It turns out that one of my selected fairy tales, ‘the girl who turned into a boy’, is very closely related to one of Ovid’s tales; ‘Iphis’. This tale actually resonates far more with what I am trying to say than the Albanian tale of 'Fet-Fruners'.
In the Albanian story, the girl must dress as a boy to help her father and save the family. She gets a magical horse and is guided through many fantastical obstacles in front of rescuing a princess (her main objective - to get the reward/please her boss). She is always almost being found out as being a woman, and has the boss and other page boys attracted to her, or especially friendly and affectionate. This is a trope that I am not really interested in - the men ‘seeing through’ her manly disguise to the real female below. On her final obstacle/test (again, helped by her magical horse) she is then cursed by a witch/wizard “If you are a girl, be turned into a boy, if you are a boy, be turned into a girl.”
She is then a ‘real boy’ who is free to marry the princess and have a ‘normal’ life. In some retellings, she is married to the girl (somewhat against her wishes) before the curse, and has a few awkward nights where the marriage cannot be consummated.
While I enjoy the gender-bending aspect to the story (as it is very old!) there are a few things I am not interested in/do not agree with.
These include:
- Having to dress as a man to save the family. The notion that girls cannot do anything practical is no longer relevant. I will either get rid of this, or use it to highlight the hypocrisy that the woman does all the work while the father languishes at home, and the boss just sits in his castle while Fet-Fruners must go do all the dangerous adventuring.
- The magical horse. I feel that she should be able to make her own way through obstacles. This is promoting the idea that women cannot do anything themselves. Especially as the horse is a male.
- The fact that she must be transformed into a man at the end. That the notion is that Fet-Fruners must be a man to have a relationship with the princess, and especially to have a happy and functioning relationship. It is hardly ever noted in the retelling how Fet-Fruners feels about any of the things that happen to her. She is a passive character, despite being the main character. Things happen to her, rather than her making things happen.
From Wikipedia:
‘According to Greek mythology and the Roman poet Ovid, who wrote about transformations in his Metamorphoses, Iphis (or Iphys) was the daughter of Telethusa and Ligdus in Crete. Ligdus had already threatened to kill his pregnant wife's child if it wasn't a boy. Telethusa despairs, but is visited in the middle of the night by the Egyptian goddess Isis, attended by Anubis and Apis, who assures her that all will be well. When Telethusa gives birth to Iphis, she conceals her daughter's sex from her husband and raises her daughter as a boy. Iphis falls in love with another girl, Ianthe. Iphis is deeply in love and prays to Juno to allow her to marry her beloved. When nothing happens, her mother Telethusa brings her to the temple of Isis and prays to the goddess to help her daughter. Isis responds by transforming Iphis into a man. The male Iphis marries Ianthe and the two live happily ever after. Their marriage is presided over by Juno, Venus, and Hymenaios, the god of marriage.’
What I like about the Iphis story is that she is allowed to love a woman, and that it is acceptable to her parents (despite her father’s obliviousness… although I would perhaps play with this. It is unlikely that a father would not realise the sex of their only child. Perhaps it became one of those unspoken ‘things’ that pride forbids acknowledged of reality.)
I like that it is acceptable to want to change the physicality of gender.
I like that the woman love interest also accepts that she is a woman. I do question the necessity of changing gender in order to marry, perhaps by making comment on the ridiculousness of our current same-sex marriage laws. Or else change it to that she just doesn’t feel ‘right’ in a woman’s body. I will have to be careful about perceived implications being made that being raised as a gender makes you identify more strongly with that gender… I will need to do some research about this.
The problem now is if I take one story from ‘Metamorphosis’, will I have to take the rest as well? Will it be the odd one out? I suspect yes.
My challenge is then to take the fairy tale and make it more how I want it.
Also found in my research was this in a comment thread after an online retelling of one of the Fet-Fruners stories:
Laura Gibbs Date: July 12, 2003 6:45 PM
‘I was always fascinated by that story, and a friend of mine who is a medievalist was telling me something that might be relevant. Apparently there's an obscure 13th century French romance called Le Roman de Silence, in which a girl is raised as a boy to foil inheritance laws, becomes a knight, has adventures, repels advances from the queen and eventually is unmasked by Merlin and marries the king. The romance displays some very ambiguous positions on gender (we're not exactly sure what the author approves of) and a lot of clever wordplay involving grammatical gender. I gather the figures Nature ad Nurture are personified, allegorically, and fight over Silentius/Silentia throughout the work. In any case, maybe something to look at for those interested in this tale type.’
I am interested in the ‘foiling of inheritance laws’ as a reason why she would be raised as a boy. This shows disrespect for sexist laws, it shows an acceptance for a fluidity of genders, and the unimportance of gender-specific roles.
The name ‘Silentius/Silentia, (of course, meaning 'silent') and the ‘unmasking’ also suggests that the character is passive.
However, repelling advances and marrying the king could potentially be self-propelled action. Again, I am not sure if the marrying of the ‘correct’ gender is what I want to portray… but I guess it depends on the character. It is ok to want to ‘be’ the opposite sex, but still be attracted to them.
I am also aware of companies that are currently or have recently produced shows of this kind. I know of a company doing a show based on ‘Metamorphosis’, and in Brisbane was recently ‘Grimm Tales’, where Carol Ann Duffy (one of my favourite poets) re-imagined the Grimm Brother’s fairy tales. I realise that I am not treading new territory. I am not even writing my own stories. I am retelling in my own way. I am making new the familiar. I am re-upholstering the op-shop couches of story. My challenge is to show the stories that are not so well known, and to change the stories that are.
