Perrault and His Stupid Morals

 So I was thinking this morning about Perrault, and his annoying tendency to ruin perfectly good stories with self-righteous moralizing.

If you haven’t read a lot of Perrault before, what he does is tell his story, and then at the end he tells you the moral of the story. Sometimes two morals. And, okay, these are good stories, fully capable of standing on their own. So I’m already annoyed that Perrault has so little faith in our reading comprehension that he has to tell us what each story is about. But the other thing is, that’s not even what the stories are about. His morals are garbage!

I have two specific examples, which fill me with rage every time I think of them:

Bluebeard:

Summary: Girl married to skeevy older dude, already widowed several times. He leaves her home alone and tells her not to go in a specific room. She goes in anyway, and finds the corpses of all his previous wives. He finds out and tries to kill her too, but her brothers save her.

Moral 1: Don’t snoop

Moral 2: At least your arranged marriage probably isn’t to a serial killer, so suck it up.

Donkeyskin:

Summary: Beautiful queen on her deathbed makes husband promise not to remarry unless new girl is as hot as her. Tragically, she was the hottest. Until their daughter grows up to look exactly like dead mom. King has the brilliant idea to marry his own daughter! Daughter, grossed out and freaked out, flees, undergoing much trauma before eventually marrying a foreign prince. Her dad is invited to the wedding, and they reconcile, all the unfortunate incest business magically forgotten.

Moral: Do the right thing (i.e. don’t marry your dad) even when it’s hard.

Now, is it just me, or do these moral seem a little victim-blamey? How about “don’t murder”? “Don’t store rotting corpses in a closet”? “Incest is bad”?

Bluebeard dies at the end, sure, but Donkeyskin’s dad is facing zero consequences for his actions. And yeah, Donkeyskin did the right thing by not marrying her dad, and Perrault acknowledges that, but honestly? She’s a young woman being groomed/manipulated/threatened by the one person in her life that she should absolutely be able to rely on and trust unconditionally. If she did marry him, I would not blame her. Because she’s young and she’s scared and she’s tried, she’s tried to reason with him, but it’s not working, and what is she supposed to do? This particular girl didn’t panic, and was smart enough to find an escape route. But a different girl in the same situation might not have seen a way out, might have wound up marrying him, and that wouldn’t be her fault. It would be her dad’s.

Yeah, Donkeyskin did the right thing, even though it was hard. So what? That’s not the moral of the story! There are a lot of potential morals here, but Perrault can shut up unless he wants to call out the evil dad, and preferably kill him off in the most painful and gruesome way possible.

And Bluebeard? Let’s go back to Bluebeard. “Don’t snoop”? Don’t snoop? Seriously? If I’m ever forced to marry a skeevy older dude with several dead wives, I’m absolutely going to snoop. That’s, like, preemptive self-defense. And I will complain about being forced to marry a skeevy older man as much as I want, whether or not he’s a serial killer, and I have every right to; screw you, Perrault, you insufferable jerk.

Why do you have two morals calling out of heroine for perceived bad behavior and nothing to say about the actual literal serial killer? Stop scolding girls for being in a terrifying situation you’ll never experience and can’t possibly understand. Start scolding Bluebeard for being a serial killer who keeps rotting corpses inside his house. Like, let’s be real here; how much snooping was even involved? Girl probably followed the smell. And smelling dead bodies absolutely trumps all “do not open this door” instructions.

I love Perrault’s actual stories, but his stupid morals just kind of make me wish he was still alive so I could strangle him.

The Shoemaker Prince

So I wrote another book. The Shoemaker Prince is a collection of thirteen short stories based on or inspired by folklore, and it’s coming out on November 2. Digital preorders are open now through most major retailers, and print preorders open through the Wax Heart website on October 12. And I’m super excited!

Some of these stories I wrote as recently as August—I think one I actually finished in early September. It happened to me, very suddenly, as stories sometimes do, and I knew it belonged in this collection.

Other stories I’ve been working on for a very long time. I wrote the first draft of “Violet and Zorzal” when I was sixteen, and I consider it my first real story—the first one I wrote down in its entirety that was for myself and not a school assignment. Before that, my stories existed only in my head.

I began “The Girl With No Heart in Her Body” when I was somewhere in the eight to ten range. It’s a story about a girl born literally heartless, and I think it was my small child attempt to make sense of my undiagnosed mental illness—most of the stories I remember telling myself at this age were about girls with something missing, and no one around them understanding what was wrong with them or why they couldn’t just be like everyone else. The story has obviously been updated significantly since my mental first draft twenty years ago, but it’s still very important to me.

Other stories include:

The title story, about a boy with amnesia, red shoes, and a pet cardinal.

“The Princess Who Refused to Marry a Merman,” a story about a sailor princess with a missing, enchanted fiancé.

A retelling of “The Frog Prince.”

A retelling of “The Frog Princess.”

A retelling of “Puss in Boots” from the perspective of the princess that the cat and his owner are attempting to hoodwink.

At this exact moment, my personal favorite stories are “The Princess Who Refused to Marry a Merman” and “The Ogre Bride,” both largely original stories, though obviously heavily inspired by folk traditions. So keep an eye out for those, and the other eleven!

(Because people often ask: This book can be purchased in print or digitally, from Wax Heart Press or from most major booksellers. All purchases support me both financially and in terms of sort of passive promotion. I get the same amount of money for print purchases no matter where you buy them, but while I get a fraction of the profits from ebook sales elsewhere, I do get 100% of the profit from ebook sales through waxheartpress.com. You’re also charged a dollar less for buying it from there. I make about the same amount of money from print sales and from ebook sales through Wax Heart Press, and a bit less from ebook sales through other channels. But I am super grateful for any purchase you make, and you should absolutely do what works best for you!)

 

 

The Impossible Enchantment

Last time we finally finished our long search for “The Impossible Enchantment.” So today  I thought it would be fun to go through the whole story, as the version I told from memory a couple weeks ago, before finally tracking down the source, was lacking in several details, and outright wrong in others. Which, well, in my defense I hadn’t read it in about fifteen years.

Once a king fell in love with a beautiful but unkind woman. When they had been married for some time, the woman offended a fairy, and as punishment was taken into her service. When a few months had passed, the woman gave birth to a daughter; the fairy sent her home to her husband, and kept the child to raise as her own. 

When the queen of the fairies discovered how kindly her subject treated the daughter of the woman who had offended her, and by extension the entire fairy race, she became very angry. She sent the girl to live trapped in a palace by the sea, with only one servant for company. There, she said, the girl would stay until she held in her arms a man she loved, who loved her as well.

When the girl had been at the palace for some time, a merman took a liking to her, and began to bring her gifts. He was very ugly, and the girl wanted nothing to do with him, though she did accept his gifts. One day the merman brought with him his sister, who, unlike her brother, spoke the girl’s language. The two quickly became friends, though the girl still wanted nothing to do with her aquatic suitor.

She told the mermaid of her plight, and one day the mermaid brought to see her a fairy of her own race. The girl asked the sea fairy to break her enchantment and free her from the palace, but alas, the fairy had no power on land. She encouraged the girl to accept the merman’s suit, for she would then turn the girl into a mermaid as well, and she could live quite happily with them in the sea.

The girl began to consider this seriously. Her servant was alarmed by this turn of events. It occurred to her that the girl had lived in this place for many years now, and may not remember what a proper, human suitor ought to look like. Surely, if she were reminded, she would not consent to marry someone so ugly as the merman.

The servant, who was a painter, created for the girl a portrait of a very handsome man, and the girl agreed that, if human men looked like this, surely she could not settle for an ugly merman instead.

There was, meanwhile, a prince on a ship sailing not far from the island, who happened to catch a glimpse of the girl in his telescope. He fell instantly in love, and with the help of a fairy he knew, sent a message by pigeon, asking for her hand in marriage.

The girl replied that she could not possibly agree to marriage without first seeing what he looked like, and so he sent a portrait by pigeon as well. The girl was delighted to see that the prince strongly resembled the painting made by her servant, and agreed promptly to the marriage.

The difficulty, then, was how to reach the girl, for the enchantment around the palace was too strong for the ship to pass through.

While the prince pondered this difficulty, the girl explained to the mermaids, both her friend and the fairy, that she could not possibly marry someone so ugly as the merman. They were greatly upset by this, and planned to tear down the foundation of the palace and drown her.

The prince arranged for his own fairy to turn him into a hummingbird, and flew to the enchanted palace. The mermaids had by this time made good progress at destroying it, and the girl and her servant were very afraid. But as soon as the prince turned from a hummingbird back into a man, and he and the girl embraced, the terms of the fairy queen’s curse were met, and the girl was free. She, her servant, and the prince were all transported instantly back to the fairy who had raised her.

This fairy took the girl back to her father; her wicked mother had by this time died, and the old king was overjoyed to have family again. And so the girl and the prince were married, and all lived happily ever after.

 

The Ugly Merman

 *Update: After writing this and just before posting it, I found the story! It’s “The Impossible Enchantment” by Comte de Caylus, recorded by Andrew Lang in The Grey Fairy Book. I do think I got it a bit confused with “The Blue Bird” by d’Aulnoy, as well. More info in an upcoming post!*

So I’ve talked about this before, but I’ve read a lot of stories over the years—far more than I’ve been able to keep track of. And sometimes, I desperately want to read a story again, but I can’t remember enough key details to find it. This particular story is one I’ve been searching for for well over five years—this isn’t even the first blog post I’ve made about it.

And I’m not in the mood to read a fairy tale and provide snarky commentary, so I thought I’d use this post to tell the story as I remember it. And if it seems familiar to you, please, please let me know. I’m desperate, guys.

Once there was a lovely princess who had been imprisoned in an island palace. The prince she loved would visit her when he could, but he could not visit often, nor could he save her. For he had been turned into a bluebird, and it was a long flight for little wings.

The princess had one steady companion over the long months of her confinement; this was a mermaid who dwelt in the sea below the palace. They had become very dear friends, but the mermaid wished to be dearer still—she wanted the princess to be not just a friend, but a sister.

It happened that the mermaid had a brother, and she wished him to marry the princess. She did not care that the princess had already given her heart to another, for mermaids are selfish, soulless things.

Now, while all mermaids are beautiful creatures, all mermen are hideously ugly, and her brother was no exception. The princess consented to meet the merman, only to be polite, but he was so ugly that she could scarcely bear to look at him.

She explained to the mermaid, as politely as she could, that she could not possibly marry her brother.

The mermaid was enraged. She summoned all of her friends from the depths of the sea, and they set about flooding the palace, for she was determined to drown the princess.

And that is where my memory fails me. I’ve been through pages and pages of search results, using every search term I could possibly think of. So let me know if you’ve got any ideas.