The Fairy Tale Heroine: Live and Create Her Journey

Introduction: Part II

“Psyche in the Temple of Love”

The Fairy Tale Heroine

Thanks to all for the enthusiastic response to the Book Launch of THE FAIRY TALE HEROINE last week! I am greatly encouraged to continue sharing the unique and powerful legacy of feminine quest stories and what they can mean for us today. Each of us responds to the fairy tale heroine in our own way and some of her tales captivate.

The Lure of the Oral Tradition

As I attained adulthood, world literature attracted me in its epic tales, but not contemporary novels with their heavy pathos of angst and confusion. It was while teaching literature to ninth grade disadvantaged students that I relearned the power of myth and the oral tradition when I stepped away from my lectern and told the myth of Daphne and Apollo in my own words to a stunned, mesmerized audience.

This discovery, in turn, led me to share my passion in a far-reaching storytelling project. I sought private funding for the public schools and approached philanthropic offices in San Francisco, eventually securing a grant from the Zellerbach Family Fund in 1980, to train educators in storytelling as a teaching strategy. Funded as an individual, I was the spokesperson, author, presenter, and manager of the project I founded and entitled Word Weaving.

Throughout the 1980s, I trained teams of educators from California districts who then used the Word Weaving program to themselves train teachers, reaching thousands over the decade, implementing the oral tradition, its folklore, fairy tales, myths, and legends in classrooms.

In my work as presenter, storyteller, and coach, I became immersed in the hundreds of tales told by the workshop participants, almost exclusively female teachers: their story themes, versions of feminine folk and fairy tales, historical accounts of pioneer women, native American lore, and the ancient myths of goddesses.

The rich folk literature of the oral tradition had relevance; its teacher storytellers had agency. Over those years, I was privileged to perform and teach as a storyteller in schools, at conferences, even for incarcerated women and those in recovery, and published numerous educational materials on storytelling.

Enter Princess Psyche

By the late-1990s, I was in mid-life, living in Berkeley while my son attended Berkeley High School. I’d settled down after twelve years of near constant travel in my work in storytelling as a Language Arts consultant to the California Department of Education with grants from the Zellerbach Family Fund. Later, as a published author with Scholastic and Highlights for Children, I’d been on tour promoting storytelling materials at teacher conferences.

Deep in self-reflection in a more sedentary existence, I rummaged through old books and files. It was there that the amazing Greek myth, “Psyche and Eros,” found me. I simply wanted to know how to go on, become more functional, accelerate my own growth. The myth of Psyche spoke to me as no other. Little did I know then, that the so-called Greek myth of  Psyche and Eros, retold by the Roman author Apuleius, had preexisted as a fairy tale in the ancient, matriarchal, pre-Hellenic cultures of the Near East.

Nor was I aware that Psyche’s tale was the grandmama of the European folktale type—princess who goes in search of her husband (ATU 425*)—the story I’d loved as a child, the princess on an arduous quest in iron shoes. I simply identified with Psyche completely, and in many ways, her myth came to define me—such is the power of archetypes, how they live in our consciousness.

Every time I was confronted with an overwhelming personal crisis and barely able to cope, I would imagine what Psyche would do. Inspired, I kept a journal asking this question: “Where am I in the myth today?” I found myself returning to the tale, developing stronger attributes, learning from the myth.

I recalled how Psyche stared at the pile of different seeds, faced with the seemingly impossible task of separating them by nightfall. I gave myself permission to experience the depths of my despair, knowing the answer to my problem would arrive just as surely as the tiny ants came to Psyche's aid. I survived my darkest moments with Psyche as my weeping and heroic companion. I loved Psyche for her courage and resourcefulness; she showed me a way out I could follow.

Many young women identify with Cinderella, as the rags to riches heroine, with versions dating back to Egyptian hieroglyphics and Chinese cave dwellers. All the heroines in these stories have a priceless inner beauty that rises from the rags of jealous punishment to the riches of royalty and recognition in their demanding quests.

In Psyche’s story there is no Prince Charming who saves her from her trials. Eros abandons her once she exposes him and his trickery. Psyche is left to face her labors alone, as she seeks to appease Eros’ mother, the jealous, vengeful goddess Aphrodite. Psyche, a mortal, dares to confront the powerful goddess of beauty face-to-face and attempt a hopeless quest.

I felt her utter isolation and overwhelm.

At that time I was a research librarian for San Francisco School District, assigned to the Professional Library. It was second nature for me to research Psyche at the Berkeley Public Library, a wonderful depository of second-wave feminism—a treasure trove of goddess histories, traditions, myths, and fairy tales, re-visioned, re-imagined. All those books, just waiting for me on the dusty shelves.

To my surprise and delight, I found that many scholars thought Psyche was a suitable heroine for modern women. Several Jungian analysts, notably Erich Neumann, saw the story of Psyche as a pattern for feminine development. The growing interest in the feminist community to re-vision the goddess traditions in the 1970s and 1980s brought Greek and pre-Hellenic myths into close scrutiny. As the remarkable amount of research showed, the story of Psyche and Eros and others were fully alive and powerful. They had survived millennia and still evoked strength for women in society.

Carl Jung, famous for his interpretations of myth and folklore, said that the most we can do is to dream the myths onward and give them a modern dress.

My bookish discoveries not only validated my journaling practice, but I became motivated to share what I’d learned on my own. I experimented writing YA fiction that wove elements of Psyche’s quest into contemporary narratives: Girl in the Mirror and Strange Beauty.

During the pandemic, I wrote my own memoir in a braided style, weaving excerpts from a variety of feminine fairy tales with my life experiences. It was writing my memoir that led me to further research and share the heroine’s journey as a powerful model for women’s development today.

###To be continued...

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* Thompson, Stith. Motif Index of Folk-Literature. 6 vols. Bloomington, IN: University Press, 1932, 1955-58, 1966, 2004.

Art: “Psyche in the Temple of Love” by Edward John Poynter, English painter, (1836-1919)

NOTE:

Forty years later, I was drawn once again to a more sophisticated version of the very same fairy tale I’d loved as a child, the one about the princess with the iron shoes on a quest to rescue her husband. Psyche was also a princess, but one whose tasks were more arduous and personal. She hoped for mercy, yet was stripped to her core. She was stealthy and wary, brave and daring, despairing and adventurous—at last successful in each of her tasks. In mid-life, I embraced Psyche’s more mature, experienced heroine, one who was betrayed, abandoned, pregnant, fighting for her life and that of her child against demanding forces.

This tale had resonated within my unconscious for decades, from the “Iron Shoes” to “Psyche and Eros,” the same tale type in the Motif Index, ATU 425.

Prompts

Why do you think this tale type stayed with me from childhood to mid-life? What was the basic attraction? Would you find personal meaning in this tale?

What is a feminine fairy tale type that appeals to you as an adult?  Or is there an archetypal section of a fairy tale that illuminates your life and creative work?

I look forward to reading your comments!