Erzebet Yellowboy, founding editor and creator of Cabinet des Fées comments here about diversity in fairytales and lesser known fairytale types, particularly with regards to submissions to the magazine. Erzebet co-edits Scheherazade’s Bequest along with Donna Quattrone. I’ve personally enjoyed the collection of tales produced every issue which shows the gamut of human expression within the context of retold fairytales. There were many thoughtful and intelligent responses to Erzebet’s call to arms; I was particularly appreciative of the musings of Donna Quattrone whom I tended to agree with. The resulting discussion had me thinking my own agitated thoughts, based on my years of producing art and fiction from between the boundaries of culture, and I felt a need to share at least some of them here.

We tend to have these aesthetic preconceptions based on how things are packaged; I was first introduced to Cabinet des Fées when my writing buddy Stace Dumoski got her beautiful fairytale with hybrid Polynesian and Thousand and One Nights motifs published there. And so, I never saw Cabinet des Fées as being predominantly Eurocentric, particularly when the online journal was named Scheherazade’s Bequest, pertaining to one of my favourite fictionalised storytellers, she of the Thousand and One Nights. But again, this has to do with aesthetic and cultural templates in our heads. My aesthetic will be forever different because I came from a mixed-race, hybrid, multi-cultural background. When I hear “fairytales” I have so many different associations; my early childhood was lived in two countries, and filled with fairytale books from various cultures, inclusive of the old (scary) Grimm, the Andrew Lang books, stories from Asia and Africa, the Middle East and Russia. But it does give me an additional set of triggers, so I’m aware of that privileged viewpoint and conscious about it. It allows me to discern the hybrid and oriental elements within the tales of Madame d’Aulnoy and the rest of the French salon fairytale tradition, for instance.

However, growing up, I learned that when most people hear “fairytales”, they believe it heralds the bowdlerised, whitewashed versions that is dished out by popular culture. This has been talked about a bit in Adaptation Studies also, and Julie Sanders has written some good stuff about it. I don’t think this is inherently wrong or that we should fault people for having been brought up within this cultural schemata, but I also think that as people grow older and more self-aware, the time then comes to smash these markers. My argument for this site and for most of my life has been about the nature of fairytales themselves. They are, in themselves, hybrid creatures, made for cultural overlap and cultural assimilation, and because they are so ripe for experimentation, we can, and should experiment. There are many fairytale scholars who talk about the inherent hybridity and overlapping schemata within fairytales; I’ve posted a review of Jack Zipes on this site, and there are various others, such as Marina Warner and Maria Tatar who delve into these cultural markers as well.

Which is why I think Erzebet is absolutely right, that sometimes we do have to be obvious to smash these preconceived ideas about fairytales. I’m not saying the appropriations should be dominated by any one culture, I love the fairytales of Europe as much as I love the tales from the Americas, my Asia, and of course Africa. I love the commonality which feeds the markers of human experience, and the fact that fairytales were always meant for the people. However, I think that if we’re going to be in the business of mythic and fairytale appropriation for our art or our music or writing, it is really, really time to be more bold.

(c) Nin Harris 2000-2010

Fairy tales have existed in the oral traditions of many civilizations before they were adopted, adapted and transcribed into the corpus of literature, and more recently, popular fiction. However, there appears a gap in the study of fairy tales, either as an important medium of discourse or as a literary form for children. In his thought-provoking work “ Fairy Tales and The Art of Subversion”, Jack Zipes aims to highlight this gap as well as to fill it with a detailed and illuminating study. He asserts that the gap is the failure of critics to study the historical development of fairy tales as a genre. He then sets out to examine how oral folk traditions have a certain subversive code that aim either at undermining or setting up a political and social order. His assertion is that humans create texts in order to gain sense on what has happened “on psychological, economic, cultural (…) levels” and that this is done in order to liberate the individual from the prescribed and conventional socio-historical texts (2). Ironically, the writers of the “literary fairy tale” in Europe have appropriated these same texts. This creates a kind of “literary discourse about mores, values and manners so that children would become civilized according to the social code of that time” (3).

Zipes begins by making a stand that his definition of the genre will not encompass the study of both the morphological and semiotic aspects of fairy tales by Vladimir Propp and Algirdas-Julien Greimas, respectively. He stresses the importance of providing a “methodologial framework for locating and grasping the essence of the genre, the substance of the symbolic act as it took form to intervene in the institutionalized literary discourse of society.” (4) This framework, obviously is one that can be filled by studying the development historically and Zipes rather effectively makes a case for this in “Fairy Tale Discourse”(1-12), the introductory chapter of the book. He points out that the fairy-tale evolves or devolves, according to the change in society and social stratas specifically, as Europe experienced changes during the course of its civilization. Through it the mores and values of the time are symbolized and imparted to young brains. Zipes claims that in this fashion “it is one of the cornerstones of our bourgeois heritage” (10). He subsequently makes it plain that the history that he intends to study is a “social history”, therefore not to be seen as a chronological survey, but more that of an “absent cause”(11).

The first area of European civilization that Zipes examines is that of the French salon fairy tale period, in “Setting Standards for Civilization”(13-44). The most prominent figure during this period was Charles Perrault, best known for “Sleeping Beauty” and “Ricky of the Tuft”. These tales were formed not merely to entertain but instruct the children of the nobility but to instruct and groom them towards fulfilling their social function. The highlights of this chapter is the author’s demonstration how the societal values and functions of the folk fairy tale has been distorted, adapted and refined to suit the needs of the noble storytellers and their audience. This can be seen especially in the tale of “ Little Red Riding Hood” a tale that had a long tradition in the French peasantry. The tale, which actually spelt out an archaic initiation ritual, was actually the spelling out of the rites of initiation that a needlework apprentice should go through, as well marking the onset of puberty and womanhood (30). He asserts that Perrault has whitewashed other dynamic elements such as the understanding of an individual’s animal nature as opposed to his/her cultural nature. In this manner a dynamic and empowering discourse for womanhood is turned into a “social codex”(28) in order to teach women their role in society, a submissive role aimed at maintaining the status quo. Zipes stresses that while his contemporaries did not always share Perrault’s views, there was a consensus by all of them that the fairy tale ought to be a medium that discussed proper breeding and behavior, one which centered on the nobility and which reinforced the patriarchal scheme of things.

I found this exploration to be one of the highlights and the salient points of the book, as it shows how the intent and purposes of the original folk tales had been distorted in order to suit the prevalent view. However, in my opinion his discussion of the variations of Apuleius’s “Cupid and Psyche” fable by Madame D’Aulnoy and her contemporaries is unsatisfactory. I was disturbed by the fact that he did not deal with these female storytellers as individuals in this particular work, as that would have reinforced the point he was trying to make. For instance, he claimed that the women writers “gave more expression to male needs and hegemony than their own” (38) by reinforcing the motifs of suffering, degradation and lessons in order to “create a marvelous model of prudence for young women” (37).

I felt that Zipes’ argument would have been better served if he had delved deeper into the motifs prevalent in tales such as “Laidronette” which he pegged as yet another tale in which the girl gets the prince as her reward while he gets everything. While a great part of this tale focuses on the Psyche-like Laidronette’s penance for her initial repugnance for the male protagonist, the ritual of appeasement is no less a feminist dynamic than that of the archaic Red Riding Hood supplanting her grandmother’s role and marrying the were-wolf. Furthermore, in the tale, the kingdom is given to both the male and the female, and it is only a narrow reading that would peg the tale as yet another example of a dominated discourse!

In the 19th century the fairy tale discourse morphed again in the hands of the Brothers Grimm as well as Hans Christian Anderson, who are the subject of the third and fourth chapters respectively. In “Who’s Afraid of the Brothers Grimm? Socialization and Politicization through Fairy Tales”(45-70), Zipes outlines the processes by which the Grimm brothers collected original folk tales in order to turn them into literary fairy tales. The tales were gathered from the educated middle class and were very strongly imbued with bourgeois ideals. These ideals were refined and reinforced by the brothers. Tales like the “Frog Prince” and “Snow White” which earlier dealt with sexual dynamics derived from archaic and matriarchal societies, were reformed in order to sugarcoat, if not bowdlerize the sexual element. Female protagonists were altered in order to reflect the virtues that morally upright bourgeois girls should have and the tasks they should carry out in order to achieve their goal.

So far, what is evident is that Zipes seeks to look at both the histories behind the creation of these literary fairy tales and the underlying social and political causes. In this respect he succeeds because he very convincingly as well as shows the social dynamics behind the telling, and subsequently re-telling of these tales. He continues his extensive study with “Hans Christian Andersen and the Discourse of the Dominated” (71-96), delving into how Andersen’s background contributed to a state of angst which in turn flavored the stories in his oeuvre.

Because his tales were infused with elements of both bourgeois ideals and that of the Protestant Ethic, his tales received a good response. Within tales such as “The Ugly Duckling”, “The Brave Tin Soldier” “The Little Mermaid”, and “The Red Shoes”, Hans Christian Andersen reinforced the ideals that espoused self-sacrifice, humiliation, meekness and a respect for authority. And yet within these tales there runs an undercurrent of his dissatisfaction for the nobility that grudgingly took him in but never fully gave him the credit he felt he deserved. This eye-opening study of the Danish storyteller effectively shows how conditions that arise out of social and political hierarchy affect the fairy tale discourse.

Fairy tales, as a discourse has thus been shown to be something that changes to suit the needs of a civilized Europe-whether directly or indirectly. Zipes does assert in subsequent chapters, this is by no means static. The later half of the nineteenth century, as succinctly disseminated by “Inverting and Subverting the World with Hope: The Fairy Tales of George MacDonald, Oscar Wilde and L. Frank Baum”(95-133) gave the relatively uniform progression of the fairy tale since the literary salon movements of France a start. This is reflected in the socialization of Europe and the addition of the New World (America) to the fray of storytelling in the Anglo-Saxon world (97). A breath of fresh air was brought into the field by the fairy tales of people such as Charles Kingsley, William Allingham, John Ruskin, Andrew Lang as well as William Morris. Their fairy tales, Zipes assets, were affected by “the development of a strong proletarian class, industrialization, urbanization, educational reform acts, evangelism, and the struggles against those forces which caused poverty and exploitation”(99). These forces in the end caused these writers to write in ways that went against “civilizing norms” which also is reflected in the strict upbringing of children.

Zipes makes his point by exploring the works of Macdonald and Wilde, showing how each made an appeal towards and utopia they dared not spell out, in the restrictive age that they both lived in. Both aimed to show how corrupt the social order was via their fairy tale and both challenged orthodox notions of sexuality. In Macdonald, this took center stage in tales that had non-stereotypical male and female protagonists, and in Wilde, tales such as “The Selfish Giant” were reflective of his homosexual tendencies. This illuminating chapter gains mileage especially since, as I have earlier shown, Zipes has made a case for the fact that fairy tales, from the sixteenth century onward has basically been working for the establishment/societal order.

This makes the contrast between the works of Macdonald and Wilde and those that preceded them even more salient. I would agree with what he is trying to say but a nagging doubt persists in the respect that I felt that the subversive elements that worked against the Establishment were present even during the literary salon period and onwards. One could compare the mutilation and suffering of protagonists in Wilde’s tales with that of the Madame d’Aulnoy’s for instance, where the macabre elements were a foil for her frustration with the patriarchal order. I felt that it was a shame that a case was made at the expense of other considerations, and that a development of these would have better served his case for the subversive effects of fairy tale discourse. I say this, even as I take into consideration the constraints of time, space and focus.

The two concluding chapters of this volume deals with fairy tale discourse in the Twentieth Century. In “The Fight Over Fairy-Tale Discourse: Family, Friction, and Socialization in the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany” (134-169), Zipes shows how the discourse was utilized for two opposing ends in these two differing climates of German Life. Before Nazism had its grips on Germany, the fairy tale was beginning to develop a socializing process, aimed at creating politically motivated works aimed at improving the capacities of children in an ideological manner. This was aided by the onset of awareness of psychological concerns. In this fashion they became aware that fairy tales could be used to subvert young minds. However, for the Nazis, the fairy tales were sacred and the works of the Grimm brothers became icons of racial purity and excellence. The socialist and politically motivated experiments were banned. The gist of this segment of the book is the potential waiting to be unleashed within the elements of the fairy tale as a genre, the potential that is recognized by the Nazis as a threat and by the socialists as an aid. This chapter is a bridge to the next stage in the history of the genre. I also found it to be an effective foreshadowing as to the development of the genre, which is spelled out in the concluding chapter.

In considering “The Liberating Potential of the Fantastic in Contemporary Fairy Tales for Children”(170-194) Zipes pays a backward glance, first at the negative charges leveled against the genre by detractors. They find the tales to be “sexist, racist and authoritarian” as well as reflecting “the concerns of semi-feudal, patriarchal societies”. This places a kind of pressure on the genre to justify its existence and indeed, what is prevalent throughout the book is the way in which the author carefully builds a case for the said genre. He reinforces this in this last chapter by embarking on a discussion on the mystique and force behind the literary fairy tale. This hinges on the elements of magic and the uncanny. Zipes quotes and modifies Freud in order to show how it is this element of the uncanny is one of the “significant elements” of the fairy tale, which survives modification again and again in order to weave its way into the consciousness of either child or adult. This is the crux of Zipes’ argument , that “the very act of reading a fairy tale is an uncanny experience in that it separates the reader from the restrictions of reality from the onset and makes the repressed unfamiliar familiar once again” (174) .

Zipes equates this with a quest for home, which is psychological and nebulous in the first instance (within the reader’s mind) and which is social and value based in the second(within the tale)(174). He goes on to delineate the potential for liberation within the world of the fairy tale. Zipes asserts that it is a process of moving from a child’s inner world to the outer world via a process of identification and objectification of the canny within the uncanny (that is: all that is not familiar) thus acclimatizing the child to his role in life. This can be done in a regressive way, via the tales of Perrault and his contemporaries, or in a manner that reflects the “process of struggle against all times of suppression and authoritarianism”(178). Zipes is of course espousing the latter. The rest of the chapter outlines twentieth century efforts to rejuvenate the fairy tale, focusing primarily on the works of Michael Ende as well as feminist retellings of old tales.

This is an elegant and lucid volume, which would be a helpful guide to any scholar intent upon the field. However, I strongly feel it should be read together with more feminist works on the subject in order to better augment an understanding of the field of fairy tales as a genre. I also felt that he could have better made his case about the subversive potential in fairy tales as a tool for liberation if he had taken into account the fractured fairy tales of Angela Carter, which have been making its mark since the 1960s. Her output, since the sixties has made an impact in the field of story telling and her narratives, which mingles to the feminized elements of pre-Perrault fairy tales with the fractured, baroque writing of her contemporaries would have been a valuable addition to his already comprehensive history of the genre. I would however conclude by saying that this book has a lot to offer the scholar of fairy tales as well as makes a convincing case for the fairy tale discourse. It provides a historical survey, as well as an argument that reaches into the fields of social history as well as child psychology and he has managed to weave all these elements in order to come up with something that is very readable and moderately accessible.

(c) Nin Harris 2001-2007

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy”

-Hamlet, Act 1 Scene 5-

The idea that we share this planet with otherworldly beings exists in more than one culture and belief-system. It is a part of the cultural makeup of most ethnic groups. As such, these beliefs are as diverse as the human race itself.

One of the more popular names for these entities stem from the same root-word for “Fairies” or Faeries. What are these creatures, and what is the origin of this belief? Keightley, in The World Guide to Gnomes, Fairies, Elves and Other Little People comments that the word “Fairy” most probably originated from the “Persian Peri”. He makes this fascinating observation:

“It is said that the Paynim foe, whom the warriors of the Cross encountered in Palestine, spoke only Arabic; the alphabet of which language, it is well known, possesses no p, and therefore organically substitutes an f in such foreign words as contain the former letter; consequently Peri became, in the mouth of an Arab, Feri, whence the crusaders and pilgrims, who carried back to Europe the marvellous tales of Asia, introduced ito the West the Arabo-Persian word Fairy. It is further added, that the Morgain or Morgana, so celebrated in old romance, is Merjan Peri, equally celebrated all over the East.”

While the source may well have been Middle-Eastern, the term itself has been associated with the denizens of more than one country, the origins of which are as diverse as the people who tell these tales. What seems apparent is that they seem to defy all human attempts to classify them, and a linear interpretation would claim them to be either one of the following classifications or the other.

Fallen Angels and Spirits of the Dead

There are those who consider “fairies” fallen angels, those of the host who were `cast out of heaven for their sinful pride’. This was also quoted in Lady Wilde’s Ancient Legends of Ireland. Noted folklorist Katherine Briggs cites this following passage from volume I of Lady Wilde’s work as an explicit explanation of this belief in Ireland which seems to go hand in hand with the more pagan belief of Diminished Deities.

“The islanders, like all the Irish, believe that the fairies are the fallen angels who were cast down by the Lord God out of heaven for their sinful pride. And some fell into the sea, and some on the dry land, and some fell deep into hell, and the devil gives to these knowledge and power, and sends them on earth where they work much evil. But the fairies of the earth and the sea are mostly gentle and beautiful creatures, who will do no harm if they are let alone, and allowed to dance on the fairy raths in the moonlight to their own sweet music, undisturbed by the presence of mortals.” [Wilde:169]

Faeries are also associated with the spirits of the dead. As a matter of fact, there are a fair number of folktales that seem to associate faeries with the spirits of those who have passed on. Briggs has cited some of these sources in The Vanishing People. However, she also notes that there is a variant where the faeries are captors and guardians of the dead rather than the dead itself (31). A rather striking parallel between Faerie and Hades emerges. (see the next section for more).

Diminished Deities and Subterranean Dwellers

In Ireland, faeries are also associated with the `Tuatha De Danaan’ (Folk of the Goddess Danu/Don) and who believe that many of the names of the faery chiefs are in fact the names of old Danaan heroes (see Yeats, Fairy and Folk Tales of Ireland). The pantheon of the `Tuatha De Danaan’ include the likes of Duada son of Dana, Dagda, Birgit, wife of Dagda, Angus, Mider, Ethain, Blathnat, Ogma and Camullus. They were said to have retired temporarily beneath the earth after the coming of the Milesians, some of them later venturing to lands beyond the sea, following the people of Lir. Others were said to have sought out new homes in the hills and were henceforth known as the Aes Sidhe, the People of the Hills. In The Vanishing People, Katherine Briggs talks about these folk of the Goddess Don:

“There seems no doubt that the children of the Goddess Don were the Dana O`Sidh and there, conquered by the invading Milesians, took to the hollow hills and became the Daoine Sidh or ‘Deeny Shee’. The Fianna Finn and their contemporaries fought, loved and mated with these Daoine Sidh. Originally of human or more than human size, they dwindled through successive generations from the small size of humans to the size of three-years children, and sometimes to midgets.”

W.B. Yeats explains the terminology of the sidhe as follows:

“The Irish word for fairy is sheehogue [sidheog] a diminutive of “shee” in banshee. Fairies are deenee shee [daoine sidhe] (fairy people).

Who are they? […] ‘The gods of the earth,” says the Book of Armagh. “The gods of pagan Ireland,” say the Irish antiquarians,” the Tuatha De Danan, who, when no longer worshipped and fed with offerings, dwindled away in the popular imagination, and now are only a few spans high.”

Which leads us to another idea concerning the Sidhe, that they are possibly indigenous, subterranean beings. Briggs notes that:

“One of the most clear-cut [theories] is the suggestion made by David MacRitchie that the fairy beliefs sprang from the memory of an earlier race of rather dwarfish people, pre-Neolithic dwellers in caves or earthworks, who used flints arrows, had much knowledge of the hidden paths in their country and were credited with power over weather and other magical skills. The chief works of David MacRitchie which uphold this thesis are The Testimony of Tradition(1890) and Fians, Fairies and Picts. In these he equates the Picts with the Fians and Fairies. Passages in J.F. Campbell’s Popular Tales of the West Highlands first suggested the theory to him, and some of Campbell’s tales could be plausibly ascribed to the existence of a conquered race, lurking in woods and mounds and hanging round farms, doing casual service for gifts of food, but distrustful of their conqueror’s clothing as a badge of service.”

W.Y. Evans-Wentz, in The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries makes the following observation:

“O’Curry says : ‘ The term (sidh, pron. shee), as far as we know it, is always applied in old writings to the palaces, courts, halls, or residences of those beings which in ancient Gaedhelic mythology held the place which ghosts, phantoms, and fairies hold in the superstitions of the present day.’ (1) In modern Irish tradition, ‘the People of the Sidhe,’ or simply the Sidhe, refer to the beings themselves rather than to their places of habitation. Partly perhaps on account of this popular opinion that the Sidhe are a subterranean race, they are sometimes described as gods of the earth or dei terreni, as in the Book of Armagh; and since it was believed that they, like the modern fairies, control the ripening of crops and the milk-giving of cows, the ancient Irish rendered to them regular worship and sacrifice, just as the Irish of to-day do by setting out food at night for the fairy-folk to eat.”

Within an archaelogical/anthropological context, there seems to be an interesting amount of evidence being amassed concerning the linkage between otherworldly beings, rocks and hollow hills. (See this page, and this page for instance). Nor are the British Isles and Ireland the only places on earth where this belief in subterranean beings exist. In the Malaysian Peninsular, for example, there is a very strong, active belief in Orang Bunian also known as “Voice-Folk”(See Porteous for this translation). They are also known as “Echo-People” and have been said to inhabit caves and stones. Their subterranean existence also mutates time. This seems to be a rather common thread between mythologies dealing with the Otherworld. Porteous gives a fascinating description of the Bunian:

“The latter invisible supernatural people inhabit the forest, and in one place there is a cave which is supposed to be their home. Their voice is said to be very similar to the human voice, and they are often heard calling to each other in the forest depths, which may easily be mistaken for the tones of a human voice in distress. Tales are often told of those who under this impression have answered the call and proceeded towards the voice, but having done so, they could not retrace their steps. The unfortunate one is lured ever farther on into the dark recesses, until at last the Voice-Folk become visible to him, and his doom is to become on of them and invisible to man, only his voice betokening his presence.”

I read a psychological link between this view of subterranean dwellers, with that of the Underworld of the Dead. Thomas Rolleston has commented that the tumulus of New Grange can be:

“regarded on the one hand as the dwelling-places of the Sidhe[…] and they are also, traditionally, the burial-places of the Celtic High Kings of pagan Ireland.”

The linkage between a burial mound with the dwellings of the Sidhe very clearly delineates a link between these entities and the Underworld. It should be noted that there are many parallels between the often subterranean land of Faerie and the Greek Underworld Hades. In fact, in a medieval poem “The Romance of King Orfeo”, the tale of Orpheus and his Eurydice is reset in the land of Faerie with Pluto (Hades) being cast as a Fairy King. (published in Ritson’s Fairy Tales, Legends and Romances illustrating Shakespeare).

This is very fascinating and relevant from a psychological/mythological point of view. Macleod Yearsley in The Folklore of Fairy-tale noted that:

“Universal superstition has postulated an underworld peopled by the dead, and this has resulted in the belief that death may be vanquished and the dead restored […] The entrance to fairy-land is to be found by penetrating into a sepulchral mound, by passing through a cave (since cave burial was practised), down a well, or through some deep cleft in a rock. […] In the early myths the lords of the underworld were gods; in late folk-tales they developed into trolls, erl-kings, monsters, or sea maidens;”

It would therefore be pertinent to close this section with an excerpt from James Hillman’s The Dream and the Underworld since that groundbreaking tome deals with the importance of this “Underworld” process within our psyche. The following quote segues rather interestingly with the next section:

” “Entering the underworld” refers to a transition from the material to the psychical point of view. Three dimensions become two as the perspective of nature, flesh, and matter fall away, leaving an existence of immaterial, mirrorlike images, eidola, We are in the land of soul.”

Elemental Spirits

The idea that faeries are elemental spirits can be seen most notably in Eastern cultures. The Persian peri, which I have mentioned previously is one such being. The Encyclopedic Theosophical Glossary lists these peris as being

“representative of those classes of conscious, self-conscious, and quasi-conscious beings who range all the way from simple sprites in the lower ranges, up to and including the classes […]which are the psychological and even physical ancestors of the human race.”

This line of thought is in harmony with the idea that most, if not all, forms of life consists of energy.

Another form of elemental, or nature spirit is that of the deva. According to the Hindus, these devas, or “shining ones” belong to two categories, the higher and the lower and are involved in the shaping of the universe and the earth. The lower kinds, according to the Theosophist include the gnomes, fairies, sylphs and djinns. This parallels the Irish belief that the Sidhe are fallen gods- the Tuatha de Danaan. These “devas” (also known as “Dewas”) inhabit Malay mythologies (which are generally hybrids of animism, Hindu and Islamic/Middle-Eastern myths) and ancient epics, as demi-gods who cavort across the pages and narratives of these ancient penglipur lara. They are described as a kind of aerial nobility who hunt, live in palaces in the sky and transport themselves in flying vehicles (particularly in the Hikayat Raja Muda or “Annals of the Young Prince” where seven princesses utilize a strange “flying chamber” which bears a striking resemblance to a helicopter.)

Within the Malay mythos, creatures such as the penunggu, whose life is very much connected to the life of the host tree or animal, the different kinds of djinn which are connected either to the air or to the earth have connotations which fill one with superstitious dread even till today. These are obviously more sinister manifestations of these elementals, which, as with the rest of the Faerie pantheon, are not necessarily disposed towards goodwill to humankind. Whether things such as morality or good or evil would ever carry much currency with these elemental beings is, as always, open to speculation, based upon the different cultures of the world and very probably, the different types of entities which inhabit each region.

Conclusion

In the end it may be surmised that there have always been myths of entities which exist outside of the material world of each society/culture. They have been named different things and have had different characteristics. One theory behind this commonality hinges around the migratory patterns of the Faerie Folk. One might venture to add that although there are similarities in the characteristics of these entities from culture to culture, there are also marked differences. It is submitted that perhaps there should not be a unifying theory, because to place a blanket definition over the mythical denizens of this planet would be to whitewash them of the diversity of various definitions. Almost as self-defeating (and boring) as trying to convert humans everywhere to a single, hegemonic, cultural framework.

As to why these stories and beliefs exist, despite the attempts of literalists, hard-nose skeptics and other parties to stamp them out: my personal conviction is that like all mythic/folkloric dialectics, they fulfil an important psychological function. As such, belief in this hybrid enigma should not be under-rated, regardless of whether one is a believer or a sceptic.

Perhaps it is an act of reaching out. Perhaps it is an awareness that there is something gracing the liminalities dividing the realm of the dead and the living, material and immaterial existence. Whatever it is, the difference and similarities line that space of ambiguity which separates these beings from us. This then, is the Enigma, that feeling of alien-ness, or Otherness, that haunts the most ineluctable of moments which graces this drama of human existence.

Works Cited and Additional/Recommended Reading

• Bhabha, Homi K., The Location of Culture (re: cultural hybridity)
• Blavatsky,Helena. Petrovna, Elementals, (an article found here) 1893
• Bord, Janet, Fairies:Real Encounters with Little People
• Briggs, Katherine, The Fairy Encyclopedia
• Briggs, Katherine, Fairies in Tradition and Literature
• Briggs, Katherine, The Vanishing People: a study of traditional fairy beliefs
• Evans-Wentz W.Y., The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries
• Hillman, James. The Dream and the Underworld
• Keightley, Thomas. The World Guide to Gnomes, Fairies, Elves, and Other Little People (A Compendium of International Fairy Folklore).
• Porteous, Alexander, The Lore of the Forest
• Ritson, Joseph, Fairy Tales, Legends and Romances illustrating Shakespeare
• Rolleston, Thomas, The Celts.
• Spiritweb, Elementals and Devas(an article found here) 1893
• Yearsley, Macleod, The Folklore of Fairy-tale
• Yeats, William Butler, Mythologies
• Yeats, William Butler,Folk and Fairy Tales of Ireland

Malay Epics/Annals

• Hikayat Hang Tuah
• Hikayat Raja Muda
• Sejarah Melayu

(c) Nin Harris 2006-2010

I have loved Tam Lin since I was 15. I loved it all the more because I could not find the full poems, instead piecing together scraps of verse from chapter headings of Diana Wynne-Jones’s Fire and Hemlock, dividing pages in a notebook between Thomas the Rhymer and Tam Lin. That much has been stated before.

What has never been outlined: the thick feeling of doom behind breastbone when faerie queens with beguiling, seductive and mysterious powers of persuasion are considered.

The reader always screams inward, urging faithful handmaidens into the opposite direction from that which is prescribed by dictates of the tale.

Don’t do it, you fool, why give up the sea to have your tail split? Why give up the pleasures of the deep so you can dance all wordless, self-conscious with daggers of pain shooting up your calves and thighs?

Why save him a few milliseconds before the very vocal princess with sunlight in her hair will come with parasol and frilled frock to pull him up into the palace, her handmaidens fluttering and fussing over him?

Why must you sacrifice your tongue, your mersisters their curls for love, for a knife you will never use because you are ultimately giving? Why must you cling on when he is turned into an adder, a snake, a lion, a flaming brand that will char you alive? Why must you pull him down from a steed at Miles Cross when she has taken his heart, his eyes, his soul, his thoughts? He will not be made a teind to hell, Janet, but the threat of the rock and the tree remains.

Walk away, Janet, walk away.

The faerie queens of the world will always win.

Go back into the sea, littlest mermaid, go back to your games amidst the shipwrecks and the half-opened chests.

Walk away, ugliest princess, walk away

For there will be a place where you are not ugly, and not required to fight, not required to grapple with live lions and snakes and adders just for the lure and the promise of what is transformed at long last.

Walk away from what seems to be East of the Sun, West of the Moon

Walk away, false goose-girl, or true princess or true fool. Walk away from the true goose-girl or false princess or true love. Let not Falada’s words be in vain, yet again.

Listen, for there will be hallways lined with books, soft carpets for your feet, hot drinks with steam soft-curled upward. Listen, for if you walk away there will be schools of fish, universes of meditating manta-rays and benevolent whales with songs woven just for you. Listen, for there are galaxies of light and color and sound. Listen, because you know you are stronger, more beautiful, more prideful and more magical than this, than this self you have reduced yourself into.

Walk away, princess, walk away.

Here, let me untangle a knot here, a pattern there, a mystery in the loom. Let me worry at a tear in the yellow wallpaper until it opens, wide enough to let you through, let you walk out of the walls, into the garden, onto the path that leads you into the deep green and brown velvet of the woods.

Listen, always a bridesmaid, and never a bride is just a dialectic you can puncture. Don’t be a bridesmaid. Don’t dance at the wedding. Throw off the lace and frills. Run off into the woods, run off into the woods.

Splash into the sea, swim away.

(3 March 2006)

(c) Nin Harris 1999-2010

“Harp and carp, Thomas,” she said,
Harp and carp along with me;

And if ye dare to kiss my lips
Sure of your body I will be!”

“And see ye not yon bonny road
That winds about the green hillside?
That is the way to fair Elfland,
Where you and I this night must bide.”

~`True Thomas’~

One of the most intriguing story threads within the faerie folktales of the British Isles is that of Thomas the Rhymer. The tale of a brash young poet who is swept away by the Faerie Queen to become her lover is, doubtless, both romantic and exciting. However, there are other elements that make this tale a compelling one. The ballad, called either “Thomas the Rhymer” or “True Thomas” or Thomas and the Fairy Queen provides the narrator a way to detail the protocol of the Faerie court to his audience, and provides the audience with a human (hence familiar) glance into the world of Faerie. Secondly, the resolution of the tale, with the “fateful” gift that transfigures his life, serves as a rather colorful explanation for the powers of a very real personality in Scottish History, that of Thomas of Erceldoune. This gift, includes seeing the future; indeed, this Tom has been documented as making a lot of famous prophecies.

The force of Thomas’s personality comes up in the many versions of the Thomas tale. He has been given many names – True Tom, True Thomas, Thomas the Rhymer, Thomas of Erceldoune as well as Thomas Learmont. His name has cropped up in many modern tellings of the Faerie Court, including those by Raymond E. Feist, Ellen Kushner, Sherri S. Tepper and Diana Wynne Jones. In the latter two, a connection is made between the “Thomas the Rhymer” tale and another scottish “Tom” – the figure captured by the Faerie Queen in “Tam Lin”.

What follows is a little compilation of quotations and allusions to Thomas as well as a list of twentieth century fantasy/faerie fiction in which he makes an appearance.

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