by Robert Bly
The Lindworm, the elder son, lives at the outer edges of his father’s territory. It’s in the wild that he learns what’s going on in the land. He is aware of the fatigue of the royal energy. He knows firsthand that the enervation in the kingdom comes from ignoring the chthonic world, tossing it out the window, imagining it to be so small and insignificant that its presence needn’t be mentioned in the royal household.
It was through heroic acts that Apollo wiped out the chthonic Python at the center of the world, wielding his weapons and his superlatively conscious mind to destroy the place where the dark and fertile thrive. Afterward, his light shone on that dark place. But our fairy story moves in a radically different way. It’s a young girl (and she’s no Apollonian) who comes face-to-face with the Lindworm after he has eaten two previous brides-to-be. This particular girl is not a warrior for consciousness. Far from it. She’s armed only with advice from her dead mother. And she was able to hear that advice only after she wept the night through on her mother’s grave. Weeping and weeping through the night is a regular practice for those who hope to call a Divine presence that seems to be absent from their lives.
Though this girl is not Apollo, she’s not Eve either, the first woman tempted by the snake in the Garden, the one who accepted the apple of knowledge from the snake and took a bite. Nor is she the Virgin Mary, who stayed perched with the serpent safely under her feet. She is the one who applies lye on the Lindworm’s raw flesh and wears out brushes with all her strength, even as the snake lies skinless, shapeless, and lost. If ever there was a situation of “trust me, this is for your own good,” this is it, but the scrubbing is not to clean the monstrous worm. Not at all. The girl knows the serpent can’t live in the discarded, heartless, and angry way he has been. And she’s brave. Brave enough to help him. The suggestion is that we all have enough bravery and compassion in us to face our own anger and heartlessness. We don’t always think of ferocity and rough courage as part of a path of the heart, but this girl is certainly acting out of hope for the serpent’s life and out of care for his radical possibilities. And she’s as fierce as they come.
Already we can see that this story is a corrective to the heroic Apollonian fight for consciousness, but that doesn’t mean it is a return to life in the Underworld. As with the frog in the Frog Prince story, the girl takes what is basically under earth and transforms it. We can even say she resurrects it. It is the feminine principle who takes this charge upon herself after she has agreed to marry the angry reptile. The serpent learns from the girl that she will not appear naked before him until he has removed his skins—one for one with her white shifts. He hopes to see the naked female (part of his own nature) at last. The shifts that cover her express a certain cleanness of spirit, almost a complement to the serpent’s wild and sensuous earth-nature.
The recitation of the agonies of the serpent is excruciating. But we need to notice that its ordeal really has nothing to do with reforming its primitive nature, as we might imagine from the murky contrast with the girl’s white dresses. Then what are they accomplishing during this strange ritual?
All the way back in very early Egypt, people worshipped the god Atum, a serpent known for bringing things to perfection. The Lindworm is that kind of serpent. And what will be brought to perfection here? The lively and glowing humanity, the hidden nature of this first Prince. His humanity is not going to be overly solar like his younger brother’s. It will be more of a response to whisperings from the girl’s mother, who is a full-time resident of the Underworld. And it will also be a response to the removal of the shifts, as his feminine soul—the Lindworm’s and ours—is allowed to appear more and more clearly, one shift by one shift. His changes are a response to the hope of seeing the unadorned truth of the feminine. Some would say, because of the girl’s alliance with the Lindworm, that she is part of the chthonic feminine, but that’s a prejudice that doesn’t apply to this story. The surprising element is that the painful work the girl and the serpent do together is an echo of the girl’s earlier weeping. There’s a call in it, as there is in the weeping and the scrubbing of the soul—this is the work of the attentive heart. It takes our full humanity to witness failure after failure in the face of the needs of those we love.
What is required from the Lindworm, and from us all, is reconciliation between the chthonic, dark, earthen world and the golden, light, airy one. But that is too simple. We have to notice that the reconciliation is accomplished with extreme, harsh, almost alchemical action on the earth-material of the serpent’s body. And yet all of that ferocious scrubbing and shedding is done dispassionately.
The first two women who came to the Lindworm as prospective brides imagined a completion through him, and they got eaten for it. The third candidate knew he was a suffering being, and she imagined that the suffering being was not the same on the outside as it was on the inside. I can’t tell you how much men appreciate that. And women, too. If someone else sees a rough exterior and knows it is a protection over wounds from past events, and also has faith in the beauty of the soul’s interior, great healing is possible.
In this story, there’s the amazing detail that the third bride has done all the work beforehand with her own shifts (which cover her heart area). She wears all of them at once for this project. She has clearly taken on some discipline involving the heart chakra. (In Indian thought, the centers of spiritual power in the human body, usually considered to be seven in number, are called chakras.) She isn’t working in the power chakra, as the Lindworm did when he ate the first two brides; she is working with the heart.
For years, Rainer Maria Rilke’s poetry came from his work in the heart area, and every giant snake that came to him he was able to deal with. That’s the long labor of art. Kafka did all right, too. He lived with his mother and his sisters after his father died and worked in an insurance agency, which turned out to be a very responsible job, and he was marvelous at it. He helped people who were harmed in factories. What they had to do was so unpleasant and such dangerous work that many women threw themselves down stairs rather than continue with it. His care for their problems was extraordinary. Then, when he got home at six o’clock at night, he would have dinner with his mother and sisters and afterward go out with his male friends just to touch base and drink a little coffee and so on. Then he’d go back to his room, and at about eight thirty he’d stand in front of the window naked, breathing in cold air, which he was told by an American was a very good thing to do. Then he’d sit down to write. (I think he wrote The Metamorphosis in one night.) And then he’d get up at seven thirty the next morning and stagger off to work, dealing with accident problems, again tending to the heart.
Kafka tried to keep all of his life in one whole, and keep his sisters and his mother a part of it; and then when the others would sleep, he did the writing. What monsters did he not meet in the course of his life? His courage was amazing, and he did not feel superior to the problems he worked with.
The girl in this story has a lot of courage, too, and she doesn’t blame the Lindworm for his exterior. Looked at with the perspective of inner development, the active soul here, armed with her brushes and lye, is requiring that the Lindworm see his own nature, clarify it, work with it, and learn to forgive those parts that need forgiveness. She can help him by reflecting honestly what she hears him saying. Even in a nation of individualistic sojourners, it is necessary to develop a real conscious awareness of how much self-forgiveness is required for this kind of work.
The Lindworm, as serpent, can also be associated with the spinal cord.
These days we want to live at the top of the head, in the brain, but for at least a couple of thousand years, a reptile has been representing the whole spine, and there’s a part of each psyche that is at least a little bit reptilian. In this story, the ancient nervous system was thrown out with the first birth. The midwife tried to throw it out when she threw the little snake out the window. It wasn’t considered necessary for civilized life. We used to s
ay that the proper study of mankind is man, the whole man. But now we don’t want to bother with the chthonic, the under-worldly energy as it lives in us. We’d rather see it projected on an entertainment screen. We’d rather meet people online, where there’s no time for bodies. I heard a woman say on the radio that pretty soon, when our planet becomes uninhabitable, we’ll have to emigrate to some other part of the universe, but most likely we won’t be able to take our bodies along with us.
Throw out our older, more reptilian part, and our inner sister/brother gets very angry. It can’t be ignored. And on the way to the wedding, in which of course the bride will wear a white dress and the groom will be dressed in black and white, you’ll likely meet this older sibling again and you’ll have to have your courage with you. The chthonic part has kept us going for millions of years; it has always been connected with our continued existence, that snake thing in there. It strikes and survives. Without that one, we’d have never gotten where we are.
We’d have died out.
Jung said, “Every part of us we do not love will regress and become more primitive.” He didn’t say, “Indulge it,” or even, “Indulge in it.” He said, “Accept that part,” and he’s right to say that. So if someone becomes a mathematician at twenty, and in order to be excellent in his field he gives up paying attention to his emotional body and doesn’t think he needs it, it will regress, go backward in time, and become somewhat stubborn and violent. And it will happen that if he tries to recover his feeling body, he’s less likely to be able to do it. If he sees this regression in another person, he’ll say, “That thing is savage. I’m not dealing with it.” Every part of you that you do not love will de-evolve.
I also like the way this story says you will not be married until you deal with the pain of that discarded and savage one. You can be married, all right. But it’s not going to be a real marriage because, it seems, rejected siblings must be married first, and scrubbed until their honesty shines out. Only the third bride in this story knows how to honor the elder son. What we’ve most denied to the pained inner one is honor. The bride and the serpent have to be willing to scrub off a few layers of denial to get to its underlying humanity.
This third soul moves by repetition—of layers, of shifts, of scrubbings. As the psychologist James Hillman loved to point out, repetition is an excellent grounding for somebody with too airy a nature. Giving up novelty for practice helps a great deal with the necessary healing.
FOUR
THE DARK MAN
Once upon a time there was a soldier called Hans who had just been discharged from his duties. While walking in the woods, in that curious sad mood we feel after something has ended, he met a Dark Man with an odd-shaped foot who asked him, “Why are you sad?”
“I don’t know what to do next.”
“You could work for me.”
“What is the work?”
“You would live underground at my place and spend seven years in certain tasks. Then you’re free. During that time, you won’t be able to comb your hair, wash, cut your fingernails or your toenails or your beard, nor can you wipe the tears from your eyes.”
So Hans went with the man, who took him underground and showed him three pots. “You’ll be tending my three pots and keeping them boiling. You will not look into the pots. Is that clear? And you will sweep the shavings behind the door.”
The soldier looked doubtful.
“Can you do it?”
“I can,” Hans said.
He chopped wood, put the wood chunks under the huge, black, covered pots, kept the fires going, and swept the shavings behind the door. After three or four months, he said to himself, “I think I’ll peek into one of these pots.” He lifted the lid to the first pot and saw his sergeant sitting there.
“Oh ho!” he said to the sergeant. “You had me in your power, but now I have you in my power.” And he added more wood to that fire.
He worked a few more months before he decided to peek into another pot. When he lifted the lid to the second pot, he saw his lieutenant sitting there. “Ah ha!” he said. “You once had me in your power, but now I have you in my power.” And he added a lot more wood to that fire, too.
Six months later he couldn’t resist his longing to peek into the third pot. He lifted the cover, and who did he see but his old general—General Gaweg—sitting there. “Well, well!” he said. “Once you had me in your power, but now I have you in my power.” He chopped extra wood and added plenty of good dry oak under that pot.
When the Dark Man returned to see how the work was going, he remarked, “By the way, you looked into the pots, and if you hadn’t added more wood, I really would have punished you.”
Time seemed to pass faster now, what with the extra chopping each day.
Week by week the time went by, and the seven years were up.
The Dark Man returned and said, “You’ve done your work well.” He swept up some of the shavings behind the door, put them into a gunnysack, gave the sack to the man, and said, “Here are your wages.” The man was disappointed, but what can you do? Always remember to arrange your wages beforehand. The Dark One said: “When anyone asks you where you have come from, you say, ‘From under the earth.’ If they ask you who you are, you are to say, ‘I am the Dark Man’s Sooty Brother and my King as well.’” It didn’t really make sense, but he memorized the sentence and prepared to go back to the world.
He left that workplace and the strangest thing was this: as he made his way up to our world, the shavings in his bag all turned to gold. That pleased him, of course. Eventually he came to an inn and asked for a room. “Where do you come from?” the innkeeper asked. “From under the earth.” “Who are you?” “I am the Dark Man’s Sooty Brother and my King as well.” He hadn’t shaved for seven years or wiped the tears from his eyes, so the innkeeper did not find him to be an appetizing guest. He said, “I’m sorry, but I have no rooms left for tonight.” Then this worker made his first mistake—he opened the sack and showed the innkeeper his gold. The innkeeper said, “Well, as I think of it, I remember that my brother, who has been staying in Room Number Ten, is going away this weekend. You can have his room tonight.” So it was. And in the middle of the night the innkeeper crept into the room and stole the gold. When our friend discovered it, he felt bad about it, but he said to himself, “It was through no fault of mine.”
Then he decided to go back underground.
There he found the Dark Man and he told him what happened and what he wanted.
The Dark Man said, “Sit down. I’ll wash you now and comb your hair, and cut your nails and beard, and wipe your eyes.” When that was done, the Dark Man gave him a second bag of shavings and said, “Tell the innkeeper you want your gold back. If he doesn’t do it, he’ll have to come here and take your place. I will come for him.” So Hans told that to the innkeeper and reminded him that if he went down, he would end up looking just like Hans did. That was enough; the innkeeper gave him the money back and more. So Hans was rich now.
He bought a coat of coarse cloth and started off to see his father, making a living as he went by making music on an instrument he had learned to play while he was underground. Eventually, the King of that country heard his music and was so taken by it that he offered Hans his older daughter in marriage. When she saw the quality of his coat, she said, “I’d prefer to jump in the river.” So he married the youngest daughter and got half the kingdom. When the King died, Hans inherited the entire kingdom for himself and his wife. That was good luck for him. As for the storytellers, we have to wander around with holes in our shoes.
* * *
Here Hans goes into the Underworld. There are many stories where to go into the Underworld is to go into an eclipse. When he’s back from war, shadows thrown by the very earth we live on overwhelm him. The animals and the birds fall silent. Underground, his struggles will go on for years.
Hans is a Descender. It will be his job to keep three kettles boiling. For that he has to chop wood,
but strangely, it is the shavings that turn out to be important. The Dark Man’s instructions have been precise: Sweep the shavings behind the door. If we try that, we find that when we open the door to let our friends or enemies in, the shavings will not be visible. The opened door will hide them. But when the visitors leave and we close the door once more, we can see the shavings with our own eyes. So the story recommends a beautiful little dance of hiding and revealing. I’ve commented on this hiding in a book of mine called Iron John. There, a young man is urged to hide his gold; this man is to hide the shavings, before they become gold.
What are these shavings? We know that certain insights come only when we are depressed. If we go down in order to bring up a poem, let’s say, certain lines will get written that tell us what we need to know and then they are thrown away. Therapy, too, when done well, produces many pre-thoughts and afterthoughts.
Certain ideas about life that we come upon in contemplation or while reading a great poem or novel might seem slim or too obvious for a while—but back in our regular life, these insignificant ideas turn to gold. The soldier from the story, when he is finally released from his service into the world, will have no choice but to ponder not only the horrors he has seen but how he must change his life now that he has seen them. That’s good for him to think about.
And this chopping of wood one does when “underground”—what’s the point of it? To keep the pots boiling, our story says. The fire tender finds, to his surprise, that his old sergeant, his lieutenant, and the general are each in a pot he has agreed to keep on the boil. These officers are some of the creatures inside his soul—and ours, too. The sergeant in the first pot is an image of authority. Some of us might glimpse a high school principal there, or a harsh parent, or the critic who offered humiliation when we showed our first poems. It used to be that we sat hunched up beneath those critics: inert, resigned, momentarily stuck. It is a great advance just to get them off our backs, into a pot, sitting in hot water, cooking.
