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Author
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Comment
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cammykitty
Registered User
(2/27/06 2:13 pm)
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mothers who have abandonned children
I'm working on a story that shares a world with my Cruel Sister short story and I'm hoping to keep all the stories of this world based on fairytales or ballads, especially Celtic ones. Can you think of any fairytales where a mother (or father) abandons her child deliberately? Hopefully for the child's own good. There are certainly tons of changeling stories, but those are something else altogether.
Thanks!
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Rosemary Lake
Registered User
(2/28/06 2:12 am)
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Re: mothers who have abandonned children
Moses in the bullrushes. <g,d,r>
Seriously, wasn't there some goddess who did the same sort of thing?
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Crceres
Registered User
(2/28/06 8:57 am)
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Re: mothers who have abandonned children
If you look in Greek myth, the gods (especially Zeus) left dozens of babies scattered around...Hermes, Bacchus, Oedipus, to name a few.
In variations of the Seven Ravens, the boys who turn into birds are alternately 'abandoned' in the forest to try and protect them from the stepmother's machinations (such as in Henson's Storyteller version), or have to be found by their little sister (who is undoing the mother's unwise wish to trade the sons for a baby girl).
In Rapunzel, the witch abandons Rapunzel in the wastes, which could be construed as 'doing it for her own good'. A similar thing occurs in "The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars", though that story has a stronger moralizing theme.
In the Blue Belt, there's a psychological abandonment when the mother plots against her son.
I don't know if that helps at all. Just a couple of things that came to mind!
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cammykitty
Registered User
(2/28/06 11:23 am)
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moses
I'd thought of Moses but hadn't thought about it, but hadn't thought about his mother's reasons. Thanks for bringing it up.
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cammykitty
Registered User
(2/28/06 11:26 am)
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Re: mothers who have abandonned children
Thanks! I'll have to look at the Seven Ravens. I don't know that story, but it sounds like it might be just what I'm looking for although I'd be making it one Raven, but that's okay. & thanks for the other suggestions too. I've got a fairytale book of Jane Yolen's upstairs that I'm about to curl up with and look for the Ravens or anything else useful.
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Heidi Anne Heiner
ezOP
(2/28/06 2:43 pm)
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Re: mothers who have abandonned children
Read the footnote about Pysslings for the the tale of "Miss Skin-cloak rakes in the Ashes" which is a variant of No. 112: The Little Gold Shoe on SurLaLune.
And don't forget the variants of Hansel and Gretel in which the mother and father, not the stepmother, abandon the child(ren).
I'm learning more than I evern knew about Cinderella while preparing Roalfe's book as an etext.
Heidi
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cammykitty
Registered User
(2/28/06 3:38 pm)
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Re: mothers who have abandonned children
Thanks! The pysslings are rather interesting. I'd never heard of them before.
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