Link Roundup

 The Folktale Origin of The Taming of the Shrew

A Case Study in Folktale Analysis: AT 514, "The Shift of Sex," in Hispanic Societies

Galland's "Ali Baba" and Other Arabic Versions

Forget Me Not: Recognizing and Remembering in Medieval Romance

What Are You So Afraid Of? A Rapunzel Analysis

Siblings in Alf laylah wa-laylah

Genderbending in Folklore

 

Genderbending has a surprisingly long and varied history in folklore. It involves both crossdressing and sex changes. It can be temporary or permanent as well as comedic or serious. Characters who indulge the practice range from gods to mortals and their morality - or lack thereof - is equally varied. While it would be impossible to give a comprehensive list of examples, the following should serve as a decent starting point.

Crossdressing Women:

Agnodice

This legend comes from Hyginus’s Fabulae. It says that women were dying from health complications because 1) there were no female physicians and 2) the women did not trust the male doctors they had. A girl who wanted to learn medicine disguised herself as a man, tutored under Herophilus, and served treated the women of Athens. But when the men stopped receiving medical calls from women, they became jealous. Agnodice was accused of seducing the women - who were faking illness - and even revealing her sex didn't help her. Then the women of Athens chastised the men for condemning the only doctor who helped them and they decided to let freeborn women learn medicine.

Mulan

A Chinese legend from the Yuefu Shiji. It tells of a girl who chooses to take her father's place in the army during the war. She goes all over town buying supplies (horses, weapons, etc.) and rides out without telling her parents. After serving for a decade, she returns home. When her old comrades visit they're shocked; they had no idea that she was a woman and Mulan explains that, essentially, males and females are more alike than not.

Transwomen (Male to Female):

A Hymn to Inanna (lines 115-131)

An ancient Sumerian poem by Enheduanna. One line says that "To turn a man into a woman and a woman into a man are yours, Inana."

Bhangaswana 

A myth from the Mahabharata. A king wants children but struggles to conceive. During a ritual meant to aid the baby making process, he offends the god Indra, who leads him to a magical lake that turns him into a woman. However, she resigns herself to her fate. Ceding the kingdom to her sons, she moves into the forest where she meets an ascetic and becomes his wife. They have one hundred sons whom Indra causes to battle to the death w)ith the other princes. After a conversation between the mortal woman and the god, where she apologizes for her mistakes (and claims a mother loves her children more than the father), Indra decides to revive all the boys. He also offers to change her back into a man. She declines on the ground that female orgasms are better.

Story of the Abbot of Druimenaig, Who Was Changed into a Woman (pages 176 - 178

A legend found in various medieval manuscripts (e.g., Book of Fermoy). According to the story, a man finishes preparing an Easter banquet and decides to visit the hills. He falls asleep, reawakens, and learns that he's been transformed into a. he struck them again. Initially, disbelieving, she meets a random woman who confirms the truth. After a short journey, she meets and marries an erenagh, with whom she had seven children. She revisits the hill that transformed her and is returned to her male state. He then goes about explaining the situation to his old and new family and his ex-husband decides to share take half the children while he takes the other half (the last one goes to fosterage).

Crossdressing Men:

Achilles

A segment from the Statius' fragmentary Achilleid. Achilles is taken to an island by his mother Thetis to keep him safe from conscription. She tries to convince him to wear women's clothes but he refuses. Then a bunch of pretty girls arrive and Achilles is so smitten with one that he agrees to his mother's plan so that he can get closer to her. It works. They even have a son together (via rape). But Achilles is exposed by two soldiers who then recruit him for the war.

Þrymskviða

A story found in the Poetic Edda. It recounts how Thor woke up one morning and found his hammer missing. He confided in Loki who helped him locate it. The impish deity told him that a troll had stolen it but would not return it until Freyja, goddess of love and fertility, agreed to marry him. She refused. The gods convened and decided on a plan: disguise Thor and Loki as Freyja and a bridesmaid, and have them go to the tolls. Thor reluctantly agreed. He behaved unladylike at the banquet (eating too much, glaring at the bridegroom, etc.), which Loki made excuses for until the hammer was returned. Thor proceeded to kill everyone.

Transmen (Female to Male):

King Sikhidhwaja the Hermit; Chudala as the Brahmin Boy Kumbha 

A narrative arc in the Yogavasishtha. King Sikhidhwaja rejects his wife's wisdom and forsakes his kingdom to live in the woods. Chudala decides to use her powers - including astral projection and shapeshifting into a man - in order to help her husband learn valuable lessons. After a series of philosophical discussions, storytelling sessions, and another marriage, Sikhidhwaja returns home with newfound appreciation for his wife.

Yde and Olive

A poem from the "Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale di Torino Ms. L II.14". A princess escapes from her incestuous father and ends up serving in the army of a Roman king. She defeats an invading army, earning the king's esteem, and his daughter's love. The king then weds Yde to Olive. Her secret is revealed by an eavesdropping servant, and the king decides to burn both women, until an angel tells the king that God has turned the princess into a man.

Link Roundup

I Bet You Didn’t Know Captain America was a Golem!

YHWH'S Divine Images: A Cognitive Approach

As Woman as Can Be: The Gendered Subversiveness of an Arabic Folktale Heroine

A Tale of “The Lord of the Sea” in Qatari Folklore and Tradition

Jeju Researcher Transforms Ieodo Folklore into Modern Fairy Tale

The Snow Queen (1957)

Father Tales

 

"The Holy Family with a Little Bird,” Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Ca. 1650.

It's Father's Day and in order to celebrate, we're going to look at some of the best dad-related folktales in the oral and literary traditions.

1. Untitled myth about Ares. The Library by pseudo-Apollodorus mentions an incident where a son of Poseidon tried to assault one of his daughter. Ares killed the guy to protect her. When Poseidon took Ares to court, he was acquitted.

2. "The Black Dragon and the Red Dragon." In this Turkish narrative, a man's children are kidnapped and he goes on an epic quest to retrieve them. He also helps a mother dragon reunite with her young.

3. "The Good Stepmother." Despite the title, this Icelandic tale features a wonderfully thoughtful king. After his wife dies he refuses to remarry because he fears that a stepmother will abuse his daughter. It's not until his brother vows to find a good woman that he relents. His fiancée even ends up saving the princess.

4. "The Doomed Prince" This ancient Egyptian text, with its lost ending, begins with a pharaoh wanting to know his son's destiny. The prophetesses tell him that the boy will die. He tries to keep his son in a tower in an effort to protect him, but eventually allows the boy to leave and live his own life.

5. "The Smith and the Fairies." A Scottish changeling tale in which a boy is abducted and enslaved by the fair folk and his father ventures into their domain to rescue him.

Fun fact: biological fathers experience sympathetic pregnancy symptoms.

Miserably Ever After: Fairy Tales with Sad Endings

 

"Happily ever after" is the most famous closing formula for fairy tales in the Anglosphere. But plenty of folktales, even traditional fairy tales, end on a real down note. It's not be a pleasant aspect of the genre (naturally), but it adds dynamism to it.

The Fisherman and His Wife

The Adventure of Cherry of Zennor

The Angel of Death

The Story of the Man Who Went to Wake His Luck

Yallery Brown

There's even a book about narratives, old and new, that upend our expectations: Anti-Tales: The Uses of Disenchantment by Catriona McAra.

Folktales and Law

The legal system, its representatives, and principles rarely appear in traditional folktales despite the importance it has in daily life (don't jaywalk kids!). However, a few exceptions stand out.

“Tainted Witness” in Burmese Law Tales by Muang Htin Aung. 

“The Fly” in Best-Loved Folktales of the World by Joanna Cole. 

“The Peasant and the Workman” in Folk Tales of All Nations by F.H. Lee. 

“Nature’s Way” in 100 Armenian Tales and Their Folkloristic Relevance by Susie Hoogasian-Villa. 

“The Five Queer Brothers” in Chinese Nights' Entertainment by Adele Marion Fielde.   

Orestes at Athens by Aeschylus, translated by Oliver Taplin 

Judgement of Solomon in the Bible (1 Kings 3:16–28) 

There's also a criminological study a German fairy tale corpus:

The Criminological Significance of the Grimms’ Fairy Tales (1987) by Gerhard O. W. Mueller.

Folktales Throughout History

Where and when did folktales originate? That question's unanswerable because the stories likely predate literacy and printing. And contemporary folklorists prioritize function over origin. Nonetheless, scholars have unearthed old written versions of popular tales, possibly the first recorded variants of certain stories or tale types: 

1290s - 1210s B.C.E., The Doomed Prince (ATU 934 Tales of the Predestined Death)

1200 - 1194 B.C.E., The Story of Two Brothers (ATU 318 The Faithless Wife)

300 - 200 B.C.E., Book of Tobit: II 3 -7 (ATU 505 The Grateful Dead)

1 - 200 C.E., Perseus and Andromeda (ATU 300 The Dragon-Slayer)

120s - 170s C.E., Cupid and Psyche (ATU 425B Son of the Witch)

850 - 860 C.E., Yeh-hsien (ATU 510A Cinderella)

1022 - 1024 C.E., About a Girl Saved from Wolf Cubs (ATU 333 Little Red Riding Hood)

1225 C.E., Ejemplo de Dos Compañeros (ATU 613 The Two Travelers)

1330 - 1340 C.E., Troylus and Zellandine (ATU 410 Sleeping Beauty)

1382 C.E., Culhwch and Olwen (ATU 513 The Extraordinary Companions)

1462 C.E., The Wright's Chaste Wife (ATU 882 The Wager on the Wife’s Chastity)

1605 C.E., Conomerus and Trifina (ATU 312 The Maiden-Killer)

1675 C.E. The Woman to the Plow, the Man to the Hen-Roost (ATU 1408 The Man Who Does His Wife’s Work)

This barely scratches the surface of what's out there but it's a start for reading and research.