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Author
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Comment
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Elizabeth Leigh
Registered User
(1/25/06 9:15 pm)
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Fairy Tales and disabilities
Hello!
I am a first-year doctoral student doing communications studies at the University of Washington, and am interested in the portrayal of people with disabilities in fairy tales and folklore. This may be physical or mental disabilities, disfigurement, or anything else that the society for whom the story was intended would have considered a disability.
What stories do you know of that would relate to this study?
Do you have any comments or insight into the subject?
Thank you.
Elizabeth
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Don
Registered User
(1/25/06 9:45 pm)
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Re: Fairy Tales and disabilities
There is a book (in German) on this topic by the folklorist and fairy-tale scholar Hans-Jörg Uther, Behinderte in populären Erzählungen (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1981). There are also various articles in English that a bibliographic search should be able to locate (especially on blindness by Wayland D. Hand, JoAnn Conrad, and Christine Goldberg).
Edited by: Don at: 1/25/06 9:45 pm
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kristiw
Unregistered User
(1/25/06 9:57 pm)
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disability
How funny, I was just thinking about this. There's also a thread from a while back if you search the archives. I noticed that in Gracieuse and Percinet, the stepmother limps in both her legs, and the witch in Hansel and Gretel has a crutch. I'm also thinking of a fairy tale that would be very relevant, hopefully someone here will know the name. It's definitely from the Andrew Lang Color books and probably French, featuring an ugly, humpbacked princess but with a good heart. At some point she has to choose between kindness and beauty, chooses kindness and of course gets both as a reward. I also remember stained-glass windows depicting the lovely sheperdess she could be if she chooses beauty. Little help?
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Veronica Schanoes
Registered User
(1/25/06 10:08 pm)
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Re: Fairy Tales and disabilities
There're lots of fairy tales with "misshapen" people in them, especially dwarves: Snow White, Rumplestiltskin, and Snow White and Rose Red come to mind. "The Three Spinners" depends on three strange women/fairies who each have a bizarre deformity (related to spinning). There're also a range of stories about "simple" people--the Grimms' "Clever Else" is one, though there're also a range of stories in the Lang books where simple sons set off on quests and succeed. I think Andersen's "Steadfast Tin Soldier" loses a leg at one point in the story, and "The Red Shoes" ends with the protagonist's feet being chopped off. In the end of the Grimms' Cinderella, the stepmother cuts pieces off her daughters' feet and then their eyes are plucked out by doves at Cinderella's wedding.
Hope that helps.
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Helen J Pilinovsky
Registered User
(1/25/06 10:52 pm)
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Re: Fairy Tales and disabilities
Kristi, I think that the story that you're thinking of might be "Riquet With the Tuft" (though I could be wrong, as that one differs in several ways) (but it might still be relevant). In that one, a beautiful but stupid princess is given the chance at brilliance by an ugly little man who says that his only condition is that, at the end of the year, she wed him. Upon her making the choice, he, too, is supposedly transformed, though it's left up to the reader as to whether he really is, or whether love itself makes him beautiful in his beloved's eyes.
Another tale which might be of interest is most definitely "The Girl With the Silver Hands",
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Rosemary Lake
Registered User
(1/26/06 12:16 am)
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misc
I'm sure the 'choose beauty or kindness' sort of thing has been used often, probably in Cabinet des Fees, but I have a vague memory of it perhaps in "The Golden Branch", along with something about a crutch.
Of course mangy scalp is a common thing in 'unpromising hero' stories. In some 'male Cinderella' stories it's a fake cap, his real scalp is fine.
In some versions of Rapunzel the prince is blinded.
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AliceCEB
Registered User
(1/26/06 9:33 am)
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Re: misc
Depending upon how far you want to stretch it, you can also look at characters who are particularly small, such as Tom Thumb (who also has an ugly, misshapen ogre in it), or "Pete and the Ox" in Italo Calvino's ITALIAN FOLKTALES where the hero is literally the size of a thumb. Actually, I'd recommend Calvino's Italian Folktales in general, the table of contents alone lists "The Three Crones", "Tabagnino the Hunchback", "The Feathered Ogre", "Fearless Simpleton", "The One-Handed Murderer", "The Two Hunchbacks", and more.
As for modern takes, William Steig's SHREK (the book, not the movie, although the movie might be interesting, too) is all about being misshapen.
Best,
Alice
Edited by: AliceCEB at: 1/26/06 9:34 am
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Heidi Anne Heiner
ezOP
(1/26/06 9:41 am)
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Re: misc
Archived threads mentioned above:
The hunchback, being crippled, redemption, not monsters
Why Dwarves?
Fairy tales regarding coping with illness...
Heidi
Edited by: Heidi Anne Heiner at: 1/26/06 9:42 am
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AliceCEB
Registered User
(1/26/06 9:54 am)
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Re: misc
Heidi, thank you so much for those links! Although I'm not writing a thesis, the threads were a fascinating read.
Best,
Alice
Edited by: AliceCEB at: 1/26/06 10:17 am
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Northerner4me
Registered User
(1/27/06 2:14 pm)
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Re: misc
"The Hunchback and the Swan" fits right into here. It's well-known in the UK from the telling of the Scottish Travellers. It's published in a couple of Duncan Williamson's books. I heard Taffy Thomas telling it at his storytelling festival in the Lake District last summer - he had been taught it by Duncan.
The story goes that there was a hunchback who lived in the woods. Not only was he a hunchback but he was mute too. To make a living he collected firewood and chopped it up to sell to the villages nearby. The villagers bought his firewood but they hated him for his appearance. However, the hunchback was not alone in his life because he had friends. Every day he would go down into the woods to feed the animals there and to go to the lake to see his favourite animal, a lady swan. But the swan would have none of him.
One day he didn't turn up in the woods to feed his friends. The animals started wondering where he was. When he still didn't turn up they went to his home to find out what had happened to him. And the hunchback was ill in bed. So the animals sent for the swan to see him. And the swan was no longer frightened of him. She went up to him and laid her long neck over his. And she plucked out a feather from her breast and pushed it into his chest. And the hunchback was transformed into a swan and followed her home to the lake.
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Elizabeth Leigh
Registered User
(1/28/06 7:21 pm)
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Re: Fairy Tales and disabilities
Don,
Thank you for the lead. If the text isn't translated into English (I don't read German), I can track down a German speaking cohort.
And you're right -- there is a lot of focus specifically on blindness as a disability. In both Greek and Judaic tradition, blindness was considered the worst disability one could have (or be smitten with by god/s with, as the case might be.) However, it was also regularly compensated for by another gift, such as the gift of prophecy.
Thanks again!
E.
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Elizabeth Leigh
Registered User
(1/28/06 7:26 pm)
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Re: disability
Kristi --
That is fascinating; yes, I vaguely remember the story of a humpbacked princess. This idea of "choosing between kindness and beauty" is intriguing. Do you think that it enforces or breaks the paradigm of beauty = kindness = beauty? What of the ugly princess that is kind but never "rewarded" with beauty -- she stays ugly, but kind? Only "Shrek" comes to mind -- and that is precisely the kind of breaking the rules that I wonder about. Does it exist elsewhere in stories?
Thanks for the input.
E.
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Elizabeth Leigh
Registered User
(1/28/06 7:28 pm)
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Re: Fairy Tales and disabilities
Veronica --Wow! Those are great examples. The only one I'm not familiar with is "The Three Spinners." Can you tell me who wrote it or where I could find it?
E.
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Elizabeth Leigh
Registered User
(1/28/06 7:29 pm)
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Re: Fairy Tales and disabilities
Helen,
Do you know who wrote "The Girl with the Silver Hands," or where I might find it? It sounds like a Hans C. Anderson type, but it could also be German. Can you advise?
Thanks!
E.
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Elizabeth Leigh
Registered User
(1/28/06 7:33 pm)
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Re: misc
Rosemary,
Can you tell me a bit more about "Cabinet de Fees"? That story is unknown to me. (I know that "fee" is "fairy" in French --?)
Elizabeth
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Elizabeth Leigh
Registered User
(1/28/06 7:35 pm)
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Re: misc
Alice,
Calvino is new to me, so thanks for the tip. Is it common to find in print in English? And yes, Shrek is very interesting because it breaks the rules, so to speak. Right now I'm focusing on printed stories, but I think Shrek is a dissertation in itself. ":)
E.
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Elizabeth Leigh
Registered User
(1/28/06 7:38 pm)
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Re: misc
This is new to me; I have not read it anywhere. May I ask wher e you read it or where I might find it? It's interesting, isn't it, how powerful an image swans are in fairy tales? My very favorite is "The Wild Swans" by Hans Christian Anderson.
E.
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Veronica Schanoes
Registered User
(1/28/06 9:11 pm)
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Re: misc
Here's "The Three Spinners"!
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cammykitty
Registered User
(1/29/06 9:59 am)
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Re:lusmore
There's also an Irish story of a hunchback. The story often goes by the character's name, Lusmore. Lusmore is a human humpback that is hardworking and good. In the versions I've seen, he is not shunned by other people and is respected for his hard work. He goes walking one day and stumbles upon some faeries that are singing "Monday, Tuesday" over and over. He sits still and listens for awhile, but feels something is missing in their song. After awhile, he adds "Wednesday," sung as well as he can. The faeries are delighted and change their song to include his addition. They also cure his humpback.
So, another humpback hears of this and comes to Lusmore to find out where the faeries are. Lusmore tells him. However this humpback is selfish and peevish. He finds the faeries, hears their song and croaks "Thursday" in the proper place. The faeries are not charmed at all, and they give him Lusmore's old hump in addition to his own, which is such a burden that he eventually dies from it.
I believe Yeats has this story in one of his collections. I've seen it other places too.
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darklingthrush
Registered User
(1/29/06 10:13 am)
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Cabinet des fees
I just picked up an interesting book on fairy tales at the university library the other day that ties in nicely with the Cabinet des Fees question. *The book is Twice Upon a Time: Women Writers and the History of the Fairy Tale by Elizabeth Wanning Harries.* One of the main premises of the book is to show that women have had a large hand in creating our fairy tale traditions. The argument centers on the point that most fairy tales we now know were collected and edited by men. She brings up the more forgotten Cabinet de Fees in France. She shows how they had a distinct flavor in creating their fairy tales.
The Cabinet des Fees was a hefty 41 volume collection of these fairy tales written by French women in their stylish salons (at least in my understanding/imagination) from the years 1785-1789.
The particular fairytale about the ugly princess is similar to one mentioned in the book in chapter one. The author is using it to illustrate the narrative differences between Perrault and his female contemporary Catherine Bernard. They tell the same tale in very different ways. Perrault's version begins with the birth of the hideous prince who is gifted by the fairies to be clever. Then it skips to the birth of twin princesses in a neighboring kindgom. One princess is beautiful but stupid, the other ugly and clever. The prince and one princess meet: he promises that he can make her clever and he does. In Perrault's version with the help of the fairies he does so, in Bernard's with an incantatory rhyme that she must repeat.
In both versions the princess meets another man who is both clever and handsome. In Perrault's version she forgets him as soon as the ugly prince comes back. The ugly prince lets her know that she has the power to make him attractive. And so she does, although Perrault slyly hints that it the blindness of love and not a true transformation. They marry and live happily ever after.
In Bernard's version the princess falls in love with the admirer. She is concerned that he will not love her if she becomes stupid again so she marries the ugly prince to remain clever. She moves to the ugly prince's underground kingdom with him but he does not become handsome, nor does she find happiness. Using her cleverness she sneaks off at night to visit her lover. The ugly prince finds out and transforms her lover into an ugly creature as well. Unable to tell them apart she now has two husbands in the underground world.
"She lived with two husbands instead of one, and never knew who to complain to, for fear of taking the object of her hatred for the object of her love. But perhaps she hardly lost anything at all: in the long run lovers always become husbands."
And since I'm being so tangential: A nice visual accompanient to any question about the Cabinet des fees is Joseph Cornell's window box art on the Conte des fees.
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Northerner4me
Registered User
(1/29/06 11:27 am)
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Re: Hunchback and the swan
webcat.lcls.org:90/kids/1...cloth&1,1,
It's in a Duncan Williamson book called "Fireside Tales of the Traveller Children". A lot of Duncan's books are out of print now but it is possible to get secondhand copies of most of them through Amazon; you may have to be willing to get it posted from Scotland though. Duncan is a Scottish Traveller, or at least he used to be; he is settled down in a house now. The Scottish Travellers are a bit like gypsies, though not quite the same. They led a nomadic life. I met Duncan last autumn up in Edinburgh at a festival and had the chance to tell him a couple of stories. Wonderful! He's one of Scotland greatest storytellers.
I think it's also in another, more recent book of Duncan's.
I'm planning on telling this story at a folk club fairly soon, and in fact did tell it to another storyteller on Saturday at a local storytelling event. I'm learning to be a storyteller and hope to go professional later this year.
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