Young women who disguise themselves as men and go off to battle are popular not only in folk stories but in legends and history as well. There are instances of disguised American women doing battle in both the Civil and Revolutionary Wars; British women with shorn hair and wearing pants were recorded as having served aboard ship, et cetera. Perhaps the most famous of these disguised soldiers were Deborah Samson, who fought in the American Revolution, and Ann Bonney and Mary Reade, who were pirates under Captain “Calico” Jack Rackham.
“The Pirate Princess”
I based my telling on Howard Schwartz’s, which he got from the Hebrew Sippure Maasiyot by Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, edited by Rabbi Nathan Sternhartz of Nemirov (Warsaw, 1881). Schwartz’s version can be found in Elijah’s Violin & Other Jewish Fairy Tales, a wonderful collection of retold tales. While I followed Schwartz’s plotline fairly closely, I added dialogue and bits of special action.
Rabbi Nachman lived in Bratslav, Poland, in the nineteenth century. He was the great-grandson of the famous Hassidic rabbi, storyteller, and wonder worker the Ba’al Shem Tov, who began the Hassidic tradition in Jewish life two hundred years ago. The Hassids are an ecstatic sect, worshiping in dance and song as well as study. In less than three generations, the Hassids numbered more than half of the Jews in Eastern Europe. They had their own rabbis, or “exalted saints,” who governed them. It was said by Meyer Levin in Classic Hassidic Tales that in Rabbi Nachman the “Hassidic legend had its fulfillment and completion.” That is, while Rabbi Nachman drew heavily on folk sources, he spun out stories that were his own tellings. They were folk compilations, told not just to entertain but to enlighten, elucidate, and to make wise the listeners.
This story is about the working out of fate for two promised lovers, which was more an Eastern than a Western concept, and one which the Hassids embraced. It is episodic, meaning each of the adventures is a little story itself, but the entire thing wraps around and fits together, dovetailed, in the end.
“The Samurai Maiden”
I first discovered this story in Kathleen Ragan’s Fearless Girls, Wise Women, and Beloved Sisters, though in her notes she says it comes from Folk and Fairy Tales of Far-off Lands, edited by Eric and Nancy Protter. In both instances the story is called “The Tale of the Oki Islands.” It bears a strong relationship to the Chinese story “Li Chi Slays the Dragon,” for in each the brave young maiden hero takes the place of a girl who is to be sacrificed to an evil serpent-god.
The sacrifice of young maidens to a serpent-monster (tale type 300) is a popular motif in European folk stories. That this story takes place underwater rather than in the mountain fasts of most European tales is one of the things that is so special about it. Tokoyo’s previous experience as a Japanese pearl diver is a unique touch.
I have followed the outline of the story but added both dialogue and Tokoyo’s old nurse to the tale.
“Bradamante”
The story of Bradamante is not one story but a series of legendary adventures about a knight of the great king Charlemagne, whose legends were to France what Arthur’s were to Britain, except that Charlemagne himself was much more of a historical figure. Charlemagne (or Charles the Great) came to the throne in A.D. 768.
According to Thomas Bulfinch, whose original Legends of Charlemagne was completed and first published in 1863:
There is, however, a pretended history, which was for a long time admitted as authentic, and attributed to Turpin, Archbishop of Rheims, a real personage at the time of Charlemagne. . . . It is now unhesitatingly considered as a collection of popular traditions, produced by some credulous and unscrupulous monk.
Turpin’s “account,” as well as the more fabulous and legendary materials that have accumulated around Charlemagne’s name, have led to many wonderful stories. The most famous of these is The Song of Roland.
I have followed the outline of Bulfinch’s telling, for the most part, but added much dialogue while leaving out considerable bowing and scraping. The rescue-from-the-castle story of Bradamante and her true love, Ruggiero, actually ends badly as one of the hippogriffs runs off with him, depositing him on an island far away. It is many more adventures before they come together again. But for the purposes of this retelling, we can skip ahead to the happy-ever-after.
“Molly Whuppie”
This story made its way from the folk consciousness into Joseph Jacobs’s collection English Fairy Tales. “Molly Whuppie” remains the single most popular strong-female story in the British Isles. It is unclear whether it is English or Scottish. The giant, at least, seems somewhat Scottish, calling his daughters “lassies.”
The story is related both to “Jack and the Beanstalk” and (in its opening at least) to “Hansel and Gretel,” but it has its own tale type, number 327, “the children and the ogre,” in which the hero fools the very wicked—and extremely stupid—giant. In fact, the hero is usually a boy, and only in the Molly Whuppie variant is the lead role taken unequivocally by a girl. In “Le Petit Poucet,” the French version (tale type 327B), the exchange made by the hero to fool the giant is of hats, not straw ropes and golden chains. So popular is this story, it exists throughout Europe and it even found its way—through French traders—to Indian tribes in British Columbia.
The giant’s verse is, of course, familiar. Or perhaps all British giants recite variations of the same verse: “Fe-fi-fo-fum . . .”
The section of the story in which the hero is put in the sack is a popular motif and can be found in different European tales—especially in Norway and the Baltic states (tale type 327C, “the hero escapes from the sack by substituting some animal or object”). There are some African American stories and some Native American stories that also use this same trick, though Stith Thompson believes this is more likely to have been invented by them than borrowed, as it is such a simple substitution.
There are some scholars who feel that the “bridge of one hair” comes out of Arabic storytelling, as there is a bridge as fine as a single hair over which Muslims pass on their way into heaven. Joseph Campbell cites the Scottish variant of the story, “Maol a Chilobain,” because in it the female hero plucks a hair of her own and it turns into a bridge.
There is a popular American version of the Molly Whuppie variant called “Mutsmeg,” which can be found in Richard Chase’s Grandfather Tales, and a version in which it is a boy servant—Nippy—who is the hero, in “Nippy and the Giants,” found in the American South.
“The Princess Kemang”
A version of this story may be found in Indonesian Tales, retold by Murti Bunanta. The story itself comes from the Bengkulu Province of Indonesia. Indonesia is not a single place, but a nation created out of an archipelago made up of more than 17,500 islands, both large and small. The archipelago stretches out over more than three thousand miles. Not all the islands are inhabited—in fact, only half are. There are more than three hundred ethnic groups and eight hundred different languages and dialects. At one point in its history, Indonesia was occupied by the Dutch and was known as the Dutch East Indies.
The trick of counting the crocodiles by walking across their backs is a motif that can be found in other stories from Asia, notably one in which the character who does the counting is a monkey.
“Masha and the Bear”
This is a story from old Russia which I found online at russian-crafts.com/tales/masha.html. While I’ve kept the main body of the story intact, I have told it with my own storytelling voice.
The history of Azerbaijan is complicated. When the tsar (emperor/king) of Russia was overthrown in 1917, the many Russian provinces either declared themselves individual nations or joined the USSR—the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. At first, Azerbaijan proclaimed its independence. But in 1920, it entered the USSR (or perhaps was dragged in—histories differ) as the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. Seventy years and many dictators later, the USSR began to break apart. In 1991, four months before the USSR collapsed
entirely, the modern Republic of Azerbaijan proclaimed its independence once more.
Even now many of the small independent ex-Soviet nations struggle against the larger Russia that tries to bring them back within its reach. Because Russia is often portrayed as a bear in both literature and illustration, it makes me think that this is a very political story at its core.
Bibliography
“ATALANTA THE HUNTRESS”
d’Aulaire, Ingri, and Edgar Parin. Ingri and Edgar Parin d’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1962.
Godolphin, Francis Richard Borroum, ed. Great Classical Myths. New York: The Modern Library/Random House, 1964.
Grimal, Pierre. The Dictionary of Classical Mythology. Translated by A. R. Maxwell-Hyslop. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, Inc., 1985.
Schwab, Gustav. Gods and Heroes: Myths and Epics of Ancient Greece. New York: Pantheon, 1974.
Tripp, Edward. The Meridian Handbook of Classical Mythology. New York: New American Library, 1970.
“NANA MIRIAM”
Encyclopaedia Britannica, s.v. “Niger.” 1967.
Gale, Steven H. West African Folktales. Lincolnwood, Illinois: NTC Publishing Group, 1995.
Leslau, Charlotte and Wolf, comps. African Proverbs. Mount Vernon, New York: Peter Pauper Press, 1982.
Thompson, Stith. The Folktale. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1977.
“FITCHER’S BIRD”
Calvino, Italo. Italian Folktales. Translated by George Martin. New York: Pantheon Books, 1980.
Grimms’ Fairy Tales. London: Adam & Charles Black, 1911.
Warner, Marina. From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995.
Zipes, Jack, trans. The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm. New York: Bantam Books, 1987.
“THE GIRL AND THE PUMA”
de Guevara, Isabel. Letter to Queen Juana of Spain. Translated for the author by Sibela Martin.
de Guzmán, Ruy Diaz. Argentina manuscripta. Translated for the author by Sibela Martin.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, s.v. “Argentina.” 1967.
Jagendorf, Moritz A., and R. S. Boggs. The King of the Mountains: A Treasury of Latin American Folk Stories. New York: Vanguard Press, 1960.
“LI CHI SLAYS THE SERPENT”
Eberhard, Wolfram. Folktales of China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965.
Roberts, Moss, trans. and ed. Chinese Fairy Tales and Fantasies. New York: Pantheon Books, 1979.
Thompson, Stith. The Folktale. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1977.
“BRAVE WOMAN COUNTS COUP”
Brown, Dee Alexander. Tepee Tales of the American Indian. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1979.
Erdoes, Richard, and Alfonso Ortiz, eds. American Indian Myths and Legends. New York: Pantheon Books, 1984.
“PRETTY PENNY”
Child, Francis James, editor. The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, vol. 5. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1898.
Flanders, Helen Hartness. Ancient Ballads Traditionally Sung in New England. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1960.
Randolph, Vance. The Devil’s Pretty Daughter. New York: Columbia University Press, 1955.
Stemple, F. J., my late father-in-law, who lived more than sixty years in Webster Springs, West Virginia, and told stories in just the manner I used for this story.
“BURD JANET”
Child, Francis James, editor. The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, vol. 1. New York: Dover Publications, 1965.
Douglas, Ronald Macdonald, comp. The Scots Book of Lore and Folklore. New York: E. P. Dutton & Company.
Yolen, Jane. Tam Lin. San Diego, California: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1990.
“MIZILCA”
Lang, Andrew, ed. The Green Fairy Book. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1965.
———. The Violet Fairy Book. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1967.
Lurie, Alison. Clever Gretchen and Other Forgotten Folktales. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1980.
Phelps, Ethel Johnston. The Maid of the North: Feminist Folk Tales from Around the World. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1981.
Seeman, Erich, Dag Stromback, and Bengt R. Jonsson. European Folk Ballads, vol. 2. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1967.
Thompson, Stith. The Folktale. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1977.
“THE PIRATE PRINCESS”
Levin, Meyer. Classic Hassidic Tales. New York: Dorset Press, 1959.
Schwartz, Howard. Elijah’s Violin & Other Jewish Fairy Tales. New York: Harper & Row, 1983.
“THE SAMURAI MAIDEN”
Protter, Eric and Nancy, eds. Folk and Fairy Tales of Far-off Lands. Translated by Robert Egan. New York: Duell, Sloane and Pearce, 1965.
Ragan, Kathleen, ed. Fearless Girls, Wise Women, and Beloved Sisters. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1998.
Thompson, Stith. The Folktale. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1977.
“BRADAMANTE”
Bulfinch, Thomas. Bulfinch’s Mythology: The Age of Chivalry and Legends of Charlemagne. New York: Meridian Books, 1995.
———. Bulfinch’s Mythology. Abridged by Edmund Fuller. New York: Dell, 1975.
“MOLLY WHUPPIE”
Burrison, John A., ed. Storytellers: Folktales & Legends from the South. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1991.
Clarkson, Atelia, and Gilbert B. Cross, eds. World Folktales. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1980.
Cole, Joanna, comp. Best-Loved Folktales of the World. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1983.
Lurie, Alison. Clever Gretchen and Other Forgotten Folktales. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1980.
Thompson, Stith. The Folktale. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1977.
“THE PRINCESS KEMANG”
Bunanta, Murti. Indonesian Folktales. World Folklore Series. Westport, Conn.: Libraries Unlimited, 2003.
“MASHA AND THE BEAR”
A version of this story can be found at: russian-crafts.com/tales/masha.html.
MiddleGradeMania.com
About the Author
JANE YOLEN has written hundreds of books for children and adults. She has received some of the highest awards in children’s literature, including the Kerlan Award, the World Fantasy Award, and the Regina Medal. She and her husband divide their time between Massachusetts and Scotland.
Visit her online at janeyolen.com
About the Illustrator
SUSAN GUEVARA received the Pura Belpré Award for her illustration of Chato’s Kitchen by Gary Soto, an ALA Notable Book and winner of a Parents’ Choice Award. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Visit her online at susanguevara.com
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Jane Yolen, Not One Damsel in Distress: World Folktales for Strong Girls
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