Hello and welcome to Fairy tale Friday. Are you
sitting comfortably? Good. Then I'll begin.
We are moving more and more into a modern era in our
exploration of Little Red Riding Hood. Whereas earlier versions were very
victim blaming, modern versions are more about the power of women.
Tanith Lee is one of my favourite authors. Her stories
often have a strong feminist slant and she writes fairy tales
as well as science fiction, horror and fantasy. She wrote two episodes of
Blake's 7 and was the first woman to win the British Fantasy Award for her
novel Death's Master.
This story entitled Wolfland first appeared in her marvellous collection of short stories Red as Blood or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer. (This book is well worth seeking out if you like dark fairy tales. It has the most unexpected, imaginative retelling of Snow White I have ever read. It is truly the story I wish had written.)
Wolfland is the story of a young girl named Lisel
from a far, frozen country who discovers a surprising truth about her distant
grandmother. Lisel is summoned to her grandmother’s house only to discover that
her grandmother is a werewolf by night. Her grandfather had been so
sadistically abusive, nearly beating her to death, that she ate of the magic
yellow flower that turned her into a wolf and she ripped his throat out to save
herself and her unborn child. Marriage is a chain that cannot be broken except
by death and so she saved herself by killing him.The grandmother says: He knows they are the eyes of Anna and that it is Anna who tears out his throat. She has brought Lisel to her
house in the deep snowy woods to give her the gift of lycanthropy to save Lisel
from ever having to marry and be forced into subjugation by any
man.
The grandmother sees herself in Lisel. She says,
Look at your hair and your eyes and your beautiful
teeth. Haven't you always preferred the night to the day, staying up to
the morning, lying abed till noon? Don't you love the cold forest? Doesn't the
howl of the wolf thrill you through with fearful delight? And why else should
the Wolfland accord you an escort, a pack of wolves running by you on the road.
Do you think you'd have survived if you'd have not been one of their kind, too?
This is a completely empowering story and one where
the wolf is both predator and hero.
You can read a PDF version of it here: (you will need
to scroll to the second page to start the story.)
Stay tuned next week as we look what it means to be
part of the Company of Wolves.
That's a gorgeous wolf picture. The eyes are mesmerizing and don't want to let you go.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever read Women Who Run with the Wolves? I listened to it on audio on one of my long drives from Canada to Louisiana. It's a collection of dark fairy tales, very feminist stories and legends. It's wonderful.