Activity: Think of the old women you know. What are they like? What do you know about their lives? What are their relationships to you? Grandmother? Neighbor? Teacher? Friend? What age is “old”? How do you feel about growing old? Is it an insult to call someone “old”? Why or why not? What value do old women bring to their communities, to the world? Do you think our culture listens to old women? Do you think our culture portrays them fairly? Do you think they are “visible” in our culture, in media and stories? Why or why not?
Old women are everywhere in fairy and folk tales. They show up as witches, hags, wicked queens, evil stepmothers, mothers, fairy godmothers, grandmothers, wives, maids (both in the spinster sense and laborer sense), widows, neighbors, wise women, crones, demons in disguise, teachers, healer women, fortune tellers, personifications of the earth or moon or mountains, and much more. They are essential to folklore, myth, legends, and fairy and folk tales.
Women old and young show up as storytellers in folk and fairy tales because so many have been storytellers who've supplied male collectors and publishers with the goods that made the men famous: Madame D’Aulnoy, the 17th century French writer who coined the term fairy tales (contes de fees); Dorothea Viehmann and Marie Hassenpflug, two of the many women from whom the Grimm Brothers’ collected stories; Mary Shelley, who conjured up the story that became Frankenstein at age 18 in a ghost story competition among a group of more established literary friends (today, Shelley's humble "ghost story" outfames pretty much anything written by her more celebrated poet husband and philosopher father); Peig Sayers, the Irishwoman from the Blasket Islands whose hard-luck life story was the basis (and bane) of Irish-language students’ curriculum for generations; Augusta Braxton Baker, the pioneering children’s librarian and storyteller at the New York Public Library; Jackie Torrence, aka "The Story Lady," whom movie director Steven Spielberg enlisted to teach storytelling to his DreamWorks team.
In the well-known fairy tales of many Western, European/Anglo cultures, older women are still largely marginalized as characters. Even as contemporary variants adapt some of the classic fairy tale tropes concerning old women, they still mostly relegate them to the side of the story rather than put them at the center. Yet plenty of tales that center them or feature them equally with younger characters exist and can be found if you look for them.
In an NPR article on representations of old women in fairy tales, writer Veronique Tadjo points to a “fear of female power in general.” Tadjo grew up in Cote d’Ivoire and says African folk tales commonly feature an old witch figure who’s solitary, angry, and eats people’s souls. Yet she also references a Kenyan tale, “Marwe in the Underworld,” in which a young girl drowns herself and enters the Land of the Dead and meets an old woman. The old woman puts her to work doing chores with her own children, but also teaches her, helps her re-enter the land of the living and reunite with her parents, and guides her on knowing who to pick as her husband.
A 1995 collection of stories that center women by Newbery Medal winner Virginia Hamilton is heartening for how many older women are included. Her Stories: African American Folktales, Fairy Tales, and True Tales offers 19 tales dedicated to “our mothers and grandmothers, aunts and great-aunts. To all the women who stood before us, telling us about where they came from, what they saw, did, and imagined.” Among the stories that center older women are “Macie and Boo Hag” and “Miz Hattie Gets Some Company.” The supernatural tale “Who You!” a pourquoi (why) story about how owls came to be, stands out as an intergenerational story that puts younger and elder women side by side like sisters. The collection ends with three oral stories collected from elderly African American women, two of whom were born before the end of the Civil War and share their recollections of “the Surrender.”
Why are older women so often overlooked or disparaged in fairy and folk tales--portrayed as complaining, foolish, useless, miserly, or mean? It is as if many cultures wish to ignore that the young girls and women centered in stories remain inside the old women they become. That old women carry and store a treasure trove of life experiences within them and may be the best ones to pass them down or relay them to those who will listen.
As recent adaptions of fairy tales have fixated on telling the villain’s side of the story, another new angle may be revisiting the young heroes and heroines much further down life’s road. Burning Roses, a new fantasy/sci-fi novella by S.L. Huang, explores the post-midlife of two famous fairy and folk tale characters: Little Red Riding Hood and Hou Yi the Archer. In Huang’s version, Little Red Riding Hood is Rosa, an older, Latina lesbian still haunted by the trauma of her encounter with the wolf and her Abuela’s death long ago. Hou Yi, the mythological Chinese archer, is Rosa’s companion, a transgender woman, also older and haunted by past betrayals. The book’s plot of chasing down destructive creatures is a scaffold for these women to set off together and tell their life stories along the way. (Rosa’s also involves relationships with “Goldie” of Goldilocks and the Three Bears and a “Mei” who turns out to be the Beast’s Beauty.) The book ends on a hopeful note that older characters still have the potential for change, healing, and redemption, and they certainly have some stories in them to tell.
Below is a video of a telling of the Japanese folktale "The Wise Old Woman" (audio only) and an interview with a well-known 75-year-old Appalachian storyteller. The annotated bibliography page includes some sources featuring the Old Woman as a character.
Photo credits: Header--Wikimedia Commons, portrait of Dorothea Viehmann, storyteller whose fairy tales were collected by the Grimm Brothers / Thumbnail--Wikimedia Commons, Irish storyteller Peig Sayers
Old women are everywhere in fairy and folk tales. They show up as witches, hags, wicked queens, evil stepmothers, mothers, fairy godmothers, grandmothers, wives, maids (both in the spinster sense and laborer sense), widows, neighbors, wise women, crones, demons in disguise, teachers, healer women, fortune tellers, personifications of the earth or moon or mountains, and much more. They are essential to folklore, myth, legends, and fairy and folk tales.
Women old and young show up as storytellers in folk and fairy tales because so many have been storytellers who've supplied male collectors and publishers with the goods that made the men famous: Madame D’Aulnoy, the 17th century French writer who coined the term fairy tales (contes de fees); Dorothea Viehmann and Marie Hassenpflug, two of the many women from whom the Grimm Brothers’ collected stories; Mary Shelley, who conjured up the story that became Frankenstein at age 18 in a ghost story competition among a group of more established literary friends (today, Shelley's humble "ghost story" outfames pretty much anything written by her more celebrated poet husband and philosopher father); Peig Sayers, the Irishwoman from the Blasket Islands whose hard-luck life story was the basis (and bane) of Irish-language students’ curriculum for generations; Augusta Braxton Baker, the pioneering children’s librarian and storyteller at the New York Public Library; Jackie Torrence, aka "The Story Lady," whom movie director Steven Spielberg enlisted to teach storytelling to his DreamWorks team.
In the well-known fairy tales of many Western, European/Anglo cultures, older women are still largely marginalized as characters. Even as contemporary variants adapt some of the classic fairy tale tropes concerning old women, they still mostly relegate them to the side of the story rather than put them at the center. Yet plenty of tales that center them or feature them equally with younger characters exist and can be found if you look for them.
In an NPR article on representations of old women in fairy tales, writer Veronique Tadjo points to a “fear of female power in general.” Tadjo grew up in Cote d’Ivoire and says African folk tales commonly feature an old witch figure who’s solitary, angry, and eats people’s souls. Yet she also references a Kenyan tale, “Marwe in the Underworld,” in which a young girl drowns herself and enters the Land of the Dead and meets an old woman. The old woman puts her to work doing chores with her own children, but also teaches her, helps her re-enter the land of the living and reunite with her parents, and guides her on knowing who to pick as her husband.
A 1995 collection of stories that center women by Newbery Medal winner Virginia Hamilton is heartening for how many older women are included. Her Stories: African American Folktales, Fairy Tales, and True Tales offers 19 tales dedicated to “our mothers and grandmothers, aunts and great-aunts. To all the women who stood before us, telling us about where they came from, what they saw, did, and imagined.” Among the stories that center older women are “Macie and Boo Hag” and “Miz Hattie Gets Some Company.” The supernatural tale “Who You!” a pourquoi (why) story about how owls came to be, stands out as an intergenerational story that puts younger and elder women side by side like sisters. The collection ends with three oral stories collected from elderly African American women, two of whom were born before the end of the Civil War and share their recollections of “the Surrender.”
Why are older women so often overlooked or disparaged in fairy and folk tales--portrayed as complaining, foolish, useless, miserly, or mean? It is as if many cultures wish to ignore that the young girls and women centered in stories remain inside the old women they become. That old women carry and store a treasure trove of life experiences within them and may be the best ones to pass them down or relay them to those who will listen.
As recent adaptions of fairy tales have fixated on telling the villain’s side of the story, another new angle may be revisiting the young heroes and heroines much further down life’s road. Burning Roses, a new fantasy/sci-fi novella by S.L. Huang, explores the post-midlife of two famous fairy and folk tale characters: Little Red Riding Hood and Hou Yi the Archer. In Huang’s version, Little Red Riding Hood is Rosa, an older, Latina lesbian still haunted by the trauma of her encounter with the wolf and her Abuela’s death long ago. Hou Yi, the mythological Chinese archer, is Rosa’s companion, a transgender woman, also older and haunted by past betrayals. The book’s plot of chasing down destructive creatures is a scaffold for these women to set off together and tell their life stories along the way. (Rosa’s also involves relationships with “Goldie” of Goldilocks and the Three Bears and a “Mei” who turns out to be the Beast’s Beauty.) The book ends on a hopeful note that older characters still have the potential for change, healing, and redemption, and they certainly have some stories in them to tell.
Below is a video of a telling of the Japanese folktale "The Wise Old Woman" (audio only) and an interview with a well-known 75-year-old Appalachian storyteller. The annotated bibliography page includes some sources featuring the Old Woman as a character.
Photo credits: Header--Wikimedia Commons, portrait of Dorothea Viehmann, storyteller whose fairy tales were collected by the Grimm Brothers / Thumbnail--Wikimedia Commons, Irish storyteller Peig Sayers