Villains of fairy tales (part 5)

 Trolls

Quite a number of villains that appear in stories are trolls. They are often huge and compared with giants, although sometimes confused with ogres. Traditional legend has it that trolls turn to stone in sunlight, which means that they live only at night. It conflicts with a number of different tales featuring trolls, who seem active in the day. Unless the versions are from other sources and have different outlooks on trolls as a fairy tale creature. 

One of the most famous fairy tales with a troll is from the story "Three Billy Goats Gruff". This is a story from Peter Christen Asbjornsen and Jorgen Moe in their collections of Norwegian fairy tales. The story is about three brother goats who need to cross over a bridge with a troll living underneath it. The smallest is too frightened, so is the middle goat, but the biggest goat is unafraid. He slams his horns into the troll, making the bridge free to walk across. 

Trolls feature in Scandinavian folklore and myths. There seems to be the giant brutish troll with horns and tusks, who dwell in forests and mountains. Another kind of troll are smaller, dirtier and magical beings who live underground. However though, these different trolls tend to fear iron so much. People used to wear amulets and carry objects made from iron to protect against trolls. 

There are a number of other collected stories about trolls by Asbjornsen and Moe, including "Tatterhood," "Three Princesses of Whiteland," "Dapplegrim," "East of the Sun and West of the Moon," "Boots and the Troll", and "The Twelve Wild Ducks". Most popular of all is a hero character named Ash-lad who battles with trolls. 

Link: Ash-lad (or Askeladden) at Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Askeladden

More fairy tale villain posts to follow soon..

She Wolf Night

Villains of fairy tales (part 4)

 Rumpelstiltskin 

This is a strange character, a villain who was a friend. This is based on the story by the Brothers Grimm. The main character of the story is a young woman who is the daughter of a miller. The miller puts his daughter into trouble by bragging to the king a big lie that she can spin straw into gold. On that alone, the king has the miller's daughter arrested, put into a tower room as prisoner, and the room is filled with straw. There is one spinning wheel, and the king orders her to make straw into gold by morning otherwise she'll be executed. Here the king is the villain, as the poor girl had no part in her fathers' falsehood. She can't really spin straw into gold, so she'll face death. She breaks down in tears. This is when Rumpelstiltskin arrives as a saviour and helper, rescuing the woman from death. Rumpelstiltskin is an imp, a type of house wight and mischievous spirit. Then Rumpelstiltskin agrees to spin the straw into gold for her in exchange of the necklace that she wears. 

This happens really well, so that by morning, the king finds that all of the straw has been spun into gold. He spares the woman's life but he gives her a harder challenge, by taking her into a larger room piled in straw. On the second day, Rumpelstiltskin shows up and offers to help out. The woman agrees to pay for Rumpelstiltskin's help by giving him her ring. So the same thing happened, and the following day, the king is impressed. 

The king takes her into an even larger room with much more straw great heaps. He tells her that if she can turn all of that into gold, he will marry her but if she doesn't, he'll have her executed. This is not a charming king at all! Now when Rumpelstiltskin appears again on the third day, the miller's daughter has nothing else to pay him. So Rumpelstiltskin makes a deal, and that is she can pay up later on by handing over her first born child to him. She agrees to this! Well she doesn't want to die. After the straw turns into a mountain of gold in the large room, the king is happy and he marries the miller's daughter. Months later, soon after the baby is born, Rumpelstilskin appears to the new queen, and reminds her of the promise. Reluctant to give him her baby, she can't keep her promise but insists of giving him her wealth. Rumpelstiltskin doesn't want her money at all so he changes his plan. 

He tells her to think of what his name is, and he'll be ready in three days. If she hasn't got his name right, he'll take her baby. In some versions, the young queen follows the imp and catches him singing and dancing around a fire, where he says his own name. Later he meets the queen and she tells him what his name is. He became so angry that he vanished into the floor after stamping his foot hard.  

More villains to come soon...

She Wolf Night 

Villains of fairy tales (part 3)

 Bluebeard

This is a story by Charles Perrault and is one of the most darkest fairy tale stories made for children. To be brutally honest, there is nothing magical about Bluebeard as a narrative. It's a grim tale that exposes the horrific depths of humanity. I would call this a horror story. 

Bluebeard is a rich nobleman with a fabulous beard in the colour blue. So he's called Bluebeard. He's previously been married to a number of women but his wives disappeared. He visits a neighbour, according to many traditional versions of this story retold in books. The neighbour has daughters that Bluebeard is interested in marrying one of them. In other versions the neighbour has just the one daughter and two sons. All of the young women are scared of him but one day they have a feast and Bluebeard woos the neighbours' daughter. Overwhelmed by his gifts and promises of luxury, she accepts his hand in marriage. 

When they've married, Bluebeard gives his new bride a set of keys to explore the huge castle. He warns her to avoid going inside one door, which is on top of a tower. She likes to enter different rooms and open doors, finding strange new places and corridors, stairs and rooms. Who wouldn't want to explore a castle and it's maze of rooms? Then she has nowhere else to look. She wants to go up to the tower and enter the forbidden door that he told her not to enter. Tempted now, she opens the door and finds that its a chamber of dead women. Those are all of Bluebeards' former wives. In some versions, the one I read as a child, the illustration had the dead brides looking like statues. Other book versions are less subtle. There are some books showing blood, and bare feet dangling from the ceiling and a row of doll heads. 

When Bluebeard discovered that his new wife opened the forbidden chamber, he became so angry that he chased her around the castle with a sword. She was soon rescued by her brothers, who killed the angry Bluebeard. This is a story that is realistic because it's about a serial killer who hides his dead victims within his house. 

There will be more villains of fairy tales coming soon...

By

She Wolf Night team

Villains of fairy tales (part 2)

Wicked stepmother

The most clever and cruellest women of fairy tales are always stepmothers. This theme shows up in a lot of fairy tales, including the most popular stories. She is always on the scene early in the book, who wants nothing more than to get rid of the protagonist children, especially when they are beautiful maidens. The Stepmother villainess is driven by jealousy and/or greed. 

This character has appeared in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. She is a queen that is so vain that she consults a magic mirror. This is what she asks the magic mirror, and it's basically what I remember from reading books:

Mirror mirror on the wall, who is the fairest in all of the land? 

Sometimes different versions of the story have her saying: "Magic mirror on the wall, who is fairest of them all?". The magic mirror answers the queen and tells her that she is the fairest of the all. This happens for a long time, until the magic mirror tells the queen that she is no longer the fairest. Snow-White has grown up into a young woman and the magic mirror informs the queen that now Snow White is the fairest. All of this turns the queen into a killer. She sends for a huntsman to take Snow White into the forest, kill her and cut out her heart that must be put into a box. The hunter lets Snow White go and kills an animal, lying to the queen. The magic mirror is able to inform the queen that Sow White lives, and on three occasions, the queen puts on a disguise and visits Snow White who now lives with seven dwarves. The step mother attempts to kill Snow White more than once in this particular fairy story. All because she's fairer than her!

Another well known wicked stepmother is found in the story of Cinderella. This stepmother has two daughters of her own that are filled with unpleasant character traits who bully Cinderella. The stepmother in this version isn't a queen and doesn't try to kill Cinderella, but she keeps Cinderella as a house slave, preventing her from having nice clothes and stopping her from enjoying life. This stepmother is oppressive and cruel in a different way to Snow White's stepmother. 

A number of stepmothers in fairy tales are so cruel that they're unlikeable, and it feels almost satisfying when they get their just desserts. This isn't only confined to children's fairy tales. There are wicked stepmothers found in much older tales, and especially found in ancient Greek myths.

To read about the Wicked Stepmother in myths go to Prospect Magazine: Link   

More to come soon...

She Wolf Night 

Villains of fairy tales (part 1)

Big bad wolf

One of the most scariest villains of fairy tales is the Big Bad Wolf. Not only does this creature appear in a number of fairy tales, but in most of them the "big bad wolf" is always motivated by hunger, and this means EATING the main characters. This villain is a stalker and a predator. It isn't even friendly. The Big Bad Wolf is manipulative, in trying to get into the victim's house, and devouring them. Such a character isn't only confined to fairy tales, but is also in Aesop's Fables from ancient Greece. The wolf is a danger. 

The Big Bad Wolf has starred in stories including the most famous or infamous Little Red Riding Hood. The original story is much darker than modern sanitised versions. In the original, the wolf has killed the grandmother, and then he kills Red Riding Hood. This is a story written by the Brothers Grimm, although it's based on an earlier oral folk tale. Another of the Grimm's stories including this wolf is The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids, about seven little goats that are warned by their mother not to let the wolf inside. This is another tense story that results in the wolf tricking the young goats into believing it's safe to let him in, and he eats them all, apart from one, who manages to hide. Later the mother goat rescues her children from the wolf's belly. Another story is "Three Little Pigs" by Joseph Jacobs, when the Big Bad Wolf is determined to get at the three piglets safe inside their house. These stories are pretty scary for small children. 

For more stories and tales about the Big Bad Wolf, go and visit this Wikipedia page on the Big Bad Wolf and read about the different stories that this villain appears in. 

Link:

Big Bad Wolf Wikipedia

I shall post more villains in this new series soon...

She Wolf Night team

Warrior women of fairy tales (part 4)

HAPPY SAMHAIN 

This is the fourth and final post on the second fairy tales topic that I've been doing recently. I will post about villains in fairy tales after this.

Vasilisa

A Russian fairy tale character by Alexander Afanasyev. "Vasilisa" is also called Vasilisa the Brave. A child named Vasilisa was four years old when her mother turned very ill. She gave Vasilisa a wooden doll and said that she must give this dolls some food and drink whenever she wanted any. After the mother died, Vasilisa kept her doll and looked after it as though it were alive. Soon Vasilisa's father married a woman with two daughters. The step mother was cold and cruel to Vasilisa. When Vasilisa was growing, she was forced to do chores. She sought comfort with her doll. Vasilisa's father went away because he was a merchant. During his trip, his wife sent Vasilisa deep into the creepy woods to get light from Baba Yaga, the witch. Vsilisa took the doll with her on the journey. She saw three different horses with riders, until she came to the hut of the witch, with skulls around it. The witch made sure that Vasilisa work to get light or, if not, she'll die. Vasilisa had to do chores, cook and sort through grains, until she grew tired. The doll finished the tasks for her. The following morning, Vasilisa saw three riders pass the hut. She asked the witch about them, and Baba Yaga replied that they were called Day, Sun and Night. The witch gave Vasilisa a skull lantern filled with hot burning coals. When she got home, her step family were dead. She eventually became a weaver of silk and a married a nobleman.  

Beauty and the Beast

This favourite story is by Gabrielle-Suzanne Bardot de Villeneuve. Many different versions have been retold and the story changed over time. What we have now is the basic story of a young woman who has to meet a ferocious beast or her father would be in danger. She finds the Beast repulsive and frightening but she learns to adapt with his looks. She begins to warm to him and grow fond of him. When she returns home to her sickened father, she misses time, and panics when she thinks of how long she's been away from the Beast. She finds the Beast dying, and she's so upset that she cries. She learns that she's in love with him. The spell broke, and instead of a beast, is a handsome young man. This story isn't just a romance but it explains how a courageous woman learns to love a Beast. 

This is all of it now. There are plenty other warriors in fairy tales. Honorary warrior women of fairy tales also include these stories Goose Girl, Little Mermaid, the Twelve Dancing Princesses, Princess and the Goblin, Rapunzel, the Glass Coffin, Iron Stove and the brave Little Match Girl.

She Wolf Night Team