Fairy Tales, Part 2: what are these Illustrations showing?

With a quick warning that this explanation, like the actual tales, are basically R rated,  let’s just start with Red Riding Hood. Here’s what different sources said:

1. Wikipedia tells us that  Red Riding Hood is a European fairy tale about a young girl (walking through the woods to deliver food to her sickly grandmother) and a big bad wolf.  Its origins can be traced back to the 10th century by several European folk tales, including one from Italy called The False Grandmother . In the Grimms' version, her mother had ordered her to stay strictly on the path. Some versions have her being saved by a huntsman.

2. Little Red Riding Hood Https://list25.com/25-dark-and-disturbing-original-versions-of-childrens-fairy-tales/5/

Yes, off to grandmother’s house she went, but in some original versions, the wolf arrived to the house early and chopped up the grandmother, putting her flesh in the pantry and blood in a wine bottle. He tells Red to have something to eat; she does, unknowing they are her grandmother’s remnants. Some also include the girl stripping naked, burning her clothes, getting into bed, and being eaten by the wolf.

3. Little Red Riding Hood http://flavorwire.com/344667/the-disturbing-origins-of-10-famous-fairy-tales    Perrault gives us a little rhyming verse reminding us that not all wolves are wild beasts — some seduce with gentleness, sneak into our beds, and get us there. The sexual undertones are not lost on us — after all, the contemporary French idiom for a girl having lost her virginity was elle avoit vû le loup — she has seen the wolf.

And sooooo many illustrations:

Here’s my problem: when researching Malleus Maleficarum or Marginalia or any or the other subjects, I was able to find relevant images from centuries past. But with fairy tales, I’m tripping over ILLUSTRATIONS…which are different. In my last piece, I found images of actual marginalia - not drawings someone did, not someone else’s interpretation of marginalia. But with fairy tales, all the images are the interpretations of the illustrators.  

This gives me a wealth of material, but how do I handle it? Do I explore the evolution of the stories and illustrations? I think I need to do a separate piece about children’s literature, which is a great, rich topic on it’s own. And then there’s Mother Goose:

I could work on the theory that Mother Goose is based upon ancient legends of the wife of King Robert of France, known as "Goose-Footed Bertha”.  And Charlemagne’s mother was known as the goose-foot queen. And no, Mother Goose was not based on a woman buried in Boston. 

But if we consider Mother Goose as a woman flying on a bird, what about Aphrodite?

The goose was sacred to Aphrodite, who later became a manifestation of the Goddess in Old Europe. In fact, she may have become Mother Goose after the Christianization of Europe. (400-something BCE).

If we’re going back that far, what about harpies and sirens?

Is Mother Goose the last trace of an ancient bird-woman? The same way “Ring Around The Rosie” is a distant call from the plague of the 1300’s?

I collected all these vintage images of Mother Goose….

…flying through the sky with her pointy black hat….

…..and..her broom? Why is she gathering those little children around a big cauldron?

Maybe my brain is just overdosed on Malleus text, but don’t these Mother Goose figures look like ..witches? Well, according to Jeri Studebaker at  http://www.wildwomanrising.com/mother-goose-why-was-she-sometimes-shown-as-a-witch/ , there’s a reason for that resemblance:

I believe the answer is connected to an old Germanic goddess, ……. the goddess Holda. Like Mother Goose, Holda was deeply connected to children. She instructed them, brought gifts to them at Winter Solstice, took unbaptized babies back into her womb, and even kept unborn infants in her underground water reservoirs, ready for delivery to their human mothers when the time was right. Still other traits link Holda to Mother Goose: Neither ever had a male partner. Both have been depicted spinning by a hearth fire as they tell stories to children. Both are sometimes shown with large, bird-beak noses, which in the case of Holda might be a holdover from very ancient days when she was still a bird goddess. And, both flew through the air on birds, or in wagons or sleighs pulled by birds. What’s more, after the fall of Rome, Holda merged with the goddess Aphrodite, who is shown by more than one ancient artist winging through the air on the back of a goose. That Holda is a very ancient, powerful goddess is suggested by the fact that so many things in Europe even today still bear her name. ……. Holland, for example, is actually “Holla’s land.”

According to the Church Holda no longer instructed young women, but corrupted them…….

 According to the Church, Holda was a hideous old hag who no longer loved babies, but cooked and ate them for lunch. No longer did she instruct young women in the spinning and weaving arts; now she corrupted them. Instead of flying on a bird, she flew on a broom, and her bird-beak nose became preternaturally large and hideous.

After the Church demonized her, it became deadly for Europeans to associate themselves in any way with Holda. Most stopped teaching their children about her. I believe, however, that some still followed her, but for safety’s sake called her by a secret code name: “Mother Goose.”

so…..I’m compiling lots of information, and many, many images, and I have no clear idea how this will all come together.

I’d love to read your thoughts at dianesavona@aol.com.