March 1 2006
The Wicked StepMother
By Kelley Bell
The term fairy tale brings to mind a children's story, but in truth these tales are parables of history.
Some feminist researchers have interpreted these "tales of persecuted heroines" as a negative influence on young girls, citing that the women in these stories need a man to "save them." While it is true that this could send the wrong message to our youth, a deeper meaning behind these stories points to the liberation of women, and leads to a beautiful concept of harmony and balance. It is a spiritual teaching that calls out to us from the ancient past. It is a lesson that will not die, even though it has been suppressed, repressed, persecuted, attacked, and twisted for centuries.
In olden times, it was common for all religious teachings to take the form of parable. We all know that the New Testament stories of the shepherd and his flock are not lessons in animal husbandry. They are parables for religious teachings.
Fairy tales are the same. In order to decipher them and find their message, we need only grasp the concepts behind the olde ways, and remember the persecution of these peoples and their history.
The libraries of Alexandria were one of the Seven Wonders of the World. It was a truly metropolitan center of culture and learning. In AD 351 Bishop Theophilus of Rome, led an attack on the great libraries and destroyed over a half a million parchments, documents and sculptures that represented the accumulated knowledge of the ancient world. The reason for this onslaught was based on The Council of Creeds of Nicaea, which demanded that orthodox Christianity be the official religious doctrine of the people. Conflicting ideas were deemed heretical, and thus subject to eradication. The loss of this great body of knowledge, and the thousands of murders that followed, ushered in a period known as "The Dark Ages," For the people really were in darkness, living in a time when all of their centers for learning and worship were being systematically destroyed, and replaced with new versions, written by the Christian Church. This bloody trend of persecution continued for almost two thousand years, spreading across Europe and the Middle East, and eventually crossing to the Americas in the form of the Salem Witch Trials.
One such story, rarely taught in school, tells the tale of Hypatia. She was a professor of philosophy, a noted authority on the works of Plato and a teacher of algebraic mathematics. However, in the eyes of the Mother Church, Hypatia was a witch.
After the destruction of the Alexandrian libraries, the cleric mobs hunted down any scholars whose works conflicted with the teachings of the church, especially women like Hypatia, who they claimed had no place in the academic world. She was forced into hiding, and managed to elude these wolves for almost twenty years. On Lenten day, March, AD 415, Hypatia was captured. She was dragged from her carriage, by a group of monks, stripped naked, and paraded through the streets to the churchyard of Caesarium. They held her down and "scooped the flesh from her bones with sharp tiles and oyster shells." When she finally died from the shock and torture, the monks scattered her remains in the streets as a grisly warning to the people of Alexandria. Centuries later, when the great Renaissance painter Raphael began his masterwork "The School of Athens", he was ordered to remove Hypatia from the painting "to make his work acceptable to the Bishop of Rome!"
The fairy Tales and children's songs that have survived over the centuries tell the story of these atrocities, and preserve a history that would otherwise be lost, if spoken of openly. It is amazing that the connection between these stories, and the religious history of early Europe has been completely overlooked by researchers. The most probable reason is that most scholars are either viewing their studies from a Christian perspective, or they simply realize that there is no money to be made from research that raises the ire of the Church. Though no one has been burned at the stake in quite awhile, the threat of ridicule from such a large and powerful base is a danger that is still quite real.
Snow White, Cinderella, and Rapunzel are examples of oral folk tales that carry the hidden history of the Olde Ways. These maidens were pricked with needles, subjected to evil spells, fed poisoned apples, demoted from places of status, or condemned to servitude. The maiden in the parable is not Hypatia herself, or any of the other hundreds of thousands of women who were burned, or tortured by the church; the Maiden is the symbol of the BELIEF SYSTEM that was under attack.
Look at Snow White. She is The Maiden. Her friends are the forest animals or forest people, like dwarfs or fairies. She draws her wisdom from her connection to nature. It is obvious that the Maiden is a metaphor for the Earth Based Matriarchal religions of pre Christian Europe. A stepmother, a woman who is competing with Snow White for the attentions of her father, is replacing her real mother, (Mother Nature) the Goddess symbol of Olde.
The "Wicked Step Mother" wreaks havoc in the formerly peaceful life of the maiden. The stepmother is a woman of great power and standing who wants to take over, and supplant herself in place of the maiden. She loathes the maiden, and everything her spirit represents The Wicked stepmother is the symbol of the violent censorship of the rising patriarchy. She is not the real mother, the earth mother; she is the false mother, the stepmother, "The Mother Church" of Rome.
The father represents the commoners who were swayed into turning their backs on their true family, in exchange for the new doctrine. In most versions of this tale, the father is focused on the stepmother, and so taken in by her spell, that he ignores the purity and beauty, and perils of his own daughter. He eventually either abandons her, or dies, leaving The Maiden at the mercy of her powerful adversary.
The stepmother calls to the powers of the spiritual realm by praying to the deity in the mirror. "Mirror Mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?"
The Christian Church has always claimed that there is only one right way, only one true church, only one path to heaven. The church has always fought against all other belief systems, insisting that it is indeed "The fairest of them all."
Snow White is more than willing to live side by side with the stepmother, sharing their home in harmony, but the stepmother cannot even stand to look at the maiden. Her beauty and truth are so pure, that she feels ugly in comparison. As long as Snow White is in view, no one will ever give their attentions to the stepmother, in spite of her wealth, her ornate attire, or her powers of persuasion. Snow White must be destroyed!
The stepmother then goes to work, and uses a poisoned apple to destroy her rival. This is significant, because the apple is the symbol of Eve, and the basis of the patriarchal doctrine of original sin. This biblical doctrine has been used to denounce and demote women from any, and all, positions of power or respect, in Islamic, Christian, and Hebrew cultures. It is the single most damaging thing ever written about women.
The stepmother expected Snow White to die from this poison, but she did not. Her faithful forest friends hid her away and altered the spell, so that she would simply sleep for a hundred years. These dwarves and forest familiars represent the Druids and Pagans who protect the olde ways, and keep The Maiden spirit alive, from one generation to the next.
Snow White would sleep until a hero, representing the next generation of her fathers people, would return to nature, and find her again. Her glass casket tells us that she is still visible, still there, for those who seek her out.
The parables of this teaching are everywhere, once you learn to seek them. For Example: The Little Mermaid enters a pact with the sea witch and attempts to conform, (grow legs and walk on the sand) in order to unite with her prince. This is a girl, who turns her back on Matriarchy, and becomes a member of the new religion. She is willing to give up everything in order to marry the prince. She is a parable for the women who wish to become "Brides of Jesus." She is drawn to this prince because she desires his love, and she makes the choice to leave her family, give up her status and identity, and go to live in a completely different world. The story shows that there is no middle ground. She must choose one life, or the other. It also illustrates the allure of Jesus and the human desire to be loved.
Little Red Riding Hood is about being fooled by the wolf, disguised as the grandmother. The wolf is a symbol for evil, and is the same sort of antagonist as the wicked stepmother and the sea witch. He is a male, representing the Patriarchy, disguised as the Grandmother Crone, who is the ultimate wise woman of the Matriarchy.
It is interesting to note that Riding Hood wears red. The red robe was a symbol of the Essenes, worn by their highest-ranking Women Priestesses. Jesus was a member of this priestly group, and there is a direct correlation between the traditional robes of the Essene Priestesses, and the red robes worn by the Cardinals of the Catholic Church. Further, it must be noted that in olden times, a "Woman in Red" was a sign of a woman who held high office as a spiritual leader. The symbolism is ironically, quite different today.
The examples are ample enough to fill volumes of books. So rather than bore you with any more, dear reader, I will bid you good hunting as you seek the deeper meanings in the fairy tales you encounter, and hope that you too, will find the hidden wisdom of these parables, and live happily ever after.
Selected Bibliography:
Realm of the Ring Lords by Laurence Gardner
Bloodline of the Holy Grail by Laurence Gardener
Vandergrift's Feminist Page, Kay E. Vandergrift, http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~kvander/Feminist/index.html, (accessed, Nov. 2005)
Creation Myths & Sacred Narratives of Creation, Kathleen Jenks, Ph.D. http://www.mythinglinks.org/ct~creation.html (accessed, Nov. 2005)
Woman, Church and State: A Historical Account of the Status of Woman Through the Christian Ages with Reminiscences of the Matriarchate, By Matilda Joslyn Gage
Kelley Bell is an Ohio writer, graphic designer, Qi-Gong Master, self-defense intructor, and seminar leader.
She is co-author of a soon to be published work on Women in the martial arts, is currently working on three new books, and numerous freelance writing opportunities. Her passions include the study of Nature, Alternative Medicine, Cultural Mythologies, and Patriarchal Oppression.
Visit her blog: http://kelleybell.blogspot.com