Sharon Blackie is the author of Ripening: Why Women Need Fairy Tales Now, out June 2nd from September Publishing. Below, she discusses three pieces of fairy-tale advice that are relevant to modern life.
In Ripening, I argue that fairytales show us how to survive—maybe even thrive—in challenging times, because every fairytale heroine’s journey begins with catastrophe snapping at her heels. Encoded within these beautiful old stories is information about the behaviours and qualities of character that help us find a way through.Here are three fairytales which offer such advice.
Trust your instincts and you won’t be eaten
In the Slavic fairytale “Vasilisa the Beautiful,” our heroine, given the opportunity to question the fearsome witch Baba Yaga, instinctively intuits that she shouldn’t ask about the three pairs of disembodied hands which appear in Baba’s kitchen each night to take away the fruits of Vasilisa’s work. Her intuition saves her, as Baba Yaga confirms: “It’s a very good thing that you didn’t ask about things here inside my house. I don’t like people to tell stories about me, and I eat up those who are too curious.”
Be generous, even when you’re lost and afraid
The heroine of the German story “Frau Holle,” lost and alone in an otherworld at the bottom of a well, responds to the pleas of some burning loaves to remove them from their oven, then cheerfully stops to pick the heavy crop of apples weighing an old tree down. So the magical old Frau Holle rewards her with a shower of gold—while rewarding her sister, who refuses to help in any way, with a shower of tar.
Show hospitality to unexpected guests
The mother in the Grimms’ story “Snow-White and Rose-Red” bravely welcomes in an enormous, exhausted bear who shows up at her cottage door one night. She feeds the fearsome bear and lets him warm himself by the fire, so teaching her daughters both that hospitality is a sacred duty, and that the wild Other isn’t always to be feared. (The bear, inevitably, turns out to be a handsome prince who marries one sister, then arranges for his brother to marry the other.)