Dear Readers,

Every now and again an opportunity presents itself for your passions to coincide with experience (yours and those of others) so closely that new archetypes spring to life, old ones come back with a vengeance, and creative ideas flow with such fury you are left baffled, confused, and a little disheveled. This is a good thing…at least, I think so.

I have recently begun researching the archetype of the “forest” or “woods” in fairy tale, folklore, and fantasy. As you know I write this blog as a means to indicate the complexity to be found on the border between Reality and Fantasy, the struggles that present themselves in life and in fantasy and the manner in which they are experienced or resolved. This concept of challenge/counter-reaction, experience and struggle, comprises the crux of my fascination with fantasy. The manner in which fantasy, fairy tale, and folklore mirror and explore human experience allows me to understand the world.

“Into the Woods”, therefore, has become the conceptual working title of my life at this time…and I have decided to write a blog entry illustrating my research process thus far and my developing personal conclusions and creative endeavours on the subject.

The forest, in the tradition of fairy tale and fantasy, is a dark place. Archetypically it possesses both idyllic qualities and terrible haunting “Do Not Enter” qualities. I embarked on a quest, as it were, to explore these concepts and began

with Endicott Studio’s Autumn 2004 Issue of the Journal of Mythic Arts: “Into the Woods”. The letter from the Editor’s Desk in that issue provides a splendid introduction to the field of research in fairy tale forestry. Not only does it introduce the general themes in the ideas well but it also devotes a great deal of energy introducing the reader to creative works on the subject! Art, poetry, fiction, etc. All are included! The issue also includes a BEAUTIFUL article on the (French oral) origins of Little Red Riding Hood (originally called the Grandmother’s Tale). This article is entitled “The Path of Needles or Pins: Little Red Riding Hood” and, among other things, is an exploration of the ‘persons’ one meets in the woods, the important difference between loosing one’s way and choosing one’s way, and the themes of female sexual development and maturity in the French rural tradition that are prevalent in the original tale! A small teaser: pins in French rural society before Charle’s Perrault symbolized the beginning of adolescence for young girls. This was an important rite of passage and, as in many societies, involved certain traditional events or practices that were referred to as “gathering pins”. Needles, on the other hand were a sign not only of full sexual maturity but of sexual virulence! The article asserts that at one time, needles worn along the shoulder of a woman’s garment indicated a woman’s profession to be prostitution! Also the wolf, in the Grandmother’s Tale, is not a wolf but a werewolf. This changes the context of the young girl’s deception entirely. She is offered a choice of which path to take in the woods (the path of needles or pins) and it is from that point onward that her own developmental challenges begin. She has entered another stage of life and

she emerges a changed character. May I also indicate that her character also saves herself from the challenges and consequences of her experience in the woods.

This article and the editor’s letter lead me further. The letter contained a wonderful quotation from “Voices from the Forest: 1. The Voice of the Traveler Who Escaped” in Alive Together: New and Selected Poems by Lisel Mueller:

No Matter how exhausted you are,and though you think you will die of thirst,do not enter the house in the forest.Ignore the unlocked doorand the lamp in the window, lit for you.1

This quotation indicates the dreaded allure, the false pretenses of warmth and safety in the forest. I have read the entire series of poems belonging to the “Voices from the Forest” group (there are eight) and they comprise a beautiful set! What is truly magical and soulful about them is that Mueller has looked at fairy tales and fantasy from the point of view of someone who is not the protagonist. She has turned the tables and asserted the humanity of the damned, the bewitching, and the unfortunate. Those who survive (as per the quotation) bring back a haunting quality. This escaped traveler is damaged, but he has learned, and he is changed or transformed.

In that vein pursued the subject further in the archival halls of the Journal of Mythic Arts. There many articles interest to find in their non-fiction archive but chief among these were The Dark of the Woods: Rites-of-Passage Tales by

1 Mueller, Lisel. “Voices From The Forest: 1. The Voice Of The Traveler Who Escaped.” Alive Together: New and Selected Poems. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1996. Print.[First encountered in Terri Windling’s “From the Editor’s Desk” in the Autumn 2004 Issue of the Journal of Mythic Arts.]

Terri Windling and Into the Woods: On British Forests, Myth and Now by Ruth Padel. The Rites of Passages tale is especially significant in that it emphasizes change and transformation as necessary in the fairy tale forest/woods process. This article, catalogued under the “myth and folklore” section, is an exploration of pain, of change, and of challenge that is inherent in folklore when a character experiences the wild and raw nature. It relates the story of “Bone Woman” who, in brief, sings a woman back to life after she has been abandoned and dies in the desert. The womans bones are all that remains of her and it is not until her death, her spirit hovering, that bone woman comes and re-makes her. Happy endings are never guaranteed in myth, folklore, and fairy tale and, as seen in this story, when they do occur the are entirely transformative. The woman of the tale has no memory of her past life, her torturous death, but she emerges back into life having experienced the spirit world and it is through this experience, through her death, that she comes back with newfound knowledge. And understanding of life and the ability to grow, be a creative force of her own. Those characters that are thrust into the forest (or the souther equivalent, the desert), perservere, and emerge, emerge changed. They have learned because they have suffered. They have learned because some part of them has died and been reborn.

I feel the need to emphasize as well that the kinds of experiences that occur, once a character enters the wild or is banished to the forest, vary exceedingly. Protagonists come across all kinds of creatures and persons along the way and it is anyone’s guess what kind of personage they

have met. A crone dispensing invaluable advice at a cross-road? Or a some pernicious fairy or witch, intent of the demise of their victims. An ogre? A gingerbread house? A fox? Wolf? These shapes and forms are never guaranteed and it is the dilemma of “what do I do now” that is emphasized by “Into the Woods: On British Forests, Myth, and Now”:

Like The Wild Wood […]it is a dark confusing place, a fairy–tale tangle of magic, danger and, often […] sexuality (see the achingly symbolic "forest of thorns" around Sleeping Beauty or Rapunzel's Tower), where right and wrong are in disguise, like Miss Riding Hood's Wolf or witches dressed as beggar women. Where you stray off the path, or lose it completely. […] Should I fill my starving belly with the gingerbread eaves of this witch's house, or not? Should I rip the heart out of this sweet little princess? Should I trust, should I fear, should I go this way or that?2

Perhaps, literally speaking, we do not encounter witches or wish-giving beggar women in real life. But the questions we ask ourselves in times of strife and conflict are the same. Should I trust or should I fear? And who is going to answer this question when we find ourselves alone, in the woods, without mother, father, lover, or friend to show us the way. 2 Padel, Ruth. "Into the Woods: On British Forests, Myth and Now by Ruth Padel: Farewell Issue 2008, Journal of Mythic Arts, Endicott Studio." Endicott Studio of Mythic Arts and Journal of Mythic Arts. Web. 27 Oct. 2010. <http://www.endicott-studio.com/rdrm/rrIntoWoods.html>.

These conundrums, encounters with the unknown, brought me to my next line of questioning… The analogy of the forest so far really only involved external experiences. Actual events. What about internal struggles? Well of course, the events that I have discussed thus far have not been entirely external. Questions of “what next” necessarily involve personal confusion and fear, which is very internal. But there are other forms of internal crisis. Existential crises, identity crises, complexes involving the events that lead up to being in the forest in the first place etc… AND, in what way do these internal struggles apply to “us”, those of us supposedly in the real world.

Firstly, every article or source that I have mentioned so far addresses this question of applicability (tip of the hat to Tolkien for that concept). Terri Windling’s work on rites of passage emphasizes it in particular3. However, in order to explore this issue further, I dove into the local library with a BIG list of obscure books on fairy tale and fantasy archetypal interpretation and, O Wondrous Fortune!, did not come out empty handed! (I am broke.) Out of the bag load of books that I DID bring home, I have thus far managed to explore one or two. Some I intend to read in full and, therefore, am saving until my general education on the subject is a little less rickety. One of the volumes that I have not had a chance to explore much yet is called “From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers” by Marina Warner. This book is mentioned as source 3 [Another article by Terri Windling in which she very much explores personal applicability is “Transformations” under Mythic Memoir. It is very dark and poignant but very worth it for anyone truly interested in the power of fairy tale in dealing with crisis.]

material in almost everything I have encountered on fairy tale interpretation THUS FAR and is therefore a must read. I mention it here because I have not gotten very far in it but really want you all to know about it.

Now, back to forests. I also picked up a book called “The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales” by Bruno Bettelheim. This book is lovely (and has a very useful index, yay!) and, in spite of being a little too Freudian for my tastes (there is only so much Oedipus one can take) has some very interesting things to say about forestry and symbolism. At one point, Bettelheim discusses a tale in which two brothers enter the forest in order to choose leaving their parental origins and entering the world to become independent (“The Two Brothers”, Grimm): “The forest, where they go to decide that they want to have a life of their own, symbolizes the place in which inner darkness is confronted and worked through; where uncertainty is resolved about who one is; and where one begins to understand who one wants to be.” 4 Bettelheim goes on to discuss this story type, explaining that in many brother-stories one brother leaves and finds himself lost in a dark and tangled forest. Bettelheim emphasizes that this character has “given up” the structure that his “parental home” provided him and has not developed the “inner structures” acquired through perosonal life experiences:

Since ancient times the near-impenetrable forest in which we get lost has symbolized the dark,

4 Bettelheim, Bruno. "Tales of Two Brothers." The Uses of Enchantment: the Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. New York: Knopf, 1976. 93. Print.

hidden, near-impenetrable world of our unconscious. If we have lost the framework which gave structure to our past life and must now find our own way to become ourselves, and have entered this wilderness with an as yet undeveloped personality, when we succeed in finding our way out we shall emerge with a much more highly developed humanity.5

The author then goes on to discuss the significance of powerful female characters encountered in the woods. The witch, for example, encapsulates some of our greater anxieties and wishes. We wish we could have power but we are afraid of that power in the hands of another (and under whose arbitration our fate is pinned.) This argument quickly becomes too Oedipal for me. I made an attempt to make it more gender neutral by inverting it to see if it worked as an Elektra complex as well but…as the traveler and the character encountered can be of any gender (even of unidentified gender) I felt Freud was better left out of the equation. At another point in the volume Bettelheim also went into the “reason” behind the forest is entered in the first place and became involved in the morality implied in disobedience and misfortune as retribution but I’m under the impression that I haven’t fully understood his argument on that subject yet because it seems muddy and one sided to me. (Besides, he uses Little Red Riding Hood’s straying from the path as the thing she did wrongly when we 5 ibid., 94.

now know that the original story didn’t involve leaving the path at all…). I have to give Bettelheim a deeper read before I can do him full justice.

The point that I took away from Bettelheim’s work is that a key experience in everyone’s life is individuation, growing up, and learning how to be alone and afraid. It seems safe to say this is a rite of passage that everyone endures at some point or even at many points. I am at that crossroads right now. And the temptation we all feel in times like that is to find someone to lean on. Someone who can point out the direction on the map in our own forest and say ‘Go that way. It leads to simplicity and happiness. You can be independent if you listen to me.” But it doesn’t work like that does it? We all get to a point in life when we don’t know what to do and, suddenly, your loved ones don’t necessarily have the magic answer. No band aid. Or the answers that would have worked when you were small are not adequate anymore because your problems have grown along with you. Sound familiar? There can be many interpretations to Bettelheim’s statements, but those are mine for the time being.

Last but not least in my list of “what I have researched/read so far” is a book that I intend to read COVER TO COVER. Thank’s to my dear friend

Lunardust (livejournal) I have discovered Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. Estes is a Jungian psychoanalyst, biologist, and storyteller who combines these fields of study in a comprehensive exploration of the female psyche through stories. Her writing style is very fluid and, at times, one might say…HIGHLY metaphorical, but it is not forced. It is natural and soothing. Like Windling, she begins her journey through a variant of the “Bone Woman” story. “La Loba” (or Wolf Woman) is essentially the same story with the exception that instead of re-vivifying a woman through song, La Loba has re-vivified a wolf through song and the reincarnated wolf emerges partly as a laughing woman, reborn with new wisdom and appreciation for the physical and spiritual world. This is of course an over-simplification of Estes foundational concept but her book focuses on rebuilding the wilder woman within all of us. It focuses on allowing us to re-attach ourselves with our inner fairy tale or our inner forest in other words. Estes focuses more on the seemingly desolate and frightening aspects of the desert rather than the fairy tale forests but the concepts are largely the same and the list of stories she includes in her book is impressive! I am thoroughly enjoying it! If we follow the path I have detailed from Bettelheim’s concept of the undeveloped personality being (or choosing to be) thrust into the wild, Estes provides her readers with the tools to develop their inner selves through stories

and through Jungian concepts built upon the collective unconscious. (Really, everyone should just read the book. I’m doing a terrible job of explaining it.)

At any rate, you’ll understand that there is a plethora of information worth exploring on the subject of the forest in fairy tale and folklore ALONE! It’s wonderful. And for those of you undergoing any kind of personal or life crises out there, illness, sadness, problems with your career, fear, anything. Fantasy will have something for you, some archetype that will help you through and at least aid you in metaphorically understanding what is happening to you. Instead of existing in a tormented state of “why me!”, you can exist with an understanding that for everyone the forest is ready, waiting, alluring, and dark.