Witches and Cats

Another post that comes to you courtesy of Surlalune and her latest collection, Puss in Boots and Other Cat Tales From Around the World. I have to say, of all her books this one might have interested me the least, because I'm not especially a cat person, but it's ended up being one of my favorites because of all the variety! There are so many tale types represented here, many of which I wasn't very familiar with before.

I knew I had to read some of the tales about cats and witches for Halloween! Several of the stories fit into the category, Migratory Legend 3055: The Witch That Was Hurt. They involve, in this case, a cat or group of cats that terrorize some location-but when someone manages to protect themselves and hurt a cat they away. Later, a local woman is found to have the same injury that was given to the cat, and it is thus revealed that the woman was a witch, in her cat form.  Sometimes the injury itself deprives the witch of her powers, other times she is killed. They're very entertaining stories, although it's always extra chilling to know that tales about witches were sometimes believed to be true, and that accusations of witchcraft led to many people losing their lives. I did notice that in a couple of these tales, the person who disenchants the witches are themselves practitioners of magical arts, so at least in some people's minds, there were good uses of magic as well as bad.

 There is a Russian tale, "The Witch," that is also a form of "Hansel and Gretel." The children are beaten and half starved by their cruel stepmother, who then sends them to visit her granny in the woods. The sister suggests that they first visit their own grandmother.

Their grandmother knows they are being sent to the witch in the woods (but for some reason doesn't offer to just let the children live with her). She does give them valuable advice: be civil and kind to everyone, and don't touch a crumb  belonging to anyone else. She gave them some food and sent them off to the witch.

This witch doesn't deceive the children like the Grimms' does-she tells them right away that if she isn't pleased with their work she will fry them in the oven, and then gives them impossible tasks. But there are animals in the house-mice, a cat, and a dog, and when the animals ask for food, the children give them the little food they had from their grandmother. In this way they are a stark contrast to Hansel and Gretel, who dig in to someone else's house. The children in this story even go above and beyond the advice from their grandmother-rather than just not taking what doesn't belong to them, they give away what does. I don't agree with the interpretation that Hansel and Gretel's actions means they are selfish, because the children were literally starving (and if you make your house from gingerbread it's asking to get eaten-by animals if nothing else) but I also like these tales that encourage selfless giving because I personally need reminders to be more generous myself.

Anyway, the animals then help the children with their impossible tasks, and gave them magical gifts that would help them escape. When the witch later demands to know why her animals let the children get away, they respond with "I have served you all these years and you never gave me so much as a hard crust, but the children gave me their own bread/ham/etc."

The witch pursues the children on her broomstick, but the magical objects from the animals block her progress and the witch eventually gives up and goes home. 

The ending of this tale is very satisfying compared to most tales of evil stepmothers and silent fathers:

"But the twins ran straight on till they reached their own home. Then they told their father all that they had suffered, and he was so angry with their stepmother that he drove her out of the house, and never let her return; but he and the children lived happily together; and he took care of them himself, and never let a stranger come near them."

Illustrations by Arthur Rackham

Witches: Salem, 1692

I've been reading the book The Witches: Salem, 1692 by Stacy Schiff. I came in knowing virtually nothing about witch trials other than this scene from Monty Python (which, sadly, isn't really an exaggeration at all):

Reading about any witch hunts/trials/executions is a pretty tragic, maddening experience. It's a sad look into how fears, superstitions, ignorance and prejudices can lead to cruelty and death. From a fairy tale perspective, it's interesting to note that, while not all cultures or individuals believed in witches, in different time periods belief in such supernatural forces was widespread. So, while people told stories about Hansel and Gretel or Baba Yaga, while they may not have taken the events of the tales themselves to be fact, they lived in a world in which such things were possible. 

The fairy tale connection was not lost on Schiff, either, who writes: "Rich in shape-shifting humans, fantastical flights, rash wishes, beleaguered servants, evil stepmothers, bewitched hay, and enchanted apples, the crisis in Salem resembles another seventeenth-century genre as well: the fairy tale. It took place in the wilderness, the address to which the hunter transports you when instructed to cut out your lungs and liver, where wolves follow you home. Salem touches on what is unreal but by no means untrue; at its heart are unfulfilled wishes and unexpressed anxieties, rippling sexual undercurrents and raw terror...Many charges had a fairy-tale aspect to them: spinning more wool than was possible without supernatural assistance, completing housework in record time, enchanting animals, inquiring too solicitously about a neighbor's illness, proffering poisoned treats." The world of Salem really did seem to overlap the world of fairy tales in the experience of those who lived there.

And while it can seem hard to believe for us, looking back, blaming things on witchcraft was often just people's attempts at explaining the many mysterious occurrences in life. For towns such as Salem, they were isolated-news that reached them was little and often unreliable; science was primitive, and there were darkness and dangers all around them in many forms. 

The events in Salem started when a group of young girls began to exhibit unusual and frightening symptoms that might look to us to be insanity, and is now generally agreed to have been mass hysteria (although there are other medical theories out there). It's a condition that tends to manifest itself under very oppressive cultures, such as the religious extremism of the Puritans. Most suffocated of all were the young females, who were expected to be completely obedient to their parents, their masters/mistresses, and eventually to their husbands. It was even a common practice for children to live with other families as apprentices or maids from as young as 6, to train them in obedience and work. There was no such thing as playtime or recreational time for Puritan children, and sadly many of the girls would have been exposed to physical and sexual abuse in their stations. These Cinderellas had no hope of ever escaping such a life, since it was all condoned by their culture (except the sexual abuse) and their adult lives were destined for constant work, absolute obedience, and the heartache and pain of bearing but probably losing many children.

What makes Salem different from other witch hunts (as far as I'm aware) is the fact that the central characters, who were initially inflicted by witchcraft (or so it was believed) and contained all the power to accuse and take lives-were young, unmarried girls. Their testimony was taken to be absolute fact, despite lack of proof. Although, according to the records we have (which are scanty and unreliable to begin with), there was really weird stuff going on there-the girls would claim that they were being bitten/struck, and then teeth marks or welts would appear on their skin, or they would produce pins from their bodies! All in the presence of witnesses.

The first people the girls claimed were tormenting them were all women of the older generation, which strikes me as echoing the classic conflict of most fairy tales that feature young women-the younger verses the older generation; the younger and more beautiful triumphing over the now irrelevant mothers, grandmothers, and widows. The accused had virtually no chance of pleading their case, for their guilt was assumed, and the testimony of the bewitched was all the proof that was considered needed. Although most insisted they were innocent, a few offered very colorful confessions of their satanic ceremonies, broomstick flying, and pledging themselves to the devil. Yet, accusations kept building to include more and more people-some men were tried as witches, even a five year old girl (the daughter of one of the original women).

Cotton Mather's contemporary account of the trials

For all that is known about the Salem Witch Trials, so much remains a mystery. To what extent were the young girls responsible for sending twenty people to death, any many more to months in a jail (in which the conditions were horrible)? Why did some of the accused witches confess (their confessions sometimes contradicted each other), and how could a relatively intelligent council of college-educated men have taken such testimonies as the only source of truth? Even if you accept the possibility of witchcraft, couldn't a clever witch cause a victim to have  a vision of an innocent person torturing them? It was believed the Devil could only use someone's form with their permission, but one of the accusers even later admitted that the Devil had tricked her into accusing innocent people.

Joseph E. Baker's 1892 lithograph of the trials

By the way, if you're interested in reading more, I (and many other readers) would probably recommend that you choose a different book on the topic-this book, while informative, has many flaws (reviews on Goodreads or Amazon can explain why in more detail). Overall, it's a fascinating but very sad topic to read about, but at least it makes me grateful that our justice system-despite its imperfections-is far, far better than that of Salem's in 1692.

Baba Yaga as a Mother Figure

Psychologists have long thought that the presence of witches, evil stepmothers, and ogresses in fairy tales are a result of splitting the mother into two versions-one good and one bad. It's hard for young children, as concrete thinkers, to understand that their mother who loves and cares for them can also be the one to scold them and sometimes lose their patience. Andreas Johns explores this concept more thoroughly as it relates to Baba Yaga as a mother figure.

All children must, as they grow, learn to find their identity as independent of their primary caretaker, which in most cultures in history has usually been the mother, or other females. Interestingly, in Russia, peasant families often lived together in large houses with extended family. Although children weren't raised completely communally and still had a significant relationship with their birth mother, aunts and cousins and sisters would have likely played more of a role in raising children than in Western cultures. This could help to explain the multiple, and contradicting, faces of a mother figure.

The correlation between Baba Yaga and a mother is often made clear. Sometimes the hero of the tale refers to her as "mother," sometimes the text makes specific contrasts between the hero's mother at home and Baba Yaga-as the one weeps outside her hut for her son, Baba Yaga brings the boy to her hut to harm him. One version notes that Yaga "spoke like his mother," for she listened to how his mother spoke and imitated it.

The parallel between Baba Yaga and the mother is even more interesting with tales in which Yaga attempts to cook the hero in an oven. The oven has similarities to a womb, according to psychoanalysts. Russian customs support this idea. To ease the pain of childbirth, one trick was to open an oven door. Also, a wedding custom of a certain province included riding around with a broom and an oven door, to symbolize the loss of a bride's virginity. A Russian proverb states "the oven is our mother." It becomes clear that Baba Yaga, in attempting to put the hero of a tale into an oven, is also trying to put him back into her womb. This could be seen as a way for mothers to express the frustrations of raising children, or possibly represents the idea of a mother trying to prevent a child from growing older. "In many ways Baba Yaga is a reversal or inversion of the hero's mother. The mother is good, gives birth to a boy, and feeds him; Baba Yaga is evil, wants to force the boy back into the oven (a symbolic womb), and eat him."

There is a tale type in Russia that is similar to "Hansel and Gretel", only it features a male and not his sister. I referenced it a while ago, especially as it relates to an old Russian custom of symbolically "baking" children. What does it mean that this tale, and related stories in which Baba Yaga attempts to cook and eat a child, feature predominantly male heroines? Johns concludes that the tales must explore the complications that rise specifically in a mother-son relationship.

Johns says incest could be one of the complications of the mother-son relationship that this tale explores. I'm always wary of psychologists who automatically assume the meaning of every fairy tale relationship must be sexual, and statistically, far fewer boys are molested in childhood than girls (as far as we are aware, it's a difficult issue to get data on). Still, the fact is, incest does happen, even between mothers and their sons; even what isn't common still needs to be dealt with.

Another explanation for the emphasis on the mother-son relationship, and one that I think is more widely applicable, is the fact that, as children establish their own identity as mentioned above,it is more difficult for a son to separate himself into a separate gender than the one who raised him. This causes unique issues, and is sometimes expressed in negativity about the female gender (and probably part of the reason that even today, doing something "like a girl" is considered doing it poorly, while "being a man" has good connotations.

However, how does this line of thought compare to Western tales? Although we have Gretel, it isn't her that the witch wants to eat. Although you could really look at the Rapunzel tale as being a story about a mother trying to stunt her daughter's growth into a woman.

Also interesting to note: Russian lullabies tend to be especially morbid, often singing about the death of the child. Read more on the topic here, but here's a sample:

Bye-bye, bye-bye,

Quickly die,

On the morning will be frost,

And you’ll go to the grave-yard.

Grandfather will come

And will bring the coffin.

Grandmother will come

And will bring the grave clothes.

Mother will come

And will sing the prayer song.

Father will come

And will take you to the graveyard.

Art by Antonina Medvedeva

Fairy Tale Fragrance

Here's a product I don't think I've seen before: Fairy-tale inspired perfumes and colognes!

"Hansel- The scent of the Black Forest and sweet bread. This fragrance is woodsy but playful with the light scent of freshly baked sweet rolls.

"Gretel- Wild roses and glistening embers. This fragrance is sexy and feminine with a smoky undertone."

"The big bad wolf is an archetype in folklore all over the world. He's antagonized little girls, shepherd boys, familial swine, lambs, etc. From the forests of Germany to the hills and plains of Ethiopia, anywhere you find wolves you will find tales of big bad himself. He's cunning, fierce, and damn if he doesn't make for one hell of a story.

"A powerful, earthy, yet elegant fragrance. Dominating black pepper, the warm bark of cedarwood, and a sensual touch of ylang ylang. This fragrance is suits men, women, beasts, and everything in between. "

"The scent of sweet cakes, the black forest, and a bouquet of wild flowers. Little Red Riding Hood comes in an amber 5ml bottle with a muslin bag."

"Samhain- Cool winds whipping through the forest on all souls night and a touch of warm spices. Essential oils combine to create a distinctly autumnal scent. It is in a 5ml amber bottle. Comes with a muslin bag for safe keeping.

"Samhain is the witches new year. It marks the end of the harvest and beckons in the winter. Many believe that it is when the veil between worlds is thinnest. But not just witches and pagans celebrate this ancient festival. You probably do to, just not in the same way. Most people recognize the holiday as Halloween and it is celebrated all over. Many Halloween traditions come from the Samhain traditions, such as setting out pumpkins and sharing sweets."

"The Baba Yaga is a witch found in Russian folklore and fairy tales. She is wise but fearsome and extremely powerful. She is depicted as a crone who flies about the forests with the help of her mortar and pestle. Her nose is long and her teeth made of metal. The Baba Yaga has strange comings and goings. In some stories she is shown counting spoons before returning to her house that stands upon chicken legs. Baba Yaga is often regarded as a protector of the Russian forests and the creatures within it.

"The scent of a birch mortar, metal, and the forests of Russia. Baba Yaga comes in a 5ml bottle tucked inside of a muslin bag with the Lore logo for protection. "

"Vasilisa- Russian wedding cookies and the delicate scent of roses.The solid perfume is made from bees wax, sweet almond oil, and a blend of essential oils. 

"Vasilia's necklace is 32 inches long and will hang just below the bust. Using brass chain and a beautiful rose patterned locket, I created this necklace with the story of Vasilisa in mind. The charms around the locket are a single freshwater pearl and a loop of blush toned crystals. Inside of the locket is Vasilia solid perfume. The part that holds the solid can be removed so that it can be refilled when the perfume is gone. This necklace is perfect for anyone who enjoys delicate things or has a feminine sense of style. "

Available through Etsy seller LoreApothecaries. I had never heard of Samhain before, but how appropriate for this time of year? And how great is the Vasilisa locket-not only for using a lesser known tale as inspiration, but perfume in a pretty locket is a double win! I love to see people using fairy tales not only as inspiration for other stories and art, but playing around with scents and taste (like fairy tale teas or cookbooks).

More on Witches; Or, Possible Drug Use in Fairy Tales

Although we can only speculate as to the intentions and beliefs of older cultures who told fairy tales, we do know that fear of witches and werewolves were widespread for many years in parts of Europe and America. I had mentioned earlier that the reason most of these supposed witches and werewolves confessed was because they were tortured until they did so; but I came across another theory.

Belladonna leaves

Some people think witches used the plant belladonna. Lethal in large doses, in smaller doses it causes hallucinations, and especially in combination with other plants such as opium makes a flying ointment that makes you feel like you're floating through the air. Witches would use the ointment before flying on their brooms-traditional witch folklore holds that they would fly at night to their festivals/pagan sacrifices/Witches' Dances.

Goya-1799

18th century

You can read more on wikipedia, or this interesting article. The links also shed light on why witchcraft was associated with women specifically-for example, the flying ointment was given to women in childbirth to dull the pain. There are some other reasons I won't go into because it gets a little sketchy for blog material, but feel free to follow the links...

Maxfield Parrish

Also reminds me of reading about toad licking in association with "Frog Prince". Another way to get psychadelic visions, some people think this phenomenon could have led to the image of kissing a frog and seeing a handsome prince where none was before; however, the kissing scene of Frog Prince is only a recent phenomenon. But it still may account for the presence of frogs in fairy tales as transformative animals. By the way, be sure to check out The Case of the Missing Kiss over on Quill and qwerty if you haven't already-a very interesting and well-researched look into Frog Prince tales and the addition of the kiss, as opposed to throwing the slimy animal against a wall.

William Robert Symonds

This was going through my head the whole time I wrote this post...

Schonwerth's Fairy Tales: Witches

The region from which Schonwerth collected his fairy tales was one where many witch trials were held and women were found guilty and burned. Although most of these trials were held during the 1500s and 1600s, they continued into the 18th century. The last woman to be sentenced to death as a witch in Bavaria was Anna Schwegelin in 1775. Really not that far back in history, relatively, especially when you consider that Schonwerth was born only 35 years later in 1810, and the first edition of the Grimms collection was published only 2 years later, in 1812.

"Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," A.H. Watson

So that really affects how we read many fairy tales that feature witches, especially from Schonwerth's collections. Many of them were passed down from generations ago when belief in/fear of witches was widespread, and these fairy tales were often told as histories or warnings. They seem to me like letting people know what attributes to be on the lookout for to identify people as witches.

Another interesting thing about the stories in this collection is that they are challenging my perception of concluding that the outcome of a fairy tale is either a reward or a punishment for the actions that preceded it. Scholars and bloggers alike use thinking along these lines all the time-we bemoan the fact that females like Little Red Riding Hood and Bluebeard's wife are punished for being curious while male protagonists are rewarded, etc. (and in many versions, that moral is clearly spelled out, even if it wasn't necessarily intended in folklore). But this collection presents groups of stories with similar plots but opposite outcomes.

John Batten, "Johnnie and Grizzle" (a Hansel and Gretel tale)

For example, there are two stories that begin almost identically. An innocent woman comes to the house of a person who, unbeknownst to her, is really a witch. She is disturbed to see objects and tools moving around on their own, under enchantments, hardly believing her eyes at first. Finally she reaches the witch, spotting her holding her head in her hands (in the other version the witch is wearing a skull instead of a head). The woman asks the witch about all the strange things she saw-pitchforks fighting, doorbell pulls that are snakes, etc. The witch claims that those were natural things, as if the woman was just imagining things. But when the woman reveals that she also saw the witch herself either holding her head or with a skull for a head, the witch becomes angry, and threatens to rip her apart.

The first version ends suddenly-the witch does exactly as she says and rips her apart. My initial thought was that the story was a warning against either approaching a witch's house if you see enchanted objects, or to not be foolish enough to reveal to the witch that you know what she is. But in the second version, the woman is rescued at the last minute (alas, by three male hunstmen), who shoot the witch, and the servants who had been turned into pitchforks were released. So in that version, if the woman hadn't come and revealed the witch's true nature the servants would still be under a spell.

Anne Andersen, "Rapunzel"

So maybe folktales and fairy tales aren't meant to be a guide for life as many people have thought-they simply represent the fact that you never know what's going to happen, just as in life you can never be sure of the outcome of your actions. Over time we as a culture have pretty much weeded out any folklore that doesn't end happily and we have a skewed version of what fairy tales promise (only happily ever afters) or how to go about thinking about what they mean (that the one version we know as "standard" is the true meaning and that we are meant to learn the same lessons as the main character).

Arthur Rackham, "The Thirteenth Fairy" from "Briar Rose"

By the way, AdamYJ of Fairy Tale Fandom sent me a couple of links in the comments to two of the Schonwerth stories translated into English by storyteller Margaret French, and I wanted to make sure you all got a chance to check them out too. Even if you own/plan on owning this book I've been referencing, I don't believe these are in it (the book contains only a fraction of the total tales Schonwerth collected). You can read Belt and Necklace, another mermaid tale, and The Flying Little Box-a princess in a tower tale somewhat similar to Rapunzel, but also has the Cinderella element of identification by a shoe-only this time to identify the prince.

Also, The Turnip Princess was floating around the internet back when the Schonwerth collection was initially rediscovered, but as long as I'm compiling a link list I thought I'd throw it in.

Baba Yaga

Helen Pilinovsky has a great online article for learning more about Baba Yaga. She is an intimidating figure, living in a mobile hut which stands on chicken legs, flying about on a mortar and paddling through the air with a pestle, and lives in a forest which is the land of the living dead. Sometimes Baba Yaga acts as helper, aiding a traveler in a quest, but she can also be cruel and cannibalistic.

Baba Yaga is found in multiple tales all over Russia, which makes her unlike any of our familiar characters in Western lore, for none of our characters transcend the barrier into other stories-in fact it's only recently that it's been popular to combine fairy tales into one world, such as in the musical "Into the Woods" or ABC's "Once Upon a Time". This reoccuring aspect of the character of Baba Yaga makes her all the more formidable. In Pilinovsky's words, "Unlike other villains, who may be defeated once, never to be heard from again, Baba Yaga is not permanently conquerable, for Baba Yaga is far more than just another witch." This is especially interesting in light of the stereotype that fairy tales are merely idealistic and oversimplified stories of good defeating evil and not to be taken seriously. Pilinovsky describes tales in which Baba Yaga appears to die, but returns unchanged, "indicating one of the fundamental tenets of the Russian fairy tale: that while humanity may enact changes for the better, there will always be forces working against them."

Pilinovsky identified three main roles that Baba Yaga plays: Cannibal, helper, and figure of malevolence. Stories of Baba Yaga as cannibal are often relatives of the tale of Hansel and Gretel, where the protagonist tricks Baba Yaga herself into the oven.

As helper, Baba Yaga is not always necessarily willing-but often otherwordly creatures are restrained by sets of rules and must keep their side of a bargain made. In the tale Maria Morevna, Ivan is helped by Baba Yaga, although she tries to trick the hero into failing his duty-but she is outwitted. In Gene Wolfe's retelling of the tale, Baba Yaga is not a witch, but her power is represented by her status as a Duchess, and her ability to penetrate the human heart. Is that not one of the most unsettling aspects of witches and evil characters-knowing just how to tempt the main character to stray from their purpose?

Image by Forest Rogers, from here

Orson Scott Card's novel Enchantment also portrays Baba Yaga as Russian nobility. Pilinovsky sees this trend as a societal turn from attributing power to supernatural forces, to more natural sources. It's not an entirel unlikely jump to make, for nobility are not only powerful but throughout history have been known to abuse their power. Card's Baba Yaga is a manipulator who started as an innocent girl, but was driven to cruelty after being married to an abusive husband. She turns to cruelty and torture, and in the end is defeated by the heroes because of the heroine's having conceived a baby-though Baba Yaga has born children, she is incapable of loving them. Thus, she is defeated by love, although not dead, and like in folklore, Card hints that though she exits this story, she is still out there and may become a character in another story.