Fairytale Rp - Tumblr Posts
Are our own parents any different than the step mothers in the fairy tales?
I was watching a documentary series on Netflix called ‘Myths and Monsters’. At a point where they were discussing about ‘The Grimm's Fairy Tales’, which is a book of collected folktales of Germany by the Grimm brothers, they said that the brothers had actually modified the stories to make it acceptable to the children. And one such particular change was that in the story of ‘Hansel and Gretel’. Though worldwide we all know that the siblings were a victim to the cruelty of their stepmother, the original story tells otherwise. They were rather abandoned in the woods by their poverty driven parents.
Now the questions come: Why did the brothers exchanged the real parents with a stepmother? If it was so unrealistic or unacceptable for the real parents to have abandoned their own children, why would the original story has them in the first place?
The series also gave an idea to that. Basically the myths we know have some really deep morals into it. They usually portray the inner dark nature of humans through the images of monsters. So, it is not unlikely to put the real parents’ images as some cruel versions of humans. Because we humans, are capable of such cruelty. It is embedded inside all of us.
But since the civilizations started, we are trying our best to tame such nature within ourselves. As if the wilderness inside us is considered a taboo in the modern world we live in. So, we made another character to drive away this from ourselves. In this case, it is the stepmother. The stepmother has become a disguise for all the dark parts of a parent. Hence, we see this character in almost every fairy tales in the place of a cruel guardian.
Story Time
Once upon a time, in the ancient Welsh Kingdom of Gwynedd, Prince Llywelyn returned home from a fruitless winter hunt. He had had no luck on his expedition as his best and beloved hound, Gelert, was missing from the pack this day.
Llywelyn was struck by horror upon entering the room of his infant son, for the room was in disarray, the cot was overturned and Gelert, drenched in blood and gore, stood sentinel, his eyes brightening at his master's return.
Enraged by grief for his baby boy, Llywelyn drew his sword and struck Gelert down in a single stroke, only hearing the sound of his son, very much alive, begin to cry. Llywelyn pulled aside the cot and mess of blankets to find his boy, unharmed and laying next to the bloody body of a great wolf.
Upon realising his mistake, Llywelyn's heart was filled with so much sorrow and guilt that he never smiled again as the dying yelp of his brave and loyal dog haunted him. He buried Gelert in a fine cemetery in a town now called Beddgelert, in English, "Gelert's Grave" where a monument to the dog stands today.
As a Welsh man this is a story I've known from childhood, but today I learned of another brave dog of legend which is uncannily similar. In France, a Knight returned home to find his blood stained dog in his infant's nursery. The Knight struck the dog down only to discover his child lived and the body of a snake in his crib. The dog, Guinfort, became Saint Guinfort, the only dog to achieve sainthood, though not recognised by the Catholic Church.
The similarity of these two tales is unsurprising as they are both a variation of the Faithful Hound motif, that actually originated in India in the form of The Brahmin and the Mongoose. Though undoubtedly myths, there is the very true story of Jock of the Bushveld, which is both a book and a film so I won't spoil it.
Enchanted forest
Enchanted forest
