Given the choice on which fairy tale to discuss each week, I will most often zero in on a royalty tale over a folk tale. And this week, The Three Little Birds gave me lots to think about. We have yet another example of people messing with a queen and her children. Only this time, the stakes are higher as the babies aren’t kidnapped as in other stories, but are murdered (*spoiler: attempted murder.)
In this story, three sisters tending the cows set their sights on a hunting party consisting of the king and his ministers. Their intentions are made known and they marry. The sister who becomes queen gets pregnant, but the two who married the other men do not.
When the queen gives birth to a baby boy with a birthmark in the shape of a red star, the jealous sisters take the boy and toss him into the river. They then tell the king that his wife gave birth to a dog.
The queen gives birth a second time and the sisters again throw the boy into the river and tell the king that his wife gave birth to a dog.
The third time, the queen gives birth to a baby girl and the sisters tell the king his wife gave birth to a cat.
This third time, the king gets angry at his wife and throws her into prison.
Let’s stop here and analyze what’s going on so far.
- Jealous, barren women. If they can’t have a baby, they don’t want their sister to either.
- Their intent was to kill the children, not secret them away as in other stories we’ve read. They have no regard for human life.
- Words matter. The jealous sisters tell the king that what his wife gave birth to wasn’t even human. They wanted him to think what was birthed was less than.
- Dehumanizing. Since the babies weren’t human, they could be disposed of. Tossed in the river to drown. Babies who should have been protected and loved were relabeled and discarded.
- The mother’s voice was taken from her. Did the king never talk to his wife about this? If so, does that mean he believed the sisters over her? Or did the sisters lie to the queen too? Did they convince the queen that her baby was not human?
By contrast…
A poor fisherman rescued the babies out of the river and brought them home where he and his wife cared for them. They wanted the children and were successful in raising them. For this couple, children were valued.
Other thoughts:
Several other of Grimm’s fairy tales that we’ve read so far (we’re up to number 96 of 210) tell of babies being taken from mothers and mothers being unable to stop it or speak for themselves.
In The Six Swans, the sister whose brothers have been turned to swans cannot defend herself when her mother-in-law takes her babies away and tells the king that the mother ate them. The mother is sewing shirts in silence in order to save her brothers and cannot speak out until she is about to be burned at the stake the same day she is able to free her brothers.
In The Pink, the mother was also made to look like she ate her son, and she was banished until the son returned and revealed what had happened.
What is meant by these mother’s voices being silenced? Of their children being taken from them and then the mother being blamed for it? Why can’t these mothers speak up for themselves and for their children? Why is society silencing mother’s voices?
More questions than answers for this tale.
