Sunday, May 10, 2009

Tomorrow I brew, today I bake.

It has been a few moons since I have posted last. The last couple of months have been very chaotic, and the chaos does not seem to abate. But I felt like I should take out a few hours and post something on the blog. First off Happy Mother’s Day! Today I want to go into another spinning tale. Rumpelstiltskin.

http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/rumpelstiltskin/index.html

What captivates my mind with this story, as Maria Tatar points out, no one in the story is particularly good. There are no real moral guidelines with the tale. Each person is a liar, greedy or rash. In comparison to the humans in the tale the Gnome is the one who comes off the best. He is the only one who shows compassion and holds those around him accountable to their words.

The catalyst to the story is the father. He trying to “appear as a person of some importance” tells the king he has a daughter who can spin straw into gold. As true Heathens we take pride in our boasting. Boasting is our way, but when a boast becomes a lie that is when things can go wrong. The father puts his daughter’s life at risk because of his lie. It is very interesting that lie is spoken so that he can appear more important than he really is. The king also readily accepts the lie as truth. If the king would have stopped and thought about what the poor miller was saying he would have realized it could not have been true. If a daughter really could spin straw into gold, why was this man not rich? This is an important lesson for us. Listen to someone’s words with discernment. As accepting a lie as truth could be just as dangerous for the hearer as the teller.

The king takes the girl in and tells her if she does not spin straw to gold she will die. She despairs. No one is able to do such a task. Magically the gnome appears and offers to do this for her. 3 times he comes and 3 times she gives him a gift in exchange for the deed. A necklace, a ring and lastly her first born child. Just as her father bartered with her life so she barters with her future child’s life. We have learned in the last few years how patterns between parents and children repeat. What your mother did for good or bad is more than likely what you will do as a mother. This cycle can be broken, but it takes a person to be self aware of their actions. To be present and understand the motivations of their actions. Any cycle can be broken.

And so life goes on. We learn this because the queen has forgotten all about the gnome. It is hard to imagine the day she realized she was pregnant this was not the first thing on her mind, but it wasn’t. So we see the queen does not hold oaths sacred.

The queen is clever and she uses all the resources available to her to solve the problem. She does solve the problem and in the end pulls one over on the gnome. I don’t like the way the story ends as it is the gnome is the one who through the story was true. When the queen did not fulfill her oath he came calling. When she cried he took pity on her and gave her a second chance. This gnome saved her life. He should have been given more credit. It feels as if the queen has learned nothing from her actions.

A shorter post than usual, but I feel packed with useful information.

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