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Annabelle has figured out how to get into her bedroom closet. At first I was annoyed at the daily task of having to clean up the books and toys and clothes that she managed to pull out, inspect, and then throw on the floor. But now I just sigh and appreciate twenty minutes of quiet time.
When I first saw this picture I was surprised at how mature she seems. She isn't feigning shock, I had genuinely caught her off guard: she didn't realize that Momma could just pop her head in the other side! But Annabelle has a knack for the dramatic and her hyper-response to my surprise picture is so evident in this shot.
In my foundation year of Waldorf training we spent a lot of time discussing, learning, reading, and presenting fairy tales. It was one of the subjects that I adored the most.
After I bought my own complete edition of the Grimm's Fairy Tales I read several of the stories that I had grown up reading... only to realize that the stories I had read as a child were only versions of the original Grimm's Tales. The stories I knew were kind, soft, and lacked anything scary or violent. Not so with the original tales that offer lots of seemingly frightening details.
At first, during my studies, I struggled to come to terms with some of those stories... The Frog King, for example, where the young girl loses her gold ball down the well, the frog promises to get it in exchange for a kiss, and once kissed by the girl the spell is broken and he turns into a beautiful prince and they live happily ever after. In the original story the frog exchages the golden ball for the girl's promise to love him... and has to remind the girl of her promises over and over. She is repulsed by the frog and refuses to feed him until her father forces her hand. Then in her bedroom the frog is tired and demands to be lifted into her bed. She cries until the frog threatens to tell her father, then:
This made the princess extremely angry, and after she picked him up, she threw him against the wall with all her might. "Now you can have your rest, you nasty frog!"
When I first read this I was horrified at the thought of a seven year old loving this story. What would a child learn from this? I also didn't understand the rest of the story:
However, when he fell to the ground, he was no longer a frog but a prince with kind and beautiful eyes. So, in keeping with her father's wishes, she accepted him as her dear companion and husband, whereupon the prince told her that a wicked witch had cast a spell over him and no one could have got him out of the well except her, and now he intended to take her to his kingdom the next day. Then they fell asleep, and in morning, when the sun woke them, a coach drawn by eight white horses came driving up.
She abuses the frog and gets rewarded? How strange! But then I had the realization of the young girl's actions as a force of will. The WILL of a child is probably the strongest power on Earth... the only thing that could possibly break an evil spell. The child's will is what drives a baby to learn to walk and talk and grow! Without the will a child does not strive and without striving, there is no life. The prince needed the willing of the princess to save his life.
Last night, reading You Are Your Child's First Teacher by Rahima Baldwin Dancy, she states, "There is not a fairy tale known that doesn't end with successful growth and resolution by the hero or heroine." That both fairy tales and children live in a world of moral absolutes. Good wins, evil is punished. And the punishment, however cruel, is deserved and so it doesn't disturb the child.
...when fairy tales are told in a melodic voice, without emotional dramatization, the moral pattern of the fairy tales emerges... ...fairy tales speak directly to the natural morality in the child and to his or her sense of moral order in the world. When the good wins and the evil is punished, a child is visibly satisfied. The cruelty of having the witch dance to death in red-hot shoes or the wolf drown from the weight of the stones in its belly does not upset children, because there is a certain rightness to the fact that evil is naturally the cause of the its own undoing and is overcome. Through the adventures and triumphs of the main character and as a report that evil is always self-consuming, fairy tales are usually a sources of reassurance and comfort to a child.
I find this just so interesting! I also loved her description of how a story can be told in a way that nourishes the child.
To the extent that we as adults can "live into" the inner richness of a fairy tale, we and children will be the more nourished by it. We would never want to give explanations to a child or ask him to explain, "Why did Goldilocks go into the house? How do you think she felt when she woke up and saw the three bears?" Fairy tales should not be reduced to intellectual or emotional levels. They do
not need any explaining or rationalizing to be appreciated by the child. Just as humanity has passed through various stages of consciousness, so children are passing through these same stages. For this reason, they live with the fairy tale images and are warmed and fulfilled by them again and again. When we tell a fairy tale with an inner understanding and appreciation of its deeper menaning, it is as if the young child feels, "Ah! You understand, too!"
I look forward to the day when I can share the Grimms Tales with Annabelle. I think is will just be, quite simply, awesome. I want to know what she thinks of that princess throwing the frog against the wall!
