Of ferrets & fairy tales

Just a quick note to let everyone know that yes, I'm still here, and yes, we're still alive and working. One of the ferrets (I have pet ferrets and a budgie, or parakeet for my American friends) has been ill, so most of my time has been devoted to vet appointments an anxiously hanging over the cage to check that she's still breathing. Whatever she has--possibly an allergic reaction, swollen salivary glands, or even swollen lymph nodes--appears to be getting better, though she also has a heart murmur, and I feel the need to lift her up and put my ear to her chest several times a day...

More on The Dead Wife coming soon (today, with a little luck), and a bit about my latest endeavour, Les Bonnes Fees, a fairy tale magazine. Finally--I'm in the middle of picking fairy tales to cover for the next month (I'm slowly getting into the habit of being ahead of schedule), so if there's anything you want to see, now's the time to drop me a line. Fairy Tale Fridays have been a bit irregular lately, I know, but they are going to continue--perhaps not every week, but certainly as close to every week as I can manage!

Now, I have a ferret's heartbeat to go listen to...

Trickster Wives--Redux

Remember Clever Gretel? Tale Type 1741? When I was writing the commentary for Clever Gretel, I had a hard time finding more about the Trickster Wife. Well, not knowing things, and not finding things, bothers me, so I kept looking. I still haven't found the wealth of papers I've been wishing for, but I have discovered a lovely cache of Trickster Wife and Maid tales over at D.L. Ashliman's excellent Folktexts library. I'm reposting one here, and I recommend you go check out his site whenever you have a spare moment.

Note the mention of the Jinni, related to my middle name, Jinnath.

The Butcher's Tale

1001 Nights

There was once a man in Cairo whose wife was famous for beauty and piety. She had a pair of plump geese in the house, heavy with delicious fat, and -- never far away from the house -- a stalwart lover whom she loved to distraction. One day the lover saw the geese and felt his appetite tempted by them, so he asked if his mistress would not cook them for him.

"I will stuff them and cook them, and you shall have them all," she replied. "Light of my eyes, I promise that my bastard of a husband shall not have a taste of them."

When her husband returned at sunset, she began twitting him for his meanness, saying that he never asked a guest to dine with him.

"That is easily remedied," answered the man. "I will buy you a dish of lamb and rice tomorrow, and ask one of our intimate friends to eat it with us."

"Rather buy me some good stuffing," she said, "and kill the two geese in the morning before you go to work. I shall stuff and roast them to a turn, and your guest will be the more delighted."

Next morning the good man killed the geese and bought the ingredients of a savory stuffing. As he handed these things to his wife, he begged her to have all ready by noon, and then went upon his way.

The wife at once set to work: She plucked and drew the geese. She stuffed them with a marvel of minced meat, rice, pistachios, almonds, raisins, pine-seeds, and fine spices, and finally watched over them in the oven until they were cooked to a golden brown perfection. Then she sent the little negress for her lover, who speedily answered the summons. They clipped each other and went to it with mutual satisfaction until the morning grew late. At last the woman gave him the two delicious geese in their entirety, and sent him back to his own house. So much for him.

At noon the woman's husband returned home with a guest, but she told him that the geese would be enough for three or four and bade him hasten to invite more of his friends. As soon as he had gone forth in all docility to do her bidding, she went up to the guest and said to him in a voice trembling with emotion, "Alas, alas, why do you not escape while there is yet time?"

"What is the matter, oh wife of my friend?" asked the man, and she answered, "As Allah lives, my husband is offended with you and has laid a snare for you to cut off your testicles and to reduce you to the sorry condition of a eunuch. He has even now gone out to collect friends to hold you down during the operation."

Without waiting to hear more, the guest jumped to his feet and, leaping into the road, ran away as if he were pursued by a Jinni.

At that moment the husband returned with two more friends, and the girl met him with a bellow, "Police, police! The geese, the geese! Your guest has stolen them, bones and grease! He climbed out by the window piece! Run after him, all of you, quickly, please, for he has stolen the geese!"

The husband rushed into the street, and beheld his late guest speeding away, with his tunic held between his teeth. "Come back, come back, in Allah's name!" he cried. "I will not take the two. You can keep one of them!"

But as he ran, the fugitive shouted over his shoulder, "Old fool, you will have to get young legs, before you catch me and take my eggs!"

---

• Source: The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, rendered into English from the literal and complete French translation of Dr. J. C. Mardrus by Powys Mathers (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1964), v. 4, pp. 98-99. No copyright notice.

Trickster Wives at D.L. Ashliman's Folktexts Library

Commentary: The Dead Wife, Part I

In The Yellow Fairy Book, Andrew Lang notes that The Dead Wife is an Iroquois tale; he gives no further detail. At the time of publication, the Iroquois nation most likely consisted of six tribes, also known as the Six Nations: Cayuga; Mohawk; Oneida; Onondaga; Seneca; and Tuscarora peoples. Each of these groups has its own mythology and folklore in relation to the dead and spiritual beliefs vary—as such, it is difficult to quantify and discuss exactitudes in the context of The Dead Wife. It's also important to note that the current beliefs of the groups within the Iroquois nation may be different to those of the past, and that the European and American understanding of both present and past sets of beliefs may be incomplete.

I've spent the past few days paging about JSTOR and the internet in general looking for information about the role of women and the wife in the above-mentioned Native American groups. I've also had a dig about for information about tale types concerning the dead. Scholarship relevant to this tale type has proven to be scarce, so this week's commentary will have more of an opinion-feel than usual. And now, on to Orpheus…

The Myth of Orpheus and Eurydice

The theme of the hero following a loved one to the underworld appears to be quite common in North American myth collections. Sometimes the tales include very specific details—like that of Orpheus and Eurydice, while others simply follow a "tale template," with a framework comprised of the following elements [Gayton, 1935]:

1. Following of the deceased
2. Hero has or receives supernatural aid
3. Discouragement from deceased
4. Westerly direction of journey
5. Encountering of obstacles
a) Water
b) Other physical obstacles
c) Obstacles of temptation
6. Overcoming of obstacles
a) Of water, by unstable bridge or broken canoe
b) Other obstacles, by scarcely adequate means
7. Presence of a guardian or chief of afterworld
8. Assistance given by this person
9. Attributes of afterworld
a) Place of happiness, especially dancing
b) Active at night, quiescent during day
c) Other reversals
d) Inexhaustible food
e) Objection to odor of living, person
10. Recovery of deceased contingent upon
a) Maintaining continence
b) Not opening soul-container
c) Other tabus, as, not looking, etc.
11. Conditions not fulfilled, or (rare) conditions fulfilled
12. Performance of a ceremony on return
13. Explanatory element
a) Nature of afterworld
b) How nature of afterworld is known
c) Why death is permanent, or why the dead cannot revisit
this world
Excerpted from The Orpheus Myth in North America, pp.263-264[1]

It is important to note that although a tale need not have all of the above elements to fit the Orpheus tale type, most tales contain what Gaytor calls a "major number" and that, while there are also North American

…stories of revivals, such as that of a dead girl in her burial tipi, so popular in the Plains, or of the revival of the first victim of death which occurs in Origin of Death stories general in western North America. But these are not related to nor to be confused with the Orpheus tale, for no pursuit to the afterworld and experience there are involved. Neither are stories of visitations from ghosts of concern here. Tales of a wife stolen and pursued to some exotic place such as the sky-world are unrelated to the Orpheus story[2].

So, where does The Dead Wife fit in? Two elements within our tale template fit the story—

2. Hero has or receives supernatural aid---Then she [the wife] spoke to him and said, "The Great Spirit felt sorry for you, because you would not be comforted, so he let me come back to you…

5.c) Obstacles of temptation---but you must not stretch out your hand to touch me till we have seen the rest of our people. If you do, I shall die."

Gaytor makes the point, however, that to belong in the Orpheus type, a tale must have a major number of the listed elements; it is reasonable to assume that a major number is greater than two. The other jarring inconsistency with placing The Dead Wife within the Orpheus tale type is that no visit to the afterworld or experience therein is present—in fact, all the interactions within the tale take place within the real world, and the only magical element is the wife's return. Moreover, the tale is not about a visitation, for the wife has returned, and is in fact, represented as flesh and blood. If she truly is flesh and blood, we cannot be certain, for she is replaced by the doll the very moment she is touched.

If The Dead Wife is not included within the Orpheus tale type, where does it belong? Well, I'm still looking; I'll post when I find out.

Iroquois Tales—What We Do Know

At first, I titled this section "What We Don't Know". Then I realised that not only is there too much that I don't know, but I'm not even sure what it is I don't know. So what we do we know?

In her paper, Psychological Types from Iroquois Folktales, Martha Champion Randle notes that the main body of Iroquois tales are intended for adults and that, though the stories are quite magical in content, they are also well-tied to the real world [Champion Randle, 1952]. The paper continues on, discussing tale types and characters, including notes on the role of women within the Iroquois. Tomorrow we'll focus on this, for although it is the male who is the "hero" or protagonist of our story, it's only in relation to his wife that he is important.

EEGs

I have epilepsy.

Grand mal epilepsy, to be exact.

I can't remember ever not having it. I can't remember much at all, actually. Sure, I can tell you about my seizures. I can tell you that my first one was in Coffs Harbour, that (to my mother's chagrin) I was walking along a wall, that I fell on the pavement instead of the grass (I'm skilled that way). I can tell you that during my most recent seizure I took out two chairs and that my head bounced about the floor a bit. But I can't remember any of it.

Seizures are like half-waking dreams. The details are hazy; I know I was there; I know other people were there; and I have a vague sense of foreboding. Later, I sketch more in, collecting data from my husband, my mother, my father, my teachers—the people holding my hand and standing over me when I wake. Then I chalk it up to fatigue or heat or stress, sleep awhile, and go on my merry way.

Until now.

Yesterday, I had an EEG. Usually, I hate EEGs—they involve pasting electrodes on to my head with horrid grey goop, flashing lights which make me feel ill, deep breathing which makes me dizzy, and an evaluation with regard to the effectiveness of my current medication. Not fun. I slept poorly the night before, too; when I was younger, the neurologist would have my parents keep me up all night so I would be sure to sleep at sometime during the EEG—this is an important part of the monitoring and evaluating process. Now, even as an adult, I find that I stay awake out of habit and association. (Of course, nowadays I drink a boatload of coffee on the mornings I'm tired, so the effect probably balances out.)

This particular EEG was no different. Tuesday night I washed my hair. Wednesday morning, 7am we went for a walk rather than a run (to keep hair clean and sweat-free). 8:30 am I started in on the coffee. 10 am the technologist, a lovely girl named Marri, began marking my head and pasting on electrodes. Somewhat frustratingly, the preparation for the EEG is the longest part—it takes around forty minutes, while the EEG itself is done in a little under thirty (it often seems less than this, too, because I sleep in parts). On the upside, a nice technologist is a wonderful thing, and it can be fun to chat.

Once the electrodes are on, Marri gets right down to it…

"Close your eyes."

Long pause. My left ear begins to itch.

"Open your eyes."

Short pause.

"Close your eyes."

Longer pause.

"Open your eyes."

Short Pause.

"Okay, we're going to start the deep breathing exercise now. Deep breaths. Faster. Little faster. Faster…" It's at this point that I started to curse silently. Quick deep breaths make me think of drowning—water and drowning are my great, irrational fear.

"Just another couple of minutes," Marri says then. My mental cursing flows into images of the sea; I start to count. I have a habit of counting things—steps, ferrets, number of dishes washed—when I'm worried.

"Okay, just one more minute now…" How many minutes does this go on? I've had many EEGs and they're all the same, but I'm not good with time. The minute drags on. Has it been two? Three?

"All right, relax." Hands touch my head. An electrode's fallen off; I take the opportunity to scratch my left ear. There's some more pasting, some more smushing, and then it's back to the grind. I close my eyes. Marri drags the lightbox over.

Click. Click. Click. Click. The lights flash slowly.

Click-click. Click-click. Click-click. Click-click. The lights flash a little faster, double the frequency. My mind wanders to arithmetic and geometric progressions then, oddly, to Daleks and Doctor Who. How many dots are there on a Dalek, anyway? The clicking continues, slowly building speed.

Click-click-click. Click-click-click. Clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclick. I get up to twenty-five, then lose count. On the next series I get to thirty-five. Do Daleks click when the crew moves them around the set? How many times per metre?

Clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclick! Could Jackie Chan take on a Dalek?

Clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclick!
Can the new Daleks manage ladders? He could have an advantage there.

"Open your eyes."

We're done. I open my eyes. The Daleks float away.

Not long after, I was given the okay by my neurologist (a wonderful doctor and wonderful person), along with some news—it's safe for me to go off my medication.

Now, I've been seizure free for just over two years now, and we'd talked about the idea of my going without medication before—in a neurologist approved way rather than a Peta-can'-stay-awake-and-is-tired-of-side-effects way—but I hadn't really believed it possible. I've had epilepsy for twenty-four years. I've been taking medication in some form or another for twenty-four years. And I expected it to stay that way. Reeling slightly, I pulled on my hat, and went home to wash my hair.

This morning I slept late, then went for a walk. I didn't take any medication and I felt no guilt at all. My epilepsy isn't gone—as a friend of mine puts it, it's quiescent at the present time. And nothing has changed, really—I still get migraines, and I still have to medications for those. I still don't drink, don't smoke, and don't swim. But I feel good. Really, really good.

Want to know more about epilepsy? Check out the Epilepsy Foundation, or my upcoming post, creatively titled Epilepsy.

Sea-change

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.

Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell

Burthen Ding-dong Hark! now I hear them,--Ding-dong, bell.

--William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act 1, Scene 2.

Note: thanks to my friend, himmapaan, for noting that "Burthen ding-dong" was incorrectly included in the first posting of this text.

Fairy Tale Fridays: The Dead Wife

The Yellow Fairy Book, edited by Andrew Lang

Once upon a time, there were a man and his wife who lived in the forest, very far from the rest of the tribe. Very often they spent the day in hunting together, but after a while the wife found that she had so many things to do that she was obliged to stay at home; so he went alone, though he found that when his wife was not with him he never had any luck. One day, when he was away hunting, the woman fell ill, and in a few days she dies.

Her husband grieved bitterly, and buried her in the house where she had passed her life; but as the time went on, he felt so lonely without her that he made a wooden doll about her height and size for company, and dressed it in her clothes. He seated it in front of the fire, and tried to think he had his wife back again. The next day he went out to hunt, and when he came home the first thing he did was to up to the doll and brush off some of the ashes from the fire which had fallen on its face. But he was very busy now, for he had to cook and mend, besides getting food, for there was no one to help him. And so a whole year passed away.

At the end of that time, he came back from hunting one night and found some wood by the door and a fire within. The next night there was not only wood and fire, but a piece of meat in the kettle, nearly ready for eating. He searched all about to see who could have done this, but could find no one. The next time he went to hunt, he took care not to go far, and came in quite early. And while he was still a long way off, he saw a woman going into the house with wood on her shoulders. So he made haste, and opened the door quickly, and instead of the wooden doll, his wife sat in front of the fire.

Then she spoke to him and said, "The Great Spirit felt sorry for you, because you would not be comforted, so he let me come back to you, but you must not stretch out your hand to touch me till we have seen the rest of our people. If you do, I shall die."

So the man listened to her words, and the woman dwelt there, and brought the wood and kindled the fire, till one day her husband said to her, "It is now two years since you died. Let us now go back to our tribe. Then you will be well, and I can touch you."

And with that he prepared food for the hourney, a string of deer's flesh for her to carry, and one for himself; and so they started. Now the camp of the tribe was distant six days' journey, and when there were yet one day's journey off it began to snow, and they felt weary and longed for rest. Therefore they made a fire, cooked some food, and spread out their skins to sleep.

Then the heart of the man was greatly stirred, and he stretched out his arms to his wife, but she waved her hands and said, "We have see no one yet; it is too soon."

But he would not listen to her, and caught her to him, and behold! He was clasping the wooden doll. And when he saw it was the doll, he pushed it from him in his misery and rushed away to the camp, and told them all his story. And some doubted, and they went back with him to the place where he and his wife had stopped to rest, and there lay the doll, and besides, they saw in the snow the steps of two people, and the foot of one was like the foot of the doll. And the man grieved sore all the days of his life.

(An Iroquois tale)

Excerpted from The Yellow Fairy Book, by Andrew Lang.

Commentary: The Happy Prince

I have regular internet access again. This makes me happy. I'm sorry for the delay in posting; moreover, if you're expecting an email or other response from me, I'm on it.

Now that my fairy tale birthday celebration is over, I'm returning to regular fairy tales and commentaries. I hadn't thought to write much up for The Happy Prince—usually I do a bit of reading, then follow my interest. This past week I've read a fair bit about The Happy Prince, but nothing has truly fascinated me (rare, as I'm quite easily amused—did you know that a single shaft of light holds well over one hundred dust motes per centimetre?).

In an act of surprising foresight, I did a little research before I set up this page. I considered my options: fairy tale analyses; fairy tale studies; fairy tale commentaries; and fairy tale scholarship, to name a few. Then I paged through my OED to get a feel for the idea behind each word. I eventually settled—I put a couple of days thought into this, yes—on commentaries because, as the OED puts it, a commentary

is the expression of opinions or explanations about an event or situation
• opinion, either written or spoken.
• a descriptive spoken account (esp. on radio or television) of an event or a performance as it happens.
• a set of explanatory or critical notes on a text [1].

This rang true for me, most particularly this week, when I could not think of anything to write, yet had many ever-so-slightly niggling thoughts I could not put names to. So I sat down at my keyboard and let my fingers wander, for it's in writing that I do my best thinking. And along came a meandering stream of commentary: the expression of opinions, written down.

Most people know Oscar Wilde as a comic and satirist—recent years have seen both An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest turned into feature films. His work as a fairy tale writer, though somewhat known, is largely forgotten in the present day. Yet, Wilde's gift for making us think is at its best used in his fairy tales, and of all his works, it is these that are perhaps the most lasting.

Over the years, many scholars have criticised Wilde's fairy tales, calling them overly sophisticated, while others have simply dismissed them. Even the BBC biography[2] calls them "fairy stories", suggesting that the works are rather more trite than meaningful. (This has long been the bane of the fairy tale writer.) Either way, it is easy to suppose that Wilde's fairy tales make us uncomfortable in some way or another—and I cannot help but wonder why.

Like many of Wilde's tales, The Happy Prince contains certain themes, most notably selflessness, selfishness, indifference, love for one's fellows, and vanity; his most popular plays, too, work upon some of these themes. But while the comic plays (and I say comic, for there are other works, like Salome, of a serious nature) poke and prod at both human folly and virtue, they make us laugh while reminding us, in the end, of our better nature. His fairy tales, on the other hand, emphasise our flaws and follies in such a way that even the presence of, or growth of, virtue cannot compensate for what I think is best called "moral discomfort".

The Happy Prince depicts abject poverty to such an extent that, for some, it may recall the mid-nineteenth century Great Potato Famine—remember that Wilde, although born to well-to-do parents after the famine lived in an Ireland still greatly affected by it. The Nightingale shows us vanity and sacrifice in turn—moreover, a sacrifice for the love of love and beauty, a theme particularly fitting for Wilde as an Aestheticism[2] spokesperson. The Selfish Giant visits ideas of loneliness, love, kindness, and redemption, going so far as to suggest the presence of Christ in the giant's garden. The Birthday of the Infanta (to me Wilde's most saddening tale) shows us joy and kindness, but pity, and cruelty also. Each fairy tale—true to type, really—paints a picture of humanity both good and bad. And each of these ideas, in and of themselves, are not unusual to the modern reader; they are on crime shows, reality shows, medical dramas. They are in movies and plays. They are in books meant for adult and child alike. The news covers poverty, famine, and war at home and half a world away. We are inured to the worst that is in Wilde's fairy tales already—and yet there is something so poignant in his depictions that we exclaim over them while letting the news, worse for its reality, flow overhead and away.

In the beginning of The Happy Prince, we see the Swallow's shallow flirtation with the Reed and his wonder at the Happy Prince being gilded with gold rather than solid gold; in the middle, we see the Swallow help the Happy Prince in his good works; at the end we see his dedication to the living statue, and his willngness to give all simply to remain with him. The beginning is simple. The middle is simple. The end is challenging. Stories invite us to be at our best. Stories remind us when we are not.

Footnotes:

[1] Oxford English Dictionary, Electronic Version 1.0.2, 2005.
[2] "Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900)" BBC Historic Figures. BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/wilde_oscar.shtml
[3] a popular movement in 1880s England devoted to "art for art's sake". Max Beerbohm and Aubrey Beardsley are other figures noted for supporting it.