Tag Archives: Fairytales

Tales of the Elves: Icelandic Folktales for Children

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Tales of the Elves cover

One day God decided to visit Adam and Eve.  They welcomed him and introduced  their children – all except the ones Eve had not finished bathing.  After all, you want your kids to be clean when the Supreme Being drops in.  God was aware of this and said, “What is hidden from me shall be hidden from men.”  Those children became the elves who live in the hills and mounds of Iceland.  They can see us but we can’t see them unless they wish it.

I know this because I read a magical book, Tales of the Elves, based on the Icelandic folktales of Jon Arnason, adapted by Anna Kristin Asbjornsdottir and illustrated by Florence Helga Thibault.  I found the book on our visit to Iceland, which I wrote about in the fall.

Interest in elves isn’t limited to children in Iceland.  One day, as we toured the countryside, our driver pointed to a spot in a wide valley where the highway curved around a pair of volcanic rocks.  The stones were only 8′ – 10′ tall, nothing modern earth movers couldn’t remove.  That was the intention of the highway crew.  The problem was, the bulldozers broke down or stalled every time they  approached the twin rocks.  Every time.  Locals explained that the stones marked the entrance to an underground elven settlement.  The equipment worked perfectly after the construction crew decided to route the highway around the stones.

If this reminds you of Irish fairies, there’s good reason.  Genetic testing has proven that many Icelanders, especially the women, came from Ireland, specifically, the viking settlements there.  The stories themselves teach us similar lessons in coexisting with “the hidden ones.”

“Midwife to the elves” shows how the elven folk can give the gift of the sight and take it away again.  “Elf Wind” demonstrates the courage and cunning required to set things right if you do something foolish, like cut the grass on an elven mound.  “Payment for Milk” is about the boons the elves can grant if you treat them with kindness and goodwill.

I’d been looking forward to writing this review since I found Tales of the Elves, but unfortunately I couldn’t find any venue where interested readers can find the book.  Not on Amazon US or UK.  Not on bookfinders.com or ebay.  I couldn’t find ordering information on the publisher’s website.  I posted a request for information on the illustrator’s Facebook page, and I’ll pass along anything I discover.  Meanwhile, here is the information – if you love folklore and fine illustration of fantasy themes, it’s worth keeping an eye open for this book.

Anna Kristin Asbjornsdottir (adaptation), Florence Helga Thibault (illustration), Victoria Cribb (trans), Tales of the Elves, Bjartur publishing, Reykjavik, 2012

ISBN:  978-9979-788-80-5

Please post any information you may discover.

More on the Brothers Grimm bicentennial

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Earlier this month, I posted a piece on the 200th anniversary of first edition of the Brothers Grimm’s collection of German fairytales: http://wp.me/pYql4-2sw.

Yesterday the Sacramento Bee printed an article on this treasure trove of folklore and some of the worldwide activities the bicentennial has inspired (“The Grimm brothers from many angles,” by Jan Ferris Heenan, http://www.sacbee.com/2012/10/28/4939548/the-grimm-brothers-from-many-anglesin.html).

Of particular interest is the publication of a new collection, The Annotated Brothers Grimm by Harvard professor, Maria Tatar. At $35, it’s not cheap, but since I don’t do Playstation and Christmas is coming up…

In the 45 years after 1812, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm published six more editions which were eventually translated into more than 160 languages. In the Bee article, Jan Heenan explains that the Grimm brother’s motivation was partly political – Napoleon had conquered the German states and the Grimms sought to preserve something “authentically German.” They also understood the irreversible changes taking place because of industrialization. Farms, towns, and forests, the birthplace of traditional tales for millennia, were emptying out as economic change drove people into cities and factories.

“These stories were the television and pornography of an earlier age,” said author John Updike, and the summaries of earlier versions of the tales makes this clear. Rapunzel got pregnant, the stepmother wanted to eat Snow White’s liver and lungs, and in some versions, Red Riding Hood disrobes for the wolf. Not the stuff of Disney, but according to Maria Tartar, the originals offer something more important for adults:

“These are stories that show you no matter how bad it is…if you use your wit and have courage, you can get back home again. Even if we know in the real world that you don’t always survive, these are the stories that tell you…you do have a chance.”

Tartar’s book is the new number one on my wish list.

Two hundred years of The Brothers Grimm

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Statue of The Brother’s Grimm, Hanau Germany, by Syrius Eberle, 1895-96. CC-by-SA-3.0

In honor of the bicentennial of Children’s Household Tales (1812) by the Brothers Grimm, the University of Florida presents Grimmfest this month and next.  The university is home to the Baldwin Collection of Historical Children’s Literature, which features 2500 digitized children’s texts and a virtual exhibition of 19th century children’s book covers.

The Grimmfest page, http://www.clas.ufl.edu/cclc/fairy-tales.html, has links to other fairytale resources, including related contemporary books and movies.

Grimm’s Fairy Tales, 1865 cover. Public domain.

“Traditional fairy tales have their roots in our oldest stories, in myths and legends, in those primal tales that were formed when human beings first began to speak…However we may wish to define fairy tales, they remain an inescapable part of our psyches and our cultures.  They are why we celebrate the underdog, and secretly acknowledge “The Ugly Duckling” as our own autobiography.  Through their flights of fantasy, fairy tales set us free to seek our happiness, to follow our bliss — if only for the few minutes we are enfolded in a particular tale.”

This is a marvelous resource for anyone wishing to delve into the roots of the stories we love.

Fairytales in the 21st Century

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Arthur Rackham, untitled, 1904. Public domain.

When you look at our culture, it seems like fairytales have never been more popular.  “Grimm” and “Once Upon a Time” are starting their second television season.  Earlier this year, we had two movie versions of Sleeping Beauty.  Young adult paranormal stories remain popular with readers of all ages, and I’m currently reading a 1994 collection of classic fairytales retold by some of the best modern fantasy authors.  The book, Black Thorn, White Rose, by editors Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, was reissued as a kindle edition and features challenging tales by authors like Nancy Kress, Patricia Wrede, and Jane Yolen.

Snow White begs for mercy. From an 1852 Icelandic version. Public doman.

The old stories call out to us with their promise of depth as the stuff and fluff of modern life fails to satisfy the yearnings of the soul.  Yet according to Wolfgang Mieder, professor of German and folklore at the University of Vermont, we’re missing a critical element that earlier generations possessed, and the loss is related to the flood of tales we have today.  “Everybody reads different stories and we no longer know the same fairytales. The connecting element is lost,” says Mieder.  He is optimistic about the survival of fairytales, but questions the way we now receive them.

Mieder, a German-American, won the 2012 European Fairytale Prize and has studied the social significance of fairytales for more than 40 years.  After high school, he traveled to the US from Germany to study mathematics, but a seminar in German folklore changed his life’s direction.  Folklore became very personal for him.  He recalls that in Germany, “In the 1950s you used to be given a colorful picture as a gift when you bought margarine, which I made a lot of effort to collect and paste in my album. With the album I got to know the world of fairytales.”

Wolfgang Mieder. CC-by-SA-3.0

Mieder, who has authored 200 publications and 500 articles, want his students to find the same personal connection to the old stories.  This can be hampered by the sheer volume of folklore appearing on TV, movies, and the internet.  Will the glut of information detract from the impact of stories that generations of people heard aloud in the flickering firelight?  Mieder is hopeful – he has observed a new interest in oral telling of old stories.

This is something I have experienced, both as a story teller and listener.  All over the world, it was largely during the dark months when the stories were told, and now we have a world-wide celebration of stories each November.

In 1988, J.G. Pinkerton, of the Connecticut Storytelling Center, imagined a night of storytelling, which he called Tellebration, to build community support for storytelling.  That year stories were told in six locations throughout the state.  By 1997, there were Tellebration events on every continent except Antarctica.

Tellebration is held on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, November 17 this year.  You can search for events near you – or even organize and register your own – at this site, hosted by the National Storytelling Network: http://www.tellabration.org/index.html

You can access the full article on Wolfgang Wieder here: http://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,16234957,00.html

And finally, to see a wonderful site devoted to fairytales and folklore – the place where I found the Wieder article – visit the “Sur La Lune Fairy Tales Blog,” listed on my blogroll.

And finally-finally, as in really finally, I’ll be devoting next week to exploring some old stories and oral tradition. I’ll be largely or entirely unwired for the duration, but I promise you will hear more about this in upcoming posts.

Arthur Rackham, The Three Bears. Public domain.

Fairytales for Midlife

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Joseph Campbell’s groundbreaking series, “The Power of Myth,” broadcast on PBS in 1988, sparked a tremendous interest in myth and folklore.  A number of fine studies followed during the next few years.  One of my favorites was a series of books on fairytales by Allan B. Chinen, a San Francisco psychiatrist.  In his second book, Once Upon a Midlife, 1992, Chinen discusses stories about the problems and tasks that face us in middle age, “when the Prince goes bald and the Princess has a midlife crisis.”

once upon a midlife

Of the 5,000 fairytales from around the world that Chinen reviewed, 90% were “youth tales,” aimed at young people trying to find their place in the world.  The protagonists leave home, struggle to find their courage, fall love, find a treasure, and come into their kingdom or find a job.  Chinen calls the other 10%, “middle tales.”  The focus is middle-aged men and women, “juggling the demands of family and work, grappling with self-doubt and disillusionment, and ultimately finding deep new meaning in life.”

Allan Chinen

The first of the middle tale themes Chinen explores is “the loss of magic,” embodied in the German tale of “The Elves and the Shoemaker.”  Youthful protagonists thrive when they locate a source of magic; they lose it only if they are mean or greedy.  In middle tales, the magic fades in the course of living.  At some point, we realize we’re not going to write the Great American Novel; we don’t have an unlimited number of do-overs left; we don’t have the skill or the energy to realize all of our youthful dreams.  What is left?  If we listen to the stories, Chinen says, we begin to see other roads between the extremes of naiveté and despair, roads that leads toward renewal.

The next theme is “reversals,” often involving men and women dropping traditional gender roles.  The headline in this week’s newspaper Arts & Entertainment section was, “The Era of the Empowered Princess.”  That may be the theme in Hollywood, but not in traditional “youth tales.”  Where the emphasis is socialization, stories all over the world  praise traditional roles.  Things change in middle tales.  Men sometimes say, “To hell with work,” or quit the army, while women grow more assertive and often save the day, as in “The Wife Who Became King,” a story from China.

The third middle tale theme is a new awareness of death and evil.  Youth stories don’t dwell on either one; bad things happen to others, “out there.”  Dragons die, bad sorcerers die, and sometimes evil step-mothers, but never the hero or heroine, and neither of them are evil.  In middle tales mortality gets personal.  Evil gets personal too; no longer does it simply lie “out there.”  The expansiveness of youth gives way to the psyche’s need for wholeness, which means we have to “confront the shadow,” the darkness we carry within.  The best stories, honed by generations of telling, lead us to realizations by the path of wisdom and by the path of humor.  In “The Tell Tale,” a Japanese story, a woodcutter spies his wife in the arms of a pawnbroker.  At first he is seized by a murderous rage.  Rather than kill his wife and her lover, he concocts a ridiculous story and uses it to trick his wife, humiliate the pawnbroker, and makes enough money to live with his wife in comfort – and fidelity – for the rest of their days.  There is far more of the trickster than the knight-in-shining-armor in these stories.

The final middle tale theme in Once Upon a Midlife is renewal, which in these stories, most often involves descent to the underworld.

“Stripped of all their defenses, individuals come face-to-face with the core of their being.  There they find a primordial source of life, beyond conventional notions of good and evil, male and female.  Whether understood as the inner Self, or God, or the life force, this primal source helps men and women reforge their lives…[they] emerge from their suffering with deep healing – and the ability to heal others.”

To anyone interested in the interpretation of folklore, I recommend this page which lists all of Allan Chinen’s books.

Swan Maidens and Fairy Lovers, Part 2

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It’s good to know that glasses can help us drink.  The problem is, we don’t know the purpose of thirst. – Antonio Machado

I hope I didn’t create the impression that I have any solid answers to the questions The Bride of Llyn y Fan Fach raises. Just “hints followed by guesses,” to quote T.S. Eliot.

In stories of this type, from all over the world, beautiful Otherworld women enter the lives of mortal men and then leave.  It’s not too great a stretch to imagine they represent the beauty, the love and fulfillment, the joy and intensity we long for in the world, but usually find to be fleeting.  The occasion for the lake woman’s departure is a tap on the shoulder that counts as a “blow.”  In a literal sense, this is absurd.  I take it to mean that the radiance of the Otherworld is like a spectacular sunset:  it illuminates our world but does not endure.  If it hadn’t been a tap, it would have been something else.  Perhaps as T.S. Eliot said, “Human kind cannot bear very much reality.”

Renunciation is not giving up the things of this world, it’s giving up the idea that they last – a Zen master.

Traditional fairytales are not linked to specific dates and places, but this one is.  This indicates a modern sensibility shaping the story pattern, and it seems especially clear in the lake woman’s belief that the world is a veil of tears.  The usual fairytale heroine does not cry at weddings, where people are “entering trouble,” nor does she laugh at funerals where people are “leaving their troubles.”  Her legacy is the gift of healing to help alleviate suffering.

In the lake woman’s view, this world is not our home, but while we are here, compassion is the highest virtue.  This sentiment could have come from Celtic Christianity.  It is also very eastern and reminds me of the theory that the Celts are linked, by diffusion, with the Aryan warriors of India.  Either way, this is a very different world from the Cinderella tales or stories like The Water of Life which suggest you can find your prince or princess and live a happy life together.

And you know the sun’s setting fast, And just like they say, nothing good ever lasts. – Iris DeMent

At the opening of this story, we learn that the young man’s father “died in the wars.”  The dates vary in different texts. One says the end of the 12th century, and others, the 13th century.  The latter date would coincide with the conquest of Wales by Edward Longshanks, the villain in Braveheart.  Edward invited all the bards in Wales to a council and had them killed, understanding that a nation without stories ceases to be a nation.  What Longshanks didn’t understand was that Celtic stories survive wherever there is a pub, a hearth fire, or a quiet country lane, yet I think the sadness of a conquered people infuses the story.

We know there is another world.  The question is, how far is it from midtown and how late is it open? – Woody Allen

Twenty years ago, Mary and I travelled with a small group of storytellers on a tour called, “The Quest for Arthur’s Britain.”  Our guides were a remarkable couple, Robert Bella Wilhelm and his wife, Kelly, who have devoted their lives to storytelling and the sacred.  I’m happy to say they are still at it.  You can check out their website for details on storytelling trips to the Orkney Islands in May, to Iceland in September, and to Hawaii in Jan., 2013:  http://www.storyfestjourneys.com/

On Glastonbury Tor, Sept., 1991

We spent the last days of this journey at an Elizabethan manor house in the Black Mountain foothills, not too far from Llyn y Fan Fach.  It was one of a very few times in my life that I heard no traffic sound at night and saw no lights of a city.  When the moon was down, it was pitch black.  You could see the shapes of trees against the stars, but little else.

One night I strolled to the end of the yew walk.  The lights from the manor were hidden.  No light, no wind, no sound.  That alone was uncanny, but there was something more.  My Jungian training, which had taught me to understand spirits and fairies as archetypes of the psyche, vanished in a visceral rush of ice down the spine.  Part of me wanted to know what lay beyond, out in the open fields, but I couldn’t bring myself to take another step.  The hair on my neck stood up until I got back to the manor.

Do I believe in other worlds?  I did that night, and I think I do still.  I’m glad I knew the old stories and their lesson:  as human beings, this world is our home, for good or ill.  The peril is very great – too great – for those who venture too close to any other.

Swan Maidens and Fairy Lovers, Part I

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When I was an active storyteller, I loved to tell one of the best known legends of Wales.  It’s found in many collections under various names, most often, “The Bride of Llyn y Fan Fach.”  Variations of this story are found all over the world.  A mortal man marries an Otherworld woman who breaks his heart, but sometimes brings marvelous children into the world.

Llyn y Fan Fach and the Bannau Sir Gaer by Rudi Winter. CC by-SA 2.0

I’ve started to write about this legend on other occasions, discarding drafts that rapidly grew beyond the scope of a blog post or two or three.  What prompted me to begin again was a visit to Barnes & Noble.

Barnes & Noble knows what sells.  An entire row is now filled with “Paranormal Romance.”  The covers feature illustrations of winsome teenage girls.  The genre isn’t new; Charles de Lint, a Canadian author, has written stories like this for thirty years.  The popularity is new, and almost all of today’s novels invert the usual folklore setup, in which a mortal man meets a fairy woman.  Not only that, but the odds of a happy ending in these tales are worse than the chance of hitting a single number at roulette.

The Swan Maiden

The Swan Maiden is the most widespread “mixed marriage” type of folktale.  It is also considered the most primitive, since the Otherworld woman’s native form isn’t human.  Usually it’s a bird.  Swan maiden stories are found all over Europe, as well as the middle east, Russia, India, China, and Japan.  There’s a parallel water buffalo woman story in Africa.  According to one researcher, the motif is 30,000 – 40,000 years old, as shown by a bison-woman cave painting.

In swan maiden tales, a man sees a flock of swans glide to earth at night.  Removing their swan robes, they change into beautiful women who bathe or dance together.  Enamored of one in particular, the man takes her robe so she won’t fly away, and eventually persuades her to marry him. Later they have children.  One day the swan-wife hears her children sing of where her husband has hidden the robe, or they tell their mother when they see her in tears.  The swan maiden puts on her robe and flies away forever, leaving the children with their father.

The Welsh Stories

I have a passion for Celtic stories, and those from Wales in particular, but Celtic fairies seldom give a mortal a break.  They put out a Scottish woman’s eye simply because she could see them.  When Thomas the Rhymer succeeded in pleasing the fairy queen for seven years, what did she give him as a reward?  A tongue that could only speak the truth!  Think about how that would serve you at work.  No mystery about why Thomas never married – “Does this make me look fat?”

In Welsh mixed-marriage tales, a mortal man wins the hand of a fairy wife who agrees to stay with him under certain conditions.  They have children, the husband accidentally breaks a condition, usually by touching his wife with iron, and she leaves.  He never sees her again, though she sometimes slips back to visit her children, whose descendants are beautiful and wise.  Here is the best of these stories:

The Bride of Llyn y Fan Fach

At the end of the 12th century, a young man lived with his mother, a war widow, in Carmarthensire in Wales.  Every day he drove their small flock of cattle to the lonely tarn known as Llyn y Fan Fach.  The cows preferred the grass there to any other pasture.

Llyn y Fan Fach, copyright Stuart Wilding, licensed for reuse CC by-SA

One morning, the man (who isn’t named in the tale) beheld a beautiful woman sitting on the water combing her hair.  All he had to offer was a bit of bread, but he walked to the shore and held it out.  She glided over the water and said, “Hard baked is thy bread.  Hard am I to hold.”  Then she dove under the waves.

Unable to think of anything else but her, he brought unbaked dough the next day.  She appeared at noon, glided to the shore, and said, “Unbaked is thy bread.  I will not have thee.”

The lady combs her hair on the water

The third time, the bread was just right.  The lady gave her assent and her father offered a sizable dowry of cattle, goats, and horses, after the young man agreed to one condition – his wife would leave him if he struck her three blows without cause.

Things went well at first, and they had three sons.  Then one day the couple was to attend a christening.  The lady delayed getting ready.  She sent her husband back to the house for her gloves, saying she would saddle the horse.  When she didn’t do so, the young man playfully tapped her on the shoulder with the gloves.  “Not ready yet?”

“Be more careful,” she said.  “For you have just struck the first blow without cause.”  [This incident echoes other stories where the husband touches his fairy wife with an iron bit while bridling a horse, but that detail is missing here.]

A few years later, at a wedding, the wife burst into tears.  The husband tapped her shoulder and asked why she wept.  “I weep for this couple who are now entering trouble,” she said.  “Be careful, my love, for your trouble draws closer.  That was the second blow without cause.”

The man stayed vigilant, and things went well for several more years.  Then one day his wife burst into laughter at a funeral.  He tapped her on the shoulder again and asked why she laughed.  “I laugh because this man has left a world full of trouble,” she said.  “But now your trouble is here.  Farewell, my husband.  You have just struck the third blow without cause.”

Ignoring his protests, she marched to the lake, and all her father’s animals followed.  A pair of oxen dragged a plow six miles to the lake, and the furrows can be seen to this day.  Of the unfortunate husband, we know nothing more.  Longing for their mother, the three sons went to the lake at night and she appeared.  “You are to be of help to the world,” she said.  “I shall instruct you in the arts of medicine.  You and your descendants will be great and skillful physicians.  Whenever you need my advice, I will appear.”

In time, they became the personal physicians of the Prince of South Wales.  The legend of the Bride of Llyn y Fan Fach comes from a book called The Physicians of Myddvai, 1861, by a Welsh printer named Rees.  The Welsh Historical Society has herbal recipes attributed to the lake woman’s descendants, and the last of the line, Dr. C. Rice Williams lived into the 1890’s.

***

What do we make of a story like this?  First, we can recall Marie-Louise Von Franz’s comparison of myth and folklore. The great myths and legends tend to be more polished.  Their plots are coherent enough to satisfy modern demands.  In contrast, folktales are more primal and more opaque.

One unique feature of this tale is the specificity of location and the lake lady’s descendants.  Greek families traced their ancestry to the heroes of Troy, and my mother had a coat of arms dating back to the Normal Conquest.  A similar dynamic is one explanation for the unique segue of this fairy tale into history.

The real mystery for me has always been, why is the husband is doomed from the start?  Who would count a shoulder tap as a “blow?”  Why do mortals never win when they give themselves to Otherworld lovers?

I’ve asked myself why since the day I found a book of local fairytales in a used bookstore in Wales on a visit 20 years ago.  Though I don’t have certain answers, I have some thoughts which I will offer next time.  Meanwhile, does anyone else have any ideas?  Why would the girl’s father set an impossible condition, and why would she actually leave over such a minor slight when the text says she really loves her husband?  I welcome any suggestions you may have.

The Water of Life, Part 2

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If you have not already done so, please read the first part of this article in the preceding post.

The Water of Life by Rogasky and Hyman, 1991.

Marie-Louise von Franz, a close colleague of Carl Jung, wrote extensively of fairytales.  She believed that these “simple” stories reveal the core of the psyche better than the great myths and sagas, shaped by poets and spiritual thinkers.  Reading these tales with the same respect the young brother shows the dwarf can reward us with nuggets of wisdom shaped by generations of storytellers sitting beside the hearth fire.

The opening of The Water of Life reminds us that when we don’t know the way, it pays to admit it, at least to ourselves.  We need to pay attention to everything, listen to everything, for we don’t know the shape of the messenger who may show us how to proceed.  Here is the rest of the story:

The dwarf told the third son where to find the castle where The Water of Life flowed.  He gave the prince an iron wand to open the gates, and two loaves of bread to appease the lions who guarded the entrance.

The third son throws the loaves to the lions

In the great hall, he found men turned into stone.  As he left the hall, he spotted a sword and another loaf of bread and picked them up.  Venturing on, he met a beautiful woman who welcomed him.  She said he had set her free. “This realm will be yours and all the enchantments broken if you return in a year to marry me.”

The woman directed him to the Fountain of Life and urged him to leave with the water before the clock struck noon, when the gates would close again. The young man hurried on until he came to a room with a freshly made bed.  Realizing how tired he was, he settled down for a nap.  He woke at quarter to twelve, and just had time to find the fountain, fill a cup with The Water of Life, and race back to the gate.  As it swung closed, it sliced off a piece of his heel.

The dwarf was waiting and told him the sword would defeat any army, and the loaf would feed any multitude and never be diminished.  The young prince then begged the dwarf to free his brothers.  The little man said to forget them, his brothers would only betray him, but he gave in at last to the younger brother’s pleading.

On the way home, the brothers passed through three kingdoms plagued by war and famine, and the youngest used his sword and loaf to save them.  At the same time, he told his older brothers about his success and his betrothal to the Lady of the Fountain.  Before he could give his father the Water of Life, the older brothers swapped it for sea water, which made the king worse.  The older pair then gave the king the true healing draught and claimed the young brother had given him poison.  The king ordered a huntsman to kill his youngest son in the forest, but the huntsman could not bring himself to do it.

The kingdoms the young prince had saved sent riches by way of thanks, and the king began to reconsider.  As the year drew to a close, the Lady of the Water had the road to her castle paved with gold.  She ordered her servants to chase off anyone who walked up the side of the road but welcome the one who strode up the center.  The two older brothers, anxious not to scuff the precious metal, walked beside it and were driven away.  The young prince, able to think of nothing but his love, had no care for gold and walked up the middle of the road.  

The Lady of the Fountain. Detail of an English tapestry

The Lady ran out to meet him.  He became Lord of her realm, freed all the frozen men, and reconciled with his father.  The two older brothers sailed away and were never seen again.

***

If the start of the tale presents a fairly clear dynamic, what follows is more obscure.  The question of how and when to interpret folklore goes far beyond the scope of one or two blog posts.  Folktales may be more primal than myths, as Marie-Louise von Franz suggests, but they leave more open questions.  I tend to follow James Hillman’s advice – “stick with the image.”  When scenes in movies and books, or events in our lives leave us puzzled, we may turn them over in memory and imagination for years without rushing to ask what they “mean.”  In doing so, we let them nourish us without draining their power by settling for simple answers.

For instance, the Lady of the Water of Life gives the youngest son clear instructions to find what he came for and get back through the gates before noon.  So what does he do?  Hits the sack when he spots a bed.  Strange behavior for a lad who has gotten as far as he has through doing what he’s been told.

I’ve come to believe the bed is another trial on the way to the Water of Life.  It took warrior courage and dwarf tricks to get by the lions guarding the gates.  Here the trial is staying awake – not always easy in life.  At the wrong time, if you “look neither right nor left,” you miss the chance of renewal.  At the right time, it’s essential.  If the prince hadn’t made it out by noon, I believe he would have turned to stone like the others in the courtyard.  There is nothing in this text to support this a view; my opinions are based on other stories.  One is a fuller account of stone people in a tale from The Arabian Nights.  The other is a trial-by-bed that Sir Gawain undergoes on a mysterious “Isle of Women.”  When he succeeds, he too becomes the champion of the Otherworld queen.

Such hunches are tentative and subject to change.  It isn’t answers but wrestling with the questions that draws my imagination again and again to this kind of story.

*** 

Two decades have passed since I found The Water of Life, and since then, “Look for the dwarf by the side of the road,” has become something I tell myself every time I’m stuck.  Such renewal is open to everyone – it’s our birthright, though certain attitudes, embodied in the older brothers, will chase inspiration away.  Older brothers pretty much run the world:  they are the movers and shakers, the ones who get things done, which means they keep going even as the walls close in.

That’s one reason I love blogging.  It’s an excuse to discover and celebrate people who talk with dwarves:  those who build little libraries.  Those who buck the trend and open small bookstores.  Those who publish their own books, in the grand tradition of Walt Whitman, who initially sold his poems door-to-door.  People, in other words, who try to occupy their own lives, which is what this story is really about.

A world where the Water of Life flows is filled with individual acts of courage.  A world where the waters are choked off looks very different, for as Michael Meade observes:

“There is something incurable in this world that makes the soul long for the healing and beauty of the otherworld.  Each visit to the other realm requires stopping the business and busy-ness of the daily world in order to listen to the questions being asked from the inner-under-other sides of life…Unless the inner voice and the little people are heard from again, the world will continue to drain of meaning and will keep turning a cold heart to the immensity of human suffering.”