Fiona is always on me about learning the old stories. If you want to read many variations of familiar and even unheard-of tales, go to D. L. Ashliman’s Electronic folk texts at http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/folktexts.html . 

This week I read about midwives, those who are called out to attend the birth of a fairy child. In each story, one of two things happen:

 1) the midwife is counseled to ask for the floor sweepings or is given a load of coal for her trouble. When she gets home, the payment is in gold. Sometimes she is wise enough to get it all home, and other times she has thrown most of it away only to discover her loss when she gets home.

2) the fairy mother has the midwife rub the child with an ointment as soon as it is cleaned up, and the midwife gets  a bit of the ointment in her eye. Then later when she is at the open market, she sees the fairies stealing from the booths. When she cries out and they realize she can see them, they blind her in that eye.

Now I don’t see any great psychological message in these stories, but maybe you do. It does remind me of the equivalent of the mafia don having someone rubbed out because he or she saw too much.

The fairies, however, only take the sight of the eye that can see them.  Apparently the ointment both makes them invisible and reveals them to those who have treated their eyes. I do wonder how many of us turn a blind eye to the magic in the world and just refuse to look at it, perhaps for fear of seeing how often we are victimized by thefts–as in the case of the fairies–or if there is other magic we just don’t look at.

Midwifery is probably the third-oldest profession, after prostitution and pimping. It is a field of much knowledge that is arcane to many of us who “don’t know nothing about birthin’ no babies” even if we have birthed one or two ourselves. The midwife does her best to stand between the delivering mother and death.  Something the “right to life” crowd does not understand is that birthing a baby is dangerous to the health of the mother. So is abortion, of course, which the “pro choice” crowd seems to ignore. Then there are the anti-vasectomists….all those poor little sperms!  Any way you look at it, sex is dangerous.  There’s a magic this culture does not want to consider very deeply.

Not so many women die in childbirth these days now that doctors have learned to wash their hands and keep things in the delivery room clean, but that was once not the case, unless a midwife was there to help.  Perhaps that is why there are so very many step-mothers in the fairy tales to start with.

Maybe the real story is infant mortality. My author lives in a state (SC) that has an infant mortality rate that rivals Latvia and Costa Rica, so I’ll think about that when helping my clients get together. There are lots of stories about evil mothers-in-law trying to do away with the new princess’s offspring.  The midwives are likely to know more than they are telling about that.

I know that at least one of my clients, Vivienne, will soon be in a family way if she has not accomplished that task already, and I wonder what sort of midwife she will need, given the nature of her siginificant other.  Daisy too, and perhaps Ashleigh, by the time the second part of my story comes out. 

 I wonder where one can get a handful of that invisibility ointment, and if one can manage not to see something that is supposed to be invisible?

Comments are welcome!

[Note: If you haven't read Terry Pratchett's THUD!, stop right now, click the link and order it. If you have, you will understand the enmity of the dwarves and trolls, both adepts of earth magic and endarkenment. ]

My friend Grizelda the Troll will have the information I need to help me understand the wishes of the seven dwarves who have built Tulip’s crystal casket while she is incapacitated by her loss of soul. I know that I will have to retrieve said soul, but I want to know as much about that as I can get before I go. Now if I can once more convince her not to have me for lunch, and soothe the ruts in our friendship, maybe she will tell me about them.  She might even let me make it up to her that I didn’t bring her the moose she asked for…not even a squirrel.

Grizelda is teaching me (the hard way) about friendship. She is my only friend here in Faery, other than Tulip, who is out o commission right now. I hope we don’t have to find her erstwhile “prince” to kiss her and bring her back, but that might be the easiest way.  Somehow things never go the easy way. But now my main issue is Grizelda, apologizing and making amends for bringing Queen Katrina, ex-fairy godmother into her home and breaking her teacup.

I suddenly find that I have granted wishes to seven dwarves, not only of the male persuasion, but inside the Twilight Lounge, a formerly wish-free zone for the recreation of adepts who need to take a few moments away from the desires of their clients.

An odd set of wishes it was too. Some desires not so unusual–pleasurable company, new gourmet experiences, gaming with dragons, a visit to the legendary City of Gold, but what the heck is the Canvas of the Revolving Rock, and why would a dwarf want to eat his lunch in the sunshine? I know, my job is to grant what they ask, not  to reason why they want such silly things.  But it gets me to wondering, and that usually spells trouble for me.

What I am wondering now is what the dwarves do in their secluded woodland cottages, especially after their housemaids are rescued by princes? Do they draw out engineering specs for Devices that support their handcraft skills? Are they earthy engineers? Do their designs have moving parts or do they stick to swords, knives, and jewelry? artifacts that are not in any sense mechanical.

Most of the Dwarven lore I can find has to do with gaming, and is a quality to be desired for dwarf players, but for what good is not discussed. That such Dwarves do not like vehicles or even horses is an interesting idea as well as their apparent distrust of machinery of any type. I would have thought that blacksmiths–or maybe tin-, silver- or goldsmiths would have been the first machinists, if not coopers.  Now that I think of it, household tools–spinning wheels, looms, butterchurns and others were made of wood with limited use of metal–wood being much easier to work if one has metal tools, saw, drill, chisel, plane, etc.  LAthes and such were used for wood long before metal. Newfangled technology indeed.

In fairy tales, Dwarves are often the benfactors of good hearted and thrifty peasants (aka, pixies, brownies, fairies, pucks, etc) but these are not the LOTR Dwarves such as Gimli son of Gloin nor as Pratchett’s  Glod of the Band with Rocks In.  They are more like Rowling’s house elves, stopping all magical work and disappearing when given clothing. Rowling’s characters do wear a rag; these house pucks didn’t.

Thus, I suppose I am on my own with these louts, and I shall leave them to their own outcomes. I am certainly interested in sharing the knowledge of those wiser than myself. If you are onesuch, leave me a comment.

What is it with old women in fairy tales?  

• Old Wives Tales nonsense, not scientific
• Evil Fairies, Hags, Witches, Step-Mothers and Mothers-in-law seeking to kill the young and beautiful princess
• Grandmothers, feeble and lonely

Makes you want just to go off in the woods and cackle.

Why did the fairy tale tellers, themselves mostly elder women, entertain the young’uns with such tales of woe about the aging until our own culture is terrified of age, of wrinkles, gray hair or any sort of implication of wisdom? How ironic, since we are likely to be the oldest generation in the history of the world if we don’t blow ourselves up or die in our own shit.

We, the Baby Boomers, didn’t grow up. Maybe it was the name–Baby Boomers. Maybe it was the sense we had of being special, of being the ones who could change the world, making our own playground. Mabye it was the effect of the youth-culture that alienated itself against the Evil Elders, and in effect, against the crones along with the cronies.

It’s literally true that we would not be here without Grandmothers–after all, our mothers and fathers had to be born. But more importantly, the Grandmother Hypothesis suggests that we may be human because we have grandmothers, women who are no longer bearing children, and can therefore help raise the children, both by looking after them and by feeding them while the mother is nursing her babies.  Another feature of elders, both grandmothers and grandfathers, is that elders remember the last time  something happened when it happened again. 

This question comes about because women are the only animal that experiences menopause, the period of life after fertility. Most primates live only long enough to see the adulthood of their last children (statisticallly speaking).  But since it takes us around 20 years to become adult, I guess the same patterns follows.  But large primates do not stay healthy at the end of their reproductive cycle; all their systems degrade at the same time, unlike women’s.

 So why then are elder women presented as powerful and evil or weak and doddering?

Hunter-Gatherer societies tend to be matrilocal, that is wives stay with their mothers family group, and husbands move in. While men hunt for meat and fish, most of the food is gathered by the women. In these societies, grandmothers are caring for their own daughters’ children, and the daughters care for each others’ children, keeping all the mitochondric genes in the same pools so to speak.

 When patrilocal systems began to take over, women moved into the household of the husband’s family, becoming the outsider.  In any family, there is a pecking order, and the youngest member or the newest new kid on the block, tends to get pecked the most until he or she establishes a place.  In cultures that allow polygamy, the youngest wife is generally in the lowest position in the household. 

If she were not favored by the elder wife, or the mother-in-law, her life might be miserable indeed.  From her point of view, the elder woman would be evil. Likewise, often the step-mother favors her own children over those of the widower she marries, and therefore puts them ahead of the step-daughter in hopes of their successful marriages.  It is only logical to prefer one’s own offspring, and some folk are not inclined to be charitable if resources seem few.

As for the eldest women, except through the men with whom they were associated in their patriarchal societies, these women had little power or legal rights, and must scheme and manipulate to maintain what power they could achieve through their husband’s (or father’s)  wealth, influence or social standing.  The more powerful a woman might become, through accident of birth, good fortune, or sheer machiavellian effort, the more frightening she might become: consider Elizabeth I.  It is difficult to move in a man’s world, constantly proving oneself. It is difficult for men, who routinely die years before women born in the same era in the same culture.

So the elder, powerful woman becomes a villianess: a witch. Her cruelty has become habitual, as she has traded her womanly virtues for power.  Our culture does not trust the powerful: power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  The primary use for this ill gotten power is to maintain the illusion of youth and beauty, the original womanly power. One might suspect jealousy, such as that of the Evil Queen toward Snow White, or of the Witch for the love found by Rapunzel.   But it might be simple fear of dying, something most of us share.

If benign,  she is a fairy godmother, sweet but a bit dowdy and absent minded–a magical grandmother.  Sometimes a fairy godmother will lay a trap for an unsuspecting traveler, asking for a bite of bread or a sip of water.  If the traveler shares, she gives a blessing, and if not, the traveler gets caught in the first trial along the way.  Baba Yaga is such a witch; if her questions are answered and her tasks fulfilled, she will give what is asked. If not, the quester is lunch.  Mother Holda rewards the industrious girl and punishes the lazy one.

So here’s my thought: we are terrified of old women because they know things we don’t, and we don’t know that those things are. We don’t like to be reminded that we will age and die, so we prefer that elder women find bridge parties and retirement homes out of site and out of mind.  I think we need to start listening to these grandmothers, and put a few more of them in positions of power. 

Kick out the cronies and  put in the crones. Let’s have some grandmotherly sense around here for a change.

Fairy Tales….what else can you call the media? There’s certainly enough sleight of hand, misdirection, smoke and mirrors to call it magic. What’s missing is the message, the meaning. Our folklore is the urban legend, the third hand tale of horror that reveals our fears.

What we call fairy tales are fragments of earlier myths, cautionary teaching narratives told to lighten the day’s work or make the dark seem farther away in the time before utlitities. As cities, the enlightenment and the middle class evolved in Europe, the folk tales were reworked as literary games for the soirees of the elite, and as morality stories for children, heavily overlaid with Christian motifs. They have lost their relevance to our manufactured environment, yet the themes still call to us, invoking our inner child and our dreams

Who does not want to be freed from unappreciated, mundane busy work, no matter how valuable, to be elevated to higher status (CInderella) or to be released from paralysis and somnolescence (Sleeping Beauty) or taken from ones own place to another of luxury to learn about love (Beauty and the Beast)? Who does not want to be rescued?

Who does not want to be the rescuer? The one who returns the stolen gifts (Jack and the Beanstalk), who outwits the giants (The Brave Little Taylor) , the one who marries the princess because he can find the magical helpers even though he is a miunderstood third son, thought to be an idiot?

With the open maw of media needing to be fed every minute, every hour, every day with something that will catch our attention long enough to be mesmerized for the advertisers, content producers rely on archetype, on formula, on the tried and true, in short, on fairy tales in their various period costumes.

What would happen if someone changed the stories? Let’s find out together.