Fairy Tales Without Dead Moms (Or Wicked Stepmothers)

Hey everyone!  I have returned from both my hiatus and my sojourn in Japan (which was absolutely gorgeous!).  Thanks for bearing with me while I took a much-needed vacation!

I'm diving back into things with a series of posts about fairy tales.  For two years on Mother's Day, I've taken a brief look at some of the decent mothers within fairy tales and mythology.  However, the list of moral moms in these stories is rather appallingly short.  I dug a little bit deeper - and then a lot deeper - and then I threw myself into obscure stories I had never read before.  It took a LOT of research, but I found ten fairy tales in which the mother is kind, caring, and doesn't die - or turn out to be a wicked stepmother!

Because really, dead moms and wicked stepmothers are kind of a hallmark of fairy tales.  It's difficult to find a fairy tale that isn't riddled with stereotypes, and the most popular archetypes which surround the main character seem to be the dead mother and the wicked stepmother. This is especially true of the more popular fairy tales. The Little Mermaid? Dead mom. Cinderella? Wicked stepmother. Beauty and the Beast? Dead mother again. Snow White? Evil stepmom.

So for the next several weeks, I'm going to be shining a light on fairy tales which break this mold.  These stories come from all over the world, from Greece to Japan to France.  If you can't wait and want to look up and read the stories now, here's the list:

Little Brier-Rose
Issunboshi
Snow-White and Rose-Red
The Little Green Frog
The Story of Bensurdatu
Jack and the Beanstalk
Rosanella
Rumpelstiltskin
The Enchanted Snake
The Sunchild

The first four of these stories I've talked about in previous posts, albeit without focusing on the mothers.  Let's take a quick look at them now:

Little Brier-Rose is perhaps better known by the name Sleeping Beauty.  Throughout the story, Brier-Rose's mom is shown to be a loving mother. She is sorrowful before the birth of her daughter, joyous upon her arrival into the world, and protective when the curse is placed. The story ends with her rejoicing in the wedding of Brier-Rose to the prince.

Issunboshi's mother wanted a child so badly that she prayed to the gods to grant her a baby.  She promised to love the child even if it was as small as the tip of her finger.  She kept that promise when the minuscule Issunboshi was born.  From the moment of his birth to his departure from their home, his parents loved and supported him with all of their hearts.

Snow-White and Rose-Red is an interesting fairy tale, in that it is the father who never makes an appearance.  Instead, the two girls are raised by only their mother.  The woman teaches her daughters to be loving and kind, and respectful of all.  She opens her home to a strange travelling bear and befriends him.  When the bear turns out to be a prince, and the two girls marry into royalty, the mother goes with the girls to their new castle.  She lives with them to the end of her days.

The Little Green Frog is an incredibly convoluted story, and is difficult to sum up briefly.  It follows two families, both of which have wonderful mothers.  (Spoiler!  Though one of the moms appears to die, she turns out to be alive and well in the end.)  One rules after her husband dies, and loves her daughter with all of her heart.  The other was such a joy to her son and her husband that when she is taken by the fairies, the king grows dreadfully ill without her.  Both moms rejoice with their families when reunited with them in the end.

I'll be back next week with The Story of Bensurdatu!  See you then.