|
Author
|
Comment
|
diggydoodle
Unregistered User
(11/12/03 6:34 pm)
|
fairytales about infetiltiy
Looking for fairy or folktales from around the world about people that have infertility problems and want children
|
Celestial
Registered User
(11/12/03 8:52 pm)
|
Infertility
In Prince Lindworm, which you will find in Kay Neilsen's East of the Sun, West of the Moon, a King & Queen are unable to have a child. One day, the Queen is crying and a witch, hearing her sobbing, offers her a solution. The witch instructs the Queen to "take a little drinking cup with two handles and put it bottom upwards in her garden. Then go and lift it up in the morning at sunrise and you will find two roses, one red and one white. Red for a boy, white for a girl. You must eat one rose only, not two." The Queen does as instructed, but the rose is so delicious that she eats the other one too ... and disaster comes to her. She has twins, one baby grows to be a fine man, but the other is a hideous man eating Lindworm.
In the Thistle Princess, written by Vivian French and illustrated by Elizabeth Harbour, a baby comes to the lonely King and Queen in a thistle.
www.arenaworks.com/Artist...bour1.html
www.arenaworks.com/Artist...bour2.html
Edited by: Celestial at: 11/12/03 8:57 pm
|
AlisonPegg
Registered User
(11/13/03 3:23 am)
|
Re: Infertility
Here's one
The
Strange Tale of the Golden Pomegranate
Alison
|
Richard
Parks
Registered User
(11/13/03 1:15 pm)
|
Re: Infertility
This may be pointing out the obvious, but RAPUNZEL is a classic example. There's a link to an annotated version on the Surlalune web site itself:
www.surlalunefairytales.com/rapunzel/
http://home.teclink.net/~brp1
Edited by: Richard Parks at: 11/13/03 1:16 pm
|
Rosemary
Lake
Registered User
(11/14/03 2:48 pm)
|
Obvious examples
Snow White, Tom Thumb, Hans my Hedgehog, The Snow Maiden, The She-Bear. Half-Chick?
Isn't there a whole 'tale type' or something about this? Someone wishes or insists on having a child, so they get one, but with problems. Usually something wrong with the child.
R.
|
Niniane
Sunyata
Registered User
(11/16/03 9:19 am)
|
Re: Obvious examples
Thumbelina - the single woman wanting a child desperately. There seems to be more than one story like this. You could say that the witch in Rapunzel was a not so benign version of this. I know there are some more stories like this but I can't remember offhand right now.
Anita Harris.
Terra Mythogene
www.mythopoetica.com
|
Laura
Registered User
(11/16/03 8:43 pm)
|
infertile women
Drat! My whole post just got erased! Well, I mentioned that I believe some versions of Sleeping Beauty being with a protracted longing for a child. Likewise, the mother in The Juniper Tree wishes and wishes, only to die in childbirth. And I can't check for sure, but as a girl I read a story about a childless queen who was weeping by a fountain one day when a lobster (I think -- maybe it was a crayfish?) emerged and promised her a baby. An old fairy, of course. Something went wrong, though, and I believe the young princess was cursed to be a white deer by day. It's been a long time, so perhaps someone else remembers that story more clearly.
I wonder if anyone's done a reimagining of these stories now that we know infertility isn't always the woman's fault? Would be interesting to see a "king" begging the fairies to make him potent.
Laura
|
swood
Unregistered User
(11/19/03 8:00 am)
|
infertility in fairytales
I had never thought about this topic and think discussion would be interesting. Laura's comment about the fertility of the father brings out an interesting issue regarding the paternity of the magical children.
Sarah
|
