140 Translate It. Suggests That Cannibalism Was Not Unknown In
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140 VILLAINS FROM NAGS TO WITCHES '4 1 Not all female villains in the Grimms' fairy tales indulge a taste for human flesh. Many are experts in the art of weaving spells: these are translate it. the witches and enchantresses for whom uttering curses rather than devouring children is the preferred mode of oral expression Nearly all the stock characters of fairy tales-not just female vil- lains-are blessed (or cursed) with the gift of casting spells. When one fairy-tale father, for example, denounces his sons in a moment of irritation for their frivolous ways and utters the fateful wish that they turn into ravens, he finds himself suddenly endowed with mag- suggests that cannibalism was not unknown in ical powers. No sooner has the wish escaped his lips than he hears the beating of wings and silently watches seven ravens fly into the distance. Variants of the tale of the seven ravens suggest that such rash imprecations, whether uttered by fathers or by mothers, are in- stantly translated into reality. In "Twelve Brothers," it is the sister of the twelve boys who bears the blame for their transformation into her threat; the account may he llished by the all-ton-lively ravens, though some versions implicate the children's stepmother in the guilty act. In yet another tale of enchanted male siblings ("Six elected to include this kind o nt in their collection. Clearly, Swans"), a woman turns her stepsons into winged creatures when she flings six magical shirts over them. While the spells cast in all fairy tales and the facts o ay life, or at least the most sensa- three tales are equally effective, only one of the three transforma- tions arises from a willful act of premeditated evil. It is the step- The many faces of nal evil in fairy tales represent the ob- mother alone who deliberately takes advantage of magical powers to harm her six stepchildren. Nearly the entire cast of characters in fairy tales may possess supernatural powers, yet it will be obvious to the habitual reader of these tales that stepmothers are the principal agents of enchantment. birth to them. Stepmothers stand as an abiding source of evil in countless fairy tales, and it is no accident that they rank among the most memora- ble villains in those tales. Folklorists would be hard pressed to name st of their victims with magnanimous maternal be- a single good stepmother, for in fairy tales the very title "step- reveal their true colors as cannibalistic monsters. The mother" pins the badge of iniquity on a figure.7 One can safely ar- "Hansel and Gretel," for example, uses her tasty house gue that the phrase wicked stepmother, which has a nearly formulaic ring to it, is pleonastic. The vast majority of the Grimms' stepmothers actively persecute not their stepsons, but their stepdaughters, who consequently take on the role of innocent martyrs and patient sufferers. If the step- VILLAINS 142 FROM NAGS TO WITCHES '43 mothers are not literal witches, they possess qualities that place the woods; and evil mothers-in-law make their presence felt in the them firmly in the class of ogres and fiends. As alien intruders, they castles that serve as a second home for fairy-tale heroines. That disturb the harmony among blood relations. They may not always these figures share not only a common function but also a single have the power to perform a metamorphosis from woman to beast, identity becomes clear on closer inspection of the tales in which they but they can turn even the most aristocratic and beguiling girl into imperil innocent young children. the humblest of scullery maids. By contrast to the sorceresses who Let us begin by taking a more careful look at stepmothers and work behind the scenes in tales of enchanted young boys, they re- cooks. Snow White's stepmother is perhaps the most infamous step- main visible, palpable presences in fairy tales that chart the shifting mother of them all. But is she really a stepmother? In the first edi- fortunes of heroines who have lost their biological mothers and tion of the Ntlrsery and Household Tales, Snow White's mother never await rescue by dashing young princes or kings. dies; her vanity and pride turn her into an ogre who orders her Biological mothers, as noted earlier, seldom command a central daughter murdered; she then devours what she believes to be the role in the fairy tales compiled by the Grimms, in part because Wil- girl's lungs and liver. Only in the second edition of the Grimms' col- helm Grimm could rarely resist the temptation to act as censor by lection does the real mother die and is replaced by a wicked step- turning the monstrously unnatural cannibals and enchantresses of mother. "Mother Holle" underwent a similar transformation. The these tales into stepmothers, cooks, witches, or mothers-in-law.&As first version of the tale featured a widow with two biological daugh- the audience for the tales changed, the need to shift the burden of ters, and the second version traced the fortunes of a widow with one evil from a mother to a stepmother became ever more urgent. Yet favored, biological daughter and one ill-treated stepdaughter. What the tactic had a way of backfiring. In the 1856 preface to his Nm easier way is there to depict maternal abl~seof children and at the Book of German Faily Tales (Neues Deutsches Marchenbuch), Ludwig same time preserve the sanctity of mothers than by turning the evil Bechstein made a point of deviating from the practice established mother into an alien interloper whose goal is to disturb the harmony by Wilhelm Grimm and others. of fanlily life? As for the evil cooks in the Nursery andHowehokd Tal~s, more often than not they turn out to be stand-ins for stepmothers. There is nothing that children would rather read than fairy tales. In "Fledgling," one such figure plails to throw the adopted found- Among the thousands of children who every year get their hands on ling of the household into a vat of boiling water-presumably he will books of fairy tales, there must be many so-called stepchildren. When such a child-after reading many a fairy tale in which stepmothers constitute the main course for that night's dinner. Almost all other appear (the stepmothers are all uniformly evil)-feels that it has been versions of that tale type place an evil stepmother in the role of the somehow injured or insulted . by its own stepmother, then that old cook. Think of "The Juniper Tree," in which a stepmother mur- young person makes comparisons and develops a strong aversion to ders her stepson by decapitating him. (In passing, it should be noted his guardian. This aversion can become so intense that it disturbs the that nearly every variant of the famous refrain of that tale ["My peace and happiness of an entire family.9 , wicked mother slew me, 1 My dear father ate me."] attributes the Whether a figure is designated as a stepmother or a witch, she murder to a mother rather than to a stepmother, even though the takes on a single well-defined function in fairy tale-ne that is lim- actual perpetrator in the story is ust~allya stepmother.)lo Here the ited to the sphere known as villainy and that magnifies and distorts folkloric imagination-not just the Grimms-is responsible for the all the perceived evils associated with mothers. Wicked stepmothers replacement of a mother by a stepmother. To some extent, Wil- and cooks find their way into the homes of fairy-tale heroes; witches helm Grimm, with his editorial practices, may simply have been fall- masquerading as magnanimous mothers are nearly ubiquitous in ing in line with a general tendency to sanitize the tales for consump- '44 VILLAINS FROM NAGS TO WITCHES '45 tion by children. In surveying the Grimms' collection of tales, it also prevents having to feel guilty about one's angry wishes about becomes clear that both stepmothers and cooks are almost always her."'3 But what is especially remarkable about fairy tales is the ex- thinly disguised substitutes for biological mothers. tent to which they inflate maternal evil. The alien meddlers who Witches and mothers-in-law display the evil impulses and in- make their way into households and attempt to divide a heroine stincts of cooks and stepmothers, and they clearly perform the same from her father or husband are painted in the worst imaginable function in fairy tales. Heroines who emerge from the forest to live colors. As terrifying ogres and evil enchantresses, they take on al- happily ever after with the kings who discover them there often find most mythical dimensions. their domestic bliss disturbed by a rival. In "Twelve Brothers," that The female villains of fairy tales operate in three distinct arenas particular figure is characterized first as the heroine's mother-in- of action that emerge in chronological sequence. The main contours law, then as her stepmother." In fairy tales, these two figures are of the opening situation in tales featuring these villains are reason- clearly interchangeable. "Little Brother and Little Sister" gives us a ably predictable. The child or children whose biological mother has witch who masquerades as a stepmother so that she can insinuate died become the victims of a brutal, scheming stepmother. One herself into a household. At home she subjects the children to daily fairy-tale brother confides to his sister: "Ever since mother died, we abuse; in the forest she continues to tyrannize them by enchanting haven't had a single happy hour.