Shards of Glass: Meet the Character: The Ice Fisher Fairy

 

“When she turned her back to us, I saw she had a tail like a donkey’s or a cow’s, the main part of it just the same color as her skin, and the little tuft at the end matching her hair.”

“I am going to tell you a story older than fairy land itself, just as soon as I’ve caught this fish.”

The ice fisher fairy is a huldra who lives far in the north so that she can go ice fishing all year round. She lives in her fish house, which is bigger on the inside, and communicates with her neighbor by messages sent through sporadic quest-goers. Her mother told her a story, long, long ago, of an enchanted mirror that cursed humanity.

See jennyprater.com for more information on Shards of Glass.

The Black Bull of Norroway

 So despite having "Norway" in the title, this is a Scottish fairy tale. It does, however, have a lot in common with one of the best known Norwegian fairy tales around. Which is why I decided to talk about it today.

Our heroine is the youngest of three sisters, as our heroines often are. They all go to a washerwoman for a sort of mystical matchmaking session, and the oldest two go off with some men in nice carriages who come by her door, while our girl sees a black bull riding past, and because this is a weird sort of matchmaking gig, she gets dropped on the bull's back, and off they go.

They have a long journey, during which she eats out of his right ear and drinks out of his left, until they arrive at a castle, where apparently the bull's older brother lives. She's given a magic apple, and then they move onto another castle, where another brother lives, and give her a pear. In a third brother's castle she gets a magic plum. Then they ride on to a glen, and the bull leaves her there, with instructions not to move at all, while he goes to fight the Old One.

The bull tells her that if everything turns blue he's won, and if everything turns red, the Old One has. So she sits by herself in the glen, waiting, which isn't my idea of a good honeymoon, until everything turns blue. She's really excited, though I'm not sure why - it hasn't exactly been a fantastic marriage so far. Anyway, she's excited, so she moves around a little (just, like, uncrossing her legs), against the bull's express orders, and consequently, he's unable to find her again.

Our girl wanders long and far in search of him - again, not clear on the why. She doesn't owe him anything and we haven't seen them bonding in any way. Why not just go home?

But she wanders. She comes eventually to a glass hill, too slippery to climb, and meets a smith who promises to make her special glass-climbing cleats if she works for him for seven years. And she agrees, which, again, no clue why - she hasn't been given any indication that her missing bull is up the hill. And she walked around the entire base searching for a way up, so she could have just kept going.

After seven years she climbs the hill in her special shoes, and meets another washerwoman. This one is apparently a little less magical, and not a fantastic person.

She tells our girl about a knight who will marry whoever washes his dirty clothes. Which is where we really start getting "East of the Sun, West of the Moon" vibes - it's the return of the magic laundry. The washerwoman can't wash the clothes. Her daughter can't wash the clothes. But our girl falls madly in love with this knight - um, honey, what about the bull you've been doing all this work to find? - and she's able to wash his clothes, through the purity of her love or something, idk.

The washerwoman lies to the knight and tells him that her daughter washed the clothes, a wedding date is set, and our girl is devastated. She gets out her magic apple, finds a bunch of jewels inside, and gives them all to the washerwoman's daughter in exchange for a night with the knight before their wedding. The washerwoman drugs him, so he sleeps straight through her speech about the seven years of hard work she's put into bringing about their reunion, and, okay, when and how, exactly, did she figure out that her bull and the knight were the same person? Because this is literally the first time it's come up in the text. I mean, it was obvious to us, but it shouldn't have been obvious to her, right?

I'm so confused.

Things move forward predictably from here - she makes the same deal with the pear and the plum, eventually someone tells the knight about all the noise someone's making in his bedroom at night, and he doesn't take the drugged drink on the final night. He's reunited with our girl, and they burn the washerwoman and her daughter (details on this move not provided) and live happily ever after.

This story...this story is just...wow.

I have so many unanswered questions. There are so many plotholes. This is such a mess.

Why are we choosing husbands based on who (or what) walks past a washerwoman's door first? Why does the bull have to fight an Old One? What does that even mean? Why can't he find her again if she moves at all, and for how many hours or days was she expected to hold completely still? Why did he have to leave her in the middle of nowhere, instead of one of the THREE castles we just visited?

Why did she feel the need to go after him instead of just going home? Why was she so determined to climb the glass hill, when she's fully capable of walking around it, and we have no evidence that the bull is even up there? If shoes that can climb that hill are worth seven years of labor, why are the washerwoman and her daughter just chilling up there? They can't possibly be getting a lot of business.

How did the knight get up there? Why is his clothing magically dirty? Is it from his fight with the Old One? Has our girl actually met him as the knight, or just heard about him? How does she know who he is? When does she figure out who he is? Why are we, the audience, not kept up to date about this discovery?

I just - it's a mess. I give up.

Fanfic and Folklore

I like folklore. You’ve probably already noticed that.

What you may not have noticed, because it’s never really come up so far, is that I also love fanfiction. Fanfiction, you ask? That stupid thing teenage girls do where they write stories about their favorite TV shows so they can make things go exactly the way they want?

Yeah. That thing.

We’ll talk more about the stupid teenage girl angle later. For now you may be wondering why I opened with the folklore.

Well, they’re basically the same thing.

Here’s why I like folklore: it’s all about the idea of the collective story. Story as a conversation, a huge one, between all the thousands of people, over all the thousands of years, who have ever had anything to do with it. When I sit down to read a “Beauty and the Beast” picture book to my cousin, I’m not just communicating with her, or even just with her and the author and illustrator of this particular book. It connects me to Madame Villeneuve, who wrote the book that led to the story in this picture book. It connects me to Madame Beaumont, who adapted that book into something more recognizable today. It connects me to Robin McKinley, who’s written two beautiful “Beauty and the Beast” retellings, and to Disney, the influence of which is inescapable. It connects me to the other French writers who influenced both Villeneuve and Beaumont, to dozens of people who recorded similar fairy tales, to the people they heard those tales from, and to the people those people heard them from.

Stories work differently, now that most of the oral traditions have been written down. They tend to belong to people now. And that’s fine. It’s great. I write a lot; I understand how connected you can get to the characters you make up, how uncomfortable it might be to see another writer making them do something you know they never would. It’s why, when I’m reading fanfiction, I tend to focus on fic from TV shows rather than novels, or at least novels that have become a part of the collective consciousness, like L Frank Baum’s Oz books. I know people have strong feelings about it, and I try to be respectful. But when the author is cool with it, or long dead, or when the story is already a collaboration between several writers, as in the case of movies, TV shows, etc., fanfic is a wonderful, beautiful, powerful thing.

Let’s take the show Supernatural, for example. You start off with a show that’s already based on myth, religion, folklore, and urban legends from a wide variety of cultures. We don’t even have to talk about the Supernatural fans: the show itself is already fanfic. But let’s talk about those fans anyway. They write their fic. A whole lot of fic. Now this particular fandom is especially useful in this conversation for two reasons. Firstly, it’s very vibrant and active, and contains a lot of great writers who are influencing each other. You can actually find fanfiction of fanfiction of the show. Secondly, it’s very vibrant and active while the show is still running. Fanfic and fandom have, on multiple occasions, been incorporated into the show itself—basically the writers writing fanfic of the fandom. And then people write fic for those episodes, and you end up with fanfic of the fanfic of the fanfic. I think. Admittedly I’ve gotten a little lost at this point.

What it comes down to is this: people hear a story. They tell others that story, but they change it a little. Make it their own. Someone hears their version of the story, and changes that version a little to make it their own. And it goes on and on. Maybe someone who had a hand in an earlier version comes across a more recent one, and changes that one a little, too. And people see that, compare the two versions the one author touched, and notice new things about the story. Things they want to emphasize or eliminate, things that will influence them the next time they tell the story. And everyone has had a chance to make the story their own. So in the end it belongs to everyone.

That’s what folklore is. That’s why I love folklore, aside from the talking animals and people in pretty clothes. And that’s why I love fanfiction. It fills a role in our society that would otherwise have faded away. It turns stories into conversations again.

(Stay tuned for a rant on public opinion of a)fanfic, and b)teenage girls, coming soon to a blog near you.)