KidLit Forum

1. The association with the Bible could be possible because, especially during those times, people were extremely religious, and taking into account that the origin of these stories are actually people, I really believe this could be a possibility. The Bible always represented a source of inspiration, and even the fact that fairy tales have an educational purpose could be linked to the Bible.

2. The impossibility of removing guilt without repentance which you have identified in both Macbeth and Bluebeard suggests a slight association to religion on the side of Macbeth. In Bluebeard, guilt is rather related to disobedience.

3. I think we may be able to see many religious elements present in the fairy tale. As Maria Tatar noted, the beginning – A long time ago, as many as two thousand years ago – anchors the tale in biblical times and suggests a connection with the origins of Christianity. The association Runge makes between the mother’s pregnancy and the way months pass by might also be a suggestive religious image that reflects spiritual connection between nature and human nature, that is, the belief that God created us and everything that exists around us:

A month went by, and the snow melted. Two months passed, and everything had become green. Three months went by, and flowers were sprouting from the ground. Four months passed, and all the trees in the woods were growing tall, with their green branches intertwining. The woods echoed with the song of birds, and blossoms were falling from the trees. And so the fifth month went by. And when the woman sat under the juniper tree, her heart leaped for joy because the tree was so fragrant. She fell to her knees and was beside herself with happiness. When the sixth month had passed, the fruit grew large and firm, and she became very quiet. In the seventh month she picked the berries from the juniper tree and gorged herself on them until she became miserable and ill. After the eighth month went by, she called her husband and, in tears, said to him: ‘If I die, bury me under the juniper tree.’ After that she felt better and was calm until the ninth month had passed. Then she bore a child as white as snow and as red as blood. When she saw the child, she was so happy that she died of joy.

Another element related to religion is the presence of evil. The devil is embodied in the stepmother’s hatred for the boy.

The devil got hold of her so that she began to hate the little boy…

The little boy’s resurrection in the figure of a bird is also a religious element. However, this is not related to a Christian belief, but rather to an Oriental creed:

She put the bones down in the green grass under the juniper tree. After she had put them down, she suddenly felt much better and stopped crying. The juniper tree began stirring. Its branches parted and came back together again as though it were clapping its hands for joy. A mist arose from the tree, and in the middle of the mist a flame was burning, and from the flame a beautiful bird emerged and began singing gloriously. It soared up in the air, and then vanished. The tree was as it has been before, but the kerchief with the bones was gone.

As Propp mentions in The Morphology of the Folktale, the fairy tale is one of the narratives that is very poorly analysed and examined from the psychological perspective. I think that the more we get to understand the purpose, themes and the story within a fairy tale, the more we realise how little we actually have known about it and how much we still have to discover.