A Time to Weep

 

Last year I made my first illustration of The Goose Girl (click here).  I return again to the theme while prepping my portfolio for the SCBWI conference.  For those unfamiliar with the story, The Goose Girl is the dark and sorrowful Grimm fairytale about a princess who, on her way to be wed, is cast down from her position by her handmaiden and must live as the girl who tends the geese.  In order to ensure silence, the handmaid-turned-princess kills the princess' horse, Falada, severing its head and hanging it at the town gate.  But the horse had been enchanted; in life it could speak, and in death it continued to talk to the lowly goose girl as she exited town with her flock.

'Early in the morning, when she and Conrad drove out their flock beneath this gateway, she said in passing,   "Alas, Falada, hanging there!"   Then the head answered,   "Alas, young Queen, how ill you fare! If this your tender mother knew, Her heart would surely break in two."'

The end of 2012 and the start of 2013 has not been gentle. It's been a true time of sorrow in our family, with tragedy and another threat of loss looming on the horizon.  It's been a time for tears.  This made this artwork particularly difficult to draw, as it did nothing to lighten the mood of the house.  Even so, I think my sadness helped me to understand the pain of the Goose Girl as she caresses Falada as he hangs there on the town gate.

"Alas, Falada, hanging there!" Copyright 2013 Jessica Boehman

As Ugly as a Hedgehog

The story of Hans-My-Hedgehog has been the subject of a few posts here: one, which shows the grown half-man half-hedgehog Hans riding astride his rooster as king of the forest, (click here); the other, which is a self-portrait with said rooster and hedgehog (click here). Here is my second installment of Hans-My-Hedgehog, though really, it would be the first following the story's narrative.

As always, the Brothers Grimm version is grim indeed, focusing on the horror of the story.  They look to the father instead of the mother. The father wishes for a son to help him in his old age, to be heir to his farm:

'Once upon a time there was a peasant who had money and land enough, but as rich as he was, there was still something missing from his happiness: He had no children with his wife. Often when he went to the city with the other peasants, they would mock him and ask him why he had no children. He finally became angry, and when he returned home, he said, "I will have a child, even if it is a hedgehog."  Then his wife had a baby, and the top half was a hedgehog and the bottom half a boy. When she saw the baby, she was horrified and said, "Now see what you have wished upon us!"
The man said, "It cannot be helped. The boy must be baptized, but we cannot ask anyone to be his godfather."  The woman said, "And the only name that we can give him is Hans-My-Hedgehog."'

But they miss the point of view of the mother; they did not understand that longing for a child that can run in a woman's blood.

Anthony Minghella's version comes closer to the truth:

'That woman wanted a bairn so bad she wouldn't care what she got.  If she had a hedgehog, she'd bring its snout to her breast...No sooner said than done, she got her wish. No time at all, she has her boy, little ball as ugly as sin with a pointed nose and sprouting hair everywhere, a hedgehog baby with quills as soft as feathers."

One of my favorite renditions of this scene is by an illustrator named Ina, whose subtly-rendered drawings are filled with loving detail (click here).  Ina shows the nursing mother with her gentle, beastly baby. 

What would it be like to finally have that much-desired child, even if it were as ugly as a hedgehog? Would a mother truly scorn that child and make it sleep behind the stove?  Or would the mother love that child as the darling of her heart, would she cuddle it and rock it and nurse it in the night? Would she heat milk for it and feed it to him and sing lullabies into his quills?  What would you do?  This is what I would do.

"Rocking the Hedgehog Baby" Pencil. copyright 2012 Jessica Boehman

The Goose Girl

This fairy tale, another dark masterpiece of the Brothers Grimm, is the favorite of my little sister.  As I noted below, it has all of the elements of a good yarn: a fairy, a magical horse, a girl separated from her mother.  The princess is cast down by her maid, who takes the true bride's place on her intended's arm.  The true princess is forced to become the goose girl to make her way, and the false princess kills the girl's horse, the only tie to her homeland.  Of course, deception never pays, and the king realizes the goose girl, resplendent in her beauty, is the true bride of his son:

"But the old king begged so hard, that she had no peace till she had told him all the tale, from beginning to end, word for word. And it was very lucky for her that she did so, for when she had done the king ordered royal clothes to be put upon her, and gazed on her with wonder, she was so beautiful. Then he called his son and told him that he had only a false bride; for that she was merely a waiting-maid, while the true bride stood by. And the young king rejoiced when he saw her beauty, and heard how meek and patient she had been; and without saying anything to the false bride, the king ordered a great feast to be got ready for all his court. The bridegroom sat at the top, with the false princess on one side, and the true one on the other; but nobody knew her again, for her beauty was quite dazzling to their eyes; and she did not seem at all like the little goose-girl, now that she had her brilliant dress on.
When they had eaten and drank, and were very merry, the old king said he would tell them a tale. So he began, and told all the story of the princess, as if it was one that he had once heard; and he asked the true waiting-maid what she thought ought to be done to anyone who would behave thus. ’Nothing better,’ said this false bride, ’than that she should be thrown into a cask stuck round with sharp nails, and that two white horses should be put to it, and should drag it from street to street till she was dead.’ ’Thou art she!’ said the old king; ’and as thou has judged thyself, so shall it be done to thee.’ And the young king was then married to his true wife, and they reigned over the kingdom in peace and happiness all their lives; and the good fairy came to see them, and restored the faithful Falada to life again."

I looked to the end of the tale, and imagine a scene not told by our Brothers Grimm: when she reenters the city with her geese and with her horse, Falada, who had watched over her even in his death.  I followed the pattern I set forth in my "Self Portrait with Fairy Tale" (see below in earlier posts), with a decorative border as part of the actual image itself.  I'm inspired by the richness of medieval tapestries and the constant juxtaposition of pattern that can be found on them.

"The Goose Girl" Pencil.  Copyright 2012 Jessica Marie Boehman

Adapting the Brothers Grimm

I'm excessively fond of fairytales, folktales, and fables.  I love the dark, troubled and murky waters you land in when reading them.  They rarely have a fully happy ending; even if there is love, there is usually death.  The stories start with heartbreak, deceit, or loss and don't always resolve into something that sits gently in the corners of your mind.  But there is magic, too, made by animals who speak and bestow gifts, fairies and sprites who heal and kill, goblins who steal secrets and babies, and trolls who live under bridges and in the rocky fabric of the mountains of the cold, bleak subarctic lands. The rich stories, passed on by mouth until they were finally transcribed in numerous sources, speak to our shared cultural past.

One of my favorite fairy tales, as you now know, is Hans-My-Hedgehog.  The Brothers Grimm version is unrelentingly harsh.  The poor hedgehog boy is unwanted, untended, and unloved.  He finally flees and becomes a sort of king of the forest. He eventually, though his own cleverness, wins a princess, but is forced to have his skin of quills burned, turning his own human skin underneath charcoal-black, to be freed from his enchantment.

Anthony Minghella later retold several fairy stories when he penned them for Jim Henson's undertaking, The Storyteller.  In his rendition of Hans, he infused the characters with life, feeling, and love: we get glimpses of the pain of barrenness in a woman, the heartbreaking longing for a child, a wish and a wish answered.  A baby boy is born, part boy and part hedgehog, but the mother cherishes her baby.  But the father remained unmoved at the sight of his strange child:

“For every quill that he had on his body, Hans had an animal for a friend, as many friends as he had quills. He had a special way with these creatures and they loved him. He could talk to them. If his mother was looking for him, she would always go first to the place where the rooster strutted, a proud soldier of hens. Hans tended to this bird, polished his beak, combed his comb, and fed and fattened him, and it wasn’t long before the rooster was the biggest rooster you could imagine, a hugeness, a vast red rooster all plump and flush-feathered.  Whenever the sadness came, whenever he caught his reflection in a pool, and saw his strange beast-boy face, Hans would run to these friends and be among them, for they found him neither strange nor odd but magnificent.  “Father," he said in his flute voice, ”I want you to do some things for me. I want you to go to the village and have a saddle made for my rooster so I can ride him.  And I want some sheep and some cattle and some pigs. They would be happy to come with me where I go. Which is away. Which is to somewhere.  Where I can’t hurt no one and no one can hurt me.”

The boy grows to be the king of a fine sylvan castle, and does indeed win a princess.  In true fairytale fashion, it's not that easy.  She betrays him, he flees again.  The second winning will be done by her, proving her love for her wedded husband. 

I've made a self-portrait that weaves in two elements of my favorite fairytale: the rooster and the hedgehog.  In the background is text from the story.

"Self Portrait with Fairytale" Pencil.  Copyright 2012 Jessica Boehman