Feminist Fairy Tales

by Barbara G. Walker

  At sunset the Beast left her alone, promising to meet her in the garden again the following day. This time he appeared without his hood and cloak. She began to get used to his ugliness. Each day he returned to join her, and she found herself eagerly looking forward to his company to relieve her solitude.

  After a while they began to eat meals together, play games or read together in the library. Ugly found the Beast a charming companion. She became sufficiently comfortable with him that one day she finally dared to ask him how he came to have such an unattractive exterior.

  “I knew that would come up,” the Beast sighed, “so we might as well get it over with. You’re expecting me to say that I’m under an enchantment, and I’m really a handsome prince, and your love will bring forth my real self.”

  “I had thought about it,” Ugly said. “But I also thought that if you were changed into a handsome prince, you would no longer have any pleasure in my company. I’m far from being a beautiful princess, so I could never hope to keep you. As much for your sake as for my own, for the first time in my life I really wish I were a beauty.”

  “I had a beauty once,” the Beast said. “She was very sweet, but she so wanted me to be a handsome prince that to please her I created the illusion for her by magic. As you can see from all the charms around my palace here, I’m a competent magician. But it was a strain, keeping up the illusion. In the end I couldn’t manage it anymore. I had to tell her the truth, and she left me. The truth is that I’m a Beast. This freakish appearance is the real me.”

  “Oh, Beast, I’m so glad,” Ugly cried, embracing him. “I don’t mind being Ugly and I don’t mind your ugliness either, as long as it brings us together. I’ve never been so happy as I am here with you.”

  The Beast was so pleased that she didn’t want him to be a handsome prince, and Ugly was so pleased that he didn’t want her to be a beautiful princess, that they agreed to marry at once.

  Ugly’s family came to the wedding and received rich gifts, though they were no longer needy because her father had made wise investments with the golden sculpture. The palace was opened to guests, and there was much festivity. Ugly and the Beast became known far and wide as a warm and beneficent couple. They loved each other truly, because they were free of the narcissism that often mars the relationships of beautiful people; and so they lived happily ever after.

  SEVEN

  This story is an almost straight retelling of the famous bard’s affiliation with the pagan Goddess (fairy queen), who was his teacher and muse. According to Celtic legend, the fairy queen came to Thomas of Erceldoune and took him away to her mystic land “beyond the river of lunar blood.” She became his teacher and muse, and since, as folk belief would have it, time spent with the fairies was time greatly contracted, Thomas’s seven-year apprenticeship seemed very brief to him.

  Like Orpheus and the worshipers of Mnemosyne before them, Celtic poets believed that true inspiration lay in this Goddess’s underworld Cauldron, symbol of the universal womb of Mother Earth. She also received the dead in her various guises of Cerridwen, Mab, Brigit, or the Morrigan. She appeared in Arthurian legend as Morgan le Fay (Morgan, the Fate or the Fairy), who was originally described as a Goddess from the olden time. Her symbol was a pentacle. Her priests served a seven-year apprenticeship.

  He was almost too tired to hold on to the stirrup anymore.

  Once upon a time there was a young lord named Thomas, heir to the earldom of Erceldoune. Young Thomas was raised in a manner befitting a gentleman, that is to say, he was trained to fight and kill, to exploit the land and its creatures, to be duplicitously charming, and to become a ruthless seducer of women. He learned his lessons dutifully enough, but the life of a country lordling didn’t really satisfy him. His deepest yearning was to become a poet. Unfortunately, his talent for poetry was so meager that his friends learned to stay away from the “poetic evenings” that he regularly scheduled for readings of his latest works. He was reduced to reading his poems to the servants, who had no choice but to listen to him; but they did so with gritted teeth and escaped as soon as they could.

  His poems were so bad that even he occasionally caught some glimmering awareness of their shortcomings. He would say, “I guess that line could scan a bit better,” or “That’s not the best possible simile, is it?” His suffering listener would agree. Then Thomas would work on the poem some more and make it worse.

  One soft day in the merry month of May, Thomas was resting alone on Huntlie Bank, pondering a new poem (worse than any yet), tapping his teeth with his pen, happily perceiving himself as the gentleman bard in the throes of creation. All at once, a troop of ladies on horseback appeared before him, seemingly out of nowhere. Every one was dressed in green from head to foot. Their leader, the tallest and most beautiful of them, wore a crown and rode a pure white horse caparisoned with silver.

  Thomas politely rose to his feet and bowed. “Dear ladies, I bid you welcome to my lands of Erceldoune,” he said, doffing his hat. “Whom have I the honor of addressing, and whence come you?” That was how Thomas talked, when he was in a poetic mood.

  The leader said, “We come from a place unknown to you, to tell you that these lands are not yours. They’re mine. Since the world began, this place has been known as Ursel’s Down. You should know that Ursel is one of your ancestors’ names for the fairy queen. You occupy this territory only by my sufferance.”

  “Then you, madam, are the same fairy queen?”

  “Yes. And I have been told that you’re misusing my gifts of inspiration and visualization on this land that the fairies have favored and tended through the centuries. I have come to remedy the situation.”

  Thomas was astonished. “Misusing? How, madam?”

  “You write abominable poetry,” said the fairy queen. “You are ignorant of the true poetic soul, which lies in woman and in man’s relationship to woman. You have no muse. You illustrate the saying of our foremothers, that a fool is most foolish when he attempts to appear wise.”

  “It’s true that people don’t seem to want to listen to my work,” Thomas admitted rather sheepishly.

  “There, you have taken the first step toward learning: that is, a little dose of humility,” said the fairy queen. “Do you want to become a better poet?”

  “More than anything,” said Thomas.

  “Very well. I will assume for the moment that you’re worth training.” She dismounted from her horse and tethered the animal to a tree. Then she came toward him, waving her hand at her companions, all of whom disappeared as abruptly as they had come.

  The fairy queen sat down on Huntlie Bank with Thomas and invited him to lay his head in her lap. When he had done so, she drew from under her skirts a flask of claret wine and offered it to him. “Drink, it will give you strength,” she said. He drank. The claret seemed oddly salty. He felt a mysterious tingling throughout his body.

  “Now you must come with me to Elfland, or as you call it, Fairyland,” said the queen. “You must run beside me and hold my stirrup, and never let go. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  She mounted her horse and set off, with Thomas holding her left stirrup tightly in his right hand. His fingers seemed to clamp shut of themselves. His body felt so strong and fit that he had no trouble keeping up with the horse’s pace, even at a smart trot. They traveled over hill and dale, to a wild country that Thomas had never seen, full of dark glens and rocky cliffs.

  They came to a river that ran red as blood and followed its bank upstream. The river valley narrowed between two long ridges that gradually converged, until it was blocked off at the head by the steep wall of a huge, rounded mountain. At the base of the wall there was an opening into a dark cave, out of which the red river ran.

  “Now you will wade,” said the fairy queen. Her horse splashed into the river and walked into the cave, Thomas following. He found the water oddly warm, and not much over knee-deep. The horse went steadily on into darkness, drawing Thomas along. Blind
ed by the total blackness of the cave, he felt nothing but the stirrup clutched in his hand and the liquid around his legs. He heard nothing but the sloshing footsteps of the fairy queen’s mount.

  He thought he had traveled thus for many hours, and he was almost too tired to hold on to the stirrup anymore, when the horse stopped suddenly. The fairy queen held up a glowing wand. In the wand’s faint bluish gleam, Thomas saw that the way was blocked by an oval wall of rock, narrowed at the top and bottom, under which the red stream ran out. In the wall there was a curiously rounded iron door.

  “This is the central place of the earth,” said the fairy queen. “Only three mortals before you have passed through that door. You would recognize their names if I told them to you. Now you will enter the realm of fulfilled desires.”

  The door opened of itself, slitting down the middle and folding back to either side. Within, Thomas saw three corridors leading in three different directions. One was illuminated by a white light. The second was bathed in a red glare. The third was dark.

  “These are the three roads of ultimate choosing,” said the queen. “The first leads to heaven, the second to hell, and the third to fair Elfland. Do you choose to come with me?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Thomas.

  They set off down the dark corridor, which gradually became lighter as a greenish glow brightened the way. Presently the passage opened out at the top of a hill, and Thomas saw a vast countryside spread out below, under a greenish yellow sun.

  It was the most beautiful countryside he had ever seen. Streams sparkled like molten diamonds among banks of velvety green grass and flowering shrubs. Little ponds flashed like emeralds, reflecting the sky, supporting waxy white water lilies. Fruit trees glittered with red apples, golden peaches and pears, garnet cherries, apricots and oranges like flames among the green leaves. White marble benches and little pillared temples were scattered about the lawns, cloaked by white and purple blossoming vines. Fountains tinkled in silver basins. Colorful birds sang in every tree. Richly dressed people moved over the scene, some walking quietly, some dancing, some singing in groups or listening to musicians. Lovers sat whispering together. Deer, rabbits, squirrels, foxes, and other woodland animals, all as tame as house cats, allowed themselves to be petted and hand-fed. A perfumed breeze cooled the air, which was also warmed by the tinted sunlight, so it was neither too hot nor too cold but perfectly comfortable.

  “This is the paradise of long ago,” the fairy queen said. “It was created by the dreams of your ancestors, in the time when they worshiped the earth. Now only a few are privileged to see it. You have been chosen because Ursel’s Down was one of our sacred places, and you wish to become its bard. We want you to be worthy of the tradition.”

  “I am deeply honored,” Thomas said humbly.

  The fairy queen took him into her palace, a graceful structure of marble and glass, with delicate colonnades and large airy rooms, opening on terraces set with flowers. Gauze curtains moved softly in the gentle breeze. Satin-covered couches invited the visitor to rest. Jewel-inlaid tables were set with crystal bowls of ripe fruit and delicious cakes. In this place, time passed for Thomas in a dream of delight.

  The fairy queen loved him and taught him all manner of secrets about loving. She also brought other teachers, male and female, who made him understand how to make the kind of poetry that would keep listeners spellbound. He learned old stories to retell in rhyme. He learned to play the harp with exquisite expressiveness. He learned to sing in a voice so pure as to seem that of a heavenly spirit. He learned how to use words and music to create enchantment, even to make his hearers dream once more of the paradise of long ago. After all, as he often remarked, he was inspired by the greatest muse the world had ever known.

  When he had been fully instructed, the fairy queen summoned him to her sweet-scented, cedar-paneled audience chamber for a final examination. The fairy bards, his teachers, gathered together with other listeners to judge his ability. Thomas was nervous but confident. He knew that what he had learned was good, and he was no longer a bumbling tyro. He played well. He sang sweetly. He told stories in rhymes of such grace as to bring tears to the eyes of even fairy people.

  “You have passed your test,” said the fairy queen. “I now name you True Thomas, as a man true to the old ways and the old faith. Now you can go, and be a bard worthy of Ursel’s Down.”

  “Dearest lady, are you sending me away?” Thomas cried. “I have only been here a few weeks, and I would be happy to spend the rest of my life at your side. Do let me stay a little longer.”

  “You think you have lived here for only a few weeks? True Thomas, I tell you true, it has been seven years since we met on Huntlie Bank. Your father is dead and your mother has need of you. It’s time for you to go.”

  Thomas was astonished and chagrined to learn that so many years had passed while he lived in the dream of Fairyland. Weeping, he kissed the fairy queen and embraced his other teachers and friends, bidding them not to forget him. The queen gave him a magic drink in a golden goblet. It was a delectable sweet wine that he had never tasted before. As soon as he drank it, his head began to buzz, his limbs turned limp, and he fell down unconscious.

  When he awoke, he was lying on Huntlie Bank, dressed in the green uniform of Fairyland, with his head pillowed on the long hair that had grown down his back. His harp lay beside him. He got up and rubbed his eyes. The trees seemed larger than he remembered them. The stream seemed muddier. The view was subtly different.

  When Thomas returned home, his mother and sisters greeted him with tears of joy, having given him up for lost many years ago. He tried to explain that he had been with the fairies, but they paid little attention to this. His mother secretly believed that he had suffered some strange mental breakdown that was now cured. She told him all that had happened in the seven years of his absence. She opined that he had come back in the nick of time, as the crown was about to annex his lands for a monastery, in default of a male heir. True Thomas soon straightened out the legal intricacies of his inheritance.

  In subsequent years, he became one of the most benevolent and beloved landowners in the country. He never hunted or killed again. He was genuinely fond of, and respectful to, women—especially his wife, a forthright and good-hearted heiress from a neighboring county, whom he loved dearly. He practiced conservation of the land. He was as honest as the day, and fair in all his dealings with the peasantry. In short, he never again behaved like a gentleman.

  He also became a bard so renowned that his fame spread even across the seas. People came on pilgrimages from many foreign lands just to hear him. His poetry provided all his listeners with beautiful dreams of olden times, dreams so rich that people wished they would never end. They called him Thomas Rhymer, and some even compared him to Homer, Virgil, and Sappho. To this day he is known as Thomas Rhymer, the man who visited Fairyland and lived to tell about it, and who then lived happily ever after.

  EIGHT

  The tale of Jack and the Beanstalk is here reversed, not only to present a feminine protagonist but also to send her in the opposite direction: not up, toward the heavens, but down, toward the womb of Earth, once said to be the true source of life, inspiration, truth, death, and rebirth. Jungian psychology speaks of a spiritual journey downward into the darkness of the unconscious as a prerequisite to mystical enlightenment, often symbolized as a return to the womb. It was also the underworld, traditional realm of dwarves, with their notorious affinity for rocks, metals, gemstones, and minerals in general.

  Like Osiris, Jack climbed the ladder of heaven, met the giant (jealous father), and boldly stole the goose that laid the golden egg, which recalls Egypt’s Hathor as goose-mother of the sun. In this new story, Jill climbs down into darkness and conquers her own fears for the sake of her mother. White, red, and black, the colors of her beans, are also the traditional colors of the triple Goddess as Virgin, Mother, and Crone.

  She wanted to climb down at once…

  Once
upon a time there was a poor widow who lived in a small cottage with her daughter, Jill, a good-hearted, cheerful, but rather scatterbrained girl. Times were hard for Jill and her mother. The day came when they had nothing in the cottage to eat, except a little milk from their only remaining cow. Jill’s mother said, “We can’t live on nothing but the cow’s milk, and besides, she will soon go dry. Tomorrow you must take her to the market and sell her for the best price you can get, and buy us some staples.”

  So Jill set out the next morning with the cow. On the way to the market, she met an old woman who drew her aside, promising to show her something wonderful. The woman opened her hand and showed Jill three beans, one white, one red, and one black.

  “They’re only beans,” Jill said.

  “Ah, no,” said the woman, “they are magic beans. They have powers you can hardly imagine. Few things in the world are more precious than these beans.”

  Jill believed her and decided that she must have the magic beans. “I have nothing to offer but this cow,” she said, “but I’ll trade her for your magic beans.”

  “Done,” said the old woman. She put the beans into Jill’s hand and went off leading the cow.

  Jill danced home again and joyfully showed her mother the magic beans, for which she had traded the cow.

  “Alas,” cried her mother with alarm, “these are only three beans, and we can’t live a day on that. Where are the bread, salt, meat, potatoes, cheese, and honey that I told you to buy?”

  Crestfallen, Jill murmured, “I guess the old woman was a wicked witch who made a fool of me, Mother.”

  “Well, don’t cry, daughter. It’s not your fault that you are too innocent yourself to be suspicious of others. You’ll grow older and learn better. Though we go to bed hungry tonight, perhaps tomorrow will bring better luck.”