When the time came for the mock wedding, Cinder-Helle was asked to remove one of her dainty crystal slippers so the royal scepter could be inserted into it, as a symbol of union. Just as this was done, the clock struck midnight. Suddenly she remembered her mother-spirit’s warning about fairy gifts dissolving at midnight.
She fled from the ballroom, leaving her slipper in the prince’s hands. As she ran out toward her coach, it shrank into a pumpkin. The coachman dropped down on all fours and scampered away, a mouse once more. The horses shriveled into black beetles and scuttled off. Cinder-Helle felt her silken ball gown dissolve into cobwebs, leaving her naked body sprinkled with drops of blood, which were all that remained of her jewels. Her bracelet became an earthworm and dropped from her arm. Her pearls turned into coal. Her remaining shoe was now nothing but a wet spot.
She ran into the cover of the woods and hurried home by hidden paths. She was back in her old rags, sitting by the fire, when her stepsisters returned from the ball. They could talk of nothing but the mysterious stranger who had enchanted Prince Populo and then vanished. “Just think,” said Nobilita, “he has no mate now except that silly little shoe, his symbolic bride. Surely that play wedding will never be considered binding, for the bride will never be found.”
The stepsisters didn’t reckon on Prince Populo’s determination. He kept the crystal slipper, which had been preserved by the magic touch of the scepter and had not dissolved along with its mate on Cinder-Helle’s other foot. He announced that all the maidens in the kingdom would be tested by this slipper. He would marry the one whose foot it fitted, because they were already married by the ritual of the scepter.
Accordingly, the prince went forth in person with the slipper, day after day, to visit every house in which a young woman of marriageable age lived, to try the slipper on her. He found no foot dainty enough to fit it.
When he came to Cinder-Helle’s house, the stepmother and stepsisters bustled about to make him comfortable, to offer him refreshments, to show him their best possessions. Nobilita brought forth an album of portraits of illustrious members of her family. Ecclesia enumerated for him her charitable works and spiritual accomplishments. Both tried to impress him with their erudition, their cultivated tastes, and their patronage of the arts.
The prince was not especially impressed. In the last few days he had looked at a great number of maidens. These two seemed no better than average, perhaps even less interesting than most. Nevertheless, he offered the slipper to their feet. Nobilita and Ecclesia pushed and twisted, but neither could force her large foot into it.
While they were trying, Prince Populo noticed Cinder-Helle sitting in her usual place by the hearth. Her face, though disguised by dirt, rang a faint bell in the depths of his mind.
“Who is that?” he asked.
“A nobody, a scullery maid,” said Nobilita. “A lazy, dirty servant,” said Ecclesia.
“Still, her feet seem very small,” said the prince. “Let her try the slipper.”
“Impossible, Your Highness,” cried the stepmother. “The girl is nothing but a slatternly peasant, nowhere near as suitable as these two lovely maidens here.” Both stepsisters simpered ingratiatingly.
“Let her try the slipper,” the prince commanded.
Cinder-Helle was brought forward and seated in an armchair usually forbidden to her, while Populo himself applied the shoe to her foot. It fitted like a glove.
“This is my bride,” he declared, recognizing her features under the soot and smudges. Cinder-Helle happily kissed him and smeared his face also. They looked at each other’s dirty faces and laughed.
The formal wedding was celebrated at the earliest possible date. When Cinder-Helle became Princess Helle, she reestablished the temples of the Goddess. She founded a chapel and pilgrimage shrine at her mother’s tomb and declared the willow tree sacred. She made Nobilita a secretary-companion to the wealthiest duchess in the kingdom, who was also the toughest, crudest, bluntest, most hard-riding, foul-mouthed, rough-hewn woman in six counties. Eventually, Nobilita abandoned her affectations and became something like a real person. Princess Helle also made Ecclesia live up to her pretenses of piety by taking a vow of poverty and ministering to the sick. Eventually, Ecclesia learned to feel useful in this life and became a sincere, almost saintly person. As for Christiana, she died unsatisfied.
And of course, Prince Populo and Princess Helle lived happily ever after.
TWENTY-THREE
Here Persephone or Kore (Corey) and her mother, Demeter (Dea Mater), are presented without a dominant Father Zeus, and with a mythic understanding of the seasons.
Persephone means “Destroyer” and was originally applied to Kore’s underground crone form, completing the Demeter trinity of Virgin, Mother, and Crone. Apparently Persephone was another name for Hecate, queen of the ghost world, long before patriarchal writers invented a new myth to account for her presence underground. Pluto, “Abundance,” was another name for the Goddess herself. Although the name was commonly applied to the dark god, Greek myth still speaks of a female Titan named Pluto. Titans, like giants, were the elder race that preceded the divine pantheon, and Shakespeare still understood that the fairy queen’s true name was Titania.
Pomegranates were sacred to the underground Goddess and were primary womb symbols, with their uterine shape, red juice, and many seeds. In classical antiquity, the gates of the dead were guarded by the three-headed dog Cerberus, who passed into Christian lore as one of the gatekeepers of hell.
Princess Corey spent much time dancing and picnicking…
Once upon a time there was a beautiful fairy princess named Corey, daughter of the great fairy queen Dea Mater, also known as Titania, the Titaness. At that time the fairies ruled all of nature. Their songs and dances caused flowers to bloom and fruits to ripen, breezes to blow, stars to glow, streams to flow, and earth to grow good things. It was a golden age of eternal summer. There was delightful weather all year round. Princess Corey, the apple of her mother’s eye, spent much time dancing and picnicking with her maidens on a hillside where pomegranates grew wild. They were especially fond of pomegranates. Queen Dea Mater was always busy keeping the winds warmed, spacing out the rains for maximum crop growth, and otherwise looking after the weather. She saw to it that her daughter’s favorite hillside was always bathed in the brightest sunlight or moonlight (for the fairy maidens loved to do ring dances under the moon).
At that time there were no trolls on the fairies’ earth. All the trolls lived in caves deep underground, in a gloomy realm of eternal night. Their function was to draw down the dead from the upper world and rule over the nations of ghosts.
Pluton, king of the trolls, resented this state of affairs. He wanted to acquire some of the light and sweetness of the upper world for himself. Trolls are very acquisitive by nature. They clutch their hoards of gems and precious metals or seal them into the rocks to discourage thievery. They are miserly, always wanting more of everything. Thus Pluton brooded over the thought that the fairies might have more of something than he had. To him Princess Corey embodied the advantages of the upper world, which he coveted.
In Princess Corey’s favorite hillside there was a cave, whose small mouth was concealed by some bushes. Behind it, a passage led to the lower world. King Pluton sometimes went there and peeped out at the dancing maidens. He saw the beautiful princess encouraging flowers to bloom and fruits to ripen, breezes to blow, stars to glow, streams to flow, and earth to grow good things. He resolved to kidnap her and make her his bride. Then, he thought, he would be able to control much of the enviable light and sweetness of the upper world and bring some into his own realm.
King Pluton made careful plans. He prepared a cave palace for his unsuspecting bride-to-be and stocked it with a choice selection of gems from his hoard. He chose the best and brightest ghosts to be her servants. He had his smiths and stonecarvers create a throne of the finest multicolored jasper for her, a crown of silver set with rubies, a pla
tinum scepter topped by an immense diamond, a dining-table of polished rainbow obsidian, and a bedstead of mauve jade. He had her chambers walled with slabs of malachite and floored with snow-white marble. He furnished them with exquisitely carved ornaments of beryl, agate, amber, chalcedony, and opal, created by the lapidary trolls whose skills were unmatched anywhere in the cosmos.
Looking around these rich apartments, Pluton felt confident that his bride-to-be would find the underworld more beautiful than the upper world, since he had spared no expense to dazzle her with the bounty of his kingdom. “Flowers are all very well,” he muttered, “but they fade in a day, whereas the glory of a sapphire or a tourmaline is forever. Surely the girl can’t be such a fool as to prefer the ephemeral to the eternal.”
When all was ready, he went to the cave mouth on the hillside and waited for Princess Corey and her maidens. When they appeared, he leaped out of the cave with a great crackling and booming of broken rock, seized the princess, and charged back into the cave with the princess slung over his shoulder. The maidens screamed at the sight of his looming black figure and his craggy face. They ran away to tell Dea Mater that a huge, hideous troll had kidnapped Princess Corey and carried her underground.
Pluton installed Corey in the palace he had prepared for her and was chagrined to find that she didn’t like it. “It’s dark,” she complained, “and chilly and damp, and there are no flowers.” In vain he called her attention to the malachite walls and marble floors, the jasper throne, the silver crown, the beautiful ornaments. In vain he offered her necklaces of gold and topaz, bracelets of lapis lazuli and garnet. She only sighed and pined day after day. She ate and slept little. She paid no heed to her splendid jewels or her ghostly servants who came and went so silently and deferentially. She became thin and pale. Her hair hung in dirty strings. Her eyes and nose were red from weeping. Pluton began to think that her beauty was like that of the flowers, subject to early fading.
Meanwhile, on earth, the fairy queen was so distraught at the loss of her beloved daughter that she stopped all activity and sequestered herself in her palace to grieve. No longer did the flowers bloom or the fruits ripen. The breezes stopped blowing, the stars stopped glowing, and the streams stopped flowing. No more did the earth grow good things. Dark clouds gathered in the sky, shutting out the light of the sun and the moon. Trees dropped their leaves. Grass turned brown and died. Streams were choked with ice. Birds no longer sang. Seeds no longer sprouted. Animals and people began to starve. The first winter fell on the land.
In vain the fairies told Dea Mater of all these terrible things happening on earth because of her neglect. She didn’t care. She only wanted to be alone with her sorrow.
At last the fairies realized that something would have to be done before the earth withered away altogether and left them without a home. Fearing that their own sun-powered nature magic wouldn’t work underground, they sent a delegation to an old elf named Zooz, who claimed to be the greatest magician in the world. They begged him to go down to the underworld and rescue Princess Corey, before the earth was completely destroyed.
“What’s my reward?” Zooz asked the fairies.
“If you succeed,” said their leader, “we’ll give you a castle in the sky and make you a king of heaven.”
“Done,” said Zooz, who knew a good offer when he heard one. He packed up his kit and set off to visit King Pluton. He knew a nearby cave reputed to be a main entrance to the nether world.
At the entrance to the cave, Zooz noticed a pomegranate tree with pitch-black limbs. He cast a communication spell and addressed the spirit of the tree. “What manner of tree are you, with strange dark skin?” he asked.
“I bear the fruit of the dead,” said the spirit. “Souls come to me thirsty and hungry, and I offer refreshment. Once they have taken a single seed of my fruit, they are bonded to the nether regions and can’t return to earth.”
“Then I won’t eat your fruit,” said Zooz, “because I am destined to become a king of heaven, and I wouldn’t want to stay forever underground.”
“Suit yourself,” said the tree spirit. “Underground isn’t so bad, once you get used to it. Not every good thing is found only on the earth’s surface. Without my strong roots underground, I’d fall over in the next storm and die.”
“May your roots never wither,” said Zooz politely. He passed the pomegranate tree and entered the underworld. He found himself facing a fearsome gatekeeper with three heads, each with the face of a savage dog, and a thick body with three doglike tails. “You’re not dead,” snarled the gatekeeper. “What’s your business here?”
“I’ve come to see King Pluton,” said Zooz.
“The king doesn’t see live folk,” growled the gatekeeper. “Go away.”
“He’ll see me,” said Zooz. “I’m in a position to offer him something valuable.”
The gatekeeper snorted contemptuously. “King Pluton already owns every valuable object, every gem crystal, every vein of precious metal, every important rock. What could you possibly offer him?”
“Something nonmaterial, so valuable as to have no price,” said Zooz. “Let me in, and I promise you your king will reward you.”
“You’re a bold rogue,” said the gatekeeper. “Enter, then. If you’re not telling the truth, you’ll soon become a living ghost. Believe me, there’s little pleasure in that.”
“May your tails wag forever,” said Zooz politely. He passed the gatekeeper and proceeded toward the king’s dark palace. On the way he passed crowds of pallid, half-transparent ghosts wandering aimlessly, some bewailing their fate, others stolidly resigned or simply blank. Trolls worked in groups here and there, digging in the rocks for crystals or panning the streams for gold. Oily black lakes and stalagmitic columns dotted the landscape. The air was stagnant but chilly, with a claylike odor. “I can well understand why Princess Corey doesn’t want to live here,” said Zooz to himself.
When he arrived at the dark palace, he announced that he had an important offer to make to the king. Eventually he was conducted to the throne room, where Pluton sat on a black onyx throne, with his counselors standing by in black robes of state. Zooz bowed, and Pluton waved a hand toward him, saying, “Speak, earth dweller. You have five minutes of my valuable time, no more.”
“I’ve come to offer you a kingdom beyond Your Majesty’s wildest dreams, sire,” said Zooz. “Half of the world, in fact. A land of the dead so huge that you will be known, honored, and feared by every human on the earth, which one day will be virtually overrun by humans in inconceivable numbers.”
“Big talk,” sneered Pluton. “Who is to make all this happen? You? Don’t make me laugh.”
“Yes, I will do it,” said Zooz, “because I am destined to become king of heaven. When that happens, I will seize power over everything else, since, as everyone knows, all things are controlled by the stars—even your underworld, great king. When I become the ruler of heaven, I will divide the cosmos with you. I will rule the sky and the lands of the living. You will rule the nether regions and the lands of the dead, forever. And as death carries away more and more individuals of all species, your kingdom will grow exponentially, without limit.”
“And who is going to make you king of heaven?” asked Pluton.
“The fairies will, at first. Then the humans will worship me, and as their numbers increase, I will grow greater and more powerful with each passing year.”
“Why should the fairies exalt the likes of you?”
“Because I will bring Princess Corey back to them,” said Zooz. “That will be your payment to me for your own future exaltation. The fairies have promised me the heavens as a reward for persuading you. As you know, fairies always keep their promises.”
“Yes, but do sly elf magicians with ulterior motives keep their promises?” Pluton asked. “Counselors, what do you think?”
The counselors consulted among themselves, buzzing with opinions and assessments. They agreed that an exponential augmentation
of the earth’s human population would benefit all of Pluton’s ministers, as a corresponding expansion of the underground realm would mean more authority to be delegated and more power to go around.
Finally their spokesman addressed the king: “We advise that Your Majesty accept the offer. It can only lead to enhancement of your magnificence. Even if something goes wrong, no real harm is done and little is lost. Your Majesty does not need the fairy princess.”
“It’s true that she has been a disappointment,” Pluton mused. “Her beauty and her creative powers have languished, and she’s no fun to have around. Very well, wizard, I accept your offer. Take the wretched girl back with you, but you must leave me one of your eyes as evidence of good faith. You can have it again when you have fulfilled your part of the bargain.”
Zooz was understandably reluctant to leave one of his eyes in the dark king’s keeping, but he had no choice. A court barber-troll quickly performed the extraction and lined the empty eye socket with silver to preserve its latent powers of vision. After that unpleasant ordeal, Zooz was conducted to the princess’s chamber.
He found Corey sitting sadly on her mauve jade bed, looking pale and ill. She gazed at him without interest, but she perked up when he said he had come to take her home. She took his hand and allowed him to lead her through miles of caverns to the main entrance. No one interfered with their passage. Even the three-headed gatekeeper stood aside to let them pass, though he showed his three sets of fangs menacingly.
On the way out, Corey saw the tree of pomegranates, her favorite fruit. Hopeful joy had made her really hungry for the first time in months, so she snatched one of the pomegranates from a branch. Before Zooz could prevent her, she tore open the skin and popped one of the sweet red seeds into her mouth. Zooz lunged at her, crying, “No!” But it was too late. The pomegranate seed was eaten.
“Oh, Princess, what have you done?” he wailed. “Now you belong to the underworld because you’ve eaten its magic fruit. Yet you also belong to the upper world because King Pluton promised to release you. I foresee that you will have to belong to both worlds.”
Feminist Fairy Tales Page 19
