On Dec 12, 2004, at 18:57, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Julie) wrote:
Remember how this fairy tale goes: The little girl's mother died and
the
father remarried. The stepmother did not like her but concealed her
dislike.
One day the stepmother gave the girl a basket of tasty food and told
her to
take it to the stepmother's sister, who lived in a cottage at the end
of the path
in the forest.
I love fairy tales, and have never heard this one, so enjoyed it a lot
(though would have liked to know how the girl used the objects in her
flight from the witch) The comb? A forest grew? The others, I can't
even guess...
By the way, I note that this tale fits into the old theory (completely
unsupported as far as I know) that in the old days women did
needlework (or
spinning, or weaving) in groups--for company-- and told each other
fairy tales to
pass the time.
Probably depended on who and when. In needlework sweatshops, women
worked together not for company, but so they could all be supervised as
to the quality of their work. And they weren't permited to tell
stories; they weren't permited to talk at all, as that would have
slowed them down, and they were being paid for a day's work, and
expected to produce thus and such amount of whatever stuff.
OTOH, independent workers, who got paid by piece or yard, or did
needlework more or less like we do - for themselves (household use
etc)... Quite possible. Ladies-in-waiting, at court, most certainly
didn't sit mute while busying themselves with their embroideries,
either (not that their companionship was by choice ).
Since they were doing all that needlework it partiuclarly amused
them to put needlework in their stories. Hence, Rumperlstiltskin, and
the
similar story with the three weird sisters who claim to be deformed by
spinning
and weaving and suchlike, and Sleeping Beauty who falls into enchented
sleep
when she pricks her finger on a needle, and so forth.
So, let's hear some of the "so forth" :) Textiles in fairy tales sounds
like a perfect subject for short and cold days (not in upside-down Oz,
of course )...
The Sleeping Beauty, pricked herself with a spindle, at least in the
version I heard; it was Snow White's mom, who pricked herself with a
needle, the blood dropped onto the snow outsdide the window (tells you
not even royalty could afford glassed windows, in those days ), etc.
There's a Russian fairy tale, about the clever daughter of a peasant,
whom the king is thinking of marrying, so he gives her various tasks to
perform. In one of the tasks, he gives her a bunch of linen, and orders
her to spin and weave it and make the wedding shirt for him by the next
day. The next morning, she hands him a fistful of flax seeds and says
the shirt is almost ready, but for one sleeve - there wasn't enough
linen there. Could he please sow the seed, reap the linen, and have it
delivered to her by evening...
And, on the subject of a missing sleeve... Wasn't there a story - in
the Brothers Grimm collection - about a girl who had to make 12 shirts
for her brothers who'd been turned into ravens?
---
Tamara P Duvall http://lorien.emufarm.org/~tpd
Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland)
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