\n
In this essay, the author explores the archetypal imagery of rebirth as described by the co-founder (with Sigmund Freud) of modern depth psychology, Carl Gustav Jung (1939\/1971, pp. 45-82). Perhaps more accurately, this paper examines the \u201ceternal theme\u201d and \u201cmythologem of death and<\/em> [emphasis added] rebirth\u201d (J. L. Henderson, 1963, p. 6, 17) or the \u201carchetype of death and<\/em> [emphasis added] rebirth\u201d (Northrop Frye, 1976, p. 114), since the very concept of rebirth in all its forms implies a type of death, symbolic or literal, that precedes the actual or symbolic renewal or regeneration of life.\u00a0 The archetype is studied specifically as represented in two popular fairy tales recorded by the Brothers Grimm, Fitcher\u2019s Bird<\/em> (best known as Bluebeard<\/em>) and Little Red Cap<\/em> (best known as Little Red Riding Hood<\/em>), based on German oral folktale sources (Campbell, 1951\/1990, pp. 9-10).<\/p>\n This paper answers the questions:\u00a0 Do fairy tales<\/em> describe imagery indicative of this initiatory (i.e., death-rebirth) symbolism common to myth and ritual the world over?\u00a0 And if so, how is this symbolism portrayed within fairy tale narratives and how does it specifically function within these literary narratives?<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0 <\/em><\/strong>Methodology.<\/strong>\u00a0 In this study\u2014which is preliminary<\/em> in the sense that it opens a lens on a subject that far exceeds the scope of this paper\u2014the internal structure of two major Germanic fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm will be examined from two distinct but interwoven critical perspectives.\u00a0 The study combines formalist intertextual literary analysis with Jung\u2019s analogical method of amplification <\/em>of imagery (i.e., identification of analogies in a wide variety of myth-motifs).\u00a0 The first approach will analyze, compare, and contrast the literary structure of the tales in terms of formal elements, including dramatis personae<\/em>, setting, plot, themes, climax, and resolution.\u00a0 This intertextual, formalist literary analysis will be augmented by a cross-cultural, transmedial, multidisciplinary\/interdisciplinary, hermeneutical perspective<\/em> broadly grounded in the theories of Carl G. Jung, Arnold van Gennep, Mircea Eliade, Joseph Campbell, Northrop Frye, Vladimir Propp, Marija Gimbutas, and other major interpreters.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0The analogical method of amplification.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 The fairy tales chosen for this study are not approached as closed units, but rather as open, virtual texts<\/em> which open out into contextual narrative networks of repetition and analogue, as deconstructionist literary critic and Blake scholar Saree Makdisi (2003, pp. 110-117) suggested. Makdisi\u2019s approach offers an approach resembling Jung\u2019s analogical method of amplification <\/em>(i.e., identifying close parallels or analogues) of the imagery. The Jungian method of amplification of analogous imagery will be applied to identify key archetypal features of the tales.\u00a0 As Marie-Louise von Franz (1977\/1990) observed, amplification is the sine qua non<\/em> \u201cwhich cannot be left out in mythological interpretation\u201d (p. 146), a form of circumambulation of \u201cmythological motifs.\u201d For a detailed discussion of the Jungian method, read von Franz (1970\/1996), \u201cA Method of Psychological Interpretation\u201d (pp. 37-45).<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Archetypal methodology.<\/em>\u00a0 <\/strong>In Fitcher\u2019s Bird<\/em> and Little Red Cap<\/em>, the symbolic structures, motifs, and images are consistent with those found in pre-Indo-European mythico-ritual traditions, opening out geographically well beyond the Grimm\u2019s indicated Teutonic origins of their stories.\u00a0 Briefly stated, archetypal methodology emphasizes identification of \u201cmyth-making\u201d (mythopoeic<\/em> or mythopoetic<\/em>) structural features in the text, that is, recurring archetypal imagery widely evident in ancient myths, rites, and symbolic artifacts.<\/p>\n \u00a0 The Limited Scope of the Paper<\/strong><\/p>\n The limited scope of this paper requires that the author foregoes an in-depth analysis of the tales based on any given interpreter or discipline referenced above.\u00a0 This limitation similarly excludes a survey of rebirth symbolism in fairy tale literature.\u00a0 The subject matter is far too extensive for a brief paper, and detailed, comprehensive treatments of this subject within either of these contexts is better left to future researchers as subjects of theses and dissertations.<\/p>\n Organization of the Study<\/strong><\/p>\n The paper is organized into two major sections.\u00a0 It begins with a Theoretical Overview giving the broad theoretical and interpretive context of the study.\u00a0 Given the scope and complexity of the subject matter, particularly the wide range of theoretical perspectives brought to bear in interpretation, it seems necessary, to begin with a broad sketch of the literature bearing directly on the rebirth archetype as well as its application to the specific genre of fairy tale literature.\u00a0 Here, I trust that the reader will bear in mind that my review is little more than a brief survey of an increasingly vast field of emerging knowledge that can only be treated superficially within the framework of this essay.\u00a0 Given the relatively brief scope of this paper, the reader is encouraged to consult these source materials for detailed discussion of various interpretive theories that follow.\u00a0 The Theoretical Overview is followed by a discussion of findings in an intertextual analysis of the fairy tales, with interpretive commentary on each story\u2019s symbolic structure and imagery.<\/p>\n A Theoretical Overview follows that begins with a summary of my Literature Review on the rebirth archetype (see Boyer, 2017).<\/p>\n Theoretical Overview<\/strong><\/p>\n The study of the rebirth archetype, and the study of fairy tales, both begin with the study of myth<\/em> (Boyer, 2017, pp. 1-18).\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n The Renewed Relevance of Myth<\/strong><\/p>\n Until the last century or so, the relevance of myth had been largely discredited by the advancement of scientific empiricism and its positivist philosophies.\u00a0 However, the Romantic tradition kept alive a form of knowledge based on imagination <\/em>and feeling<\/em> that bore fruit in the work of humanists from Goethe to anthropologists Adolf Bastian, J. J. Bachofen (1926\/1992), and others (see Joseph Campbell, xxv-lvii, in Bachofen, 1926\/1992).\u00a0 These humanistic scholars laid the groundwork for a view of reality that emphasized the \u201ccreative and imaginative side of human nature and our capacity for metaphor and symbolic expression in the form of religious myths and rituals, and culture as a whole\u201d (Boyer, 2017, pp. 4-5).<\/p>\n According to literary scholar David Leeming (1992), the catalyst for the \u201creemergence of myth as a phenomenon to be taken seriously\u201d came from a \u201chost of great anthropologists and psychologists around the turn of the century, who saw in myth a rich source of material for their study of human nature\u201d (p. 5).\u00a0 These pioneering scholars included Sir James Frazer, E. B. Tylor, Bastian, and Ernst Cassirer, among others.\u00a0 Of particular interpretive importance were the theories of the \u201ctwo great founders of modern psychology, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung.\u201d<\/p>\n The Rebirth Archetype: A Multidisciplinary\/Interdisciplinary Perspective<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Sir James Frazer\u2019s The Golden Bough<\/em>, which originally appeared in 1890, was regarded as one of the most influential works of the 20th<\/sup> century (Campbell, liv, in Bachofen, 1954\/1967).\u00a0 <\/strong>Frazer (1890\/1963) focused his study on death and rebirth symbolism found in primitive religions throughout the world.\u00a0 <\/strong>Significant for our present study, Frazer claimed that the secrets of preliterate mythmakers and ritualists can be pieced together \u201cfrom scattered hints and fragments and from the recollections of it which linger in fairy tales\u201d (p. 802).\u00a0 His direct legacy was inherited by influential female scholars.\u00a0 These included, most notably, Jane E. Harrison (1903\/1991), who studied the primitive structure of ancient Greek religion, and medieval scholar Jessie L. Weston (1922\/1957).<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0The rebirth archetype in rites of passage.\u00a0 <\/strong>Around the time Frazer and Harrison\u2019s works appeared, the ethnographer and folklorist Arnold van Gennep (1908\/1975) published his early field studies of rites of passage<\/em>. Van Gennep interpreted initiatory rituals and other rites of passage as death-rebirth mysteries (pp. 91-110) evident in a wide variety of preliterate cultures.\u00a0 <\/strong>Conversant with Frazer and Harrison, van Gennep viewed regeneration as a \u201claw of life\u201d (S. T. Kimball, viii, in van Gennep, 1908\/1975).\u00a0 <\/strong>The regenerative principle, van Gennep claimed, was expressed in \u201crites of death and rebirth\u201d (van Gennep, pp. 65-194). \u00a0His three-part initiatory schema (p. 21) was most influential in the anthropological work of Victor Turner (1962\/1992, p. 31, 37).\u00a0 Turner, like van Gennep, interpreted the symbolism of \u201cmetaphorical death and rebirth\u201d (pp. 32-33) in tribal initiations. Van Gennep also influenced Jung, Campbell, and Eliade.<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0The rebirth archetype in Jung\u2019s depth psychology.<\/strong>\u00a0 Influenced by Frazer and van Gennep, psychologist Carl G. Jung (1916\/1991) added the perspective of depth psychology to the emerging multidisciplinary consensus of scholars observing the recurrent symbolism of death and rebirth found in myths and rites across the world.\u00a0 <\/strong>He addressed the archetype of rebirth in his first major book, in a chapter entitled \u201cSymbolism of the Mother and Rebirth\u201d (pp. 202-265).\u00a0\u00a0 Later, Jung identified the myth-motif of rebirth <\/em>as an archetype<\/em> (i.e., a widely recurrent symbolic feature of myths and rites throughout the world).\u00a0 <\/strong>In the years that followed, and throughout the 20th<\/sup> century, a growing chorus of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary scholars interpreted rebirth symbolism in a wide range of mythopoeic<\/em> narratives.\u00a0 These disciplines include comparative religions and mythology, anthropology, folkloristics, literary theory, psychoanalysis, and other disciplines in the humanities and social sciences.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The rebirth archetype as a symbol of transformation<\/em><\/strong>.<\/em>\u00a0 Jung (1939\/1971) defined the myth-motif of rebirth as an important psychological archetype\u2014an archetype of transformation <\/em>represented in a variety of forms.\u00a0 The symbolic motif is expressed in a wide range of forms, including imagery of resurrection, as a symbolic form, and renovatio<\/em>, a term Jung borrowed from alchemy (pp. 45-81).\u00a0 <\/strong>For our present purposes, we will use Jung\u2019s definition of rebirth as renovation and\/or essential transformation, or participation in a process of transformation (e.g., participation in rites of initiation).\u00a0 For Jung, rebirth symbolism represented a structural event<\/em> in the psyche, a psychic developmental process Jung termed individuation<\/em>. \u00a0<\/strong>Jung\u2019s individuation process, Mircea Eliade (1958\/1975) observed, \u201cis accomplished through a series of ordeals of an initiatory type\u201d (p. 135). \u00a0<\/strong>Jung (1939\/1971) described rebirth as the \u201carchetype of transformation\u201d (p. 81) \u201cthat must be counted among the primordial affirmations of mankind\u201d and \u201cfound among the most widely differing people\u201d (p. 50).<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0The rebirth archetype as the theme of initiation.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 Jung\u2019s analyst successors carried this initiatory interpretation of mythopoeic structure forward.\u00a0 Arguably the most important work on rebirth, among Jungian analysts, was published by analyst Joseph L. Henderson and co-authored by Jungian scholar Maud Oakes (1963).\u00a0\u00a0 In the Editor\u2019s Foreword to The Wisdom of the Serpent: The Myths of Death, Rebirth, and Resurrection<\/em>, philosopher Alan Watts established the theme of the collection as the \u201ccycle of birth, death, and rebirth,\u201d \u201cabout the most basic theme of myth and religion\u201d (xi).\u00a0 Henderson focused on the \u201ctheme of initiation\u201d (p. 4) as the \u201ctheme in which the experience of death and rebirth is central\u201d (p. 4), which he viewed along with Jung as the archetypal pattern of psychological development.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The rebirth archetype in related disciplines.\u00a0 <\/strong>In addition to Jungian analysts, important scholars in a variety of disciplines influenced by Jung have continued the amplification and interpretation of archetypal rebirth symbolism.\u00a0 <\/strong>These include, most notably, the works of\u00a0 comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell (1949\/1973; 1990, pp. 55-59), historian of religions Mircea Eliade (1951\/1974; 1958\/1975, pp. 1-20, 81-102), and archetypal literary theorist Northop Frye (1976b, p. 114).\u00a0 <\/strong>Of particular interest, in terms of the present study, are the theories of Eliade, Frye, and, more recently, feminist archeologist Marija Gimbutas (1991).<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0The rebirth archetype as initiatory schema.<\/em>\u00a0 <\/strong>Eliade understood death and rebirth symbolism as the \u201cinitiatory schema\u201d widely found in religions the world over and discussed the rebirth archetype as a central feature of the phenomenology characterizing shamanic initiations in preliterate societies.\u00a0 <\/strong>He described the tripartite archetype of the \u201cuniversal\u201d initiatory schema as \u201csuffering, death, resurrection\u201d (pp. 33, 64-65, 76-77), the \u201csymbolic death represented in almost all initiation ceremonies,\u201d imagery that appears in Germanic mythology and folklore (p. 384).<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 The rebirth archetype in prehistoric goddess iconography.<\/em>\u00a0 <\/strong>Feminist archaeomythologist<\/em> Marija Gimbutas based her interpretations largely on the writings of Campbell and Eliade, extending analysis of the death and rebirth myth-motif to the earliest evidence of the matristic Goddess religion of prehistoric Europe that can be traced back approximately 30-35,000 years (Gimbutas, 1991, p. 331; Krippner and Rock, 2011, p. 60), to the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic era.\u00a0 Gimbutas viewed the Goddess religion as a prehistoric forbearer to the later patriarchal religions and mythologies associated with Indo-European patristic traditions discussed by Frazer and others. Building on the work of Bachofen (1926\/1992) and Harrison (1903\/1991), and relying on later myth interpreters Campbell (1949\/1973) and Eliade (1951\/1974), Gimbutas interpreted archeological artefacts and symbolic iconography discovered in excavations of Neolithic village sites in Old Europe (c. 7,000-3,500 B.C.).\u00a0 Gimbutas concluded that the iconography of the Goddess suggested that \u201cthroughout prehistory images of death do not overshadow those of life: they are combined with symbols of regeneration\u201d (Gimbutas, 1991, xxii).<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0The rebirth archetype in literature.<\/em>\u00a0 <\/strong>Northrop Frye wrote extensively about the rebirth archetype as the mythopoetic structural symbolism in literature (1976b, 1980).\u00a0 <\/strong>Recently, literary theorist Christopher Booker (2004) studied the recurring themes and plots of fairy tales, novels, and motion pictures from the Jungian perspective.\u00a0 Booker identified the rebirth plot (pp. 193-214) as one of the major literary plots, including those found in folk and fairy tales.<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0The rebirth archetype in Freudian and neo-Freudian depth psychology.<\/em>\u00a0 <\/strong>Finally, the archetype has been discussed in Freudian and post-Freudian literature, most notably by scholars Geza Roheim and Bruno Bettelheim, and Czech psychiatrist, Stanislav Grof.\u00a0 Bettelheim (1975\/1989), for example, briefly mentioned the theme of rebirth in the fairy tale, Little Red Cap<\/em>, in The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. <\/em>Perhaps Roheim (1945) best summarized the consensus of the literature: \u201cDeath and rebirth are the typical contents of all initiation rites\u201d (p. 116).\u00a0 <\/strong>Transpersonal psychologist and former Freudian psychiatrist Stanislav Grof wrote extensively on the subject, including its initiatory symbolism (Grof, n.d.), imagery induced by LSD in therapeutic experiences (Boyer and Bonder, 1981, p. 30), and in the futuristic art of H. H. Giger.\u00a0 Initiatory symbols appear in folk and fairy tales.\u00a0 \u201cSo long as the material of folklore is transmitted<\/em>,\u201d wrote Campbell (1990), \u201cso long is the ground available on which the superstructure of full initiatory understanding can be built<\/em>\u201d (pp. 58-59).<\/p>\n On the Nature, Origin, and Interpretation of Fairy Tales<\/strong><\/p>\n For those of us coming of age in American modernity, fairy tales\u2014in the form of children\u2019s literature\u2014occupy a special place in our development as childhood equivalents of myth.\u00a0 Fairy tales were not always meant for children, a developmental concept that only emerged in the past few centuries.\u00a0 \u201cIn former times,\u201d Marie-Louise von Franz (1974) indicated, \u201cuntil about the seventeenth century, fairy tales were not reserved for children, but were told among grown-ups in the lower layers of the population\u2014woodcutters and peasants, and women while spinning amused themselves with fairy tales\u201d (pp. 10-11; also von Franz, 1972\/1993, p. 1).<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Structural identity of myths and folk and fairy tales.<\/strong>\u00a0 Myths and fairy tales share both striking similarities and equally noteworthy differences.\u00a0 One main distinction is that, unlike myths, which are considered by indigenous populations as \u201ctrue stories\u201d (Eliade, 1976\/1990, pp. 24-26) with an important and sacred<\/em>, social function, folk tales (from which fairy tales are derived) are less culturally significant, popular stories told for entertainment <\/em>(Frye, 1990b).\u00a0 A second distinction is that, while myths are closely tied to their indigenous locales, folk tales are highly migratory<\/em> and nomadic, \u201ctraveling all over the world and interchanging their themes and motifs\u201d (p. 33).<\/p>\n In terms of similarities, Frye (1990b) asserted that there is \u201cno consistent structural difference\u201d (p. 33) between myths and folk tales, an important insight in terms of our study.\u00a0 Myths, said Frye (1976), do not differ \u201cin structure, from the folk tales and legends that are often told simply for fun by wandering story-tellers\u201d (p. 19).\u00a0 Furthermore, he stated: \u201cThere are only so many effective ways of telling a story, and myths and folk tales share them\u201d (1976, p. 9).\u00a0 Frye specifically linked folk and fairy tales to the literary genre of romance.\u00a0 \u201cRomance is the structural core of all fiction \u2026 being directly descended from folk tale\u201d (p. 15).\u00a0\u00a0 Like myths, folk and fairy tales are narratives possessing recurring characters (i.e., dramatis personae<\/em>), plot structures, themes, and symbolic images or myth-motifs, analogues or types<\/em> that permit a morphology or classification of recurring images by which analogous types are identified.\u00a0 Excellent reference works for comparison of major motifs found in myths, folk tales, and fairy tales have been authored by folklore scholars, Stith Thompson (1958) and A. A. Aarne (1961; see Tatar, 1999, pp. 373-378).<\/p>\n Like myths, folk and fairy tales are told using a symbolic grammar of structural imagery filled with literary and\/or psychological archetypes. According to Maria Tatar (1999) in The Classic Fairytales<\/em>, to cite one example, the most popular fairy tale of all, Cinderella<\/em>, has an estimated 800\u20131,000 or more variants, including an ancient Chinese tale, \u201cYeh-hsien,\u201d first recorded c. 850 A. D., but originating in antiquity (pp. 107-108). This begs important questions.\u00a0 How does such a phenomenon actually come about?\u00a0 How does a particular myth-motif appear in one indigenous society and reappear across many cultures in remote parts of the world separated, in antiquity, by great and impassable distances?<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 On the origin of fairy tales.\u00a0 <\/strong>Here we find ourselves concerned with the question of origins<\/em>, a slippery slope where scholarly debates have gone on unresolved for decades or longer, and where some definition of terms seems required.\u00a0 While our purpose is neither to prove nor disprove any particular theory of fairy tale origins, some discussion seems necessary and relevant and provides a conceptual frame for the interpretation of the study\u2019s materials.<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0A question of origins.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 As concerns folk and fairy tales, the search for origins has both a temporal<\/em> and a spatial <\/em>axis.\u00a0 The spatial aspect (i.e., where<\/em> the myth-motifs are found) has already been suggested in the discussion of rebirth symbolism, which is widely distributed geographically and cross-culturally.\u00a0 While claims of universality <\/em>are perhaps unprovable, the rebirth motif is unquestionably found in myths and rites the world over, reaching back in time to at least the Upper Paleolithic, beyond which little evidence exists. This temporal aspect refers to the fairy tale\u2019s history<\/em>, when<\/em> and how<\/em> it came to be.\u00a0 Can we trace the motif to earlier historical forms?\u00a0 And, if so, what can we know concerning the image\u2019s creation, its psychological and creative origins or authorship?<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Remnants of ritual symbolism in fairy tales.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 While a number of theories concerning the origin of fairy tales exist, and the debate is hardly conclusive, one of the dominant theoretical lineages suggests that myths and fairy tales are the detritus of rituals<\/em>, an idea shared by most of the theorists discussed in the foregoing literature on rebirth, starting with Frazer.\u00a0 An early example is evident in Jessie Weston\u2019s view that the symbolic narratives of the Arthurian romances are filled with the fragments of primitive myths and rituals.\u00a0 According to Weston (1920\/1957): \u201cThe Grail Story is not \u2026 the product of imagination, literary or popular. At its root lies the record, more or less distorted, of an ancient ritual, having for its ultimate object the initiation into the secret of life\u201d (p. 203).<\/p>\n This ritual, Weston (1920\/1957) continued, \u201csurvives today, and can be traced, all over the world, in Folk ceremonies, which, however separated by the countries in which they are found, show a surprising identity of detail and intention\u201d (p. 203).\u00a0 She concluded that medieval romance legends had their origins, like fairy tales, in folk-lore.<\/p>\n Influenced by these early scholars, Eliade (1957\/1987) represented the idea of these sacred, mythico-ritual origins in his assertion that they survived in secularized modernity in the form of \u201ccamouflaged myths and degenerative rites\u201d (pp. 204-205).\u00a0 <\/strong>In anthropology, Turner (1962-78\/1992) reinforced this view when he wrote that the \u201cdecomposition of ritual, has been the genesis of the arts\u201d (p. 153). For an excellent discussion of such debates, Eliade\u2019s summary is recommended (1976\/1990, pp. 18-27).<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Propp\u2019s ritually-based theory of the origins of folklore.<\/em>\u00a0 Recorded and creatively reinterpreted from folkloric oral tradition by storytellers like\u00a0 Straparola, Perrault, and the Brothers Grimm, fairy tales have become a subject of modern literary criticism.\u00a0 As pioneering folklorist Vladimir Propp (1928\/1999) suggested in his classic work on folklore theory and morphology, Theory and History of Folklore<\/em> (first published in 1928 as Morphology of the Folktale<\/em>), folklore and literature share many features, including the fact that they are both verbal arts (pp. 5-9).\u00a0 Propp (as cited in Tatar, 1999, pp. 378-381) offered an important clue for approaching the meaning of such tales, in line with Weston\u2019s perspective, noting that their original function, like that of myth, was an integral part of ritual that, with the decline of ritual societies, took on an independent life.\u00a0 In his discussion of the collective authorship of folklore, he observed that fairy tales arose in \u201cprehistoric times within a framework of some ritual\u201d that \u201csurvives through oral tradition to the present\u201d (p. 381).<\/p>\n Propp\u2019s hypothesis of the connection between ritual and folklore is echoed by myth-critic Northrop Frye (1990a), who indicated that archetypal literary analysis explores the narrative text in terms of its archetypal features, for example, the analysis of plot in terms of \u201cgeneric, recurring, or conventional actions which show analogies to rituals\u201d (p. 105).\u00a0 <\/strong>Propp made a similar suggestion in his discussion of the prehistoric, collective authorship of folklore when he observed that fairy tales arose within the \u201cframework of some ritual\u201d (as cited in Tatar, 1999, p. 381) and \u201ccirculates, changing all the time\u201d (p. 381).<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Myths, rituals, or both?<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 Not all theorists agree on which came first, rituals or myths.\u00a0 Weston (Henderson, 1963, p. 77) argued for the ritual origin of mythology; Eliade argued for the primacy of the mythic narrative.\u00a0 Frye stated that one of the \u201cmajor nonliterary social functions of myth\u201d is that of explaining or<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 providing the source of authority for rituals \u2026 The ritual is \u2026 the epiphany of the myth, the manifestation \u2026 of it in action\u2026.In literature itself the mythos <\/em>or narrative of fiction, \u2026especially of romance, is essentially a verbal imitation of ritual or symbolic human action. (1976, p. 55)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n All the \u201cpossible forms\u201d of romance, for example, \u201ccan be found in any good collection of folk tales.\u201d\u00a0 For our purposes in the study, we treat them as a single mythico-ritual<\/em> narrative with myth and ritual being interdependent but distinct in their forms of enactment, the first a narrative oral storytelling form, the latter the ceremonial, collective performance<\/em> of the mythic narrative.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The question of authorship.<\/strong>\u00a0 Long before these orally-transmitted short stories for children were recorded by scholars in literary forms, they originated and developed as part of a constantly evolving collective, anonymous <\/em>authorship in folkloric oral traditions around the world.\u00a0 Like their mythic counterparts, the roots of fairy tales reach back to primordial antiquity, where the creative origins of any given folk or fairy tale is forever obscured.<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Collective authorship.<\/em>\u00a0 <\/strong>Although modern literary theory treats fairy tales within the genre of children\u2019s literature, the original stories from which these relatively recent literary narratives are apparently derived are part of a worldwide, indigenous, mythico-ritual, oral storytelling tradition now lost in the vast unknown of prehistory.\u00a0 Leeming (1990) addressed the question of authorship of myths\u2014and the same can be said of folk tales\u2014as the products of \u201ccollective authorship, the human mind wrestling en masse with the mysteries, attempting to make earth conscious of itself,\u201d as products \u201calmost invariably \u2026 [of] the people themselves.\u201d\u00a0 The myth, like its close cousin the fairy tale, has its origins in the \u201ccollective \u2018folk\u2019 mind\u201d (pp. 6-7), said Leeming, with the specific form<\/em> of the tale perhaps created by individual shamans.<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Shamans as prototypical storytellers.<\/em>\u00a0 Perhaps, the shamans of indigenous tribal societies throughout the world, in their roles as the first storytellers, artists, and originators and perpetuators of ceremonial rituals and the myths these ceremonies enact, were the creators of these original symbolic tales or at least the symbolic imagery contained in the tales.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>\u201cShamans appear to have been humankind\u2019s prototypical \u2026 storytellers\u201d (Krippner and Rock, 1991, p. 31).\u00a0 At the very least, shamans and other tribal elders, became the guardians and curators of these sacred, oral storytelling traditions (Wiercinski, 1989, as cited in Krippner and Rock, 2011, p. 48).\u00a0 <\/strong>The role of shamans in the creation of myths and rituals is apparent in the remarkable correspondence of imagery in mythico-ritual systems to the phenomenology associated with the initiation of shamans.\u00a0 Today, creative writers are admonished to write from inside<\/em>, to write what they know.\u00a0 In their traditional roles as storytellers and ceremonial priests, shamans, like today\u2019s storytellers and artists, probably created the metaphorical and symbolic forms expressed in the myths and ritual patterns of their tribes in a similar manner, that is, from the inside out.\u00a0 If so, did some of this shamanic phenomenological structure and imagery make its way into folk and fairy tales? Apparently, it does, as the exceedingly widespread evidence of the archetypal symbolism of initiatory death-rebirth indicates.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The interpretation of myths and fairy tales.\u00a0 <\/strong>Joseph Campbell (1951\/1990) viewed the work of Emile Durkheim as a turning point in the modern interpretation of myths, citing Durkheim\u2019s recognition of \u201ca kind of truth at the root of the image-world of myth\u201d (p. 32).\u00a0 This idea was affirmed and deepened by Freud and Jung, who focused on the \u201csymbol-inventing, myth-motif-producing level of the psyche,\u201d the \u201csource of all those universal themes.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cMythology is psychology, misread as cosmology, history and biography,\u201d observed Campbell, and the \u201cfolktale is the primer of the picture language of the soul\u201d (p. 37). \u201cThrough the vogues of literary history, the folk tale has survived,\u201d he explained, \u201cTold and retold, losing here a detail, gaining there a new hero, disintegrating gradually in outline, but re-created occasionally by some narrator of the folk.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Historical diffusion or archetypal experience. <\/em><\/strong>As Maud Oakes (1963) observed, students of myth\u2014and the same may be said of folk and fairy tales\u2014do not agree whether their \u201carchetypal motifs\u201d arose from a common source, through historical diffusion, or \u201cfrom many sources that sprang into existence in different parts of the world simultaneously\u201d (p. 76) according to Jung\u2019s theory of archetypes.\u00a0 Perhaps, she wisely concluded, both are right.<\/p>\n One prominent explanation of mythic and fairy tale origins is that these tales were widely distributed through historical diffusion<\/em>, that story elements were transmitted through social intercourse of different tribes or societies.\u00a0 Given the highly migratory nature of folk tales, the likelihood of this theory seems reasonable.\u00a0 But what of the instances where no historical diffusion of cultures seems possible?\u00a0 What if, for example, the same motifs appear in the puberty rites of the Trobriand Islanders, and in the creation myths of North American tribes?<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0The creative source of archetypes in visionary experience.<\/em>\u00a0 Such mysteries are precisely where Jung\u2019s archetypal theories prove most useful.\u00a0 Von Franz (1970\/1996), for example, rejected E. B. Tylor\u2019s early attempt to \u201cderive fairy tales from ritual\u201d (p. 31) in which he theorized that \u201cthe ritual died, but its story has survived in fairy tale form.\u201d\u00a0 Von Franz preferred the idea that the basis <\/em>of the tales \u201c<\/em>is not a ritual but an archetypal experience\u201d (p. 12).\u00a0 Elsewhere, she (1974) wrote: \u201cTheories as to the origin of fairy tales are very different: some say that they are degenerated remnants of religious myths, \u2026 others that they were once a part of literature which degenerated into fairy tales\u201d (p. 11).\u00a0 She concluded that a story originates from a \u201cnucleus\u201d of a \u201cparapsychological experience or a dream,\u201d amplified by locally found motifs.<\/p>\n Von Franz continued to develop her theory of psychological<\/em> origins even as she eventually embraced a theory of historical<\/em> origins that came close to reconciling the two.\u00a0 In Archetypal Patterns in Fairy Tales<\/em> (1997), von Franz expanded her thinking on the creative origins of fairy tales to \u201cthose of the population who \u2026 are gifted with a strong imagination\u201d (p. 15), including those with \u201cvisionary experience\u201d and folk poets or storytellers, including the storytellers of primitive tribes.\u00a0 She added, significantly, that shamans and medicine men are the \u201cmediumistically or parapsychologically gifted members of the tribe who have an immediate contact with the unconscious\u201d (p. 160), and hence likely originators of the tales.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Since the aim of this essay is neither to prove nor disprove any specific theory regarding the historical or psychological origins of folk and fairy tales, the reader is encouraged to read von Franz\u2019s (1970\/1996) excellent overview \u201cTheories of Fairy Tales\u201d (pp. 1-23), including a formal Literature Review (pp. 20-23), for her discussion of prominent theories, including those of her mentor Jung.<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Fairy tales as psychology. <\/em>Whatever its actual source, von Franz (1997) observed, the story told or enacted must be a story that \u201cfit the psyche of the whole collective\u201d in order for the story to survive.\u00a0 She postulated that fairy tales mirror \u201cthe most basic psychological structures\u201d of humanity, and that fairy tales can more easily migrate than their mythic counterparts, because they are so \u201celementary and so reduced to its basic structural elements that it appeals to everybody\u201d (p. 12).\u00a0 Collectively, von Franz indicated, they provide a \u201ckind of intuitive mapping of the structure of the collective unconscious\u201d (p. 21), an invaluable knowledge base for an analyst.\u00a0 Ultimately, von Franz (1977\/1990, p. 217) observed: \u201cThe language of the psyche is myth.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0 <\/em><\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The psychological interpretation of fairy tales<\/em>.<\/strong>\u00a0 Like myths, fairy tales have recovered relevance for modern people when understood as psychological expressions with contemporary value as tools of self-understanding.\u00a0 To the reader of fairy tales, a wide range of thematic features and subjects are familiar, from their powerful affects (fear, terror, love, horror, disgust, hatred, revenge, violence, and grief) to the extremely disturbing and \u201cmonstrous\u201d actions that drive their plots (murder, cannibalism, incest, deception, theft, abduction, and abandonment).\u00a0 As Campbell (1951\/1990) indicated, the Grimm brothers and others pointed out that folk tales are \u201cmonstrous, irrational, and unnatural\u201d (p. 30), a feature shared with myth. Whatever the emotions portrayed or the often violent and\/or sexual acts that drive the story, as von Franz (1972\/1993) suggested, \u201cI will assume that there is no difference between fairy tales and myth, but rather that they both deal with archetypal figures\u201d (p. 5).<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 An archetypal perspective on fairy tales.<\/em>\u00a0 According to archetypal psychologist James Hillman (1979), fairy tales take place in a psychical, mythopoeic<\/em> (mythopoetic<\/em>) landscape of other worlds, where supernatural powers and mythical figures (witches, ogres, monsters, animal helpers, and fairies) are taken for granted as part of ordinary life, and sorcerers and their magic talismans, spells, and enchantments abound (p. 51).\u00a0 Hillman specifically interpreted the myth-motif of \u201centering the Underworld\u201d\u2014an archetypal structural feature essential to the death-rebirth symbolism in myths, rites, and fairy tales\u2014as a shift in perspective from the material to the psychic or imaginative realm.\u00a0 Such tales insert the reader into an enchanted other world, a perilous realm through which all heroes and heroines must make their dangerous passage into the depths.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>The psychology of folklore and fairy tales.<\/em>\u00a0 That folklore and fairy tales offer fertile ground for application of the archetypal depth psychological theories of Jung is well established in the interpretive literature of analytical psychology.\u00a0 Jung himself suggested that the archetypes<\/em>\u2014primordial images<\/em> found throughout the world in art, religion, and dreams\u2014find abundant expression in both myths and fairy tales (Jung & Kerenyi, 1949\/1973, p. 72).\u00a0 Jung\u2019s prot\u00e9g\u00e9, the analyst von Franz, wrote seven books applying Jung\u2019s hermeneutic to the specific interpretation of fairy tales and their symbolic illustrations of Jung\u2019s aim of human development, the individuation process<\/em>, which she described as a \u201cnatural, ubiquitous phenomenon which has found innumerable symbolic descriptions in the folk tales of all countries\u201d (1977\/1990, vii<\/em>).<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>Von Franz (1977\/1990) and Jung defined individuation as a \u201cpsychological process of inner growth and centralization by which the individual finds its own Self\u201d (p. 1).\u00a0 \u201cOne can even say,\u201d von Franz observed, \u201cthat the majority of folk tales deal with one or another aspect of this most meaningful basic life process in man.\u201d\u00a0 Furthermore, Jung and von Franz, both analytical psychologists and psychotherapists, inspired a hermeneutics of fairy tales as repositories of psycho-spiritual wisdom carried forward by mythopoeic oral storytellers and neo-Jungian interpreters.\u00a0 These modern oral storytellers include poet Robert Bly (1992), known for his bestselling mythopoetic interpretation of the fairy tale Iron John<\/em>, and Bly\u2019s oral storytelling heir-apparent, Martin Shaw (2011), best known for his poetic masterwork, A Branch from the Lightning Tree<\/em>. \u00a0As von Franz (1970\/1996) indicated, summarizing the Jungian interpretive approach in her major work, The Interpretation of Fairy Tales<\/em>: \u201cThe fairy tale itself is its own best explanation \u2026 that is, its meaning is contained in the totality of its motifs connected by the thread of the story<\/em> [emphasis added]\u201d (p. 1).<\/p>\n Findings and Discussion<\/strong><\/p>\n Fitcher\u2019s Bird (Bluebeard)<\/strong><\/p>\n Like so many popular fairy tales, many variants of this basic story exist.\u00a0 The story popularly known as Bluebeard<\/em>, in which a woman uses her husband\u2019s key to enter a forbidden room, where she discovered the dead bodies of her husband\u2019s victims, is a story attributed to Perrault \u201cin which there are no direct antecedents in folk tales as far as we know<\/em> [emphasis added]\u201d (Bettelheim, 1975\/1989, p. 299).\u00a0 Further, Bettelheim claimed, the story is not really a fairy tale, according to his definition, because nothing supernatural or magical occurs.\u00a0 Both assertions regarding Bluebeard\u2014that it has no antecedents and contains no supernatural or magical events\u2014are challenged by other researchers.\u00a0 First, the French folklorist, Paul Delarue, a scholar credited with mapping out the history of the Bluebeard motif, has documented the liberties taken by Perrault \u201cin transforming an oral folktale into a literary text\u201d (Tatar, 1999, p. 142).\u00a0 More specifically, Jungian analyst von Franz (1974) contradicted Bettelheim\u2019s assertion concerning lack of antecedents, stating that the motif of a \u201cforbidden chamber \u2026 is a frequent theme in fairy tales\u201d (p. 71).\u00a0 Her assertion is supported by the classification models of tale types described in Aarne\u2019s (1964) The Types of Folktale: A Classification and Bibliography<\/em> (as cited in Tatar, 1999) in which the forbidden chamber is associated with an ogre.\u00a0 Secondly, Bettelheim\u2019s assertion concerning the lack of \u201csupernatural\u201d or \u201cmagical\u201d features is incorrect with regard to the later variant of the tale\u2014based on oral folk tale sources\u2014that appeared in the collections by the Brothers Grimm as Fitcher\u2019s Bird<\/em>, originally published in 1812 (see Tatar, 1999, p. 142, 148-150).<\/p>\n Synopsis of the tale, Fitcher\u2019s Bird<\/em>\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0 A sorcerer, disguised as a beggar, went from door to door stealing pretty girls who are never seen again.\u00a0 One day, he appeared at the door of a man with three daughters.\u00a0 The first daughter answered the door, and was magically captured and taken to the sorcerer\u2019s secret home in the deep woods.\u00a0 The sorcerer told the oldest daughter that he must go traveling, and left her with the keys to his household.\u00a0 Among them was a single key that he warned her not to use to enter a secret room that he strictly forbade her from entering, upon pain of death.\u00a0 He also gave her an egg that she must keep safe no matter what.\u00a0 After his departure, the curious girl came across the door to the forbidden room and used the key to enter.\u00a0 There she was horrified to find a vat filled with blood in which the dismembered pieces of the sorcerer\u2019s many female victims floated.<\/p>\n Startled, she dropped the egg, which was stained by the blood.\u00a0 Unable to remove the stain, the sorcerer returned and immediately saw evidence of her betrayal of his orders.\u00a0 He murdered and dismembered her, adding her to the collection of serial murder victims in his bloody vat.<\/p>\n Figure 1. Bluebeard hands his wife the key to the forbidden room. He returned to his most recent victim\u2019s home, where he captured her younger sister in the same magical way, with the same horrifying results: death and dismemberment.\u00a0 Then he returned a third time to capture the youngest sister, a clever girl, who stored the egg in a safe place.\u00a0 When she entered the forbidden room, she discovered her two dismembered sisters, their body parts lying in the basin of blood.\u00a0 Through some magic of her own, she reassembled her sisters and magically restored them to life.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Then, she hid her sisters, and when the sorcerer returned and found no blood on the egg, he married the youngest sister.\u00a0 Later, she put her sisters in a huge basket filled with gold, with which she covered her sisters, and ordered her husband, the sorcerer, to take the basket somewhere, warning him that she\u2019s keeping an eye on him.\u00a0 Every time he paused from exhaustion, he heard a voice\u2014seemingly his wife\u2019s\u2014ordering him to get going, because she\u2019s watching him.\u00a0 Meanwhile, she prepared for the wedding, and disguised a skull to imitate her and set it where the sorcerer could see it.\u00a0 She disguised herself by covering herself with honey, then rolling in bird feathers to appear as a large bird.\u00a0 No one recognized her, including her husband, when he passed her on the road.\u00a0 When he returned home, her brothers and others were waiting for him and they killed the sorcerer.\u00a0 She and her sisters returned home safely.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Discussion of the rebirth archetype in the narrative imagery of Fitcher\u2019s Bird<\/em>.\u00a0 <\/strong>While there is much in this story worthy of examination, the present focus is on the symbolic imagery of the rebirth archetype (i.e., death and rebirth) in the narrative.\u00a0 However, an important archetypal feature appears early in the tale that is related to the rebirth archetype and leads into the main line of interpretation: the idea of an involuntary <\/em>quest.<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0The shamanic-heroic motif of abduction<\/em><\/strong>.<\/em>\u00a0 The first half of the narrative concerns the serial-killing sorcerer and his abduction<\/em> and murder of the first two sisters, whose grisly slayings set up the ensuing action.\u00a0 Abduction is a central archetypal motif in shamanism, where shaman\u2019s vocations sometimes appear as an involuntary election<\/em>, sickness, and abduction by spirits (Eliade, 1951\/1974, pp. 23-35, 87, 108-109).\u00a0 The abduction motif is also an archetypal feature of Campbell\u2019s hero quest paradigm, where he discussed the involuntary <\/em>call to adventure (Campbell, 1949\/1973, pp. 49-69).\u00a0 Examples of abduction abound in myth and fairy tales, including Persephone\u2019s abduction by Hades, Tristan\u2019s abduction by Norwegian pirates, and Dorothy Gale\u2019s abduction by a tornado that transports her to Oz (Boyer, 2014a, pp. 21-24).<\/p>\n In terms of story development, the heroine\u2019s magical healing and resurrection of her sisters appears at about the midpoint of the tale where the moment pins the two halves of the story together.\u00a0 After her two sisters were murdered, the third and youngest sister faced the same perilous test.\u00a0 The sorcerer returned to their home to charm and abduct the third daughter, who is described as \u201cclever and cunning.\u201d\u00a0 At the castle in the deep woods, he repeated his standard test:<\/p>\n After handing over the keys and egg, he went away, and she put the egg in a safe place.\u00a0 She explored the house and entered the forbidden chamber.\u00a0 And what did she see!\u00a0 There in the basin were her two sisters, cruelly murdered and chopped to pieces.\u00a0 But she set to work gathering all their body parts and put them in the proper places: head, torso, arms, legs.\u00a0 When everything was in place, the pieces began to move and joined themselves together.<\/p>\n The two<\/em>\u00a0girls opened their eyes and came back to life <\/em>[emphasis added].\u00a0 Overjoyed, they kissed and hugged each other. (Tatar, 1999, pp. 149-150)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This explicit rebirth (or resurrection) imagery is described in the moment in the story when the third sister, the clever one, sat the egg aside and entered the forbidden room.\u00a0 As von Franz might say, her \u201centrance into the forbidden chamber \u2026 leads to a higher development of consciousness\u201d (p. 179). The story\u2019s plot revolves around the conflict between the youngest sister and the villainous sorcerer, a Bluebeard figure, a black magician who bewitched the three sisters, a shadow figure that played an important role, for example, in Mediterranean cultures \u201cprobably since the Stone Ages\u201d (von Franz, 1997, p. 81).\u00a0 The girl struggled to survive and liberate herself and her sisters from his clutches.\u00a0 The stakes that drive the plot are high; it is a struggle between life and death. \u00a0This struggle between the powers of death and life are personified in the contest between the girl and the sorcerer, and manifests in the girl\u2019s magical ability as a powerful healer and necromancer capable of raising her two sisters from the dead.\u00a0 This moment addressing the theme of rebirth\u2014explicitly<\/em> portrayed\u2014is a major plot point of the story, as it leads to the first (false) climax, where the sorcerer returns home, and tests her.\u00a0 But the clever girl passed his test by protecting the egg<\/em>, and in the second and true climax of the tale, successfully passed by her nemesis on the road, disguised as a ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/societyforritualarts.com\/coreopsis\/spring-2017-issue\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Barbebleue.jpg?resize=343%2C434&ssl=1\")
Illustration by Gustave Dore.<\/p><\/div>\n