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Author
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Comment
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enchantmentweaver
Registered User
(2/1/03 11:07:39 pm)
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Magical “housekeeping” or
The Enchanted Hearth and Home
I need to come up with a mythical/folkloric/fairy tale role model for a project – One of my entrepreneurial endeavors is a residential cleaning business but it is far from run-of-the-mill. We use stories to cast vision, to train and inspire our employees and to convey our corporate message.( aside: If you follow my postings you will discover I am a woman who wears many hats –and stories are the common, core element for me in all the different roles I perform.)
Anyway, one of our suppliers uses the “cleaning fairy” as their “inspirational spirit”. (their term) They use a little fairy with a wand in their logo. I am trying to come up with a similar idea/image/character. I am putting out a call for creative ideas from the inspiring minds on this board. I am looking for a character and/or imagery from fairytale/mythic/folkloric material –I am thinking about stories using imagery such as magical brooms/mops/buckets …of course Cinderella carries obvious “housekeeping” associations .... and I think if my memory serves me, in Disney’s "Sorcerers Apprentice" Mickey's magical mishap involved a mop and bucket (can’t use this one, of course). Would anyone like to take a go at this?
Thanks, margaret
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Angel
Feather
Registered User
(2/4/03 12:46:08 pm)
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Snow White Cleans
Hi, I just recently read the story of Snow White and the 7 Dwarves to my son recently (not the Disney version!). When Snow White is taken in by the dwarves, she promises to cook and keep house for them. In this version, the house is already clean when she first appears. There might be another story where elves do cleaning while someone sleeps at night, but I might be getting that mixed up with the shoemaker and the elves!
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Helen
Registered User
(2/4/03 1:15:59 pm)
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Re: Snow White Cleans
It's interesting to note, actually, just how many fairy tale heroines win their ways through the "womanly arts" of cooking and cleaning. Good examples of this can be found in Cinderella and Snow White, as well as in lesser known tales such as Donkeyskin or the Maiden With No Hands: in the latter two, the heroines are disguised as maidservants, and only come to the attention of higher personages through their predilection for culinary displays. Maria Tatar notes that their resourcefullness is frequently "confined largely to sartorial and culinary arts, but these were, after all, the two areas in which women could traditionally distinguish themselves." (_The Classic Fairy Tales_, p. 105) You might want to look at Tatar or Marina Warner for more in that direction. As well, there are a number of spirits and fairies known for their helpfullness in household matters - brownies, hobs, domoviye, etc. A good source for information on their habits can be found in _A Field Guide to the Little People_, by Nancy Arrowsmith and George Morse. Hope this helps!
Best,
Helen
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Kevin
Smith
Registered User
(2/4/03 1:50:48 pm)
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just another version of
snow white . .
Donald Barthelme's Novella _Snow White_, has the "dwarves", cleaning buildings for a living. Make of that what you will.
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enchantmentweaver
Registered User
(2/6/03 2:32:30 pm)
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Brownies - tales? illustrations?
I would like to thank you all SO MUCH for your responses - Kevin and Angelfeather for wonderful feedback re Snow White -
Helen, oh my gosh you NAILED it with the BrowniesHobs/domonvoi....This absolutely captures the spirit of this particular project.
I have started doing a little research and I am having a marvelous time with it...some of my findings are:
they adopt a houselhold and help with the chores if the family is hardworking, but may give them trouble if the family is lazy
They perform services such as milking, shoe making, harvesting, sewing, shearing and cleaning
you induce them to come to your home by leaving out food for them
to get them to come, however, they have to be sure that you are the sort of operson they want to help and approach.
Their magical help is connected to household tasks, protetion of home, family and animals..
Anyway, I would like to capture a little glimpse of these little ones - Do you, or anyone else on the board know of any illustrations (or stories accompanied by illustrations), that portray these wee folks?
Jane I KNOW you must have written a tale or two about them or one in which a Brownie makes an appearance- If you have, don't hold out on me...
Thank you so much!!!!
Blessings, Margaret
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bielie
Registered User
(2/6/03 3:15:05 pm)
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Merlin
Remember TH White's Merlin? His dishes did themselves! (Of course he was a batchelor and did not have the services of mss Snow or Cindy.)
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enchantmentweaver
Registered User
(2/6/03 3:27:44 pm)
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Re: Merlin did
the dishes?
Merlin did the dishes? Get out of town! Fascinating memory you have. How did you remember such a subtle detail? Do you remember where in this work Merlin's dishwashing is described?...I think if I were Merlin I would have used my magic instead of the elbow grease. I hate to wash dishes!
margaret
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Jane Yolen
Unregistered User
(2/7/03 5:01:04 am)
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Not me
I'm a LOUSY housekeeper, which may be why no one much cleans up in my stories!
Wish I could help.
Jane
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Richard
Parks
Registered User
(2/7/03 7:04:13 am)
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Brownies/Hobs
When I think of the cleaning crews using fairies/hobs as an image it reminds me of a version of the tale that I read as a kid where the problem was not so much how to induce a hob to come clean for you as to get rid of one. They'd start off doing a great job, but then their mischievous nature would get the best of them and they'd start playing tricks, like putting the bed linens on backwards, curdling the milk, hiding the dust under a rug, etc, until the distraught homeowners would give them new clothes (pace Harry Potter) so the silly things would leave!
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Kerrie
Moderator
(2/7/03 7:12:36 am)
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Re: Brownies
- tales? illustrations?
Not sure if this helps, but what about "The Brownie Story" that explains the origins of the Brownie division of Girl Scouting:
The Brownie Story
The story at the above site sounds familiar, but I want to say there are differences- I remember a grandmother instead of a mother, 2 girls instead of a boy and girl.
As for images, here's what I could find:
www.allensinc.com/plates/konigszelt/grimshoe.htm
www.calvin.edu/~hett/Cruik%20Elves.html
www.happyholidays.ca/Nursery%20Rhymes%20and%20Childhood%20
Collection/ris_plate_2.htm
Have you thought about Rumpelstiltskin? In a way, he helps with household chores, in that he spinns for the miller's daughter. Also, The Tailor of Gloucester, by Beatrix Potter- they aren't brownies, but the mice sew the coat and waistcoat.
The.Tailor.of.Gloucester
Hope these help.
Sugarplum dreams,
Kerrie
Edited by: Kerrie at: 2/7/03 8:33:26 am
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enchantmentweaver
Registered User
(2/7/03 7:50:16 am)
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Re: Magical
“housekeeping” or The Enchanted Hearth and Home
Richard that is so funny !!!- and it's equally funnier that one of my enterprises is a residential cleaning business. I am afraid I am much like Jane - I am a lousy housekeeper - In my enterprise my duties are akin to being the "Vice President of creativity and enchantment" - If I had to go into people's homes to actually clean them - oh my - I am afraid I would be like one of those mischievious little hobs that people want to get rid of i.e. putting the bed linens on backwards, sweeping the dust under their rugs... since Helen mentioned those wonderful women of lore who ascend through their culinary and housekeeping abilities, the thought occurs to me that I'd be in serious trouble if I were a character who had to depend on her housekeeping abilities to live the happy-ever- after ...hmmm.....this leads me to some interesting possibilities for a story...What about a character whose housekeeping gets her into troube vs. out of it? I could definitely step into that character easily.
Okay, okay, I know - off topic AGAIN.
Kerrie - oh wow, thanks for the resources - these are great!!!!
I'll take a longer look and check back in...
margaret
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mjibrower
Unregistered User
(2/17/03 2:16:40 pm)
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Brownie illustrations -
Palmer Cox
If you're looking for pictures of Brownies, try running a search on Palmer Cox on eBay or Google. Palmer Cox was a Victorian illustrator who wrote a series of children's books about Brownies. His illustrations were used as marketing tie-ins for lots of products, including Kodak's Brownie camera. You'll probably recognize his work (or at least his style; there are plenty of Cox imitations too) when you see it.
Hope this helps! (also hope this isn't the third time I've posted this... I keep losing my connection while replying)
Molly
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summersinger
Registered User
(2/17/03 8:25:43 pm)
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Domovoi
Isn't this lucky - my Russian class just did a great lesson on house spirits (domovoi) as well as forest, water, bath, and stable spirits. I love having a teacher who knows his folklore.
Here is the http://members.aol.com/AvalonCWPN/domovoi.html
he showed us. According to the handout, a domovoi is usually invisible
but can look like a furry old man, a former resident of the house,
frogs, cats, snakes, and (our favorite) jumping bags of grain. A
kikimora is a female house spirit who looks like a normal woman
with her hair down, although she sometimes has chicken feet. She
was Christianized as St. Paraskeva, the protector of the home.
-Julia
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enchantmentweaver
Registered User
(2/17/03 10:01:32 pm)
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Brownies and Domovoi
Molly and Julia, thanks so much. Molly, I loved the tip on Palmer Cox - I have been looking for a very vintage look - and his work fits the bill - There are alot of online resources depicting his artwork. I am having a lot of fun exploring.
The link you gave me Julia, didn't work - I tried hitting it from the board and typing in the URL - no luck. The tip on kikimora, however, yielded lots of webpages from the search engine - one link led me to the Elfwood Fantasy Art site which surprisingly has some good images of kikimora.
Again, thanks to all the creative, knowledgeable minds on the board. Your feedback has inspired much creative thinking and this has turned out to be a really fun project for me.
Blessings,
Margaret
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summersinger
Registered User
(2/18/03 6:58:36 am)
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Re: Brownies
and Domovoi
Sorry that didn't work the first time.
members.aol.com/AvalonCWPN/domovoi.html
- Julia
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Nalo
Registered User
(2/19/03 9:19:13 am)
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Re: Brownies and Domovoi
Kinda off topic, but I'm currently house hunting, which means that
I get to look at a lot of descriptions of houses furnished by a
real estate agency. I continue to be tickled by how often the list
of amenities of the house say that "all elfs are included."
Of course, the meaning is much more mundane ("electrical light
fixtures").
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Judith
Berman
Registered User
(2/19/03 10:55:15 am)
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housekeeping heroines
> It's interesting to note, actually, just how many fairy tale heroines win their ways through the "womanly arts" of cooking and cleaning. <...> Maria Tatar notes that their resourcefullness is frequently "confined largely to sartorial and culinary arts, but these were, after all, the two areas in which women could traditionally distinguish themselves."
JB:A bit OT, but Eileen Power in her MEDIEVAL WOMEN has a fascinating chapter about women in the medieval labor market. Their roles were not nearly as restricted as one might suppose. "Girls were often apprenticed to trades in the same way as boys...[T]here were not only many single women... engaged in trade, but... many women went on with their own jobs after marriage and carried on a trade separate from their husbands...There was hardly a craft in which we do not find women... [most important were] those connected with the textile industries and those connected with the production or sale of food and drink... All spinning and silk-making, some of the weaving and a great deal of the brewing of medieval England was in the hands of women, and many women followed these trades with a regularity sufficiently professional to earn for themselves the title of spinster, webster, brewster in official documents such as Poll Taxes or Subsidy Rolls." The surnames Webster, Baxter (bakeress), Brewster, etc., are in origin female occupational labels that were passed down to children in the same fashion as paternal occupational terms.
Thus a girl who was expert at cooking, spinning or weaving (or beer-brewing!) was not just good wife material, but one with a potentially lucrative profession ahead of her, if she chose to pursue it.
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Jess
Unregistered User
(2/19/03 11:30:56 am)
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Spinster
Judith,
Is our term "spinster" which we use to refer to an unmarried, older woman, really just recognition of an independent, skilled woman with little need for marriage for support? This might support a long held belief of mine that the quientessential '50's woman who paid attention only to hearth and home alone (and not intellectual or professional pursuits as well, whether house industries or something else) is an anomoly and a myth.
Jess
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enchantmentweaver
Registered User
(2/19/03 1:53:16 pm)
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women in business
Judith, you fairy god-mothered me!!! I am immensely grateful that you decided to follow this inkling and go a "bit OT"...Your comments are extremely timely and synchronistic. In fact, I am quite fascinated and intrigued. This sort of weaves into several concerns I am working with right now and researching. For one, I have been exploring the combination of spirituality, art, and business as practiced by the Medici family during the Rennaissance. I assumed that women were excluded from this integration throughout history. The other thread in this tapestry has to do with the history of women's roles in business. I particularly assumed that Medieval women had fixed roles that definitely did not include trades independent and seperate from their spouse's.
I wonder, are there any tales from fairy tales and folklore that might express this theme of the womanly art of business or that might give us glimpses into such womenly trades as practiced in the past? This could have some very important implications for our own time.
Please, I welcome all responses and thoughts.
Blessings, Margaret
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enchantmentweaver
Registered User
(2/19/03 4:15:01 pm)
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Re: Spinster
Jess, your comments were addressed to Judith, but I'll give you my take. I don't think the quintessential 50's woman was a myth - my mother, her five sisters and their mother were pretty much about the hearth and home - Mother did church work, played bridge with the womenfolk, and was a member of a garden club. But she didn't even have a car until the sixites, as was true with most women in the suburban, southern neighborhood where I grew up. I don't recall a single woman in that neigborhood who held a job or were activists in any significant way. A friend of mine who is an anthropologist claims that the stay-at- home women of the 50' were part of a targeted campaign to take women out of the workplace so the returning WWII veterans could have employment.
Margaret
Margaret
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Judith Berman
Registered User
(2/20/03 8:36:29 am)
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more on housekeeping
>For one, I have been exploring the combination of spirituality, art, and business as practiced by the Medici family during the Rennaissance.
JB: You might be interested in Michaela Roessner's novels about the de Medicis' cooks... Catherine is an important character.
>I assumed that women were excluded from this integration throughout history.
JB:Perhaps in name -- though Eileen Powers makes the point that in the middle ages many women worked under their husbands' or fathers' names, and legally assumed control of their businesses when the men died.
>The other thread in this tapestry has to do with the history of women's roles in business. I particularly assumed that Medieval women had fixed roles that definitely did not include trades independent and seperate from their spouse's.
JB:Again, I recommend Powers' chapter "The working woman in town and country." Her (short) book MEDIEVAL WOMEN was published posthumously, and the intro notes that particular chapter was based on the work of M.M. Postan, so you could look there, too.
>I wonder, are there any tales from fairy tales and folklore that might express this theme of the womanly art of business or that might give us glimpses into such womenly trades as practiced in the past? This could have some very important implications for our own time.
JB: I haven't read "The Wife of Bath" (Chaucer, Canterbury Tales) in ages, but wasn't she a wealthy merchant in her own right? Not exactly what you're looking for, maybe.
Jess, I believe the original meaning of spinster was as you mentioned, a working woman who did not have to marry for financial reasons. Powers talks about sex ratios in the middle ages and how there were considerably more women than men (the most extreme difference mentioned is 1246 women for every 1000 men in medieval Basel); thus women HAD to find some means of support outside marriage.
My own mother in the 50s struggled with the roles of housewife, mother of small children and doctoral student in economics. I think someone mentioned pushing women out of the labor market to make room for returning soldiers. But seems to me the 50s was the nadir of a century-long process in which the scope of "homemaker" was progressively limited. Though Victorian ideals of womanhood might give a contrary impression, in the mid-19th century a middle- or working-class woman might still be expected to spin, weave, sew, cook, bake bread, put up winter stores, tend the kitchen garden, milk the cows, make butter and cheese, tend the hcickens, manage servants... A whole lot of labor, but also a lot of scope for fulfilling work and contributing a huge economic value to the household even if the woman might not be directly compensated for it. Over a hundred years, technological innovation and industrialization and the progressive reach of "science" took most of this constructive labor out of the hands of housewives and into businesses run by men. Women were left with vacuum cleaners, washing machines and a whole lot of restlessness and ennui. The economic value of their labor is also radically reduced. Then there's the issue of suburbanization, isolation and raising children outside the extended family... My personal theory about the impetus for the 60s feminism -- but maybe it's just my own prejudices showing: I feel a whole lot more satisfied by baking a loaf of bread or messing in the garden than running the vacuum.
Now I've gone way OT.
Judith
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