Armadillo's Song

He looks like a great singer.

This week, we take a stroll to Bolivia to look at the armadillo and his burning desire to sing. In Armadillo's Song, we see a level of commitment and sacrifice usually only seen in romances. That is one of the reasons it stood out to me.

Things tend to happen in fairy tales in threes, so it is no surprise to me that the armadillo was laughed at by frogs, crickets, and canaries before he achieved his goal. Part of what I find sad in this story is that the armadillo doesn't understand the creatures who sing so beautifully. He admires their art so much, but he can't understand what they're saying. It is kind of a good thing because they were laughing at him, but that must have been frustrating for him. Here were three different creatures who were making beautiful music, but he was missing part of the meaning because he didn't know what the words meant.

I truly feel for the armadillo. He wanted to make music so badly he was willing to die for it. Then he wouldn't be able to know that he was making music or how it sounded. Putting aside his trust in the wizard, that is a desperate move to make. It makes we wonder about his life and how music came to dominate it so completely. In the end, I suppose the armadillo thought it was worth it because he did get to sing. I just hope the wizard was a good musician.

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The Wishing Skin

Does it still feel like you have immense power when your crown is bigger than you are?

This week's folk tales comes to us from Hungary, and it's called The Wishing Skin. It's got everything from talking rabbits to royalty, and it focuses on a woodcutter who rises to immense power and prestige.

One of my main problems with this story is the scope of the woodcutter's wishes. It's understandable that he would want all of the luxury and riches that he never had, but I don't understand why it takes him so long to wish he were taller. All he has to do is wish that the wishing skin wouldn't change his height and then he could have as many wishes as he liked. That would break the story, so it makes sense that he doesn't do it, but it still bothers me.

Let's take a moment to look at his wife, Joan. At first, she stops her husband from wishing for more. When they first become a lord and lady, Joan interrupts her husband mid-wish. He's only three feet tall and she is satisfied with what they have and doesn't want to sacrifice his height for even more. However, after she sees that they only have about as much as their neighbors do, suddenly she values power over her husband's size and convinces him to wish for more. She allows herself to be taken over by the ability to get whatever she wants with no direct consequences. After the first time, she doesn't seem to mind too much that her husband is a midget and, eventually, doll-sized.

I also find it interesting that the woodcutter decides to make these further wishes, even though he has to bear the consequences. It seems to be worth more to him to have peace in his household than to have his usual height. We can tell who truly has the power in this relationship. That is especially obvious when the woodcutter lives in a doll house in the garden and has no say in how their kingdom is run. Sometimes I have to wonder about men being afraid of having women in power, but this is unfairness sent far to the other side of the spectrum. In any event, the woodcutter finally wishes to have everything back that he had before and that's where we leave him. With the experiences they just had, I have to wonder if they were able to go back to the way things were before, or if something has changed in their relationship.

I suppose the moral of this story is either, "Don't follow the advice of your wife if she's greedy for power," or "Be satisfied with what you've worked for and not what you have handed to you through magic."

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Tatterhood

Does that mean they're actually triplets?

Hello, reader! This week's tale comes to us from Europe, probably Norway or Iceland, and is called Tatterhood. This also happens to be the name of the main character. Hang onto your goats, folks. We're in for a ride on this one.

Right from the beginning, we have a comparison set up between Tatterhood and her sister, Betsy. Tatterhood is no doubt from the rare flower, while Betsy must be from the fair flower. The queen was warned not to eat the rare flower, and that must be how a hood, tattered or otherwise, a spoon, and a goat came out with the first twin. Modern science is drawing a blank on how else this could have happened.

This is one of the few folktales where two girls set out to find their fortune instead of the youngest son of either a peasant or king. And Tatterhood is a force to be reckoned with. When she was seven years old, she and her goat drove away marauding trolls that adults had learned to accept. When one of the trolls steals her sister's head, Tatterhood jumps on a sailboat and gets herself over to their home to steal back the head. I'm pretty impressed that a seven year old can sail by herself. I doubt the goat helped much.

On the other hand, we don't know very much about Betsy. We know that she loves Tatterhood, even though she is completely different, and that she's willing to marry a prince she just met without telling her parents. Perhaps we need to look at her condition that she will not marry until someone asks Tatterhood to marry him. It could be that she wanted to marry this love-struck prince, but it could be that she realized that, even though she loved Tatterhood, few people would love her twin when they first met her. Betsy might have been trying to buy some time to figure out whether or not she wanted to marry this guy. After all, since she and Tatterhood were setting out to seek their fortune alone, they had no pressure from someone else to marry the first set of princes they met. Either way, on their wedding day, we know both princes loved both twins, and we know the feeling was returned, or Tatterhood would have gotten them both out of there.

There are a few different versions of this tale. Some of them cast Tatterhood in a harsh light, making her flower ugly to begin with and having the prince who has to marry her scold her into changing her appearance into something dazzling. I prefer this version because a personality as wild as Tatterhood's would not let herself marry some guy who was going to take control of her life. And change is always easier when the one changing initiates it.

If we are looking for morals, I suppose the best one is this: "Respect the crazy ways of your twin sister because she will save your life and she'll change when she feels like it." Or perhaps it's just, "When someone is chasing trolls around the castle, don't look outside."

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