MARIAN ROALFE COX: fraudulent exchange of letters

In the sequence of events to which the Cinderella tales leads in romantic and legendary literature, many incidents of the folk-tale are reproduced; but these belong more especially to another class of story, of which, therefore, before examining the legends themselves, I may here give a few examples. The episodes most frequently met with in the romances may be thus briefly enumerated:
[···]
3. Persecution [···] and fraudulent exchange of letters.
4. Reunion in distant lands of [···], husband and wife.
In Gonzenbach's twenty-fourth story, "Von der schönen Wirthstochter / Bella Venezia" (Sicilianische Märchen, i, 148), the heroine's mother, who keeps an inn, is jealous of her daughter's beauty, and shuts her up. A king, however, catches sight of her, and marries her. During his absence at the war the heroine bears a child, and her mother in-law writes to tell the king. The messenger stops at Venezia's mother's inn, and the innkeeper/mother takes the opportunity of exchanging the letter for another, announcing that the queen has borne a monster. The king writes word that his wife and their child are to be taken every care of; but again the heroine's mother intercepts the messenger and substitutes a letter containing the order that the queen's hands be cut off, her monster birth bound to her arms, and that she be cast forth into the woods. Through supernatural aid, Venezia acquires a castle and her severed hands are restored. Some time afterwards, the king, losing his way when out hunting, comes to the castle and asks for a night's lodging. In the morning his wife and child are restored to him.
There is a Greek variant, entitled "La Belle sans Mains" (Legrand, Contes pop. Grecs, pp. 241-256), which story, says Legrand, is a feeble echo of the legend entitled "D'une reine du pays francs dont la toute-puissante Notre-Dame guérit les mains coupées". This legend was inserted by the Cretan monk Agapios in his Auaptwnwv Zwtnpia, a curious book, which is still as popular in Greece as it was two centuries ago. Probably Agapios was acquainted with some Italian imitation of the "Roman de la Manekine", of which he made use.
These folk-tale examples will suffice for comparison with such of the legends as have more points of resemblance with stories of this class than with the story of Peau d'Ane.
After collating the several legends which bear upon the adventures of Cinderella in some of the numerous ramifications of the story, I found that M. le Comte de Puymaigre, in his work entitled Folklore (Paris, 1885, pp. 253-277), had made a précis of some of the same material. I am therefore glad to economise further time, having already given much to the subject, by here and there combining his work with my own in the remarks which follow. "La fille aux mains coupées" forms the motif of his study in connection with the legends. M. de Puymaigre met with this in the course of translating Victorial; a book of the fifteenth century, by Gutierre Dias de Games, giving the life of Don Pero Nuño, to whom Games was alférez (ensign). Accompanying Don Pero to France, Games became acquainted with an episode which he considered revealed the cause of the long wars between that country and England (the Hundred Years' War). Gaines relates how a certain French noble maiden has her hands severed, and is marooned on the Channel, for refusing to marry her stepfather. The Virgin Mary appears to her in a dream, and the girl prays her to restore her hands and take her safely to land. The Virgin promises her reward and honour. When the girl wakes, her hands are whole. A soft wind blowing from the French coast drives her boat to the shores of England. The son of the English king, returning with his fleet from Ireland, discovers her, listens to her strange eventful history, and marries her. Finally, when the Duc de Guienne dies, without heir, the English prince goes to Guienne, and claims the duchy for his wife. The French will not give it up, but drive him from the country. The duke had never been reconciled to his stepdaughter, whom he presumed dead, though he had heard of the miracle; and, feeling his end approaching, he had given the duchy to the King of France. This, says Games, was the beginning of the Hundred Years' War.
The above theme, orally transmitted in the folk-tale at the present day, is found in most of the mediaeval literatures of the West, amongst Celts, Anglo-Saxons, and Normans. One of the oldest forms of the saga is that found in the Vitae duorum Offarum, by Matthew Paris.
In the Vita Offae Primi we read of Offa as the king of the West Angles. The king of Northumbria, harassed by the Scots and certain of his own subjects, seeks the aid of Offa, at the same time asking for the hand of his daughter, and promising to acknowledge him his sovereign. These terms are sworn on the Gospels. Offa sets off to the North, defeats the Scots, and sends his people the news of the war. The bearer of the letters is waylaid by Offa's son-in-law, who makes him drunk, and, whilst he sleeps, robs him of his letters, substituting others which announce that Offa has been vanquished, that he considers his misfortune a contrappasso on account of his sin in having married the forest girl, and that she and her twin children are accordingly to be conveyed to some desert place, and left to perish. This letter reaches its destination; the magnates dare not disobey; the queen is cast out; moved by her beauty, the executioners spare the mother, but hack the children in pieces. A hermit finds the queen through hearing the piercing cries which proceed from the corpses; he places the mutilated limbs together, and resuscitates the children through his prayers. When Offa returns he hears with horror of what has been done during his absence. Seeking to solace his grief in hunting, he one day finds in the cave of the hermit the wife and children whom he had believed dead. In his gratitude he vows to found a monastery at the hermit's request. But this promise is only redeemed by Offa II, in the founding of St. Alban's.
The same theme forms the basis of the Roman de la Manekine (MS. de la Bibliothèque Royale, No. 7609), written in verse by Philippe de Reimes, a trouvère of the thirteenth century. l with the incidents in that class of folk-tale of which I have given specimens.) During the absence of her husband, who has gone to take part in a tournament arranged by the King of France, Joie bears a son. The mother-in-law intercepts the letter which should announce the news to the king, and substitutes another, saying that Joie has borne a monster. The king writes that nothing is to be done till his return; his mother exchanges this letter for one ordering the seneschal to burn Joie. Once more she is saved by the substitution of a dummy, and she embarks with her newborn child. The king returns, learns the truth, locks up his mother, and sets out in search of his wife, walking through fire and ice and encountering many a hardship. After seven years he finds he, where she had found shelter. 
Another version of the Manekine legend is related by Nicolas Trivet in his Anglo-Norman Chronicle. The date of this is 1334.
The Tale of Emare, in the Cotton MS. Caligula A. ii, printed by Ritson in his Ancient English Metrical Romances (London, 1802, vol. ii, pp. 204-247), seems, in all but its bad beginning, to be merely an older version of the Constance story.
The outline of Emare is as follows:-- 
[···]
Emare is exposed, clad "in the robe of noble blue", in a boat which drifts to Galys. Here she becomes the wife of the king. Her husband joins the King of France in the war against the Saracens, and during his absence Emare bears a son, Segramour. The letter which should announce the news to the king is exchanged by the king's mother, and the false letter informs him that his wife has borne a monster. The kindly answer which he sends in return is converted by the queen-mother into a cruel sentence. Accordingly, Emare is a second time exposed. [···]The king returns from the wars, and banishes his mother on discovering her treachery. After some years he goes on a pilgrimage to get absolution. He lodges at the house where Emare dwells, and is served by his own son. The
joyful reunion ensues.
The same story has been versified at great length, with certain slight variations, and under different names, by the poet Gower, in the second book of his Confessio Amantis (vol. i, pp. 179-213, of Dr. Pauli's edition), and after him by Chaucer in his Man of Lawes Tale. The former, who makes the lady whom he calls Constance, or Custen, refers to "the cronike" as his authority.
The story likewise occurs, much altered and abridged, in Il Pecorone, by Ser Giovanni Fiorentino (Day I, Nov. 10). The following is an outline:--
The Princess Denise, of France, to avoid a disagreeable marriage with an old German prince, escapes into England, and is there received into a convent. The king, passing that way, falls in love with and espouses her. Afterwards, while he is engaged in a war in Scotland, his wife bears twins. The queen-mother sends to acquaint her son that his spouse has given birth to two monsters. In place of the king's answer ordering them to be nevertheless brought up with the utmost care, she substitutes a mandate for their destruction, and also for that of the queen. The person to whom the execution of this command is entrusted allows the queen to depart with her twin children to Genoa. At the end of some years, she discovers her husband on his way to a crusade; she there presents him with his children, and is brought back with him in triumph to England.
In Ritson's opinion, the author "may seem to have been indebted to a MS. of the National Library, Paris (No. 8701; a paper book written in 1370), entitled Fabula romanensis de rege Francorum, etc.; but there can be little doubt that this novel was adapted from Nicholas Trivet's Life of Constance, whose Chronicles were written at least forty years before Ser Giovanni began to compose his work in 1378 (it was not printed till 1558), while the Canterbury Tales were probably written very soon after, if not some of them before, that date.
We meet with another version of the same theme in a German Volksbuch. Here it is used to point a moral as well as to adorn a tale, with the following title, both critical and exegetical: Eine schöne anmuthige und lesenswürdige Historie von der geduldigen Helena.
abern aber zum Schrocken in Druck gegeben. Köln am Rhein und Nürnberg. This romance, according to Gorres, is based upon an old poem (also 100YW-etiological) under title: "Von eines Kuniges Tochter von Frankreich ein hübsches Lesen, wie der Künig sie selbst zuo der Ee wolt hon, des sie doch got von im behuot, und darumb sie vil trübsal und not erlidt, zuo letst ein Künigin in Engellant ward." But Merzdorf, who has made an elaborate study of this poem, agrees with Graesse in thinking the Volksbuch version an abridged translation of a twelfth century poetic romance by Alexander of Bernai or Paris, de la belle Helayne.
The epic poem by Hans von Bühel is in seventy-two quarto pages, and opens just like El Victorial, with a French damsel fleeing from her unnatural stepfather. She escapes alone in a little ship from Calais, where she has been living incognito for a while, taking with her provisions, and materials for working in silk. She is driven to England, landing near to London. Attracted by he smoke from a little hut, she induces the peasants whom she finds within to engage her to tend their cattle in return for her daily bread. She weaves some beautiful silk, and the peasant woman takes it to London for sale. The wife of the marshal going to mass, buys it of the woman who sits at the cathedral entrance, and also bids her bring all the silk she has to her. The marshal, seeing the work, the like of which could not be produced in all the kingdom, induces the peasant woman to reveal who has made it, and the end of it is that he visits the French princess, and takes her to live in his own house, and treats her as his own daughter. It being the custom of the king (who is also nameless) to visit the marshal's wife after the transaction of affairs with her husband, he chances one day to see the princess, falls in love with her, and shortly marries her with great ceremony and rejoicing. A sudden invasion of the country by the king of Ireland and Scotland necessitates the king's presence at the head of his army. The poem goes on to relate the usual sequence of events, namely, how during the king's absence the queen bore a son, and the marshal to whose care she was confided sent tidings thereof to the king; how the king's mother intercepted the letter, substituting another which stated that the queen had borne a monster--half human, half animal; how she also intercepted the king's reply, and gave orders to the marshal in the king's name to burn both queen and infant prince; how the marshal burnt two baby animals in their stead, and put the queen and her child in the same ship which had brought her thither; how, after many hardships, she at length reached a farmhouse, where she took service, minding the cattle and doing housework; how, after a time, the Pope took her son to live with him, and gave him land and people. And, at last, how the kings of England and France, both on account of their sins--the former having burnt his mother, the latter having desired to wed his stepdaughter--came to the Vatican to seek absolution; how the joyful recognition ensued, and the heroine was taken home, after calling on the way at Paris, where the French king proclaimed his stepdaughter heir to the throne. Having taken part in the rejoicings in England, the French king returns to his capital, falls ill, and dies, before his stepdaughter and son-in-law can reach him; but when they arrive their sovereign right is acknowledged. The King of England and his son are recalled on account of another invasion of the King of Ireland and Scotland, and in the meantime the queen dies, and the throne of France is claimed by another king. Her husband is broken-hearted at her death, and determines to recover the French crown for his son. The poem ends by pointing out this explanation of England's claim to the throne of France, and of the long wars which ensued (It may actually be an explanation of the Anarchy, the dynastic conflict between Queen Matilda and her kinsman the crown pretender Étienne de Blois, who defeated her, and Matilda's son Henry vanquishing, after his mother's death, the usurper, now crowned Stephen I of England).
The poem consists of 15,000 rhymed verses. The Volksbuch has retained much of the naïf simplicity of the poem, though materially altering the plan. The queen bears two sons, twins who are carried off in the wilderness by a lioness and a female wolf, respectively, and "saved" by a hermit (the female beasts had nursed the feral children, as usual). Helene has her hands cut off for having driven the children away, and the niece of the Duke of Gloucester (who herein plays the role of the marshal) willingly gives herself to be burnt at the stake in Helena's stead. After many adventures, the two confederate kings meet with the hapless queen and her two children in Tours.
Still more intricate are the events related in the French version (alluded to above), published in quarto, at Paris, without date, under the title: Histoire de la belle Heleine...
Counselled by a nun, Heleine escapes in a Flemish ship to Sluis (Port de l'Ecluse), where she enters a convent. Antonius, in his rage, takes ship after her, and sails through every sea of Europe in vain quest. She lives for many a year in her retreat, till Cantebron, King of Sluis, who has become enamoured of her, directs his body guard of Saracens to storm the convent and carry her to his seraglio. Heleine flees in a Spanish ship sailing to Catalonia. But the ship is wrecked, and all save Heleine perish, she being cast ashore on the English coast. King Henry of England, taking his pleasure on the sea, is astounded at her beauty and the richness of her attire, and he rescues her. His offer of marriage she accepts, though she declines to reveal her descent, and will only say that she is "la plus noble Damoiselle de la Chrétienté". The marriage takes place against the wish of Henry's mother. Once more the Saracens threaten, and Pope Clement seeks the aid of the King of Great Britain. He gives it in person, leaving the Duke of Gloucester as regent, and confiding Heleine to his care. Then follows the birth of the children, which the mother, who waylays the messenger at Dover, pretends are puppies, and the fraudulent letters. The Duke of Gloucester cannot make up his mind to burn Heleine, as the false letter directs, so, after cutting off one of her arms, for some unexplained purpose, he puts her to sea. A niece of the duke's, named Marie, offers herself to be burned with two straw dolls in the place of the queen and her sons. The hand of the queen, which had been cut off, is put in a box, and hung round the neck of one of the children. The boat lands them in Brittany. Whilst Heleine sleeps, a lioness (in Northern France!) and a female wolf from the forest make away with her children. She seeks them in vain, wandering at length to the neighbourhood of Nantes, where she takes refuge in a deserted hut, and lives on the alms of the passers-by. A woodland hermit saves the children, and calls one Leo and the other Bras ("Arm"), for having been nursed by a lioness and wearing the severed hand round his neck, respectively. Meanwhile, King Henry has slain the Saracens, freed Pope Clement, and returned to London, to learn the sorrowful fate of his wife and children. He is still bewailing his misfortunes, when his grieving leads to an unexpected revelation. The Duke of Gloucester reveals the truth, and, convinced of the guilt of the queen-mother, the king orders her banishment. London being hateful to him, Henry joins the Kings of Scotland and Constantinople in the war against the heathen of Europe. They first vanquish Clovis, King of Bordeaux, who allows himself to be baptised, and then joins in the crusade. The hermit, meanwhile, has brought up the children, and when they are sixteen years of age he sends them forth to discover, if possible, their parentage. They come to Tours, where the archbishop himself receives them, and changes the name of Leo into Martin, and of Bras into the more suitable Brice. Heleine, too, comes to Tours, and receives rich alms from Martin, who does not know her. And the allied kings come to Tours, where the two promising youths are presented to them. When the King of England opens Brice's box and sees the hand, he is convinced that he has found his two sons. Martin seeks the poor, one-handed woman whom he supposes to be his mother; but, on the arrival of the kings, she had fled in alarm over the Alps. Here, in the Vatican, she is supported by the Pope, her unknown uncle. Brice is taken to London, there to make manifest the innocence of his mother, and then goes with the four kings to Palestine to fight against the Saracens, whilst Martin remains at Tours with the archbishop. When the Saracens are subdued the conquerors journey, whereupon Heleine flees to Tours, revealing in a letter to the Pope that she is his niece. The King of England learns through this letter that his wife is still living, and is at length reunited to her. The archbishop of Tours permits Martin to place his mother's severed hand on the stump, and the two are united by a miracle. Antonius, with Brice and his wife Ludiene, goes back to Constantinople, Henry and Heleine live with Pope Clement in the Vatican, and Martin remains in Tours, where he becomes archbishop.
The chap-book romances of Genoveva, Griseldis, Hirlanda ^{(of Arthurian legend)}, and Florentia (la Bonne Florence, also known as Crescentia or Zumurrud) may be referred to as variants of the story of the innocent persecuted wife, though it is unnecessary to cite them ii connection with the Catskin story.
The episode is related almost identically in the thirteenth-century romance of Mai and Bêaflôr.
They fit out a ship and put her on board with provisions for two or three months, and with all the valuables inherited from her mother. Bêaflôr comes to "Meienlant", where Count Mai receives her, and gives her into his mother's care. Presently, after he has married her, contrary to his mother's wish, Mai is bent for to help his uncle in Spain against the heathen. During his absence, Bêaflôr bears a son; the news is sent to the count, but the messenger is intercepted by the mother-in-law at Claremont (Klaremunt), where she has gone to reside, and robbed of his letter whilst he is drunk, a false letter being substituted. On his return, he is again waylaid, and the count's letter is exchanged for one ordering the death of Bêaflôr. She is, however, rescued from this fate, and put in a boat with her child. Mai returns, and, learning all, stabs his mother and banishes the messenger. Bêaflôr drifts away to her own shores; the shipwright Thibalt recognises the boat he had built for her foster parents. Bêaflôr is again received into their home. Her child is taken to the cathedral to be christened by the Pope, receiving the name of Schoifloris (though in the course of the poem he is only called Lois). Mai comes
after some years, to soothe his conscience, and Lois is sent to meet him. In this way he is subsequently re-united to Bêaflôr. Mention must here be made of the similar case of the Countess of Anjou. (Manuscrits de la Bibliotheque du Roi, by Paulin Paris, vol. vi, p. 40).
After many wanderings, and all sorts of adventures, she marries the Count of Bourges, but the Countess of Chartres, his aunt, is furious at the misalliance--for she is ignorant of his wife's rank--and she plays the role usually assigned to the mothers-in-law.
I have reserved one other version of the ancient romance, this time attaching to the daughter of a Czar of Russia. Again, as in the folk-tales, this is a case of O matre pulchra filia pulchrior. Her story is said to have been composed by Giovanni Enenkel in the thirteenth century. I have taken it from the Gesammtabenteuer of Friedrich Heinrich von der Hagen (Stuttgart and Tubingen, 1850, ii, 590). It is called "Deu tochter des Kuniges von Reuzen".
The barrel in which the heroine is marooned gets carried to Greece, where the king espies it and has it landed. He marries the heroine. Then follow the incidents of the king's absence at the war, and the calumniated wife and intercepted letters. The heroine is put back into the barrel with her newborn child, and the waves carry her, where she is rescued by a nobleman. Eventually her husband finds her when he comes to do penance.
A drama, entitled "Un Miracle de Nostre-Dame", the author of which has taken his subject from the Roman de la Manekine, is published in the Theatre Francais au Moyen Age (publie d'apres les Manuscrits de la Bibliotheque du Roi, par MM. L. J. N. Monmerque et Francisque Michel [xi-xiv siècles], Paris, 1842. Pp. 481-500).
The following is an outline of the plot as disclosed by the dramatis personae. 
[···] Heroine is put alone in ship; is found by the provost of the king of Scotland. King questions her as to her parentage, etc. She says she is called Bethequine. Queen-mother befriends her, and she serves as chamber-maid. Presently queen ill-treats her, thinking she aspires to marriage with her son. King asks why she has been weeping; will marry her at Chester, and proclaim her queen. His mother is very angry. He is to attend tournament at Senlis; leaves his wife in provost's care; when her child is born they are to inform him by sealed letter. After king's departure, heroine bears a son. King's mother intercepts messenger, who is carrying news to king, makes him drunk, and changes letter for one announcing that young queen has borne a monster, which they have burned, and that they await orders whether to burn young queen also. King reads letter; sends written order by messenger, who is again intercepted by queen-mother, made drunk, and robbed of letter directing that queen and infant shall be kept apart in secret till his return. Queen-mother substitutes letter commanding that queen and progeny be instantly burned. Courtier, who reads king's letter, is filled with pity, and tells queen, who is dismayed and full of wonder, and prays to Virgin. Chevalier and provost take counsel together, and determine to save queen's life. They put her in a boat without rudder or helm, that she may be at the mercy of God. Lady insists on sharing her fate. She is rescued by a senator, who takes her to his wife, who befriends her, and lets her live with them. King of Scotland returns; inquires for wife and child. Chevalier says they have been burned according to his order. King says lie gave orders for them to be confined in a tower till his return. Letter is shown to him; he questions messenger; sends for mother, who, on being threatened, confesses, and is imprisoned for life. King will punish with death by burning the two courtiers who executed queen-mother's orders. They confess they disobeyed, and spared the young queen's life. He takes them with him, and sets out to seek her. They make pilgrimage. Senator meets the king of Scotland; takes him to his house. Queen hides, being afraid to meet her husband. King sees the child playing with a ring which he recognises as one he gave his wife. Senator tells him how he found the child's mother, and how he has taken care of her. King embraces his wife. They attend the service at which the Pope is to give absolution to penitents. Service is about to commence. Clerk enters in great alarm to say he can get no drop of water from the river, because of a hand which keeps floating up to his bucket. He brings the hand to the Pope; queen says it is hers, and tells the Pope her story. He touches her arm with the hand, which immediately is reunited to it.
The same subject has found dramatic treatment in Italy, in La Rappresentazione di Santa Uliva (Pisa, 1863. The date of the 1st edition is not known). Alessandro d'Ancona has given an account of this play, which he publishes in his Sacre Rappresentazione dei Secoli, xiv, xv, xvi (Firenze, 1872. Vol. iii, pp. 235 seq.). The commencement is almost identical with that of the Manekine, except that the damsel cuts off both her hands. She falls in with the king of Britain, who takes her to his palace, and gives her charge over the infant prince. A baron becomes enamoured of her, and, in repelling his advances, she upsets the cradle, which, as she has no hands, she is unable to replace. The baron accuses her of murdering the child, who has been killed by the fall. She is condemned to death, but the seneschal takes pity on her, and leads her to the forest in which she had been found. The Virgin appears to her, restores her hands, and points her to a convent where she can find shelter. A wicked priest accuses her of stealing a chalice. She is placed in a boat, and abandoned to the waves. Certain merchants come across her, and take her to the king of Castile, who marries her, and shortly afterwards leaves her to go to war. In the meantime Uliva bears a son, and receives precisely the same treatment from her mother-in-law as does Joie in the Manekine. Uliva is once more exposed in a boat, and arrives at length where she finds her husband, who has come to seek absolution for having caused his mother's death in his wrath against her for her wicked machinations. The King of Castile recognises his wife, and all ends happily.
The Rappresentazione di Stella, also published in D'Ancona's Sacre Rappresentazione, has much the same incidents as the story of St. Uliva.
Stella is the stepdaughter of a French queen, who is very jealous of her beauty and popularity. The assassins to whom she is delivered spare her life, but cut off her hands to take as token to her stepmother (notice the Snow White opening!). The Duke of Burgundy finds Stella in the forest and weds her. It is the stepmother of Stella in this case who exchanges the letters.The history of the daughter of the King of Dacia (Novella della figlia del re di Dacia. Pisa, i. 1866. Introd. by Wesselofsky) differs but little from the foregoing up to the point of her first marooning. There a German prince, the Duke of Apardo, sees her, and falls in love with her. The miracles follow. Elisa recovers her hands; directed by celestial voices, Apardo inclines to wed the lovely stranger; and the marriage takes place, leading to the usual plots against the young wife. Once more on the shore from where she was first marooned, Elisa is engaged by another German nobleman as nursemaid to his son. The Duke of Apardo, visiting her master, recognises her as his wife.
The greater part of these incidents are met with again in a Catalonian version,⁵² Historia del rey de Hungria, cited by le Comte de Puymaigre (Documentos de la corona de Aragon, vol. xiii. Documentos leterarios en antiqua lingua catalana. Siglo xiv y xv. Barcelona, 1857, pp; 53-79). In this the heroine, with her hands cut off, lands at Marseille. The Count of Provence marries her in spite of his mother. Learning his wife's story, the count visits Hungary, her country, where he is detained so long at the court that the wicked mother-in-law, during his absence, has time to carry out the usual plot against the young wife. The countess is set adrift on the sea, and lands near to a convent, where the abbess admits her. Five years afterwards, when one day she is at her orisons, she sees a priest who is wanting to say Mass, but has no one to serve it. She is filled with desire to assist him, and suddenly perceives two beautiful hands, which unite to her arms as she stretches them forth. Meanwhile, the count had returned to Marseille; but, feeling angered against his mother, had determined to quit his estates only to return when he had found his wife. After thirteen years' quest, he finds her at the convent, and takes her back to Marseille. They have many children. One of their daughters marries a king of France, another a king of Castile, and a third a king of England.

In the fifteenth century, Bartolomeo Fazio di Spezia wrote a story entitled De origine belli inter Gallos et Britannos, which he acknowledged to be based upon an ancient text in the vernacular^. This professed history of the origin of the Hundred Years' War was forthwith related in Italian by Jacopo di Poggio Bracciolini,^.in a story which was published under the title Storia dell' origine della guerra tra i Francesi e gli Inglesi (Florence, 1542), republished as Novella di incerio autore (Florence, 1834), and as Novella della Pulzella di Francia dove si racconta l'origine delle guerre fra i Francesi e gli Inglesi (Lucca, 1850).
The princess of England is sent for her safety to a convent in the French town of Vienne under the charge of trusty servants. It is the custom of the dauphin of France to frequent this same nunnery in the company of a young nobleman, who is the abbess's brother. One day, the latter catches sight of the young princess through a grating, and every day, under pretence of praying, he comes to look at her. He falls ill, and confides the reason to the dauphin, who at length asks the abbess to interfere in her brother's behalf. Seeing him in danger of death, she is prevailed upon she talks to the princess, pointing out the difficulties and dangers inseparable from monastic life, and persuades her that marriage will ensure greater peace of mind. But the princess cannot consent to break her vows. Hearing of the girl's answer, and wishing to judge whether she who had caused his friend's illness merited so much love, the dauphin determines to have a look at her. Then he falls in love with her himself; and sends proposals of marriage, which she at first rejects, but eventually accepts. The dauphin's mother tries secretly to poison his bride, with the aid of some friends in Vienne. The King of France dies, and the dauphin must go to Paris to attend his funeral and be made king. His mother wants him to abandon his wife, who, she says, is some unknown waif. He is indignant at the request; and his mother, hearing from her friends in Vienne that the queen is too well guarded for them to poison her, bids them calumniate her to her husband. The young queen escapes with her little son and finds shelter. The Emperor Henry sees her, and engages her as nursemaid to his infant. Meanwhile, the dauphin, now king, having heard the false news of his wife's death, and of all his mother's infamous schemes, declares war against her. After three years he defeats her and slays her. Full of remorse, he journeys to seek absolution from the Pope. Dining one day at a feast, he is charmed with the graceful bearing of a young boy, and wants to take him away with him. It is the son of the nursemaid, in whom he recognises his wife. They return in triumph to his kingdom. When another son is born to him, he decides that the elder shall reign in France, and the younger shall succeed to the English throne, which his wife has inherited on the death of Edward. Furthermore, the king enacts in his will that every year, at Easter and at Christmas time, the King of England shall come to Paris and serve at the table of the King of France. This arrangement is observed for a number of years; but one day the King of Great Britain, ill-advised by his ministers, refuses to submit to the performance of such an act of homage; and this was the cause of the great wars, and of the animosity between the two kingdoms, which lasted up to the times of the author of this story.
The collation of similar legends and romances might doubtless be still extended. It seems, however, unnecessary to devote further space to the examination of this class of literature, more especially as the various motifs which it shares in common with the folk-tale are of such a nature as to need, unhappily, neither myth nor fiction to account for their origin, or to explain their application in any particular connection.
"Non ragionam di lor, ma guarda e passa."

30: An analysis of la Manekine is given in l'Histoire litteraire de la France, t. xxii, p. 864. See also t. xv, p. 394; t. xxii, p. 228; t, xxiii, p. 680.

31: This is the Philippe of Beaumanoir who wrote the Coutumes du Beauvoisis and the Blonde d'Oxford. Suchier thinks (see op. cit.) that he most probably visited England in his youth, and there made acquaintance with the Manekine. He considers it improbable that the Vita Offa Primi was his source, as Philippe's version does not share in its disfigurements.

32: Nicolas Trivet was art English Dominican friar. He is said to have been educated in his early years in London, and afterwards to have studied at Oxford. He informs us, in the prologue to the Annales Regum Angliae that he spent some time in study in Paris.

34: For the chief alterations see preface to Trivet's Life of Constance in Originals and Analogues of some of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, edited by Furnivall, Brock, and Clouston, p. vi.
37: See Clouston on "The Innocent Persecuted Wife", in Originals and Analogues, pp. 367 ff.
40: See Graesse, Die Grossen Sagenkreise des Mittelalters. 
42: Heleine's adventures are thus made to take place in the fourth century, if she was the mother of Saint Martin, Bishop of Tours (374).

43: For further details, see Gorres, op. cit., p. 138; and Ch. Nisard, Histoire des livres populaires, i, pp. 415 ff. The same legend is told also in Backstrom's Svenska Folkböcker, i, 188, "Helena Antonia af Constantinopel"; and in R. Nyerup's Morskabstasning: Danmark og Norge (1816), p. 138, "Den talmodige Helene". (See Merzdorf, op. cit., pp. 18 ff. for references to Dutch, Danish, and Swedish translations.

Dieses Märchen „entstammt der Mondmythologie und zeigt in eindrucksvollen Bildern, was Leid, Widersprüche und Enttäuschungen positiv bewirken und wie sie uns im Leben voranbringen können. [… Es geht] um die Balance von Männlichem und Weiblichem, um Festhalten und Loslassen.“

Nun einige Lesemöglichkeiten zur Subjektwerdung:

Immer matter werdend – wir sehen dieses grausame Mondphasenspiel allmonatlich am Himmel – findet sie – das sehen wir allabendlich – ihren Prinzgemahl, die Sonne. Die äußerste Erschöpfung bringt als Leidensende die hochzeitliche Vereinigung beider; Aus der schmalen Mondsichel steigt allmonatlich das gemeinsame Kind, der wachsende Mond. Leid wird zu Glück und Regeneration, um wieder im neuen Lauf zu versinken. Was dabei nicht zu sehen ist, ist die Hoffnung wider alle Hoffnung auf ein Ende des Schicksalslaufes, auf bleibendes Glück, auf wahre Vollendung. Diese naturmythologische Deutung löst Eugen Drewermann in eine tiefenpsychologische: Der Wald als Ort des Unbewussten, wo der Mensch seinem Schatten begegnet; der Weg als Irrweg und Zuflucht des Menschen; der Baum des Lebens (Erkenntnis und Wahrheit): Dies sind quasi die Zutaten des Märchens. Die Personen darin: der Teufel als die innerste Eigenversuchung (unschuldig schuldig), das Mädchen als innerste Lebenshoffnung (das Selbst, das es zu verlieren gilt; die Macht der Verwandlung und die Eigenverantwortung; die Seele wie die Freiheit, die es oft schmerzlich zu erringen gilt),  der Priester (Er sollte den Geist anreden. An dieser Figur ließen sich religiöse Behinderungen wie auch Freisetzungen an der Subjektwerdung weiterdenken.), die Mutter (Gnadenhaftigkeit des Daseins), der König (symbolischer Vater, der zunächst die Krüppelhaftigkeit nur verlängert). 

Sie geht in die Welt hinaus und wünscht als Nicht-Handeln-Könnende Mitleid der Anderen, wissend dies ist kein Leben. Sie richtet sich’s also in den eigenen Hemmungen zunächst ein und findet dadurch ihren König (Übertragungsliebe). In einem umgekehrten Sündenfall (Gen 3, 24) lernt sie die Erlaubtheit des Verbotenen (Sitte und Entschuldung) und Mut zur Schuld. Sie lernt erstmals um. Die Großzügigkeit des Königs muss ihr göttlich vorkommen, erzeugt aber Schuldgefühle und Missverständnisse, als lebten sie in entfernten Ländern und der Teufel verdrehe jedes Wort. Aber es sind des Königs Gaben, die an ihr wachsen, nicht die eigenen Hände zunächst. Die Gültigkeit dieser Liebe ist noch keine. Sie muss wieder ausziehen: Diesmal aus dem selbst zum Selbst. Und dies gelingt ihr transzendierend in der Hinwendung von vermeintlicher Verlässlichkeit der Menschen hin zu einem absoluten Seinsgrund. Nicht Menschen sind einander alles! Den Halt in einem Nichtmenschlichen zu finden, ermöglicht ein Leben unter Menschen. In so einem Weltenhaus wohnt ein jeder frei!

Ohne Schuld kann das Mädchen etwas in die Hand nehmen (auch sein eigenes Leben). Der ewigen Vereinigung mit dem König steht nun nichts mehr entgegen.

Die in Zürich tätige Psychodramatherapeutin und Psychologin, Maja Storch, macht uns Frauen hier mit der analytischen Pschyologie von C.G. Jung „vertraut, und erklärt, warum wir starken Frauen in der heutigen Zeit in dem romantischen Dilemma stecken. [...]
Sie versucht alleine zurecht zu kommen und trifft den Mann, den sie liebt und er liebt sie. Sie kommen zusammen und trotzdem funktioniert es nicht. Irgendwie führen sie die Ehe der Eltern weiter, beide wollen es nicht, er flüchtet bzw. zieht in den Krieg und sie... verschwindet sie auch. Beide begeben sich auf die Suche zu sich selbst. Und immer wieder kommt der Teufel ins Spiel, stellt sie auf die Probe. Der starke Mann begibt sich endlich auf die Suche nach ihr und sie lebt mit ihrem Kind Scherzensreich alleine in einer Hütte im Wald. Und irgendwann findet er die Hütte im Wald. Müde von der Suche ruht er sich aus und legt sich ein Tuch über das Gesicht. Und nun erkennt sie dieser Mann, der sie sieben Jahre gesucht hat, ... Auch der Mann, sieht seine Frau nun anders. Sie ist nicht mehr die schwache Frau, der die Hände fehlen. Sie hat die Entwicklung zur starken Frau abgeschlossen, und hat wieder beide Hände. Er sieht nun, sie braucht nicht mehr seine Hilfe um sich in der Welt zurecht zufinden. Dies ist nun die Grundlage um neu zu beginnen.“Anders als bei Drewermann liegt hier in der Jung´schen Interpretation der Ermöglichungsgrund der Selbstwerdung des Mädchens nicht außerhalb/außerweltlich gleichsam, sondern die freisetzende, erkennende, Geschichte überdauernde, aneinander sich wandelnde Liebe in diesen beiden Menschen ermöglicht für beide die Selbstwerdung.

Der Weg vom Ego zum Selbst zum SELBST

Stufe

Stationen

Männlicher / Maskuliner Aspekt DOMINANZ

Weiblicher / Femininer Aspekt UNTERWERFUNG

3.	Bewusst Stumm – Tabuwahrend	Mann/König Ambivalent suchende Persona	Schwiegermutter Differenzierende Verbündete
4.	Bewusst Ausgesprochen Tabubrechend	Durch Schmerz gewandelter neuer Mann	Geheilte neue Frau Heil gewordene, wieder handlungsfähige Genesende

WAR, INTOXICATION, MANNISH WOMEN...

act i. the absent husband

After six months, Allan leaves Constance in the care of Olda and Lucius and goes off to repel an invasion of his territory by the Scots.  He charges her two guardians to keep his queen at ease.

Following, Allan does not receive news from Olda and Lucius; rather, he is given falsified letters that contain reports of the evil, hideous nature ...   In approximately 170 words, Trevet describes the reaction of the king to these reports fabricated by the king’s mother and her clerk:

The messenger charged with delivering the letters from Olda and Lucius takes his leave of Domild, the king’s mother, and promises to return that way again.  
In spite of an apparent hangover, the messenger reaches Allan and orally relates the joyful news about the king’s new family. The king, however, sternly forbids the messenger to speak further of Constance because he is instantly distressed by what he reads in the letters.
Allan can scarcely believe the news, but, trusting the supposed sources, he writes a reply immediately, ordering the guardians to keep Constance safe until he returns.

The king is supremely glad when he discovers that Constance is expecting, but he must ride to war.  Before he departs, Allee appoints Elda and Lucien, men he knows to be holy, to watch over the queen. 

As in the source version, Allee is informed, but in his slightly different description, Gower uses only some 70 words:

The messenger awakens unaware of Domilde’s deception and delivers to the king a letter that dishonestly notifies him of an unnatural child born to his wife, who, it is claimed moreover, is a fairy.  The king writes in a wise manner that Lucien and Elda should keep Constance from going at large until he informs them further.

  King Allan’s charge that Olda and Lucius should watch over Constance and her monster “tanqe a son retourner” [“until his return”] (NLC, 316-17) betrayed a greater concern for his business at hand than for his family issues at home.  It seemed he could not be bothered with this domestic issue while he was at war and sought to put it on hold until he returned home.  Gower’s change is subtle, but it is significant nonetheless.  Allee’s charge to Elda and Lucien is that they guard Constance “til thei have herd mor of his wille” (CA, II, 996).  This order reveals his intentions to deliberate on the matter and to act decisively while he is still attending to the necessary business of war.  The “problem” with Constance is of great enough importance for Gower’s Allee to give it at least some of his attention now, and his love for them therefore seems greater here.  Thus, we see in the response to the falsified letters further evidence of the noble love of King Allee.

Gower changes other elements in an effort to encourage our sympathies for the deceived king.  One such adjustment is Gower’s removal of Allan’s request that he should be informed “quant ele fut delivrée d’enfant” (NLC, 263-64).  In Gower, King Allee goes off to war without ever mentioning a desire to be informed of the birth.  Again, this is a slight alteration, but one possible explanation for Gower’s decision to make the change is that Allee’s acceptance of the strange news is more plausible—and perhaps more forgivable—if the news is unexpected.  If Allee had not asked for an update, why would the guardians send him news, unless something really was amiss?  Furthermore, whereas Trevet’s messenger had contradicted the letters’ contents and “de bouche lui counta veritable novele et joyouse” [“related to him by word of mouth the truthful and joyful news”] (NLC, 308-09), the conspicuous silence of Gower’s messenger further relieves the king of blame.  Where Gower’s king has no information to counter what he reads in the letter, precisely because Gower silences the messenger, Trevet’s king actively elected to believe a slanderous lie over a truthful report and, in fact, forbid the messenger to speak further. 
Gower’s Allee once again appears less worthy of censure if he actually does doubt the good, Christian nature of his new wife.

act ii. the substitute letters

In Trevet’s version of the story of Constance, King Allan must leave Constance soon after their marriage in order to defend his land in Scotland against the people of Albany.  He employs Olda and Lucius as the protectors of his wife’s safety and comfort, particularly in view of the imminent birth of her son.  I will briefly summarize an excerpt from the scene from Trevet’s tale describing the exchange of letters between Olda and Lucius and the king, which occurs in nearly 530 words:

Olda and Lucius quickly send the good news to the king by means of letters.  The messenger, however, must travel through Knaresborough, a place halfway between England and Scotland where the king’s evil mother, Domild, lives. When Domild hears the news from the messenger she feigns joy and “celebrates” by intoxicating the messenger to the point of delirium so that she can do her evil.  While the messenger lies insensible, Domild, by the consent of her clerk, opens the letters sent to the king and replaces them with her own fabrications.  She writes that ... Domild makes sure to mention at the end of the letter that the messenger knows nothing of such matters.

The messenger charged with delivering the letters from Olda and Lucius takes his leave of Domild, the king’s mother, and promises to return that way again.  
In spite of an apparent hangover, the messenger reaches Allan and orally relates the joyful news about the king’s new family. The king, however, sternly forbids the messenger to speak further of Constance because he is instantly distressed by what he reads in the letters.
Allan can scarcely believe the news, but, trusting the supposed sources, he writes a reply immediately, ordering the guardians to keep Constance safe until he returns.

Another important change for Gower is his removal of Domilde’s agency in writing the letter to her son.  In Trevet’s version Domild herself opened the letters and counterfeited them under the same seals.  By having Domild take up the pen, a traditionally male instrument in the Middle Ages, and impersonate her son, Trevet de-feminized the king’s mother, allowing readers to differentiate between ... the behaviour of the other “mannish” women in the text.  Here I do not speak of the phallic pen when calling a pen a “traditionally male instrument.”  Female literacy in medieval England was considered a threat to the patriarchal order, and most women were not given an authoritative voice even over their own work (Margery Kempe, for example, had to have two male scribes to validate her text in the male-dominated medieval tradition).  Domild’s direct agency in writing the letters, then, made her masculine.  Gower, on the other hand, maintains Domilde’s femininity by suppressing her literal authorship of the letters.  In Gower’s version, Domilde takes the letters “and let do wryten othre newe” (CA, II, 958), thus removing Domilde’s direct agency and authorship of the letters.  Later, Gower’s choice of death for Domilde further evinces his attempts to effeminize Trevet’s Domild.  In Trevet’s version, Domild was slaughtered (beheaded) by the sword, a traditionally male death.  Gower, however, has Domilde burned at the stake—a punishment often reserved for women guilty of sorcery or plotting against a lord.

There are other minor differences in Gower’s version of the story of Constance that I have chosen not to discuss at length here.  In Trevet, for example, there was a clerk who consented to Domild’s opening of the letters and counterfeiting them.  The presence of the clerk may further explain the religious implications of the letter in Trevet as compared with the purely mythical elements of Gower’s “fairy.”  Domild’s letter in Trevet also specified the ignorance of the messenger to the reality behind ... in order to cover all questions of the messenger’s very different perspective of the situation should he orally relay any messages to the king.  Gower does not include this information about the messenger.  Instead, Gower’s Domilde ends the letter by having Elda and Lucien ask the king what they should do about the monster child. 

 Trevet’s Domild seemed to exist only to highlight ... by juxtaposing ... with Domild’s evil and almost mannish actions.  

act iii. the second forgery

In response to the letters he believes came from his steadholder, Trevet’s King Allan sends the messenger back with instructions to keep his queen safe until his return.  The letters are intercepted, and counterfeited, ...

Domild, realizing that the messenger carries orders from her son, gets the messenger intoxicated (as before), opens the letters, rewrites her own set of orders in the name of the king, and places the king’s seal on it for authenticity.  The messenger delivers the forged letters. 

In Gower’s version of the scene, although the storyline remains practically the same, there are important alterations and additions.  Consequently, Gower’s scene runs much longer to some 540 words:

The messenger tells the queen of the king’s reaction.  She gets the messenger intoxicated in order to gain access to the letters.  She has the letters opened and has a new letter written.  

act iv. the husband's revenge

When King Allan wins his battle with the Scottish Picts in Trevet’s version of the story of Constance, he returns to England full of sorrow over the banishment of his wife, Constance.  The people yell insults at him as he passes until he finally reaches his castle.  The scene runs some 520 words, which I provide in summary:

King Allan returns from Scotland, victorious over the Picts, yet is saddened by the banishment of Constance. 

He returns to his castle under cover of night.  When he arrives, he greets Olda and Lucius and demands to know where his wife and child are, both of whom he calls evil spirits and monsters.  The two men, perplexed, say they do not know why Allan is calling his own by such horrid names; that both Constance and Maurice are excellent people.  Allan questions them regarding their letters, and both men attest that there has been treason, for they neither wrote nor authorized such letters to be sent to Allan.  They call in the messenger who carried the letters, and he swears that he is guilty of no treason, but points the blame at Allan’s mother, Domild. Allan finds his mother and wields his sword over her.  Knowing that she will be killed, Domild confesses her crime, but Allan will grant no pity.  He decapitates her and proceeds to cut her body into pieces.  The scene concludes with Allan vowing never to marry again until he is sent word of Constance.

Gower renders the scene differently in some 425 words:

Allee returns home after the battle and asks his chamberlain and the bishop for the truth about his wife and child.  He explains that he received a letter saying that his child was a boar piglet and that his wife was a fairy, but both men reply that his wife and his child are absolutely fair.  The men exchange their letters and discover the treason: the letters are false.  The messenger who delivered them is sent for, and he attests that he never tampered with them, but confesses that the king’s mother made him drunk.  When Allee hears these words from the messenger, he feels in his heart that his own mother committed the treason.  He takes his horse and leaves the castle, intent upon finding his mother, and a group of men go with him.  He finds her and, in a rage, yells at her, calling her a backbiting beast of hell.  He demands to know what happened to his wife and son, under penalty of treason.  Allee proclaims vengeance and orders his men to make a fire and burn his mother in it.  Before she is thrown into the flames, she is made to confess her sins, and then burned to death.  The company of men that is with Allee hears her confess and witnesses her punishment, and all agree that her punishment is fitting for her crime.  The scene ends with Allee saying that he will never be happy again and will never wed until he learns how Constance has fared traveling on the high sea.

While the incidents in the two versions of the tale of Constance are similar, Gower makes important changes from his source in Trevet. He removes the public scorn of Allee's return following battles in Scotland, makes Allee discover or divine the identity of the treacherous person behind Constance’s disappearance, and makes the punishment Domilde receives more public and, given the circumstances, less grotesque.  I believe that all of the changes Gower makes in this section of his tale are done to make the figure of Allee more compassionate and more human, and to establish a sense of community through more unanimous opinions and judgments on punishment for transgressions.

The next three changes that Gower makes I will examine together, as they are all related and they all are important aspects of the humanization of Allee and the establishment of community in Gower’s tale.  First, in Trevet’s tale, Allan learned of the treason his mother committed only through the mouth of his page, who served as messenger for the exchanged letters.  By having the servant announce or accuse the guilty party, Trevet made the crime and its resolution more internal, more of a private transgression. In Gower, on the other hand, Allee questions the servant.  Only after he is questioned does Allee know that his mother is the one who has committed treason against his family.  Gower writes, “And whan the king it herde telle, / Withinne his herte he wiste als faste / The treson which his Moder caste” (CA, II, 1266-68).  Allee seems to know by divination or instinct that his mother is the one who wrote the false letters and is responsible for casting away Constance and Moris. 

Second, the vengeance Allan enacted in Trevet was excruciatingly brutal and grotesque.  He was so enraged that he grabbed his sword and held it over Domild, who was naked in bed, demanding that she confess.  After she did, he proceeded to decapitate and then dismember her, thus destroying the female body in a way that revealed his masculine authority and sheer power, while rendering the errant maternal figure not only powerless but also disembodied.  In Gower, the shift in the punishment of Domilde is remarkable: she is not disfigured, but rather she is burned, making Domilde’s death far less brutal than Domild’s.  Importantly, Gower keeps part of Trevet’s tale that is essential to the punishment of Domild: Gower, too, has Domilde speak her crimes in a form of confession prior to her execution.  Similarly, Gower does not allow Allee to grant mercy to his mother: she does, after all, die.  Yet, an important change is that Gower does not make Allee the one to kill Domilde.  Allee merely orders a fire to be built and his mother thrown in, but members of a gathered crowd put her in the fire. 

Third, the reaction to the death of Domilde in Gower is also a shift from the Trevet.  In Trevet’s tale, there was no reaction for the death of Domild—she was merely killed and then the plot of the story progressed.  Her death was significant only as an act of vengeance.  In Gower, however, there is a voiced reaction.  The crowd that gathers and helps in executing Domilde is the same crowd that reacts to her death.  It shares the sentiment that Domilde’s death is necessary because she is truly wicked.  The crowd serves as a jury, passing on the belief to the reader or listener of Gower’s tale that Domilde’s punishment fits her crime.

Each of these issues—the messenger, the vengeance, and the reaction to the death of Domilde—serves essential narrative roles to humanize Allee and establish community in Gower’s story.  Allee is made more agreeable through the choices and decisions he makes.  When his messenger first tells him he is not the cause of deception in the letters, Allee immediately—and as mentioned above, almost divinely—feels that treason rests with his own mother.  Unlike the rage Alla felt in Trevet, Allee’s approach to Domilde in Gower seems a much more realistic scenario.  While he does use strong language to voice his displeasure with his mother, he does not find her naked in bed.  The corresponding scene in Trevet was disturbing not only because of the manner in which Domild was killed, but also for the circumstances surrounding her eventual capture.  The imagery contained in the section from Trevet—Alla’s naked sword hovering over Domild on the bed—was deliberately phallic, suggesting some level of sexual incest between mother and son.  The fact that Alla not only decapitated but also dismembered his mother made the act of killing her completely grotesque.  Gower’s shift, however, makes the idea of vengeance more communal.  While Gower’s Allee orders the death of Domilde, it is actually other men who physically take her to her death by placing her in the fire.  The acts of condemning someone to death and actually putting her to death become two separate occurrences.  By making the actions of accusation, confession, and death public, Gower opens the text up to a notion of community.  No longer are these important matters handled in private.  This shift is important given the figure of Constance within the community.  We see several times throughout Gower’s tale how much the people love Constance and how bereaved they are when she is sent away.  The death of Domilde is not just a way for Allee to get his vengeance, but also a way for the entire community to seek redress for a wrong done to it. 

The main changes that I have noted above show that Gower’s version of the tale of Constance serves two very important purposes: it makes the figure of Allee more compassionate while simultaneously creating a place in the story for the community.  No longer, as in Trevet, do we have a system of justice that is closed and brutish.  Crimes against someone who is a beloved member of the community are punished by the community, and, most importantly, the community declares that the punishment of death for Domilde is appropriate for her actions against Constance.  Gower’s Allee becomes, then, a sympathetic ruler, with a community of subjects who are supportive of his decisions and of his ruling style and authority.


*******************************************************
EPILOGUE

On the "husband called off to war" and "husband returns from war" motifs (version of the "husband's departure" cluster) in AT 706

(Giovanni Francesco Straparola)
Volse la fortuna che il re di ****** fece un grandissimo apparecchiamento per terra e per mare per mover guerra a Ferrandino, non so se questo fusse per causa della presa moglie over per altra cagione, e già col suo potentissimo essercito era penetrato nelle confine del suo reame. Laonde fu dibisogno che Ferrandino prendesse l’arme per difensione del regno suo e raffrontasse il nimico. Onde messosi in punto di ciò che li faceva mistieri e raccomandata [...], col suo essercito si partì.
Non passorono molti giorni che [...]
Ferrandino, che l’essercito del nimico aveva già sconfitto e disperso, a casa si ritornava con glorioso trionfo, [...]

Da begab sich's, daß der König von ***** große Rüstungen zu Wasser und zu Lande betrieb, um König Ferrandino mit Krieg zu überziehen, – entweder weil dieser [...]s Hand erlangte, oder aus einem anderen Grunde – und er war bereits mit seinem mächtigen Heer über die Grenze des Reiches gedrungen. Daher mußte Ferrandino zur Verteidigung seines Landes die Waffen ergreifen und dem Feinde die Spitze bieten. Er rüstete sich also, [...] und setzte sich mit seinem Heer in Marsch. Er war erst wenige Tage fort, da [...] Ferrandino, der inzwischen das Heer des Feindes gänzlich geschlagen und zerstreut hatte, kehrte jetzt im Triumph nach Hause zurück [...]

Now by a certain freak of fortune the King of ***** at this time began to set in array a mighty force of armed men for service by land and likewise on sea, in order that he might incite Ferrandino to make war (whether he did this because Ferrandino had won [...] to wife, or for some other reason I know not), and at the head of a very powerful army he had already passed the bounds of the kingdom of ******. On this account it was necessary that Ferrandino should straightway take up arms for the defence of his realm, and hurry to the field to confront his foe. Therefore, having settled his affairs, and made provision of all things necessary for he gave her over to the care of his [...] and set forth with his army.
Ferrandino had not long departed when [...]
Ferrandino, after he had attacked and put to rout the army of his foe, marched homeward in all the triumph of victory, hoping to find [...]

(Anne Macdonell version of the abovementioned Straparola tale)
Now the kingdom of ****** was threatened at this time by the very powerful king of *****, and Ferrandino was forced to gather his army, leave his young wife, and hurry off to the defense of his country. [...] Scarcely had he gone, when [...]
In all of his battles the brave Ferrandino was victorious; and when the war was over he hurried back to ****** to [...] But there [...] to meet him--- [...]

Hence, the following motifs probably make up the skeleton of what the author was working with: 5) husband called off to war, 6) letters bearing news of [...] and orders in response intercepted,  8) husband returns from war and discovers what has happened, [...]

(Subversion in the Manekine - discussion on tourneys, wordly glory, and France as the centre of secular culture or seat of courtly culture) Most significant are [...], alongside her husband’s decision to tourney. The replacement of a call to war with the search for glory on the jousting circuit places the blame for [...] second exile at the feet of her husband. The contrast between the worldly glories he gained in France and [...] is the axis on which the moral of the story hangs. His arrival [...] after seeking honour in France signals a shift in his disposition to power.
But the juxtaposition of [...]  against the other [...] locations that play a role in the plot, France [...],  can give some clues. [...] which contrast with the center(s) of secular [...] culture(s). Through the restoration of [...] to her husband and the abdication of [...] in favour of her husband these countries increased in civility relative to France [...].
In that sense, a civilizing process is described in La Manekine that [...] contrasts the seat of courtly culture with [...]. [...] Nor should the process be identified with courtly culture. In La Manekine a lust for glory in court activities is at fault for drawing the king away from his wife in her time of need. This version of the husband’s absence constitutes Philippe de Remi’s peculiar criticism of courtly activities (cf. Harvey 1995, 402). It can be said that this critique of the court and its activities is relevant to Philippe’s overarching goals, because it is his innovation. Yet Philippe is only incidentally concerned with criticism of societal mores.

(Grimm, Maiden without hands)
Soon thereafter war calls the king away. During his absence [...].  A messenger is sent to the battlefield, but while the messenger is resting, [...]. Upon receiving the letter, the king is sad, but writes back that [...] until his return.
[...]
Meanwhile, the king returns from war and discovers the deception.

(General considerations)
The pair is typically separated by the call to war (MuB 2006, lines 3879-918; Enikel, 26967-79; Matthew Paris 1641, 966), an unavoidable circumstance. Philippe de Remi (lines 2475-540) puts the blame for the heroine’s second exile at the feet of her husband, who in absence of necessity travels to France to take part in tournaments and gain worldly honour (something for which his wife has little interest, as has been seen). Despite Philippe’s inversion, it is apparent that this deed on the part of the husband constitutes the action of a hero, for function XI in Propp’s system requires the departure of the protagonist from home.
In another sense, this moment in the plot is a return to the first two functions, though only thematically. Just before the husband departs for war or tournaments, his (step-)mother leaves or is removed to an isolated district of the kingdom.
It may be argued of (the Manekine)’s husband that he is acting against the will of his wife, and he is breaking an interdiction when he travels throughout France to tourney. However, even in La Manekine the prohibition is circumvented by the motif of the foolish boon. In the other tales the departure of the husband to war is necessary. The king is excused for leaving his wife and for this reason the moral failure of the husband is less explicit than that [...]. While it is possible for a story to initiate the wondertale plot at the point when the king must go to war (as in the “Life of Offa I”), structurally the synoptic tales make use of this motif in the position of function XI.
Intimately linked to the absence of her protector is [...]

Call to war an unavoidable circumstance
->
Departure of husband to war as necessary
->
husband excused for leaving wife (absence of protector)
->
moral failure of husband not explicit

Danach hatte sie ihre neue Heimat verlassen. Mit Hilfe ihrer Schwiegermutter hatte sie entschieden, aus dem Schloss des Königs, ihres Ehemannes, zu fliehen, wo ihr Leben und das ihres Sohn in Gefahr waren. Die Ermordung sollte vorgeblich im Auftrag des Königs geschehen. So war es in dem scheinbar von ihm geschriebenen und ihr überbrachten Brief zu lesen. Diesen Brief hatte der Teufel, als der Bote unterwegs schlief, entstellt.

Nach seiner Heimkehr war der König zutiefst erschrocken zu erfahren, dass seine Familie beinah zu Tode gekommen wäre, während er monatelang im Schlachtengetümmel gewesen war. Aus Gewinnsucht hatte er sein Versprechen, seine neue Frau nie zu verlassen, gebrochen. Er hatte es ihr aus freien Stücken gegeben.

Er änderte seinen Sinn und machte sich unverzüglich auf die Suche nach Frau und Kind. Reichtum, Ruhm und äußere Macht verloren an Bedeutung für ihn. Während seiner Suchreise nach innen aß und trank er nicht – und er wurde dennoch erhalten und geführt. Nach einem Jahrsiebt war er ein Anderer geworden.

Als er den waldigen Einkehrort seiner Lieben nach Ablauf von sieben Jahren tatsächlich erreicht hatte, fiel er erschöpft in den Schlaf. Ein Schleier, der ihn bedeckt hatte, fiel mehrfach von ihm ab.

Die Frau, deren fehlende Hände im Heilhaus wundersam nachgewachsen waren, bat ihren Sohn, den Gast wieder zuzudecken. Dabei erklärte sie ihm, dass der Schlafende sein Vater sei. Das erstaunte Kind indes hatte bis dahin nur Tiervätern gekannt. Der Schlaftrunkene, dessen Augen noch blind für das Wesentliche waren, hatte dieses Gespräch mitgelauscht.

Wie er sich auch mühte, es gelang ihm nicht, sie als seine angetraute Frau von einst wieder zu erkennen. Daher bat er sie, sich doch vor ihm auszuweisen.

Als sie ihm sogleich ihre längst abgelegten silbernen Handprothesen, die er ihr acht Jahre zuvor hatte anfertigen lassen, vorlegte, weiteten sich seine Augen, sein Herz ging auf und der Mund ging ihm über.

Die verratene Liebe von einst hatte ihre Prüfung auf Leben, Tod und Wandlung bestanden.

• Er hatte sie wieder gefunden und mit anderen Sinnen an-erkannt.
• Ihrer beider Liebe war gereift, hatte die Gefahr des Todes überwunden und sich erneuert.
• Die Grundlage ihrer erneuerten Liebe war Ebenbürtigkeit.

Dieses Märchen „entstammt der Mondmythologie und zeigt in eindrucksvollen Bildern, was Leid, Widersprüche und Enttäuschungen positiv bewirken und wie sie uns im Leben voranbringen können. [… Es geht] um die Balance von Männlichem und Weiblichem, um Festhalten und Loslassen.“

Nun einige Lesemöglichkeiten zur Subjektwerdung:

Immer matter werdend – wir sehen dieses grausame Mondphasenspiel allmonatlich am Himmel – findet sie – das sehen wir allabendlich – ihren Prinzgemahl, die Sonne. Die äußerste Erschöpfung bringt als Leidensende die hochzeitliche Vereinigung beider; Aus der schmalen Mondsichel steigt allmonatlich das gemeinsame Kind, der wachsende Mond. Leid wird zu Glück und Regeneration, um wieder im neuen Lauf zu versinken. Was dabei nicht zu sehen ist, ist die Hoffnung wider alle Hoffnung auf ein Ende des Schicksalslaufes, auf bleibendes Glück, auf wahre Vollendung. Diese naturmythologische Deutung löst Eugen Drewermann in eine tiefenpsychologische: Der Wald als Ort des Unbewussten, wo der Mensch seinem Schatten begegnet; der Weg als Irrweg und Zuflucht des Menschen; der Baum des Lebens (Erkenntnis und Wahrheit): Dies sind quasi die Zutaten des Märchens. Die Personen darin: der Teufel als die innerste Eigenversuchung (unschuldig schuldig), das Mädchen als innerste Lebenshoffnung (das Selbst, das es zu verlieren gilt; die Macht der Verwandlung und die Eigenverantwortung; die Seele wie die Freiheit, die es oft schmerzlich zu erringen gilt),  der Priester (Er sollte den Geist anreden. An dieser Figur ließen sich religiöse Behinderungen wie auch Freisetzungen an der Subjektwerdung weiterdenken.), die Mutter (Gnadenhaftigkeit des Daseins), der König (symbolischer Vater, der zunächst die Krüppelhaftigkeit nur verlängert). 

Sie geht in die Welt hinaus und wünscht als Nicht-Handeln-Könnende Mitleid der Anderen, wissend dies ist kein Leben. Sie richtet sich’s also in den eigenen Hemmungen zunächst ein und findet dadurch ihren König (Übertragungsliebe). In einem umgekehrten Sündenfall (Gen 3, 24) lernt sie die Erlaubtheit des Verbotenen (Sitte und Entschuldung) und Mut zur Schuld. Sie lernt erstmals um. Die Großzügigkeit des Königs muss ihr göttlich vorkommen, erzeugt aber Schuldgefühle und Missverständnisse, als lebten sie in entfernten Ländern und der Teufel verdrehe jedes Wort. Aber es sind des Königs Gaben, die an ihr wachsen, nicht die eigenen Hände zunächst. Die Gültigkeit dieser Liebe ist noch keine. Sie muss wieder ausziehen: Diesmal aus dem selbst zum Selbst. Und dies gelingt ihr transzendierend in der Hinwendung von vermeintlicher Verlässlichkeit der Menschen hin zu einem absoluten Seinsgrund. Nicht Menschen sind einander alles! Den Halt in einem Nichtmenschlichen zu finden, ermöglicht ein Leben unter Menschen. In so einem Weltenhaus wohnt ein jeder frei!

Ohne Schuld kann das Mädchen etwas in die Hand nehmen (auch sein eigenes Leben). Der ewigen Vereinigung mit dem König steht nun nichts mehr entgegen.

Die in Zürich tätige Psychodramatherapeutin und Psychologin, Maja Storch, macht uns Frauen hier mit der analytischen Pschyologie von C.G. Jung „vertraut, und erklärt, warum wir starken Frauen in der heutigen Zeit in dem romantischen Dilemma stecken. [...]
Sie versucht alleine zurecht zu kommen und trifft den Mann, den sie liebt und er liebt sie. Sie kommen zusammen und trotzdem funktioniert es nicht. Irgendwie führen sie die Ehe der Eltern weiter, beide wollen es nicht, er flüchtet bzw. zieht in den Krieg und sie... verschwindet sie auch. Beide begeben sich auf die Suche zu sich selbst. Und immer wieder kommt der Teufel ins Spiel, stellt sie auf die Probe. Der starke Mann begibt sich endlich auf die Suche nach ihr und sie lebt mit ihrem Kind Scherzensreich alleine in einer Hütte im Wald. Und irgendwann findet er die Hütte im Wald. Müde von der Suche ruht er sich aus und legt sich ein Tuch über das Gesicht. Und nun erkennt sie dieser Mann, der sie sieben Jahre gesucht hat, ... Auch der Mann, sieht seine Frau nun anders. Sie ist nicht mehr die schwache Frau, der die Hände fehlen. Sie hat die Entwicklung zur starken Frau abgeschlossen, und hat wieder beide Hände. Er sieht nun, sie braucht nicht mehr seine Hilfe um sich in der Welt zurecht zufinden. Dies ist nun die Grundlage um neu zu beginnen.“Anders als bei Drewermann liegt hier in der Jung´schen Interpretation der Ermöglichungsgrund der Selbstwerdung des Mädchens nicht außerhalb/außerweltlich gleichsam, sondern die freisetzende, erkennende, Geschichte überdauernde, aneinander sich wandelnde Liebe in diesen beiden Menschen ermöglicht für beide die Selbstwerdung.

Der Weg vom Ego zum Selbst zum SELBST

Stufe

Stationen

Männlicher / Maskuliner Aspekt DOMINANZ

Weiblicher / Femininer Aspekt UNTERWERFUNG

3.	Bewusst Stumm – Tabuwahrend	Mann/König Ambivalent suchende Persona	Schwiegermutter Differenzierende Verbündete
4.	Bewusst Ausgesprochen Tabubrechend	Durch Schmerz gewandelter neuer Mann	Geheilte neue Frau Heil gewordene, wieder handlungsfähige Genesende

Dieses Märchen „entstammt der Mondmythologie und zeigt in eindrucksvollen Bildern, was Leid, Widersprüche und Enttäuschungen positiv bewirken und wie sie uns im Leben voranbringen können. [… Es geht] um die Balance von Männlichem und Weiblichem, um Festhalten und Loslassen.“

Nun einige Lesemöglichkeiten zur Subjektwerdung:

Immer matter werdend – wir sehen dieses grausame Mondphasenspiel allmonatlich am Himmel – findet sie – das sehen wir allabendlich – ihren Prinzgemahl, die Sonne. Die äußerste Erschöpfung bringt als Leidensende die hochzeitliche Vereinigung beider; Aus der schmalen Mondsichel steigt allmonatlich das gemeinsame Kind, der wachsende Mond. Leid wird zu Glück und Regeneration, um wieder im neuen Lauf zu versinken. Was dabei nicht zu sehen ist, ist die Hoffnung wider alle Hoffnung auf ein Ende des Schicksalslaufes, auf bleibendes Glück, auf wahre Vollendung. Diese naturmythologische Deutung löst Eugen Drewermann in eine tiefenpsychologische: Der Wald als Ort des Unbewussten, wo der Mensch seinem Schatten begegnet; der Weg als Irrweg und Zuflucht des Menschen; der Baum des Lebens (Erkenntnis und Wahrheit): Dies sind quasi die Zutaten des Märchens. Die Personen darin: der Teufel als die innerste Eigenversuchung (unschuldig schuldig), das Mädchen als innerste Lebenshoffnung (das Selbst, das es zu verlieren gilt; die Macht der Verwandlung und die Eigenverantwortung; die Seele wie die Freiheit, die es oft schmerzlich zu erringen gilt),  der Priester (Er sollte den Geist anreden. An dieser Figur ließen sich religiöse Behinderungen wie auch Freisetzungen an der Subjektwerdung weiterdenken.), die Mutter (Gnadenhaftigkeit des Daseins), der König (symbolischer Vater, der zunächst die Krüppelhaftigkeit nur verlängert). 

Sie geht in die Welt hinaus und wünscht als Nicht-Handeln-Könnende Mitleid der Anderen, wissend dies ist kein Leben. Sie richtet sich’s also in den eigenen Hemmungen zunächst ein und findet dadurch ihren König (Übertragungsliebe). In einem umgekehrten Sündenfall (Gen 3, 24) lernt sie die Erlaubtheit des Verbotenen (Sitte und Entschuldung) und Mut zur Schuld. Sie lernt erstmals um. Die Großzügigkeit des Königs muss ihr göttlich vorkommen, erzeugt aber Schuldgefühle und Missverständnisse, als lebten sie in entfernten Ländern und der Teufel verdrehe jedes Wort. Aber es sind des Königs Gaben, die an ihr wachsen, nicht die eigenen Hände zunächst. Die Gültigkeit dieser Liebe ist noch keine. Sie muss wieder ausziehen: Diesmal aus dem selbst zum Selbst. Und dies gelingt ihr transzendierend in der Hinwendung von vermeintlicher Verlässlichkeit der Menschen hin zu einem absoluten Seinsgrund. Nicht Menschen sind einander alles! Den Halt in einem Nichtmenschlichen zu finden, ermöglicht ein Leben unter Menschen. In so einem Weltenhaus wohnt ein jeder frei!

Ohne Schuld kann das Mädchen etwas in die Hand nehmen (auch sein eigenes Leben). Der ewigen Vereinigung mit dem König steht nun nichts mehr entgegen.

Die in Zürich tätige Psychodramatherapeutin und Psychologin, Maja Storch, macht uns Frauen hier mit der analytischen Pschyologie von C.G. Jung „vertraut, und erklärt, warum wir starken Frauen in der heutigen Zeit in dem romantischen Dilemma stecken. [...]
Sie versucht alleine zurecht zu kommen und trifft den Mann, den sie liebt und er liebt sie. Sie kommen zusammen und trotzdem funktioniert es nicht. Irgendwie führen sie die Ehe der Eltern weiter, beide wollen es nicht, er flüchtet bzw. zieht in den Krieg und sie... verschwindet sie auch. Beide begeben sich auf die Suche zu sich selbst. Und immer wieder kommt der Teufel ins Spiel, stellt sie auf die Probe. Der starke Mann begibt sich endlich auf die Suche nach ihr und sie lebt mit ihrem Kind Scherzensreich alleine in einer Hütte im Wald. Und irgendwann findet er die Hütte im Wald. Müde von der Suche ruht er sich aus und legt sich ein Tuch über das Gesicht. Und nun erkennt sie dieser Mann, der sie sieben Jahre gesucht hat, ... Auch der Mann, sieht seine Frau nun anders. Sie ist nicht mehr die schwache Frau, der die Hände fehlen. Sie hat die Entwicklung zur starken Frau abgeschlossen, und hat wieder beide Hände. Er sieht nun, sie braucht nicht mehr seine Hilfe um sich in der Welt zurecht zufinden. Dies ist nun die Grundlage um neu zu beginnen.“Anders als bei Drewermann liegt hier in der Jung´schen Interpretation der Ermöglichungsgrund der Selbstwerdung des Mädchens nicht außerhalb/außerweltlich gleichsam, sondern die freisetzende, erkennende, Geschichte überdauernde, aneinander sich wandelnde Liebe in diesen beiden Menschen ermöglicht für beide die Selbstwerdung.

Der Weg vom Ego zum Selbst zum SELBST

Stufe

Stationen

Männlicher / Maskuliner Aspekt DOMINANZ

Weiblicher / Femininer Aspekt UNTERWERFUNG

3.	Bewusst Stumm – Tabuwahrend	Mann/König Ambivalent suchende Persona	Schwiegermutter Differenzierende Verbündete
4.	Bewusst Ausgesprochen Tabubrechend	Durch Schmerz gewandelter neuer Mann	Geheilte neue Frau Heil gewordene, wieder handlungsfähige Genesende

Der Weg vom Ego über das Selbst zum SELBST anhand des Märchens Das Mädchen ohne Hände

༺༻

Stufen

ICH-Aspekt

Maskuliner·Aspekt DOMINANZ

ICH-Aspekt

Femininer·Aspekt

3.	Bewusst Stumm – Tabuwahrend	Ambivalent suchende Persona	König/Ehemann	Verbündete/r Selbst	Differenzierende Schwiegermutter
4.	Bewusst Ausgesprochen Tabubrechend	Durch Schmerzgewandelter neuer Mann	Sohn	Genesende Frau Geheilt, wieder hand-lungsfähig	Neue Frau

Drei Verwundungsebenen der Heldin ohne Hände

1. Sie wurde von ihrem Ehemann, dem König (außen) – Persona (innen) –
   infolge seiner Gier nach äußerem Landgewinn verraten und verlassen.

Heilungsebenen

1. In ihrer Schwiegermutter fand sie eine schwache Verbündete, die den neuen Mann [den neu geborenen Sohn] nicht im Auftrag des Teufels/Mannes tötete, sondern Mutter und Kind zur Flucht verhalf.
2. Ihr Animus / Ehemann erlitt einen Schock, als er sich von Frau und Kind verlassen vorfand. Er durchlief einen siebenjährigen Umwandlungszyklus, indem er in einem fortgesetzten Siddhi-Zustand (Inedia) die Selbst-Erhaltung aus der Wirkkraft erfuhr, was ihn einer erweiterten Sichtweise nahebrachte.
3. Ihre innewohnende Weise verhalf ihr zur Heilung ihrer Seele und nachfolgend zur Wiedergewinnung ihrer Handlungsbefähigung.

Zitate – Märcheninterpretationen

• Die Beziehung zum anderen Geschlecht kann gar nicht gelingen, bevor wir nicht zu uns selbst gefunden, bevor wir keine Selbstgewissheit und damit auch keine innere Stärke erlangt haben. Daher mahnt die Philosophin Lucy Irigaray:Keine Liebe des anderen ohne Liebe des Selben. S. 92

• Ein Gegensatz zeigt sich im weiblichen und männlichen Heilsweg: Die junge Frau muss weder durch die Welt irren noch Verzicht leisten. Ihr Weg führt weder durch Entbehrungen noch durch ein langes Suchen. Sie gelangt relativ schnell in jene heilende Welt, in der sie eine umfassende Fürsorge und Zuwendung erfährt. So kommt es rasch zur Entfaltung ihrer Ganzheit, zur Heilung ihrer Hände.
  Die siebenjährige Trennungszeit gestaltet sich also für Frau und Mann auffallend gegensätzlich. [...] Die Tatsache, dass der König sieben Jahre braucht, um an sein Ziel zu gelangen, zeigt, dass er sehr Vieles abzulegen hat und Vieles neu finden muss, um schließlich der richtige Mann - für diese Frau und damit auch für sich selbst und diese Welt – zu werden. Sieben Jahre, ein Zeitraum, in dem sich die Zellen des Körpers – und damit möglicherweise auch die Seele – von Grund auf erneuern. S. 102

• Der vaterlose Sohn (Schmerzensreich) sowie der König erinnern an den mittelalterlichen Helden Parzival, der zum Erlöser wird, als er nach langer Suche den verborgenen (weiblichen) Gral findet. Wie sein Name Parzival erkennen lässt, wurde er dabei zum ‹Walddurchdringer› (von lat. percer – durchdringen und wal, val – Wald). Das trifft auch auf den König im Märchen zu, der nach siebenjähriger Suche zu jenem Haus der Freiheit vordringt, das sich in einem wilden Wald befindet. Berücksichtigen wir auch noch die durch und durch weibliche Symbolik des Waldes, so erblicken wir in Parzival und dem König gleichermaßen Männer, die zur Welt weiblicher Werte durchgedrungen sind. 

• Männer, die sich auf die Suche nach dem Weiblichen begeben und zu weiblichen Werten vordringen wollen, müssen sich auch jener Frage stellen, mit der König Artus als einer der Gralssucher konfrontiert wurde. Diese Frage, der sich auch Sigmund Freud noch vor einem Jahrhundert stellte und vor der er kapitulierte, lautet: »Was will die Frau?« König Artus erhielt darauf noch von seinem ritterlichen Freund Gawain die Antwort: »Souveränität, Sire.« Eine wahrhaft tiefsinnige Antwort, wenn wir uns die Bedeutung dieses Wortes genauer anschauen. Er meint politisch eine nicht abgeleitete, allumfassende, nach außen und innen uneingeschränkte Hoheitsgewalt. Das Symbol dieser politischen Souveränität ist die Jungfrau. Sie wurde in der keltischen Mythologie »in der weiblichen Gestalt der Erin, der Souveränität Irlands, verkörpert.« und erinnert daran, dass diese Länder in vergangenen Zeiten durch Göttinnen bzw. Priesterinnen symbolisiert wurden.
  Genau das scheint der König im Märchen begriffen zu haben, wenn er am Ende seiner siebenjährigen Suche auf patriarchale Vatermacht verzichtet und sich damit nicht nur zu Verhältnissen im jesuanischen »Reich des Himmels« bekennt, sondern auch zu jenen Verhältnissen, denen wir in matriarchalen Kulturen begegnen. 

• Mahnungen der Weisheit: [...] dass die Unverständigen klug werden und die Jünglinge vernünftig und besonnen. Wer weise ist, der höre zu und wachse an Weisheit, und wer verständig ist, der lasse sich raten, dass er verstehe Sprüche und Gleichnisse, die Worte der Weisen und ihre Rätsel. [...] Weisheit wird mühelos erschaut von denen, die sie lieben, und gefunden von denen, die sie suchen. Sprüche des Salomo 1 (AT)
  Drei Haltungen werden hier vom Mann verlangt: dass er sich ihr zuwendet, sie sucht und sie liebt. Anders ist sie nicht zu haben. Daran sollten jene denken, die meinen, es liege allein an uns Frauen, ob die Männer umlernen oder nicht.

Passage from ego and control → Self and power Exemplified by The Maiden Without Hands

Step

Chakra

Brain Level

Male / Masculine Aspect DOMINANCE ⇔ SURRENDER

Female / Feminine Aspect SUBMISSION ⇔ SO

3.	3.Chakra	Neocortex______________ Conscious muted, garbled, contradictory 1-5% (Self) Alpha brainwaves Maintaining taboos	Man (Husband) / King Ambivalent seeking Persona ______________________________ "Even if you have been abandoned by the whole world, I will not abandon you." A year later the king went into the battlefield and left his young pregnant queen behind.	Ally Differentiating Mother-in-law ______________________________ I cannot have you killed as the king has ordered, but you can no longer stay here. The [...] woman [...] went away with eyes full of tears.
4.	4.Chakra	Prefrontal cortex______________ Superconscious outspoken, focused Breaking Taboos	Son Sorrowful Transforming New Man (Husband) By pain, faith, endurance ______________________________ "I […] will neither eat nor drink until I have found my dear wife and my child again."He neither ate nor drank during seven years, and Providence kept him alive. ⇔ MIRACLE	Recovering woman Healing within for 7 years, regaining her ability to act sovereignly New woman______________________________ And through her own piety her chopped-off hands grew back. ⇔ MIRACLE

Interculturally only three basic emotional wounds (known also as 'sacred wounds' or 'felix culpa')
were found: one of which    ⚡ BETRAYAL.

༺༻

Universal wound

Remark

Survival threat

Chakra level

Temperature

Body reaction Defence

Emotionalreaction

Remedy Healing process

3.

Betrayal in trust / loyalty

⚡ Most severe wound

MIND

3. 4. 7.Chakra

Hot

Adrenalin Stress hormone

Anger Rage, hostility

Loyalty to Self Trust in Self