Winter and the fairy tale, print version


Winter and the fairy tale In European folk and fairy tales, winter is always a strange time. Since it is rarely described, it is not only a strange but a significant milieu for the tale. I have found two explanations where folk tales are concerned for why winter is a relative rarity. First, according to what is known as the migration theory, fairy tales largely originated in subtropical or even tropical areas such as India, Persia and Egypt. From there they migrated, with their narrators, to southern Europe and points further north. Given this origin, it is natural that they have retained a sort of eternal summer that provides the characters and events in the tale with an “easy” environment, where they do not have to fight against Arctic conditions. The second explanation lies in C.G. Jung's theory of the collective unconscious. Tales with the same subjects have sprung up independently everywhere because the human race has a collective memory of sorts that produces them. Tales have adopted the milieu of their place of origin: people in India and the Inuit have tales that take place in their respective worlds. In adopting the environment of the narrator as the scene, tales would, in a sense, be their product, and winter would not have particularly great internal significance, for people would already have adapted to it. There would be no need to emphasize it in any way. However, there are some fantasies in which a European writer gives winter a symbolic and internal meaning for the characters and events in the tale. I will examine winter on this basis in what follows. I have excluded Christmas tales here, in which winter is a given in European contexts. I have chosen the following tales and fantasy novels, in which winter is a significant part of the milieu, however short an episode it may represent: H.C. Andersen's The Snow Queen (1844) Yrjö Kokko's Pessi ja Illusia [Pessi and Illusia] (1944), C.S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (The Chronicles of Narnia, Part One, 1950) and Tove Jansson's Taikatalvi [Moominland Midwinter] (1957). The characteristic features of winter in the stories are cold, snow and ice, darkness and night, the temporary death of nature and beauty. Snow, cold and darkness take the characters of the tale, who are used to summer, by surprise. Snow in particular is something they wonder at. Moomin troll is surprised that it comes from above. After waking up to winter, he thought that snow had grown on the ground like grass. Illusia thinks that it is feathers that are falling from the sky. Both try to explain winter on the basis of their experiences. Snow has made a world they once knew strange by covering and softening familiar shapes. The temporary nature of winter is seen when warmth melts the snow. In The Snow Queen, Kai regrets this as he admires a snowflake on his arm. Winter makes them both long for summer and fosters a togetherness as all little creatures come inside to tell stories by the fire. Otherwise, as Little My says, the cold makes them as brittle as zwieback. When the tales are stories of survival for the main character, winter offers formidable adversaries. The Snow Queen is such an opponent in bewitching Kay. Similar characters are the White Witch in the Chronicles of Narnia and the Lady of the Cold in Moominland Midwinter – all beautiful and white but cold. They are negative maternal figures whose kisses, breath and food are life threatening. Pessi and Illusia are forced to fight against the weasel Martes, White Death. Where the heroes of the tale have to survive the winter and may be confused and somehow small, the stories include animals, birds and amazing creatures to help. These characters teach them to survive and they can of course help themselves. In The Snow Queen, the girl Gerda is helped by birds and a reindeer. When she fights against a snowy band of monsters, her frosty breath becomes angels who help defeat her enemy. In Pessi and Illusia, little animals teach the main characters how the fairy and the troll get through the winter by gathering and storing food and making a nest. There is something good even in evil, for the fur of the dead weasel Martes provides Illusia with a fur coat. The inhabitants of Narnia and the golden lion Aslan fight against the White Witch. This is a battle of good against evil and when good wins, summer comes. Winter is temporary and essential. It is a time when nature sleeps and nothing grows. But the seeds of growth are hidden under the snow. If the fantasies are interpreted psychologically and symbolically, winter represents a state of rest for the conscious Self. It can be a picture of depression, uncertainty and crisis. After hibernation, we awake more aware than before, having discovered our own Self and spiritual wholeness. When the negative forces of winter have been beaten and turned to our advantage, its joy and beauty emerge. In Moomin Valley, the little creatures rejoice when they see how one can play in the snow: coast downhill, ski, throw snowballs. The beauty of winter is symbolized by Illusia, a fairy who has lost her wings. She can only travel in the wintry woods when she has a fur coat on that has been made from the fur of White Death. She marvels at the sparkle of ice and snow and sighs: “This is the winter that I was so afraid of? This is the season that the pessimists want to sleep through? This is the death we were running from?” Sisko Ylimartimo
© University of Lapland and Kemi-Tornio Polytechnic, Culture Unit

Winter and the fairy tale

In European folk and fairy tales, winter is always a strange time. Since it is rarely described, it is not only a strange but a significant milieu for the tale. I have found two explanations where folk tales are concerned for why winter is a relative rarity.

First, according to what is known as the migration theory, fairy tales largely originated in subtropical or even tropical areas such as India, Persia and Egypt. From there they migrated, with their narrators, to southern Europe and points further north. Given this origin, it is natural that they have retained a sort of eternal summer that provides the characters and events in the tale with an “easy” environment, where they do not have to fight against Arctic conditions.

The second explanation lies in C.G. Jung's theory of the collective unconscious. Tales with the same subjects have sprung up independently everywhere because the human race has a collective memory of sorts that produces them. Tales have adopted the milieu of their place of origin: people in India and the Inuit have tales that take place in their respective worlds. In adopting the environment of the narrator as the scene, tales would, in a sense, be their product, and winter would not have particularly great internal significance, for people would already have adapted to it. There would be no need to emphasize it in any way.

However, there are some fantasies in which a European writer gives winter a symbolic and internal meaning for the characters and events in the tale. I will examine winter on this basis in what follows. I have excluded Christmas tales here, in which winter is a given in European contexts. I have chosen the following tales and fantasy novels, in which winter is a significant part of the milieu, however short an episode it may represent: H.C. Andersen's The Snow Queen (1844) Yrjö Kokko's Pessi ja Illusia [Pessi and Illusia] (1944), C.S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (The Chronicles of Narnia, Part One, 1950) and Tove Jansson's Taikatalvi [Moominland Midwinter] (1957).

The characteristic features of winter in the stories are cold, snow and ice, darkness and night, the temporary death of nature and beauty. Snow, cold and darkness take the characters of the tale, who are used to summer, by surprise. Snow in particular is something they wonder at. Moomin troll is surprised that it comes from above. After waking up to winter, he thought that snow had grown on the ground like grass. Illusia thinks that it is feathers that are falling from the sky. Both try to explain winter on the basis of their experiences. Snow has made a world they once knew strange by covering and softening familiar shapes. The temporary nature of winter is seen when warmth melts the snow. In The Snow Queen, Kai regrets this as he admires a snowflake on his arm. Winter makes them both long for summer and fosters a togetherness as all little creatures come inside to tell stories by the fire. Otherwise, as Little My says, the cold makes them as brittle as zwieback.

When the tales are stories of survival for the main character, winter offers formidable adversaries. The Snow Queen is such an opponent in bewitching Kay. Similar characters are the White Witch in the Chronicles of Narnia and the Lady of the Cold in Moominland Midwinter – all beautiful and white but cold. They are negative maternal figures whose kisses, breath and food are life threatening. Pessi and Illusia are forced to fight against the weasel Martes, White Death.

Where the heroes of the tale have to survive the winter and may be confused and somehow small, the stories include animals, birds and amazing creatures to help. These characters teach them to survive and they can of course help themselves. In The Snow Queen, the girl Gerda is helped by birds and a reindeer. When she fights against a snowy band of monsters, her frosty breath becomes angels who help defeat her enemy. In Pessi and Illusia, little animals teach the main characters how the fairy and the troll get through the winter by gathering and storing food and making a nest. There is something good even in evil, for the fur of the dead weasel Martes provides Illusia with a fur coat. The inhabitants of Narnia and the golden lion Aslan fight against the White Witch. This is a battle of good against evil and when good wins, summer comes.

Winter is temporary and essential. It is a time when nature sleeps and nothing grows. But the seeds of growth are hidden under the snow. If the fantasies are interpreted psychologically and symbolically, winter represents a state of rest for the conscious Self. It can be a picture of depression, uncertainty and crisis. After hibernation, we awake more aware than before, having discovered our own Self and spiritual wholeness.

When the negative forces of winter have been beaten and turned to our advantage, its joy and beauty emerge. In Moomin Valley, the little creatures rejoice when they see how one can play in the snow: coast downhill, ski, throw snowballs. The beauty of winter is symbolized by Illusia, a fairy who has lost her wings. She can only travel in the wintry woods when she has a fur coat on that has been made from the fur of White Death. She marvels at the sparkle of ice and snow and sighs: “This is the winter that I was so afraid of? This is the season that the pessimists want to sleep through? This is the death we were running from?”