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Michelle says: “I’ve spent decades telling fairy tales and exploring them as an imaginal space that invites our participation. Over the years I’ve recognized that in spite of patriarchy and religion, the fairy tales hold feminine values that are urgently needed in our world. From the beginning I was pierced by the stories and wanted to know what we could discover through imaginative participation with them. With mentorship from other storytellers, archetypal psychology, and personal telling and writing experience, I’ve learned how to guide people into the stories so that they can have their own epiphanies. I’ve worked with cancer survivors, people with mental health issues, and others going through radical career changes, and they’ve all shown me how working with myths can change the myths that hurt us. I’ve also lived with chronic pain, and through my exploration of the Rapunzel story, my relationship with suffering was profoundly changed, which is the topic of my memoir, The Tower Princess: A fairy tale lived.”

For more information about Michelle and her work, head to:

https://michelletocher.com/

https://wonderlit.com/

Her previous books for adults include Dying in the first person, Rupetta, The true green of hope, and The bone flute. She has also written some books for children, including Winter’s tale and What the sky knows. Her works have won, and been shortlisted for, a number of Australian and international literary awards, including the Queensland Premier’s Literary Award, The Children’s Book Council of Australia Awards, the Aurealis Awards, the Norma K Hemming Award, the Commonwealth Writers Prize (Best First Book/Asia Pacific Region), and the IAFA Crawford Memorial Award. Rupetta was the first work by an Australian author to win the Otherwise Award (formerly the Tiptree Award).

Along with the amazing and enchanted Carina Bissett, she is the Managing Editor of The Orange & Bee: an online magazine that publishes contemporary fairy-tale inspired or inflected fiction, poetry, and non-fiction.

You can find her online via her Substack, Bird + Bone.

You can find her or at https://julietmarillier.com/

In our first interview we chat with Aotearoa (New Zealand) born author, Juliet Marillier who shares some of her early experiences with fairy tales and the impact they’ve had on her life. Juliet also mentions books by Kell Woods and Kelly Jarvis, please tag them if you know them and their work.

Think of the princesses descending the stairs in the Twelve Dancing Princesses, the descent’s oldest tale is that of Inanna (3500BCE), then later Persephone in Greek myth. When we think of The Six Swans, there are a whole series of myths where humans transform into birds and beasts and vice versa, including the Irish myth, Children of Lir. Even in Jack and the Beanstalk, giants (as foreigners or “other” beings) inhabited Mesopotamian, Hindu, and Greek myths, long before the giant descended the beanstalk.

Both the sun and moon are circular, like the wheel, “The turning wheel…became a kind of shorthand sign for all that the High God represented” (Ellis Davidson, 1969). In his chapter on Ancient Indian Rig-Veda, Joseph Campbell writes: “Hymns addressed to the sun, the wind, the rain god, and gods of storm were numerous…” (Campbell, 1991, p. 177). I suspect that over time, we’ve lost this ritual nature of the heavenly bodies in our fairy tales and the miraculous wonder about the invention that was the wheel.

“But the idea of the sun goddess riding a chariot across the sky is an attractive one, especially in a world so disconnected from the Earth’s natural cycles and rhythms, and increasingly separated from the stars with light pollution, satellites, and space junk.”

When we look at sun goddesses (and gods), they have been found in just about every culture from the Japanese sun goddess, Amaterasu1, to Berber goddesses, Hathor from Ancient Egypt, the Ushas in India, to multiple in North and South America and from just about every culture in the world. And no wonder, the sun brings life, warmth, growth, fertility, life and light. In Japan, “There is certainly evidence that that “sun lineage” is the foundation of royal authority…” (Kirkland, p. 110), that is, the right to rule aligns with evidenced descent from the sun god/goddess. This makes the story I’m currently working with fascinating indeed.

I’m working in a study group with Laura Simms and a fabulous crew of women on the Russian tale, All-Wise Helen. Helen (in some versions, she is Elena) is introduced to the tale: “and presently a light shone in the west2, and grew brighter and ever brighter, and a golden chariot appeared drawn by four fiery dragons…” Have you ever sat at the sunset and just watched the moment the sun descends over the edge of the ocean, the clouds a fiery red, and there is sometimes a flash just as the last of the day departs? This is when Helen arrives. The link between Helen and the sun/dusk is what’s calling to me at the moment.

Helen is active at night when the moon rises, teaching the birds “the ways of magic, and how they might circle the globe in the space of a heartbeat, and how to restore life to the lifeless by the waters of healing,” and when the moon sets (and by association, the sun rises), she “entered her chariot and was borne swiftly from sight.” Although it could be that Helen is a moon goddess, as she is active at night, it is the chariot that I come unstuck with this theory. But, what is fascinating is that the earliest chariot (and spoked wheels) in archaeology were actually found in burials in what is modern Russia, around the Urals, dating to the Bronze Age (3500BCE-1200BCE), which led me down a wonderful side dive into the history of chariots and the wheel and the origins of this story as a Russian tale with outside influences.

Possible influences are from Norse mythology, where Sol is chased across the sky in her chariot by the wolf Skoll. There is some evidence that Russians were trading with Scandinavians from early on, so I’m not sure which direction the story travelled, or if it grew into what it is. But the most likely candidate for the mythological roots of this tale is the Greek dawn goddess Eos (Aurora), who was “seen as a charioteer riding across the sky just before sunrise, pulled by her horses Shiner and Bright.” (Cotterell, p. 39) Eos is also the sister of Helios (sun) and Selene (moon) and takes mortal lovers. She asks Zeus to make one lover, Tithonus, immortal, but she forgets that he will age, and when he grows old, she turns him into a cicada (or grasshopper). In relation to the Iliad (of which “Helen” is a character), Suter (1987) says: “In the Greek tradition, Eos (and Aphrodite) abduct youths in order to mate with them, and this relationship renders them immortal.” In All Wise Helen, Helen resists a lover until he passes multiple tests, and they live happily ever after. And although Helen arrives at sunset and leaves at dawn, the story has similar threads.

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Chariots/carriages later appear in Cinderella (Perrault, 1697), Fairer than a Fairy, Persinette (de La Force, 1697) “she (the fay) transported herself to the place they were. She appeared in a chariot shining with gold and gems…”, and as the Queen’s sled in The Snow Queen (Anderson, 1844) and of course, the “Santa Claus”. Interestingly, in the illustrations I have of The Snow Queen, it looks more like a chariot than a sled, with gold-rimmed sides and gemstones. Do we include carts in this? If so, the Scottish folk tale The Pot Who Went to the Laird’s Castle carries the family’s belongings from place to place.

It’s not unusual that chariots were prevalent in folk and fairy tales, and I’m surprised to find very little literature on them in my research; chariots/carriages, after all, were the main form of transport for thousands of years until the invention of the car, relatively recently, thereby displacing horses from daily transport.

But the idea of the sun goddess riding a chariot across the sky is an attractive one, especially in a world so disconnected from the Earth’s natural cycles and rhythms, and increasingly separated from the stars with light pollution, satellites, and space junk. What meaning then does the association of chariots with the movement of the sun do all these stories have? Does it shift the deeper meaning from practical consideration to an elevation into royal status? Into wealth? Into a closer connection to the divine? Does it give the French Cinderella, for example, an automatic royal upgrade simply because she travels in a carriage? I don’t have the answers, but I think it’s worth pondering.

As for All Wise Helen, we continue our dance of familiarity and deeper relationship into story embodiment. But framing her as a divine being certainly fits the story and her actions as a non-mortal being. Another consideration, as my group buddy pointed out, is the major arcana in the tarot, particularly for this story. But I’ll come back to the tarot in fairy tales at a later date.

I’d love to hear about your favourite fairy tales that have chariots, carriages, carts, or sleds. Please share them in the comments. It’s impossible to know all the stories as much as I’d love to know them, but the hive mind is a useful thing when there’s so much to learn.

References:

Campbell, J. (1991). The masks of God. Volume II : Oriental mythology. Penguin Books.

Cotterell, A. (2000). Classical mythology. Lorenz Books.

H. R. Ellis Davidson. (1969). The Chariot of the Sun. Folklore, 80(3), 174–180. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1259099

Harris, Z., & Ryan, N. (2004). The Inconsistencies of History: Vikings And Rurik. New Zealand Slavonic Journal, 38, 105–130. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40922182

Kirkland, R. (1997). The Sun and the Throne. The Origins of the Royal Descent Myth in Ancient Japan. Numen, 44(2), 109–152. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3270296

Kuznetsov, P. F. (2006). The emergence of Bronze Age chariots in eastern Europe. Antiquity, 80(309), 638–645. doi:10.1017/S0003598X00094096

Suter, A. (1987). Aphrodite/Paris/Helen: A Vedic Myth in the Iliad. Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-), 117, 51–58. https://doi.org/10.2307/283958

In this first episode, I “interview” myself (which is not as easy as it sounds!) with some of the themes and ideas that I’ll be exploring with my guests. But for a better interview, this one captures my perspective better!

For a deeper dive into my childhood background story and the role fairy tales played, you can watch my performance here.

To find out more about my Yexian (yeh-shen) book, you can find it on my website or wherever you find your books online.

Women have ways of expressing authority and power when we need to but it isn’t physical. In my storytelling show from England, Reclaiming Forgotten Voices, finding my voice as a woman who was silenced as a child, was an important part of this project. As a part of my research, I looked into ways women subverted authority and retained a voice. I found women did this in many ways: in embroidery, weaving messages and maps into hair (Africa), in coded messages in letters and other correspondance, and in fairy tales. The women of the French period subverted many things: from the complete omission of religion in a very Catholic country in most, if not all, of the stories, to making fun of a king or Louis XIV’s mistress, Madame Montespan, to my favourite example in Green and Blue where the princess is frolicking in the fountain - a behaviour expressly forbidden by Louis XIV:

Jeana Jorgensen wrote about fairy tale heroine’s silence extensively in her fantastic article: Strategic Silences: Voiceless Heroes in Fairy Tales (2014), where she argues that “the fairy-tale female hero who chooses to remain silent does so strategically in a coded protest against patriarchal norms and constraints.” I highly recommend this paper, which looks specifically at ATU451 texts, academic bias, and more. You’ll be familiar with ATU451: The Maiden Who Seeks Her Brothers tales: The Six Swans (Grimms), 12 Wild Swans (Anderson) and The Twelve Brothers, where the protagonist stops speaking to save her brothers. Interestingly, she is not in the title of any of these fairy tales, nor does she have a name (until Anderson gave us Eliza). In The Silent Princess (Turkey), the princess is covered by seven veils and refuses to speak; we are never told why. This beautiful frame tale starts with a spoiled and cursed prince. He has to travel for a year in difficult conditions to find the silent princess. When he gets there, he needs to entice her to speak three times. With the help of a hidden nightingale, who tells three stories with a choice, the princess is lured into the conversation, breaking her vow of silence. This princess’s silence was indeed strategic, but when she spoke it showed her compassion, love, passion for justice and intelligence.

But silent women in fairy tales don’t always feel empowered, like Anderson’s The Little Mermaid, who sacrifices her voice for legs and from that moment is in a state of grasping for the attention of the prince, who, in the end, isn’t interested in her anyway. It’s this surrender of power that she gives to him (reflected from Anderson’s own life) that takes her agency away. How many times do we do this in life? How many times do we give our power and agency away to others? And how can controlled silence be a way to feel emboldened and empowered? I’m not talking about a refusal to talk, but choosing when and how we engage with conversations at this time.

Then there are tales where an external force takes the woman’s voice. In the Irish tale Guleesh, the French princess is prevented from speaking by the fairies as a way to punish the protagonist, Guleesh, for betraying them. In this way, she is used, and both she and Guleesh are punished. He overhears the fairies tell of a cure and the princess regains her voice and returns to France. And of course, there is the death-like silence of Sleeping Beauty, who falls under a curse, again, to punish the king and queen for not inviting her.

I’ve been diving into the patriarchy, and its subtle and not-so-subtle ways of silencing women, such as displacing the goddess and the pantheon of goddesses for a single, superior, male god. This video gives a brilliant summary. Women’s voices were silenced when the goddess was. We are so scared of disagreeing, of speaking up, that we’re conditioned through the patriarchy to silence other women when they’re “too much,” “too loud,” “too opinionated” or as the Australian Prime Minister said recently about our former Australian of the Year, Grace Tame, “difficult.” Why is it normalised that women are expected to be quiet, demure, and compliant? Because a woman in her power doesn’t put up with anything. She has firm and strong boundaries, even in silence. And I suspect the women of the Salons knew that too. Jorgensen says silence “becomes a powerful metaphor for women’s experiences and thus a reflection of the unique sacrifices that are asked of the female hero in fairy tales.” Are we at a time now, when we should choose our silences? Or should we be more “difficult” women?

Madame D’Aulnoy, who coined the term “fairy tale” in 1697, reportedly said, (and I paraphrase) “they’re just fairy tales.” I suspect that neither she nor we viewed fairy tales as children’s tales or unimportant, but they certainly fall into a category of women’s tales. In the 17th century, fairy tales and literature were not one of the “finer” arts, such as painting, sculpture or classical music - all art forms dominated by men; they were relegated to a second, or even third-tier entertainment. Not supported by patrons and driven entirely by the people who told the stories to each other in circles, salons, and women’s spaces. Another example of the devaluation of women’s art throughout history.

The women of the salons knew, like we do now, that women hold an incredible amount of power and influence when we work together, collaborate and share our experiences of being silenced through patriarchal systems. They didn’t have power outside the salons, and were in forced marriages and pregnancies (from as young as 13) or social behaviours and norms, but inside they were free to discuss some of the big issues of the time through metaphor and allegory, and this I think is a kind of magic. I’m not suggesting we should not engage with the public discourse, but I am saying if we are going to build something new, we can’t build it in the same system that has kept us subservient and perceived as hysterical when we are enraged.

Silence is power when we have control over it. But when we are silenced, that’s a whole other mechanism for control. We are living in weird times, where I find myself often saying: “That’s an interesting point of view,” or “that’s a strange thing to say”, without engaging in the argument, and I’m finding so much power in holding back and reflecting the speaker's words and ideas like a mirror. I think this is the strength of silence and one of the greatest lessons of the fairy tales that contain women who don’t speak by choice, or who choose when to speak. I invite you to reflect on moments you have been silenced, you choose silence or may lose your voice because you feel disempowered. Where can you choose silence and reflecting back to the speaker their often polarising comments in a time where we are being separated from the difficult conversations we, as a society, desperately need to have?

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It hasn’t been easy to write this, as I, too have grown up under the framework of patriarchal norms and gender division. I’m still dismantling it, so there will be imperfections. But I think we can learn a lot about these incredible women of the salons who found influence and a lasting legacy through fairy tale. And perhaps, just perhaps, the fairy tale is a path for us through this dark and strange time.

~ Alyssa

p.s. Of course, there are many other tales where women or girls are silenced for other reasons, The Goose Girl (secret), Vasilisa the Fair (safety), Sleeping Beauty (silenced by unconsciousness), and many others. What are your favourite stories where women and girls are silent? Please share them below.

References:

Jorgensen, Jeana, “Strategic Silences: Voiceless Heroes in Fairy Tales” A Quest of Her Own: Essays on the Female Hero in Modern Fantasy / (2014): 15-34. Available at https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/facsch_papers/684

You’ll notice the video contains many illustrations of the tale. I’ve included the artist where possible. Art in fairy tales, particularly in the 18th and 19th centuries, framed what would become the picture book and our imaginings about the characters - this was both positive and negative. I’ll do another post about that another time.

In the meantime, enjoy this little experimental episode!

The Decameron, for example, written in the 14th century by Giovanni Boccaccio, was reimagined by a French woman, a queen no less, in the 15th century. Recently, The Decameron was reimagined as an outstanding Netflix series. My point being that throughout all of history, people have reimagined tales and embedded them with their own biases and perspectives, beliefs and political agendas.

One of the most damaging changes to fairy tales was that of the sanitisation of sexuality. “Whatever trace of sexuality remained was expurgated by the Brothers Grimm; if they did not always succeed, it was because they had failed to recognise the metaphors” (Blécourt, 2012, p. 11). This happens to be my pet peeve of the Grimms’ Collection, and hence why I’m interested in Charlotte-Rose de La Force, who shares a beautifully sensual female sexuality in her tales. It’s not overt pornography like we see in everything today, and perhaps at the time, it was certainly titillating, but at least it wasn’t erased…I digress.

It is thought that Boccaccio was influenced by Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and of course, by this time, tales were moving quickly across the sea and via the Silk Road and ancient networks, moulding and blending into their own “unique” versions. To go back further, through Arabia, Persia, Rome, India, the Biblical literature, Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt, and Mesopotamia, the stories all came from somewhere, first in oral or visual form and then documented with the development of written languages. Some were certainly stories embedded in the land, in personal experiences or observations about others and some were grounded in ritual or originally used in ceremony, such as any of the descent tales like: Inanna and Persephone.

I find myself at this point in the research eyeball-deep in Apuleius and Ovid, in particular, but also exploring things as diverse as Shakespeare, who, absolutely, was inspired and reimagined older tales. How can Pyramus and Thisbe not be the death scene of Romeo and Juliet? (Metamorphoses bk. IV) Yet, for The Charlotte Project, Shakespeare hadn’t been translated into French until just after her death. Everything in her collection points to the ancient tales, which, of course, were popular during the Renaissance and were available in French translation, interestingly, by one of her contemporaries.

All of our stories are influenced by what we’ve read, watched, heard, and experienced, so why would it be any different for an aristocratic 17th-century woman in France? Fairy tale retellings and reimaginings are one of the most popular genres in the world today, and often fall under romance or fantasy (or romantasy), and it is how we have always told tales. As a writer of children’s books, my creativity is heavily influenced by what I read and my childhood influences: Roald Dahl, Enid Blyton, Tolkien, and Dr. Seuss. We would be hard-pressed to find an author who wasn’t in some way influenced by the stories they consumed or were surrounded by.

So, I continue my search to find the roots of her tales, where she was inspired, in literature, her personal life, and within the confines of 17th century aristocratic France. We will never know what she read or heard, but the seeds of influence filter through her writing, as does her authorial voice. Until next time, let The Charlotte Project continue to unfold.

~ Alyssa

References

Blécourt, W. de, author. (2012) Tales of magic, tales in print : on the genealogy of fairy tales and the Brothers Grimm. Manchester University Press.

I’ve applied for a couple of grants, as it’s not a cheap undertaking. I’ve made a little project video on my YouTube channel (Lost and Forgotten Fairy Tales - I haven’t done much with the channel as yet, but stay tuned!), as video was part of the grant application process.

If you have enjoyed reading this Substack and have been on the fence about becoming a paid subscriber, now would be a great time! I’m updating the Charlotte Project monthly and when I can juggle it, I’ll upload other research, but as I’m currently working three casual jobs and have taken a short-term contract in the middle of the Western Australian desert in order to pay for some projects (debts, it’s really debts!), I’m pretty busy.

Other ways you can help: you can head to my website and sign up for a course, or buy a book. If you can’t help financially, just a comment of encouragement would be incredible. Last time I was accepted to a residency in France, I needed to cancel because I couldn’t afford it. I don’t want to miss out this time of two weeks of complete immersion into this project and getting to know the landscapes that Charlotte wandered in the 17th century.

I want more than anything to bring this book to fairy tale lovers everywhere so you can all fall in love with this wonderful author, as I have. Making art in the margins is hard work, and if you’ve read this far, thank you.

It’s a big undertaking. I initially wanted to do it as a Ph.D. project - so I could have the structure and support to see it through. But then I realised that I could still apply the same academic rigour by following a Ph.D. plan and schedule. I don’t need the credibility that comes with a Ph.D. - I’m satisfied with a Grad. Dip. in Creative Writing - but I can work towards my project on my terms outside the university system. At a later date, I might put forward what I’ve done towards it, but for now, I’m happy to work on my own.

I watched a video of author Andy Weir talk about his process of developing The Martian through an email list - much like this. So, after contemplating the pros and cons of Substack, I figured that there are some fairy tale fans here who might just be interested in my creative and research process as I make the commitment to bring this project to finished artefact/s. I’m already committed to sharing something each month here, so why not my thoughts, drafts, and process for the Charlotte Project?

So, I have spent the first month of this project narrowing down the research questions and focus, making a plan, and starting to annotate and refine the research already in this area. The work of Siefert forms much of the basis of my research, as he’s already done work on all of the fairy tale authors (men and women) in France between 1690-1715. But my focus is solely on one of those women, hence, The Charlotte Project.

I’ve been collecting research over the past few years, but without any clear order, structure, or plan, so the past month has been transformational in how I’ve viewed the project. It seems so much more achievable now that I have a direction. I’m under no illusions that this process will be easy; I have a ton of reading, annotating, and research to do to put forward work/s and potentially a performance that I can be proud of, but at least I have a process. And, more importantly, I have achievable steps to get there.

Firstly, I’m using Zotero to collate, annotate, and reference my sources. That way, they are all in one place where I can access (and cite) them easily. Secondly, I’m using OneNote for my brainstorming - up until now, my notes and ideas are in multiple notebooks spread all over the place - and OneNote will be a way I’ll be able to keep everything together.

Finally, when it comes to the write-up and drafting, I’ll use Word, which is compatible with Zotero (for easy citation), and compile and finish with Scrivener (or maybe just do it on Word). If anyone knows a “knowledge management” system that does all this in one place, I’d love to hear it, but at the same time, I’m in deep now, so I’m committed to this path, and it seems to be working for me.

I suspect that I was trying to write the project before having a clear vision of what I wanted it to be, or even having a focus. My process was focused on the end goal, not the process - much like life, really. No point thinking about the end when there are many steps to go to get there.

Here you are, then, the first step in many on my way to revive and place Charlotte-Rose du Caumont de La Force, firmly in the pantheon of fairy tale legends and female authors who made a difference in the world of fairy tale.

Are you joining me on this adventure?

I wish I could believe in a world full of wealthy and powerful people working together to make everything better for everyone, but it appears that is not their agenda. It seems their agenda is to add in more and more control, but seem to give us the illusion of being free. We are not.

I’ve finally found a temporary workaround to the lock out.

I loved Substack in the beginning, both as a reader and creator, but this overreach by the Australian “government” has ticked me off in a way that I haven’t felt in a few decades. I was stoked when I got my first paid subscriber, then the second and the third, and felt their support of me as I continued to put up a post about a thread of curiosity in the fairy tale academic space every month.

But it’s made me stop and wonder if this is the best platform for me and my fairy tale research/storytelling/adventures on my three pages. I absolutely love the research process and creating content in my three areas of passion: fairy tale/story/travel - it really lights me up - and from the feedback I’ve received, people appreciate it.

I don’t know if this is just an anomaly that I’ve managed to get on today or if I’ll lose access again later. If you would still like to follow my work, I’ll be here, but I’m drifting away from social media platforms altogether in general. My website and podcast will continue.

I’d like to offer you all a 70% discount on my self-paced Write Your Own Fairy Tale Course to make up for my absence and inconsistency in the past few months. Use the code: SUBSTACK25.

I know it doesn’t make up for the regular content I promised, but I feel very strongly about this gross violation of our identities and increased risk of hackers getting important information. And in the time of AI, our identity is the most valuable thing we own - both physical and digital.

I had no intention of ever making my Substack political in any way, but here you are. If this is where you leave me, go in peace, be kind and generous with others whenever you can, and lead with your heart.

With much love and gratitude for your support,

Alyssa

*I was a part of the Australian Fairy Tale Society project exploring some of these women. You can find our ebook here and our Webseries, here’s an abridged version of this story about 2 minutes in. Through that project, I became somewhat obsessed with her fairy tales, novels and authorial voice and studied her at a post-graduate level. If I could go back in time, it’s Charlotte-Rose de la Force that I would like to meet…but I digress.

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Charlotte-Rose’s collection (1698/1724) of eight tales begins with Fairer than a Fairy/More Beautiful than a Fae, a potential Cupid and Psyche/East of the Sun West of the Moon variant. Like Cupid and Psyche, it starts with a beautiful baby girl born to a good king, she is so enchanting that no others compare. It also contains a series of impossible tasks, but while the Cupid and Psyche variants have a beast that is transformed, Fairer than a Fairy is separated from her family, a new friend (Desire), and her fae lover, Phratis/Phraates, by the will of jealous fairies. Hinting at the jealousy from Shakespeare’s wildly fantastical A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1595) with two sets of lovers who are separated by the will of fairies, it’s difficult to say whether this tale is a complete fabrication of the author, a composite of Greek mythology and earlier works, a partial reflection on her own life or a subversive response to Cupid and Psyche. After all, the salon companions would make a game of reimagining tales they all knew.

Fairer is left to be raised by her courtiers, who bless her with her name, as she is so beautiful. But the Queen of the Fairies (Nabote) gets wind of this beautiful woman who has insulted them and seeks revenge. She disguises herself and goes into the service of Fairer than a Fairy. Unable to punish her because of the protection spell over the palace and the gardens, she lures Fairer out of the gates, and of course, Fairer, being kind, rushes to her aid, forgetting the warnings of her governess. The Queen gathers her up and takes Fairer to her palace, where she is stripped of all her garments, but remains beautiful. This infuriates Nabote, who sends her down “a thousand steps” into a gallery where she must rid the gallery of cobwebs. Fairer soon finds that the cobwebs return and sits down on the ladder, and is frustrated. Soon, a light and a shining (god) man kneels before her. It is Phratis (son of the Queen of the Fairies) who offers to help her, which he does.

The motifs of black appear often alongside Nabote and her nefarious intentions towards Fairer (fog, chariot, gallery, the moles that transport the chariot). Nabote means one of short stature, so undoubtedly it was a veiled insult, probably to another older woman of the court. But they’re just fairy tales, aren’t they? A woman descending into the dark underground also hints at Inanna and Persephone’s descent in Mesopotamian and Greek mythology respectively.

Fairer returns to her room where she hears a voice, Desire, another beautiful princess who has been kidnapped by the fairies and set to do impossible tasks. The two princesses become friends and Phratis helps Desire to achieve her task. They are rewarded with expressions of Phratis’ love for Fairer with extravagant food, luxury, and a warm bath. “This room’s sumptuous vault was supported all around by cornalin columns which were only separated by large crystal mirrors that stretched from floor to ceiling.”

Seifert (1996) suggests these exaggerated descriptions of rewards from Phratis “presumed to indicate the physical pleasure they offer,” and reflect the material rather than the moral by situating “the body within the self-enclosed fairy tale order created by the marvellous” (39) extending the beauty of Fairer than a Fairy to her surroundings, creating even more desire and fantasy in the reader/listener.

They are sent on other impossible tasks: Fairer to collect the Water of Immortality and Desire to write a message on the sand that can never be erased. Fairer is helped by Phratis, who transforms into an eagle, and she “reclines on him” to achieve her task, before he takes them both to the seashore to help Desire.

Of course, Nabote is furious and sends them on a third and final task; Fairer to capture the hind with the silver feet and Desire to get the rouge of youth. Desire is trapped when she is discovered by her lover who she was separated from and he inadvertently takes her to the Queen of the Fairies, where Desire is ordered to be put to death.

The hind with the silver feet was the true queen of the fairies and was destined to be in that form until a beauty of some quality rescued her. Of course, Phratis assists Fairer, and the curse is broken. Upon their victorious return, they find Desire strapped to a stake. Fairer runs to her, sees her brother (Desire’s lover), the true Queen restores order, banishing Nabote, and in fairness allows her son to marry Fairer and Desire to marry her lover. And all ends well.

Charlotte-Rose uses the phrase “a thousand times” or “a hundred times” to express a deep love or despair across all of her fairy tales, and the idea of beauty as virtue, is celebrated again and again. I know critics of beauty in fairy tales find it a superficial measure of a woman, but being the mother of three gorgeous mixed race daughters, I know the challenges they face and have faced from the jealousy of others for their genetic lottery. I think this is reflective of Charlotte-Rose’s life experience; she never formally married (she eloped, but that’s another story), I suspect she had lovers, both men and women, as it’s alluded to in this story, and it is a story of female friendship between Fairer and Desire. Friendship was lacking in Charlotte-Rose’s life, as she writes about the loss of friends (source*) and betrayals. The court of Louis XIV would have been a difficult place to maintain friendships, and the friendship between Fairer and Desire is the most beautiful quality of this fairy tale. The impossible tasks and the backstory of the hind with the silver feet give it that magical quality which is housed in a real woman’s refection of life.

My minor thesis (below and in the paid members section) explored the sexual aspects of her fairy tales, and should I go back to do a Ph.D, my project would be a continuation of that project theme, as I’m pretty obsessed with her fairy tales. In the absence of a lottery win, you lucky people get to enjoy the bits of research I can do when I share it here.

References:

Curtayne, A. (2023). ‘Explorations of female-empowered sexuality in the stories of seventeenth-century French author Charlotte-Rose de la Force’.

De Caumont de la Force, C.-R. (2018). Les Contes des Contes (The Land of Delights). Translated by B. Stableford. Black Coat Press.

Seifert, L. C. (1996). Fairy Tales , sexuality and gender in France 1690-1715. Cambridge.

*Source: I read it somewhere in my early research, but do you think I can find it now?!!

In India, Vishnu and Indra were called Madhara (nectar-born ones) and their symbol is the bee. The word mead is a derivation of Madhara. Kama, the god of love is depicted with a string of bees behind his back.

There is the wonderful teaching tale, A Drop of Honey from Burma and Thailand, about the king who laughs when a drop of honey falls to the floor, and all chaos ensues when he doesn’t arrange for it to be cleaned up. I love The Man Who Bought a Dream from Japan where a bee exits a man’s nose and leads his curious friend to an adventure and abundance. In Haiti, there is the Monkey and Papa God from Diane Wolkstein’s book, The Magic Orange Tree. But none of these tales really fall under the category of fairy tale, even The Queen Bee, with the absence of any real protagonist, doesn’t feel quite like a fairy tale, they are all more like a folk tale.

In my bee/honey/wax/beekeeper exploration, I dived deep into Hilda Ransome’s book, The Sacred Bee in Ancient Times and Folklore (much of this article includes the highlights I enjoyed from this book - I highly recommend it). This comprehensive book gives insight into the interactions between humans and bees throughout literature, folklore, art and law. Although it is unclear how long humans have been beekeeping, a painting on a Valencia cave wall demonstrates men gathering honey in late Paleolithic times. To me, it makes sense that bees and bee products would be more prominent in fairy tales, as they have been so important throughout our global cultural history, but they are more common in mythology. The idea that bees were sacred was not attached to a particular culture; it is a concept rooted in prehistory (Ransome, 2004).

In tales of King Solomon, honey/bees appear as a test of goodness. In Greek myth, bees are associated with life and death. The Essenes and the Melissae are associated with bees. The Melissae are nymphs who nursed baby Zeus using honey, the Essenes worship Ephesian Artemis. Bees were born from the death of Pigmaion at the hand of Aristaeus, the patron deity of beekeeping and honey production. In Roman times, Aesop’s fable, the Story of Jupiter and the Bee is a pourquoi tale on why bees die when they sting humans.

Bees, honey, wax and beekeepers were significant to beliefs in Ancient Egypt from about 3500BCE, the bee being the symbol for the King of Lower Egypt (he who belongs to the bee/beekeeper). Egypt was known as the land of “milk and honey”, beehives were moved up and down the Nile to match the seasons, honey was a feature of marriage contracts and used in prescriptions and remedies. Beeswax was used by physicians/magicians (seen as the same thing) to make “figures of men and animals” which “came alive” to be “used in the performance of magical ceremonies of all kinds” (Ransome, 2004). This reminds me of the Golem or clay figures in Jewish folklore. Honey was used in the embalming process, wax was used to seal the sarcophagus, and it features in many ways in death rituals.

Africa is rich with folktales containing bees, including the beautiful Kintu and the Magic Bee and other creation myths. In Sumeria, Babylonia and Assyria, honey was frequently “mentioned in inscriptions” and used in religious rites. Wax was used for casting bronze images. A combination of wine, oil/butter and honey was poured over the thresholds and stones to consecrate homes and land. During the Iron Age in Medieval Europe, bees were messengers from this world to the world of the dead, and legal documents across many cultures demonstrate protection for bees and beehives and bee-related products. In the Brech Bretha (Celtic), stealing a hive was a capital offense and of course “telling the bees” about important events in the family originated with the Celts and was popularised in Western Europe and the U.S. during the 18th and 19th centuries (Ransome, 2004)

I wonder as I explore this idea why there aren’t more references to bees/honey/beekeepers/beeswax in fairy tales, since our early written and oral history is so rich with it as outlined above. As we grew more disconnected from our animist roots, we may have forgotten about the magic that exists in nature. Our human-centric worldview might have left little room for the other creatures of the world, and perhaps bees were not deemed magical enough. Bees and honey may belong to the realm of folklore and myth, making them less likely to appear in a fairy tale.

I invite those of you who are writers, storytellers, or artists to include in your next fairy tale reimagining a sip of honey, or a bee landing on the lips of a sleeping princess, so we can bring these important creatures and the themes they embody back into the world. I’d love to hear any fairy tales you know of that I may have missed. I know there’s more, I’ve just come to a dead end. Feel free to drop them in the comments.

References:

Grimm, Jacob, and Wilhelm Grimm. Grimm’s Fairy Tales. 1903.

Kintu and the Magic Bee | FolktalesAfrica.com

Ransome, Hilda M. The Sacred Bee in Ancient Times and Folklore. Mineola, Dover Publications, 2004.

“The Man Who Bought a Dream (Japan) – Max McDowell, Jungian Analyst.” Jungny.com, 2025, jungny.com/the-man-who-bought-a-dream-japan/. Accessed 30 Sept. 2025.

Wolkstein, Diane, and Elsa Henriquez. The Magic Orange Tree, and Other Haitian Folktales. New York, Schocken Books, 1997.

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