The Ugly Duckling

The Ugly Duckling
A Tale by Hans Christian Andersen
Read from Booss' Scandinavian Folk & Fairy Tales

I remember hearing this story read by my mother from another collection of tales by Hans Christian Andersen, and I don't remember the details of the story being exactly as they are told in Booss' edition.  Two things that struck me in this version are: 1) Even the mother duck eventually was unkind to the ugly duckling and "said she wished he had never been born"!  Either that detail was not written in my childhood version of this tale, or my mother edited it out!  2) The ugly-duckling-turned-swan doesn't return to his duck family.  My recollection of the ending of this tale is that the swan either returns to his first home or his first family finds him swimming and they all recognize what a beautiful creature he is.

These differences make for a very different experience of the story and whatever "moral" it might be teaching.  My memory of the version my mother read to me was that all the characters in the story learn the truth about the swan and are transformed somehow by this revelation.  It's a very happy ending because, not only does the swan discover who he is and that he belongs somewhere, but the others who were unkind to him recognize his dignity as well.  For my child's heart, this piece of justice (that others' who once denied the swan's value, now recognize it) was very important.  I think it was important to my mother as well.  The memory (and value) deeply ingrained in my heart is that my mother used this tale to teach respecting and valuing everyone.

I'm not sure I would have internalized so powerfully the meaning my mother conveyed to me if the story had been told as I read it here.  Booss' version seems to mean: go out into the world to seek and find your identity and with whom you can experience belonging, and it might mean leaving your family, end-of-story! 

I must say, I like my mother's version better!  However, the telling of the tale here might be a truer expression of what most people experience!

Northern Tales Anthology

Scandinavian Folk & Fairy Tales, Edited by Claire Booss, published by Avenel Books of Crown Publishers, Inc., New York, 1984; 688 pages
Here's a picture I took of the book jacket:

This is my source for the folk and fairy tales I'll be reading next.  The book is organized by Country, with various other subsets.  I'll be starting with the tales by Hans Christian Andersen just because they are the ones with which I am most familiar.  After that I'll read other (older) tales from Denmark.  And then I'll probably read the tales in the order in which they are presented in the book.

From the back of the jacket:

The back flap credits the jacket illustrations to Swedish artist John Bauer, courtesy of the Nationalmuseum of Stockholm.

Retiring blog

I've decided to (at least for now) "retire" this blog.  It's not a high-enough priority right now.

Dear Baba,
'Taking a break from the Estes, reading Grimm and Anderson instead.
Love,
Lucy

Dear Baba Yaga,

Somehow these tales that are unfamiliar to me just don't prompt much insight or even interest w/in me.  It makes me wonder if anyone has ever done a study to examine how much our perceived meaning(s) of the myths is influenced by our experience of and relationship to those who first told us the myth, and the micro-culture in which the myth-meaning was lived or refuted.

I know for myself that my memories of fairy tales is always linked to Mom reading them to me at bedtime.  And I know a few American folk-tales that I associate w/ my Dad because he told them to us while traveling in the car on family vacations.

I'm not sure how a person would make an objective study of this.  But I think I want to look at tales from this angle for myself.

Contrasted to this is my resonance w/ The Fox Woman by Kij Johnson.  I don't recall ever having heard a story anything like this.  And yet, it reverberates w/in me like an ancient truth.

I've ordered two books w/ fairy-tales and folk-tales that I believe will be more familiar to me.  I'm going to see if I can find threads of meaning that are akin to what Estes talks about in WWRWW.

Love,
Lucy

Vasilisa Lists

Characters that figure in the Vasilisa story:
Young Mother (dies at beginning of story)
Vasilisa (main character)
Husband of Young Mother (Father of Vasilisa)
God
Doll (gift, promise, blessing from Young Mother to Vasilisa)
Step-Mother
Step-Mother's Daughters (2)
Baba Yaga
Baba Yaga's Men (in white/ red/ black) on Horses (of white/ red/ black)
Baba Yaga's Hands


Scenes/Places in the Vasilisa story:
Dying Young Mother's bedroom
Hearth
The Wood/ Forest
Baba Yaga's Hut
Baba Yaga's Mortar-shaped Flying Cauldron
Home


Events in Vasilisa story:
Bequeathing of Doll from Young Mother to Vasilisa
Death of Young Mother and subsequent Grieving
Arrival of New Family
Sending out of Vasilisa to Forest
Searching for Baba Yaga
Tasks and Tests assigned to Vasilisa by Baba Yaga
     (various house-keeping tasks, plus sorting good/bad corn, and sifting poppy seeds from dirt)
Completion of Tasks and Passing of Tests by Vasilisa w/ help from Doll
Carrying Fire
Returning Home
Fire Burns up Step-Mother and Sisters


Estes' List of Tasks:
"Allowing the Too-Good Mother to Die"
"Exposing the Crude Shadow"
"Navigating in the Dark"
"Facing the Wild Hag"
"Serving the Non-Rational"
"Separating This from That"
"Asking the Mysteries"
"Standing on All Fours"
"Recasting the Shadow"

I must admit: I'm not entirely following Estes' interpretations.  I'm not convinced her assigning some things as all w/in one psyche and other things as externals is consistent or adequately explained.  I'll have to come back to this after I've read more.  To me, everything in the story should be understood as an aspect of the young psyche.  While it may be true that we find and act out externally dramas that we are sorting internally, the interpreter of the myth should be able to interpret the myth entirely in terms of the internal workings of the psyche.  And maybe Estes' is doing this and I'm just not understanding her writing.  Regardless of Estes' interpretation, I'm interested in exploring my own!

Re Vasilisa Myth and the various challenges portrayed:

First of all, this story reminds me of Cinderella.  I imagine Cinderella is a more recent variation on Vasalisa.  Or maybe the story of Cinderella is the older story?  Either way, there is at least one significant difference: Cinderella's Fairy Godmother has a very different character compared to Vasilisa's Baba Yaga!  The version of Cinderella I grew up w/ portrayed the Fairy Godmother as maybe old enough to be Cinderella's mother or a very young grandmother, but certainly not ancient, and she was very very beautiful and attractive.  In every version of Vasilisa, Baba Yaga is portrayed as an ugly, frightening, old hag!

While both have special powers, Fairy Godmother is portrayed as all-good, but Baba Yaga is a terrible mixture of good and bad, helpful and dangerous.  It's true that Fairy Godmother gives Cinderella a warning about negative consequences if she doesn't follow her instructions, which is a prominent facet of Vasilisa and Baba Yaga's relationship, but Fairy Godmother OFFERS Cinderella help and advice and gives it w/ encouragement toward success, whereas Vasilisa must seek out Baba Yaga, and Baba Yaga's instructions and warnings bear the character of tests w/ Baba Yaga seeming to cheer for Vasilisa's failure!

In both stories, the young woman has lost her mother to death.  She no longer has her mother's companionship, protection, guidance, and wisdom.  In both stories, the step-mother is unkind, offering none of a mother's blessings.  Cinderella and Vasilisa, once cherished children, become servants or slaves.  This is the opposite progression of relationship as compared to redemption stories from Jewish and Christian Scriptures.  In redemption stories, the main characters progress from a position of alienation from God toward favor w/ God, or from actual slavery to freedom, or from outcast of society to belonging in a holy family.  (Consider the stories of Ruth, Hagar, and Mary Magdalene.)

...to be continued in my next post...