Fairy Tale Friday--King Peacock (Louisiana, 1894)

 

Hello and welcome to Fairy Tale Friday. Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then I’ll begin.

With Red Riding Hood and Cinderella I started in Europe and worked my way outward geographically when sharing tales, but because there are fewer versions of Snow White, I am going chronologically. I found this tale entitled King Peacock in a blog about fairy tales. They discussed the story but did not actually link to it. I was fascinated for several reasons—one: it came from my home state of Louisiana and yet I had never heard of it and two: it was very different from other versions. I feverishly searched for days until I finally came across a link online. This was a poorly scanned copy of Louisiana Folk-Tales in French Dialect and English Translation collected and edited by Alcée Fortier published in 1895.  According to Wikipedia:

Alcée Fortier was a renowned Professor of Romance Languages at Tulane University in New Orleans. In the late 19th and early 20th century, he published numerous works on language, literature, Louisiana history and folklore, Louisiana Creole languages, and personal reminiscence. His perspective was valuable because of his French Creole ancestry; his family had history to the colonial period.

He became president of the Modern Language Association and the Louisiana Historical Society, was appointed to the State Board of Education, and was active in the American Folklore Society and the New Orleans Academy of Sciences.

I would be curious if any of my French teacher friends have heard of him because I had not.

According to the blog FOLLOWING THE BREADCRUMB TRAIL: 

This was a very weird variant. It has all the typical markings of “Snow White”: the envious mother, the beautiful daughter, the servant who spares the protagonist’s life, the enchanted sleep, and the royal marriage at the end. And yet it doesn’t feel like “Snow White” at all.

Note: It is quite possible that the daughter is illegitimate because her mother rudely rejects every suitor (see below) and then is cursed to have a daughter more beautiful than she is.

First of all, elements of so many different fairy tales are incorporated that it seems almost like a modern day Into the Woods-style retelling. It begins exactly like “King Thrushbeard”, with a vain woman refusing to marry because none of her suitors is attractive enough for her. But instead of a Taming of the Shrew story, the vain woman goes on to become the Evil Queen character (metaphorically, since she and her daughter are not royalty). Later on, it takes on aspects of “Hansel and Gretel” and even “Jack and the Beanstalk”, with the child lost in the wood finding her way to the home of an ogre who might very well decide to kill her. But instead, he is so amazed by her beauty that he spares her life. This is still “Snow White”, but it’s like a patchwork version of “Snow White” that blends in bits and pieces of other fairy tales as well.

Note: If you are not familiar with King Thrushbeard read it {HERE}

But the strangest thing is Snow White’s suicidal attitude. There are other variants where she is willing to let the Huntsman-equivalent kill her, but this is the only one where she actively goes out of her way to make sure she dies. The story emphasises that she’s being obedient to her mother, but I can’t imagine anyone being that obedient, particularly not to someone who has kept her locked up for most of her life up until this point. I have to wonder if this Snow White is suffering from depression as a result of the way her mother has treated her. I can imagine that someone in her situation might not have much hope left. Snow White is usually the kind of character who can find hope in any situation, but this version … well, she wants to die pretty badly. That makes me question how happy the happy ending can actually be. If the kindness she was shown by her mother’s servant and even by the ogre wasn’t enough to make her want to live, will she keep trying to take her own life even now that she is married to King Peacock?

This topic of female obedience has been one that I have been discussing with several friends lately. Our southern upbringings gave us all, to varying degrees, an ingrained notion of our feelings are less valid than others (particularly men) and that we should put everyone else first and ourselves last at the cost of our mental health and happiness.

source

King Peacock source

There was once a lady who was so pretty, —so pretty that she never wanted to marry. She found something to criticise in all the suitors who presented themselves, saying of them : "Oh, you are too ugly. "You are too small." "You have too large a mouth." One day a fine man came; he was in a golden carriage, drawn by eight horses. He asked the lady to marry him, but she refused. He fell into a passion and told her that in one year she would have a daughter that would be much, much prettier than herself. The lady sent him away with scorn.

Well, a year later she had a pretty little girl. When she saw that, the child was so pretty, she shut her up in a room at the furthest end of the house, with her nurse to attend to her, As the girl grew up, she became handsomer every day. The nurse never allowed her to leave her room, or even to look through the window. One day, however, while the old woman was sweeping the floor, she left the door open, and the young girl saw a large bird.

"Nurse,” said she, "how do you call that bird which is so pretty ?"

The woman was obliged to reply and said : "That is a peacock."

“If ever I marry, I want to marry King Peacock."

"May God hear you, my child."

That very day the mother came, called the nurse into a carter, drew from under her skirt a great knife, and said, " I want you to kill my child. She has become prettier than I."

The nurse began to cry and begged the lady to spare the poor child, but all in vain; that black heart could not be softened. When night came, the nurse said to the girl: "My poor child, I have to kill you, your mother wants you to die."

The girl was so good that she replied : " Well, kill me, nurse if my mother wants it to be so."

But the nurse answered: "No, I have not the heart to do any such thing, my little one. Here, take these three seeds, throw yourself in the well and drown yourself ; but before jumping in the well swallow one of these seeds, and you will not suffer at all."

The girl thanked the nurse and went to drown herself. She walked until she arrived at a large well. She threw herself into it, but before touching the water she took one of her seeds to put it in her mouth. The seed, however, fell in the water, and immediately the well dried up. The young lady was very sorry to see that there was no water left in the well and getting out she walked as far as a wood, in which she found a small house. She knocked at the door, and an old woman showed herself. When she saw the pretty young girl, she said : "Oh! my child, what do you come to do here ? Don't you know that my husband is an ogre ? He will eat you up!"

Then the girl answered : " That is what I want. My mother wants me to die."

The woman replied : " If that is the case, come in, but it is a great pity."

The poor girl sat down in a corner and cried while she was waiting for the ogre. All at once they heard big footsteps, and as soon as the door was opened, the ogre said : “My wife, I smell fresh meat in here," and he ran towards the young girl. She, however, merely looked at him with her large eyes, and he stepped back, saying to his wife :

" Do you think that I can eat such a pretty girl ? She is so beautiful that I want to look at her all the time."

The girl said she was tired, so the ogre took her to a beautiful room, and ordered his wife to fan her with peacock feathers while she would be sleeping. The young lady said to herself :

 " It is better for me to die now, for perhaps the ogre will change his mind to-morrow and will eat me." She put one of her seeds in her mouth and fell in a deep sleep. She slept and slept, and the ogre's wife was fanning her all the time. When three days had passed, and she did not awake, the ogre looked at her, and said : "It is a great pity, but I believe she is dead.” He went to the town and brought a coffin all made of gold. He put the girl in it and placed it on the river. The coffin then went floating down the river. Very far away, King Peacock was one day on the levee, with all his princes, to enjoy the cool breeze, when he saw something shining in the river. He ordered his courtiers to see what that was. They took a skiff, and exclaiming, "It is a coffin," they brought it to the king. When he saw the pretty young girl, who appeared to be sleeping, he said, "Take her to my chamber," for he wished to try to awaken her. He put her on a bed and rubbed her hands and face with cologne water, but to no avail. Then he opened her mouth to see what pretty teeth she had. He saw something red in her front teeth and tried to take it off with a golden pin. It was a seed which fell on the floor. The young girl awoke and said, “I am so glad to see you." The king replied: "I am King Peacock, and I want to marry you." The young girl said

"Yes” and there was such a wedding that they sent me to relate the story everywhere, everywhere.

That’s all for this week. Stay tuned next week for a more traditional retelling.