The Son of Seven Queens

A white hind? Better chase it down obsessively.

This week's story is The Son of Seven Queens from somewhere in India. It is a bit long, with a few typos, but it is worth the read. Who doesn't love a tale where two women match wits?

Reading through this tale, it really is about women using their power over each other. The Seven Queens become victim of the White Hind queen. Then the White Hind queen and her mother become victims of the princess, who tricks them three times. The princess, eventually, points out to the King that he was being bamboozled. However, even after the King has the White Hind queen put to death, it's really an extension of the princess using her power. It's fortunate for the prince that the princess knew right away that he had seven moms. And also that she decided that she would only marry a man who had seven mothers.

It is interesting to note how marriages work in this story. Leaving aside the number of his wives, the King seems to be treating them pretty well at the beginning of this story. He apparently didn't value them enough to keep his promise not to hunt in the North, however. Once the White Hind queen got a hold of him, he didn't stand a chance. Further along in the story, it was noteworthy that the princess was able to choose her husband, even with such an impossible standard as a man who had seven mothers. What's more is that even after she set this standard, she was able to pick one random man after seeing him for the first time, and everyone was happy about it. It's nice that she was given such freedom, but a little worrisome that she could base her decision on so little information.

There is plenty to dig into here, but that might have to wait for another post. For now, I'll say the moral of the story is to listen to your wives. Failing that, make sure that one of them has a capable son who impresses the right lady.

The Mirror of Matsuyama

"Hey, Mom. Can I look in the mirror?" "Nope. You can see me just fine."

This week, we look to Japan to provide our fairy tale. The Mirror of Matsuyama is very different from most folktales I've seen. For one thing, the stepmother actually changes her ways and becomes a good stepmother at the end!

This tale revolves around a very sweet misunderstanding. The mother in this tale is gifted with a mirror and whenever she looks into it, she sees her face. It only makes sense, then, when she is dying to gift the mirror to her daughter and tell her daughter to look into it to see the mother's face. After all, that's what the mother saw when she looked at it. The awesome thing about this is that it works. The girl and her mother look enough alike that whenever the girl is troubled, she looks in the mirror and sees a young and pretty version of her mother. Or herself. That simple innocence is part of what strikes me about this tale. The girl is comforted by this mirror because of the lie she believes about it. It's easy to make fun of the girl for not understanding how a mirror works, but I know we've all done something similar and taken comfort from it.

Now, for the stepmother. She must be very insecure in this new household with the child she barely knows. She treats the girl badly, but the more the stepmother yells at the girl, the more the girl keeps looking at something and talking to it. Freaky. So, the stepmother projects her fears on this girl and, instead of talking to her stepdaughter, she talks to her husband about it. So far, we're pretty on par with most stepmothers in fairy tales. They feel like outsiders in their new houses and go to great lengths to let them children feel their discomfort and when things get weird, they talk to their husband. However, once this stepmother realized she was wrong, she apologized right away and everything after that was much better. If only that happened in other stories, the children would have a much easier time! Then again, the plot of those stories would be gone if that happened.

This week's moral is pretty straightforward: If you find out you're wrong, apologize, and move on. Alternatively: Even if you find peace in a lie, the peace is still real.

The Black Bull of Norroway

Who knew riding a bull could be so easy?

 This week's tale is about how being the youngest in a fairytale can be the most hazardous, but also the most rewarding. That is a trope in pretty much every fairytale, but we're looking at it specifically in The Black Bull of Norroway.

The tale begins with three sisters all wanting to seek their fortunes. I have to confess, I'm curious what the first two sisters did with their carriages, but I suppose that's a tale for another time. In any case, the youngest gets the Black Bull of Norroway, no matter how scared she is. Since we are following the youngest sister, her tale must be the most interesting, and as we see from the bull's brother's castles, the youngest also has the nicest castle. So, for either gender, it really is better to be the youngest. I feel bad for my older brothers.

Now, I've read a few versions of this tale, and I always wonder how the Bull fights the Old One. Is it a kung-fu battle? Do they have to play Jenga? Some sort of battle of wits? Why did he have to pick up a lady friend before his fight? In any event, we're just following the youngest daughter, so all we know is that once she knows the Bull won, she was so overcome with happiness that she crosses her legs. I know it's hard to sit still as soon as someone tells you to do it, but happiness seems like a weird reason to cross your legs. Anyway.

Eventually, she realizes that the Bull will never be able to find her, so she sets out on her own journey and finds a glass hill. I'm not sure why she becomes determined to climb it, but she is, so she works for a smith for seven years so he will make her shoes to climb the hill. Seven years. That's a long time only to find the hill has a terrible washerwoman and her daughter at the top. Really though, their task was to get bloodstains out of clothes and they couldn't do it. I suppose the stains were enchanted, but still... They are also terrible because they take the main character's success as their own and almost make the Bull marry the wrong girl. In the end, though, he finds out the right person who cleaned his clothes, and has the other two burned. Brutal.

I suppose one moral of this story is to follow directions, but I am also a fan of the idea that if you find a glass hill, you should try to climb it. Because there's going to be something unusual at the top. Possibly your long-lost love.

Hansel and Gretel

Hello, ma'am. Your house looks delicious.

Hello again, reader. This week, we're back on more familiar territory with Hansel and Gretel. This version I found of it is much more detailed than I remembered.

Of course we have the basic story about the stepmother wanting to abandon her stepchildren in the woods and the weak-willed father who takes them out and leaves them. What stuck with me on this version was the ending.

Not only did Gretel shove the witch in the oven, but then she and Hansel padlocked it shut. Then they stayed in the house for a few days, eating the walls. I had expected that they would leave right away after facing such trauma. On the other hand, they didn't know where to go and this way they could make sure the witch was truly burned to death. Fortunately for the kids, they found the witch's stash of gold coins and were set for life.

This is where I start to wonder just how young these children are. If they were obviously kids, then it makes sense for them to go home to the parents who abandoned them in the woods. If they might have been able to live on their own, I'm not sure why they went home to parents who literally did not care if they lived or died. I am also concerned that the stepmother died at such a convenient time. If she was the witch in the woods, it would make sense that she would want to abandon the kids out there so she could eat them.... Just a thought.

The moral of this story is to be kind in poverty so you aren't mysteriously dead before riches come your way.

The Twins

Look at these mangrove trees. They're definitely not children.

Hello, reader. This week, we're looking at a tale from somewhere in Africa because the place I found it didn't give a country of origin. The Twins is a tale of several people being rude. Often for no reason. Enjoy!

When the mother was trying to kill her twins, I felt sorry for them at first. They knew they weren't supposed to kill a one-eyed antelope, but nothing actually happened to them afterward except for their mother's actions, so it doesn't seem like it was that bad. I do have to wonder what their reaction would have been if they found out that instead of a one-eyed antelope, they were born from several limes. In any case, it seems like a self-fulfilling prophesy to tell them not to do something, since the twins were so ornery. However, after the twins escaped from their mother, I stopped feeling sorry for them. I'm really glad they weren't able to do anything to the little girl who was having a wound cleaned. These kids literally had no limits.

Their awfulness makes me wonder about the structure of the story. Were they awful so we wouldn't feel bad when they were turned into mangrove trees? If the twins had a better moral code and were still being chased for some reason, we would probably be quite upset when they were turned into trees for the rest of their lives. This idea makes sense with the lack of depth to their character. They are nasty, disobedient children who only care about each other. I suppose at least they care for someone, but that is also a necessity for the story. They can't both be turned into mangrove trees if they're trying to kill each other, or if they split up.

For this week, I suppose the moral is that if your kids kill a one-eyed antelope, wait and see what happens before you try to kill them.

The Sealskin

Sounds like they're having fun. I'd better steal something.

It's snowing today, so I thought we'd look at a tale from Iceland. The Sealskin is a tale of love, loss, and of course, seals.

I cannot help but feel badly for the woman in this story. She comes on land to party and, when she can't go back home, is abandoned by her friends and ends up following a stranger home. The story has no details about how the man courted her, but either he did something right or she was desperate because they got married and had seven kids. This clearly wasn't her plan. Once she is able to get her sealskin back, the woman turns back into a seal and never becomes human again.

Stories like this show a lot about how women were treated in the time and place this tale comes from. She ended up loving her children on land, as she says, and at least liking her husband enough to get him fish every day. However, the fact that when she has a choice, she does not come back on land shows that she wasn't happy there. She had children in the sea before she had some on land. She had a life, but some guy's curiosity pulled her away from that and kept her away for several years. And it's not depicted as anything terrible, or even bad. It's just shown as something that happened. I enjoy the look into culture that these stories give us, but I don't always like what I find.

The moral for this story would have to be: Even when you're partying, keep an eye on your sealskin so some jerk doesn't steal it.

The Dervish and the Three Coins

For the low, low price of three coins, you can get four pieces of wisdom!

Hello, reader. Since it's still winter, I thought we'd look at a tale from Turkey where it's warmer. Today's tale is The Dervish and the Three Coins. We learn several life lessons in this tale.

As this story opens, we have a merchant who is not good at managing his money. When he's down to just three coins, he takes all of his money and leaves his family. So far, I'm not seeing a great guy. Because of his shame, he abandons his family and leaves them with nothing. He needs to get his priorities checked. Then, when he finds a dervish, the merchant gives over all of his money to learn some wisdom. This worked out well for him in this story, but I was pretty worried for the merchant's family for a moment. I'm guessing the dervish was trying to get the merchant to see that wisdom is more useful than money, but it could have ended pretty badly for our main character.

As it turned out, it worked out really well for our merchant. Remembering the four pieces of advice the dervish gave him, the merchant was able to make much more money and return home a rich man. By this point, he had been gone for several days with no word to his family, so when the merchant meets a neighbor on the way home and he learns that his wife is looking at other men, I wasn't too surprised.

Let's look at this from her perspective. She probably had to assume he was dead and in order to keep her family alive, she needed to be married to someone, or go live with someone in her family. There was a real sleezeball who apparently started courting her just about the day her husband left. So, this woman's sister took her in. It was the closest thing to a restraining order they could get. Thank goodness for kind-hearted sisters, otherwise this story would have gotten very complicated.

While we can learn the four morals, or pieces of wisdom, the merchant learned, I prefer to think the moral is: Manage your business well and life will be a lot easier.