mithered by the glittering cottage and so smitten by the lovely lass sitting by t’ door, that he asks her to marry him, straight off.

‘I might, if you’ve plenty of brass,’ she says.  

Oh, he had plenty of that! So he comes back that evening with half a sackful, leans it in’t corner and they go to bed. But soon as they’re in bed, the Mastermaid sits up. ‘I forgot to stoke fire,’ says she.

‘I’ll do it!’ says Constable, and he jumps out of bed.

‘Tell me when you’re grabbed hold of poker,’ says the Mastermaid.

‘I’m holding it now!’ says he.

‘Then you hold on to the poker and the poker hold you, and you can chuck coals all over yourself till morning!’ says the Mastermaid. So the Constable stands there all night, flinging fiery coals and embers all over himself till daybreak, and then he could let the poker go and he took to his heels as if the devil was after him. And did he say a word to anyone? Not likely!

Next day an Attorney comes riding past, and when he claps eyes on t’ golden hut and the beautiful maiden, down he goes on his knees and asks to marry her. ‘I might,’ said the Mastermaid, ‘if you’ve plenty of brass, I might…’

The Attorney was rich enough, so he come back that evening with a big sackful and leans it in the corner, and they went to bed. But as soon as they lie down, the Mastermaid sits up. 

‘I forgot to shut porch door,’ said she.

‘Lord, what a time to remember that!’ says Attorney. ‘I’ll do it,’ and he jumps out of bed.

‘Tell me when handle’s in your hand,’ says the Mastermaid. 

‘I’m holding it now,’ calls the Attorney.

‘Right, well you hold door handle and door handle hold you, and rush you this way and that till morning!’ said she. Well, the Attorney never had such a night, as the door rushed him this way and that all night long, almost battering him to death, and as daybreak came he fled home, leaving his money behind. And did he breathe a word to anyone? Not likely!

On the third day, a Bailiff came by, and same thing happens. He wants to marry the Mastermaid and she says she might, if he has enough brass! Oh, the Bailiff had plenty. Back he comes that evening with an even bigger sack than the Attorney – so that was all right, and off they go to bed. But hardly did their heads touch pillow when the Mastermaid sits up.

‘I’ve forgotten to shut the calf away,’ she says. ‘I’ll have to go out and do it now.’

 

‘I’ll do it!’ says Bailiff, and he jumps out of bed.

‘Tell me when you’ve got hold of calf’s tail,’ says the Mastermaid.

‘I’ve got hold of it now!’ cries the Bailiff.

‘Then you hold on to the calf’s tail, and the calf’s tail hold you, and you can run over the whole world till daybreak,’ says the Mastermaid. And off goes the calf, kicking and leaping, and drags the Bailiff up mountains and down dales, and the more he yells the faster it runs, and by daylight he’s so worn out he can hardly limp home.

Now the very next day was the day of the King’s son’s wedding to the sister of his brother’s bride, the woman who gived him the apple. But when they climbed into t’ carriage to drive to the church, one of the axles broke, and it couldn’t be mended, and then Constable, who’d come to t’ wedding, said there was a lass living in a gold cottage down by the meadows, and they ought to ‘see if she’ll lend you her poker, that’ll hold all right!’ So they sent a messenger, and the Mastermaid didn’t say no, and they used poker instead of axle and it worked! 

But as soon as they got going, the floor of the carriage drops out underneath them. So the Attorney says, ‘See if the lass in the gold cottage will lend you her gilded door, I guarantee that won’t break!’

Well, the Mastermaid lends the door. So that’s fettled, but this time when they try to set off again, the horses won’t move. They hitch up six, then eight, then ten, but still the horses won’t stir, and it’s getting late. The Bailiff spoke up. ‘See if the lass in the gold cottage’ll lend you her calf. That beast’ll pull anything!’

Well, the Mastermaid lends them the calf and they unhitch the horses and put it in the traces and what did it do? It shoots away with that carriage over hill and dale, sometimes on the ground, sometimes in the air, and when it reaches the church it goes around and around the steeple like a yarn-winder, and they only just manage to get out. And on t’ way back from the wedding it does the same, only even faster. 

Now as they sat down to feast, the king’s son – the bridegroom – thought they ought to invite the lass in the gold cottage, who’d lent them her poker, her door and her calf, ‘Without her, we’d never have got to church in time!’ And the king said this was only fair, and he sent five of his best men down to the gold cottage to invite the lass to dinner.

‘If king’s not good enough to come and see me, he’s not good enough for me to come and see him,’ said the Mastermaid, so the king had to go down himself and invite her to dinner, and the Mastermaid went with him and he put her in the seat of honour, next to the bridegroom. When she’d sat down, the Mastermaid took out the two gold hens and the golden apple she had brought from troll’s house and put them on the table, and the two hens started pecking and fighting over the golden apple. 

‘By heck,’ said the king’s son, ‘look at the way them hens is struggling to get at the apple!’

‘Aye,’ says the Mastermaid, ‘That’s just the way we two struggled to get our freedom, when we were shut in troll’s house under the mountain.’

Then the king’s son remembered everything! He knew who she was, and you can’t think how happy they was, the two of them! As for the troll bride who’d given him the apple, the king told her off to be torn in twenty pieces between twenty horses, and then they could really celebrate, and Constable, Attorney and Bailiff danced all night at the wedding!

More about fairy tales and folklore in "Seven Miles of Steel Thistles" available from Amazon here and here.



Picture credits

The Mastermaid by Charles Folkard
The Prince collects the fire-tax by HJ Ford
The River-Sucker by HJ Ford

 

Fairy Tale Heroines #4: THE GROAC’H OF THE ISLE OF LOK

 

This lively fairy tale comes from Brittany (the Isle du Loch is a real island off the Brittany coast, and as the name suggests, it has a lake) and it's another traditional story in which a young man has to be rescued by his dauntless, magic-working sweetheart. The Groac’h of the title is a fairy enchantress, but a groac’h (Gaelic gruagach, Irish grogan) is a creature which turns up in many Celtic fairy tales. The word is sometimes claimed to mean ‘old woman’, but JG Campbell explains it literally as ‘the long-haired one’ and ‘a common Gaelic name for a maiden, a young woman.’ Emile Souvestre (see below) thinks the word once applied to druid priestesses on offshore holy islands: whether or not that is so, it must gradually have become a catch-all: some gruagachs seem to be the same creature as the glaistig, ‘a tutelary being haunting farms and stables’, who appears as a finely-dressed young man or woman with long hair. Others seem the equivalent of brownies or boggarts. In ‘A Dictionary of Fairies’, Katherine Briggs tells us that the grogan of the north of Ireland tends to follow the brownie tradition, while the grogan of the south is more usually a supernatural wizard, and often a giant too, or a type of ogre.  

"The Groac’h of the Isle of Lok" is included in ‘Le Foyer Breton’ by Emile Souvestre (1844) and he has almost certainly embellished the tale with a number of charming ‘literary’ descriptions – for which it is none the worse! Andrew Lang’s wife Leonora Blanche Alleyn translated it for ‘The Lilac Fairy Book’ (1910), but she cut out nearly all the Breton references, especially those to do with the Christian religion or Breton saints, while the korandon (a Breton folkloric creature also known as a korrigan) becomes a generic ‘little man’. Alleyn has also removed anything she felt unsuitable for children – such as a few mild sexual references and a moment when the hapless hero drinks far too much of the Groac’h’s wine. The effect is to make the tale blander, less risqué, and less funny. So this my own translation, slightly abbreviated, of Souvestre’s version.

In the days when miracles happened in Brittany even more often than christenings and funerals do today, there lived in the village of Lanillis a young man named Houarn Pogamm and a girl called Bellah Postik. They were cousins, and when they were in the cradle together, their mothers had hoped for them one day to marry, but since then their parents had died, and they’d had to hire themselves out as servants, so they were too poor to get married. 

            “If only we had a little cow, and a skinny pig to fatten up,” said Houarn. “I’d buy a bit of land, the curé could marry us and we’d live happily together.”

            “Yes,” said Bellah with a sigh, “but these are hard times. Cows and pigs fetch high prices at the Ploudelmazeau market. God no longer seems to care what happens in the world.”

            This made them both unhappy, and one day Houarn came to Bellah and told her he was going to go away and seek his fortune, so that he could come back and marry her.  

            Bellah begged him not to leave. But his mind was made up, so she said, “Go then, since you must, and may God protect you! But first I will divide with you what my parents left me,” and taking him to her room she opened a small chest and took out a bell, a knife and a wand. 

“These relics,” said she, “are heirlooms which have never left my family. Here is the bell of Saint Kolédok; it can be heard at any distance, however far, and will ring to tell our friends if we’re in danger. This knife belonged to Saint Corentin and anything it touches will be freed from any enchantment. Last of all, this wand is the baton of Saint Vouga; it will carry the one who holds it wherever they want to go. I give you the knife to guard you against the spells of magicians or demons, and you shall have the bell to warn me of any dangers you meet, but I shall keep the wand so I can fly to your help if ever you need me.”

Houarn thanked her, they embraced and cried a little, and he set out. Along the way he came to a little town called Pont-aven, set on a river bordered with poplars. As he sat by the inn door, he overheard two men who were loading their mules talking about the Groac’h of the isle of Lok. 

“Whatever is a Groac’h?” he asked, and the men told him it was the name of the fairy who lived in the lake on the Isle of Lok, and she was richer than all the kings of the world put together, and many men had journeyed there in search of her treasure, but not one had ever returned. 

“I will go, and I will return too!” said Houarn. And although the men told him not to throw his life away, he went down to the sea and paid a boatman to carry him over to the isle of Lok.

He found the lake without any trouble. It was in the middle of the island, surrounded by marshland. He walked around it till at one end he saw, in the shade of a clump of yellow broom, a little sea-blue boat shaped like a sleeping swan floating gently in the water with its head tucked under its wing. Houarn marvelled, and climbed on board to take a better look, but no sooner had he set foot on it than the swan woke. Its head came out of its feathers, its big feet struck the water and it paddled briskly away from the bank. The young man exclaimed in fright, but the swan sped towards the middle of the lake, and just he decided to jump overboard, the bird plunged its head into the water and dived, carrying him down with it. His cry was stifled, he had to shut his mouth so as not to swallow the muddy water, and soon he arrived at the Groac’h’s home.

The palace was made from shells of many colours. The approach was by a crystal stairway made so that each step, as you trod on it, chirped like a woodland bird. All around the palace were huge gardens, forests of marine plants and lawns of green weed strewn with diamonds instead of flowers. The Groac’h herself was resting on a golden couch in the first hall. Her face was as pink and white as the shells of her palace, her black hair fell to her feet, woven with strings of coral, and her sea-green dress flowed as she moved. Houarn was dazzled by her beauty. 

The Groac’h rose smiling and came towards him as gracefully as a white wave passing across the sea. “Welcome,” she said. “There is always a place here for strangers, especially handsome boys. Tell me your name, and what you want.”

            Houarn told the Groac’h who he was, and how he wished to make enough money to return to Lanillis, buy a cow and a little pig, and marry his sweetheart. 

            “That is easily done,” she answered. “Come now, drink with me!” And she led him into a second hall decorated with pearls and gave him eight different wines to try, served in eight silver goblets. The wine was so good that Huoarn drank all eight at once, and then he had eight more of each, and at each cup the Groac’h seemed to him more beautiful than before. And she encouraged him, teasing that he needn’t worry about impoverishing her, as the lake of the isle of Lok had an entrance to the sea, and all the rich treasures from all the shipwrecks were swept to her on a magic current. 

            “Upon my word!” cried Houarn – who was now very merry – “no wonder everyone speaks ill of you; rich people are always envied. As for me, I’d settle for a tiny fraction of your wealth!”

            “You may have all of it if you wish,” said the Groac’h.

            “How?”

            “I’m a widow. My husband the korandon is dead, and if you would like me, I’ll marry you.”

            He, Houarn? – to marry the beautiful Groac’h? – and live in this splendid palace? – and have eight varieties of wine he could drink at his will? It’s true he’d asked Bellah to marry him, but how easily men forget that kind of promise! He accepted with joy.

            “Then let us perform the ceremony,” said the Groac’h, and she led him down to a little fish-tank at the bottom of her garden. 

             “Hey, attorney! Hey, miller! Hey, tailor! Hey, chorister!” she called, holding out a steel net. At each cry a fish jumped into the net , and when it was full she went into the kitchen and threw them all into a golden frying pan and started to fry them. But as the fat heated, Houarn seemed to hear little voices crying. 

            “Who’s crying in the golden frying pan?” he asked. “It’s only the fat spitting,” said she, but it didn’t sound like that to Houarn. “There it is again!” he cried. 

            “It’s just the fire-wood crackling,” she replied, but the noise grew louder, like little shrieks. Houarn became uneasy.

            “What can it be?” he exclaimed, but the Groac’h said, “It’s nothing but the cricket chirping on the hearth.” And she began to sing so loudly he could hear nothing more. But all of this was causing Houarn to think again. He was becoming frightened, and he began to feel ashamed.
  

            “Jesu and Mary!” he thought, “how is it possible I could have forgotten Bellah for the sake of a Groac’h who is quite possibly the daughter of the devil? How could I say my evening prayers while living with a woman like that? I’d be sure to go to hell!” But while he was having these thoughts, the Groac’h finished frying, and she set the pan in front of him and told him to eat, while she went to the cellar to find him a dozen more wines. 

            Houarn sat down and took out the knife Bellah had given him, but as soon as the blade touched the fish they turned into little men, each dressed according to his station – an attorney in his robes, a tailor in purple stockings, a miller covered in flour and a chorister in his surplice – and they cried together as they swam in the hot fat, “Save us, if you yourself hope to be saved!” “Holy Virgin! What are these little fellows doing, singing out in the melted butter?” young Houarn gasped.

            “We are Christian men like you! Like you we came to the isle of Lok to seek our fortunes, and like you we agreed to marry the Groac’h, but the morning after the marriage she turned each of us into fishes as she’s done to many men before, and now we all swim in the fish-tank together!”

            “No! How can she look so young, if she’s already been married to all those fishes?”

            “She's a fairy! And the same will happen to you – caught and fried, and served to the next comer!” 

            Houarn jumped up as if he was already sizzling in the gold frying pan. He rushed for the door, but the Groac’h was on the threshold and had heard everything. She threw the steel net over his head, turned him into a little green frog and took him down to the fish-tank to join all her other husbands. 

At that very moment, the little bell which Houarn wore around his neck rang by itself, and Bellah head it in Lanillis, where she was skimming cream in the dairy. “Houarn’s in danger!” 

            Without waiting for anything or speaking to anyone, she ran to put on her Sunday clothes and slippers, and her silver cross, and left the farm with her magic wand. Coming to the cross-roads she drove the wand into the earth, murmuring: 

Apple-wood wand, carry me

On earth or wind or water:

In the name of St Vouga, bear me

Wherever I want to go.

 

 

At once the stick turned into a little red horse of St Vouga all nicely combed, saddled and bridled, with a rosette at each ear and a blue feather on his forehead. Bellah leaped on his back and he set off at a walk, a trot, a canter, faster and faster till ditches, trees, houses and bell-towers flew by like a whirling wheel. But he wasn’t fast enough for Bellah, so she bent to his ear and said,  “A swallow is swifter than a horse, the wind is swifter than the swallow, the lightning is swifter than the wind, but you my little horse must gallop faster than all of them, so I may rescue my love.” And the horse now galloped like a straw blown by a hurricane till they reached the foot of a rock called the Deer’s Leap. There he stopped, for neither horse or mule could climb it and Bellah knew this, so she sang,

Little red horse, now carry me                                                          

On earth or wind or water,

In the name of St Thégonec, bear me

Wherever I wish to be!

As soon as she had finished, wings sprouted from the horse’s sides and he turned into a great bird which carried her easily to the summit of the rock. Here at the top she found a nest made of clay and line with dried moss, and in the middle of the nest was a tiny little korandon, all black and wrinkled, who cried out, “Here’s the pretty girl who has come to save me!”

 

 

  

            “Save you! Who are you, my little man?”

            “I am Jeannik the korandon, husband of the Groac’h of the isle of Lok, and she has imprisoned me here!”

            “But what are you doing in this nest?”

            “I’m sitting on six stone eggs, and I can’t be set free till they have hatched.”

            Bellah could not help laughing. “Poor little cockerel!” she said, “and how am I to save you?”

            “By saving Houarn, who is in the power of the Groac’h!” 

            “Ah! Tell me how and I will do it, even if I have to crawl on my knees around around four bishoprics!”

            “You must disguise yourself as a young man and go to find the Groac’h. Then you must take the steel net that hangs from her waist, and shut her up in it for ever.”

            “How can I find a set of boy’s clothes?”

            “I shall manage that.”  And pulling four red hairs from his head, the korandon blew upon them and changed them in the twinkling of an eye to four tailors. The first carried a cabbage, the second a pair of scissors, the third a needle and the fourth an iron. They sat cross-legged in the nest and made a suit of clothes for Bellah with the cabbage leaves as cloth, and when she was dressed she looked like a handsome young man dressed in in green velvet lined with white satin. She thanked the little mannikin, jumped on the back of her bird and flew away to the isle of Lok, where the bird changed back into a wand, and the blue swan-boat carried her to the Groac’h’s palace. 

            “By my cousin the Devil,” said Groac’h to herself when she set eyes on this new visitor, “here is the handsomest young man I’ve ever seen in my life. I could make love to him three times a day for three days!” and plying Bellah with endearments she led her through the great hall where the wine cups stood and fruit lay piled on the table… and the young woman spied the knife of Saint Corentin, which Houarn had dropped. She hid it her pocket to use later, and followed her fairy hostess into the garden. The Groac’h showed her the diamond flowerbeds, the perfumed fountains and the fish-tank, where rainbow-coloured fish swam in their hundreds. 

            Bellah pretended to be enchanted with these. She stood at the edge of the water gazing as they flashed and twirled. 

            “How would you like to stay here and watch them for ever?” asked the Groac’h, and Bellah replied that she would like nothing better. 

            “So you shall, if you will marry me here and now!” cried the Groac’h.

            “Yes,” said Bellah, laughing, “but first you must lend me your net and allow me to try and catch one of these lovely fishes.”

            “Take it, my beautiful fisherman,” said the Groac’h, “let me see what you can catch!” 

            “I’ve caught the devil!” cried Bellah, casting the net over the Groac’h’s head. “In the name of the Saviour, become in body what you are in soul!” and instantly the lovely fairy of the sea was changed into a hideous toad. Bellah pulled the net tight and ran to fling it into a pit, over which she rolled a stone sealed with the sign of the cross, so the Groac’h could never escape until Judgement Day. Then she ran back to the pond, where a great procession of fishes greeted her like strange little monks, all of them croaking, “All hail to our lord and master who has saved us from the steel net and the gold frying pan!”

             “And I am the one who will restore you to your proper shapes!” said Bellah. Drawing the magic knife from her pocket she was just about to transform the first ish, when her eye fell upon a small green frog. He crouched sobbing on the edge of the fish-tank, with the magic bell around his neck and his little hands placed over his heart. “Is it you, my Houarn?” she cried. “Is it you?”

 

            “It is,” croaked the little frog, and as the knife touched him he sprang up a man again, and they fell into each other’s arms. 

            Then Bellah began to transform all the fishes to their human shapes again. It took a long time, there were so many, and just as she finished who should arrive but the korandon from the Deer’s Leap Rock in a chariot pulled by six oak flies, June bugs as you call them, which he had hatched from the six stone eggs. 

            “There you are, the pretty girl!” he called to Bellah. “You’ve broken the enchantment which held me, and here I am to thank you – for out of a chicken you’ve made a man! Now for your reward,” and he led the two lovers to the Groac’h’s coffers, all stuffed with gold and jewels, and told them to help themselves. Bellah and Houarn filled their pockets, their belts, their hats and even their pantaloons, and when they had taken as much as they could carry, Bellah made her wand change into a winged chariot big enough to carry not only themselves but all the men they had rescued back to Lanillis. There the banns were read, and Houarn married Bellah – only now, instead of a little cow and a skinny pig, they were rich enough to buy up all the land of the parish, and the men who had been fishes became their tenants, and they all lived happily to the ends of their days. 

More on fairy tales and folklore in my book "Seven Miles of Steel Thistles" available from Amazon here and here.



Picture credits:

 

'Le Foyer Breton’ by Emile Souvestre: Frontispiece by Paul Chardin
The Swan-boat by Théophile Busnel 
Houarn Enjoys the Groac'h's Wine by Théophile Busnel

The Litte Horse of Saint Vouga by Théophile Busnel

Bellah and Korandon by HJ Ford

The Frog by Théophile Busnel
The Groac'h calls the fishes into her net  by HJ Ford