The Fay or the Fair Folk

It was interesting to learn that fairy tales are not just for kids! Much of the week’s reading material contained adult content…drama, intrigue, rape, murder, lies/deception, control and manipulation, you name it! Sounds like a soap opera to me!

Rather than focusing on the heroic male figure who comes in to rescue the damsel in distress, this week’s reading, surprisingly, focused on the power and dominance of the female, particularly, over the male. Very surprising, considering when these stories were written.

I read Rowe’s analysis first, which set the tone for reading the fairy tales afterward. Rowe does a good job of demonstrating the subtle yet powerful voices of women in fairy tales. Though women such as Philomena, Procne, and Scheherazade were not seen as powerful, outspoken, or dominant, they were able to subtly use their power to dominate and turn less-than-desirable circumstances in their favor. Philomena used her power to tell her story through her talent on the loom. Procne had the power to interpret Philomena’s art and take whatever action she deemed necessary to avenge Philomena. Scheherazade had the subtle power to influence the king with her story-telling and thus, save the lives of other women.

The fairy tales also demonstrated how the disappearance, or even the threat of disappearance, of the women exercised power over the men. For example, Lanval, the valiant knight, found himself “between a rock and a hard place” after rejecting and insulting the queen. The only one who could rescue him was his beloved. But because he knew that revealing their affair and her identity would mean he would never see or hear from her again, he was willing to risk receiving whatever sentence the king’s court handed him. When he does see her, as she comes to rescue him, he says, “I don't care if my life should end, Or who kills me, if she has mercy; I'm healed again, when her I see." Just having another chance to see her was enough for him, even if he received a death sentence. Wow! Likewise, the men in “The Song of Wandering Aengus” and “La Bell Dame Sans Merci” were left longing for and at the mercy of the fairy women who left them spellbound.

In The Wife of Bath’s Tale, which I had to read with the side-by-side translation, after the knight overpowers and rapes the maiden, he finds himself at the mercy of a powerful woman, the queen, whose orders he must obey if he wants to live. After his life is spared, he finds himself again at the mercy of another woman…his new, or shall I say “old”, wife. She humbles him with a powerful lecture, then has mercy on him and uses her fairy powers to transform herself into the woman he desires.

These tales prove what the old woman told the young knight to be true, that for whatever reason, the women desired to have sovereignty over their men and to be in mastery above them.