Hello and welcome to Fairy Tale Friday. Are you
sitting comfortably? Good. Then I’ll begin.
This week we look at another tale helpfully summarised
by CRAFTY MOM. It comes froma book entitled Folktales of Chile edited
by Yolando Pino-Saavedra and translated by Rockwell Gray.
According to Wikipedia:
Pino was a
scholar, teacher, writer, Chilean folklorist and member of the Chilean Academy of Language . His
most outstanding work was the rescue of Chilean folk traditions. From 1948 to
1960 he travelled the length of Chile looking for peasants, humble
people who worked the land, but who had a special gift: they were artists of
oral narration. A whole tradition of Spanish medieval origin, related by
illiterate men and women of the Chilean people. The result of this work is
the best-known work of this author: volume I, II and III of Folk Tales of Chile .
This tale begins as many of them do—with the death of our protagonist’s mother. Here, however, the magic mirror is a way to communicate with the spirit of Blanca Rose’s dead mother. I found this interesting because often we just accept that the mirror is magic and have no explanation except the mother/stepmother was an evil sorceress. Perhaps here she was also a sorceress —but a good one. Is this as a case as in Oz of “Are you a good witch or a bad witch?”
It is definitely the inevitable stepmother who is the
evil antagonist here. She feels her beautiful stepdaughter (who is a dead
ringer for her late mother) spends too much time looking in the mirror. She
thinks it is vanity not communing with her dead mother and takes the girl’s
mirror away. When she asks the mirror who is the most beautiful, the mirror
answers with Blanca Rosa. Well she would say that, wouldn’t she? A mother
always thinks her daughter is the loveliest.
As in other tales, someone is employed to kill our
heroine and bring back body parts as proof of her death. Usually, it is internal
organs (heart, liver or lungs) but here we have the unusual request of eyes and
tongue. Now, an animal heart and a human heart are similar enough, but eyes are
much trickier to match.
Blanca Rosa comes across a den of forty thieves who
mistake her for the Virgin Mary because she is so beautiful. Despite her protestations,
they shower her with gifts and fine clothes. Her stepmother upon discovering
that her stepdaughter is still alive and living in luxury with 40 men hires an
evil sorceress to kill her. In the usual way, an old woman disguised as a
peddler comes round to entice our heroine with some tat. But here Blanca Rosa
is not swayed by cheap trinkets or gifts because the thieves give her
everything she desires. She is however swayed to the let the old woman touch
her hair and clothes as a blessing (perhaps all this talk of her being the
Virgin Mary has gone to her head) because the old woman jabs a pin in her head
killing her.
A prince finds her and takes her home. Then it gets
creepy. He slowly takes off all
her jewellery and clothing trying to find what could have stopped her
breathing. Once she is naked, he combs her hair and find the needle.
I don’t think he is looking for what stopped her breathing. When he does find
and remove the needle, she wakes up terrified because she is naked with a
strange man and her 40 protectors who revered her like the Virgin Mary are
nowhere in sight. It would be like waking up after Rohypnol and being worried you
had been raped because you have no memory of the events that led you to wake up
naked with a man you have never met. When she starts screaming, he just sticks
the pin back in her head to make her go unconscious again. Later he wakes her
and convinces her to marry him. She hesitantly agrees and his horrible sisters
steal all of her clothes and jewels and turn her out into the street naked like
a common beggar. She is reunited with her prince, the bad sisters are punished (but
not her stepmother) and the 40 thieves come to the wedding. They live happily
ever after—or as happy as you can with a man who strips you naked and combs
your hair while you were unconscious.
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| source |
Blanca
Rosa and the Forty Thieves source
In this story, the mother has recently
died and left her daughter, who looked just like her mother, a magic mirror in
which she could still see her mother and converse with her. The daughter's name
is Blanca Rosa, which means White Rose. The father remarries and the stepmother
thinks she is the most beautiful woman in the world and gets upset that Blanca
Rosa spends all her time talking to her mirror. She takes the mirror from her
and asks the mirror who is the most beautiful woman in the world. The mirror
tells her it is Blanca Rosa. The woman gets very angry and orders servants to
kill Blanca Rosa. The men take Blanca Rosa away and abandon her. A little old
man helps her.
The mother asks the mirror again and learns that Blanca Rosa is alive and find
the little old man. She demands he kill her and bring her Blanca Rosa's eyes
and tongue. The old man has a dog with blue eyes which he kills instead and
brings the dog's eyes and tongue on a silver platter to the stepmother, but
also sends Blanca Rosa into the woods on her own.
Blanca Rosa has a horrible time surviving until she finds the hideout of forty
thieves. She is high in a tree when they leave, and she drops down and
discovers all sorts of jewels, treasures, and food. All she cares about is the
food. She helps herself and then goes back to the treetop to sleep. The thieves
arrive home and wonder who has been through their hideout. The leader has one
man stay behind the next day. This man watches as this beautiful woman comes
down from heaven and is sure it is the Virgin Mary as he has never seen anyone
so beautiful in his life. He is sure she is there to have them repent their
sins of stealing. He runs to find the others in his group. They do not believe
him and the next day, the leader has five men stay behind. All five have the
same story as the first and finally the leader stays behind and meets Blanca
Rosa. She tries to tell them she is not the Virgin Mary, but they do not
believe her, and they dress her with beautiful gowns and jewels. They give her
whatever she wants.
There is a rumour in the village about a beautiful woman living with forty
thieves, but the stepmother refuses to believe it. She decides to ask the
mirror though her question again. Again the answer is Blanca Rosa. The
stepmother hires a sorceress to kill her stepdaughter once and for all. The
sorceress dresses as an old poor woman and tries to give Blanca Rosa a basket
of fruit to thank her for past kindness. Blanca Rosa refuses it since the
thieves give her whatever her heart contents. The old woman asks to at least be
able to touch her dress and hair. Blanca Rosa allows her, and the old woman
jabs her with a needle in her hair. The thieves come home to find Blanca Rosa
dead or at least they thought she was. The put her in many beautiful clothes
and jewels and into a casket made of silver and gold and sent it in the ocean.
A prince who loves to fish was out fishing and sees the sparkle in the water
and asks other fisherman to help him get it. He brings it home. He lives with
his two old maid sisters, so he takes it directly to his own room. There he
opens the casket to see Blanca Rosa, the most beautiful woman he has ever seen,
and she is dressed in such riches. He slowly takes off all her jewellery and
clothing trying to find what could have stopped her breathing. Once she is
naked, he combs her hair and find the needle. He takes out the needle and
immediately Blanca Rosa comes to live and is very confused waking to be naked
with a strange man. She asks where her thieves are, and he tries to explain
what has happened. She just wants her thieves, so he sticks the needle back in
and goes to think about what to do. His sisters are curious as to what he is
doing in his room since he does not come out even for meals.
He wakes Blanca Rosa up again and tells her he could not find her thieves, but
asks her to stay with him and marry him. He tells her that she does not have to
leave her room if she does not want to. She agrees and does not leave the room.
One day while the prince was out on business, the sisters break into the room
to see what their brother has been up to and they find Blanca Rosa. They strip
her of all her jewellery and fine clothes and throw her into the street naked.
She wanders until she finds a kind cobbler who takes her in. The prince comes
home to find his love gone and he goes and wanders aimlessly looking for her.
He finds her and joyfully brought her back and began preparations for their
wedding. He punished his sisters with a horrible death. The forty thieves came
to the wedding at Blanca Rosa's instance and of course brought her many gifts.
Blanca Rosa and the prince lived their lives happily together.
That’s all for this week. Stay tuned next week for a
tale with less thieves.
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