Musings: The Virago Book of Fairy Tales

I first heard about the Virago Book of Fairy Tales (my copy was called The Old Wives' Fairy Tale Book) from Ana in a comment on my review of Trickster.  In that review, I said that I enjoyed Trickster, but was unhappy that so many of the stories related did not portray women in a very positive light.  Ana pointed me towards Angela Carter's more women-centric book of folk tales and fairy tales, and I quickly got the book from the library to read.

And, as Ana promised, the book is much more interesting and nuanced in its portrayal of women because, well, that was a significant motivating factor in compiling the book.  The stories also come from peoples and cultures all over the world, from Native Americans to West Africans to Eskimos to Europeans, so it was really fascinating to see the different cadences and rhythms and themes that emerged from them.

In particular, the Eskimo stories were way out there and completely different than anything else in my whole experience, including the completely different experience of reading Native American stories in Trickster.  What was most interesting about the Eskimo stories was the way that gender roles were played with and tossed around and thwarted.  For example, in one story, a man goes away to hunt, and his mother makes herself a phallus and starts an affair with the man's wife, and the two are very happy together.  In another, two women escape their husband and live happily ever after together in a dead, stinky whale.  In a third, a woman makes herself the husband she lost out of earth.  It was really refreshing (and somewhat disturbing, in some instances) to read stories in which women's sexuality and independence were not only acknowledged but shared and passed down through generations.

Interesting, too, was the effect that storytellers have on their stories.  Versions of Cinderella showed up in Scotland and China.  A variation on Rumplestilskin was included, as was a more macabre Little Red Riding Hood.  I really enjoyed reading the stories in dialect, though I really struggled with some of them and was quite relieved that the stories weren't longer because it was a lot of work to read them!

The book is pretty short, which I appreciated because sometimes large compilations of folk and fairy tales can become very repetitive and tiring to read.  This one had a large variation in the stories included, and many felt completely fresh to me.  I also LOVED the artwork that accompanied each drawing- very much like stylized stencil woodcuts, they were lovely.

As always in collections of stories, some were better than others.  Actually, I must say that I didn't really love any of the stories included here, but the combined effect of so many stories that focused on sharing the lives, trials and triumphs of women was very powerful for me.  I don't think any individual story will stand out much to me going forward, but the book as a whole is one I thoroughly enjoyed reading and gave me a lot of food for thought.

I seem to be on a folktale/fairy tale kick, so I'm sure I'll read Yeats' compilation of Irish folk tales soon and share my thoughts on those with you!