For this assignment, I decided to focus on the motif of the ‘cruel stepmother’ which I consider a
staple of fairy tales. I consulted the Stith Thompson Motif-Index of Folk Literature, and pretty
quickly identified the two motifs I would follow to find my stories – S31 ‘cruel stepmother’ and
MG205 ‘witch stepmother.’ I really enjoyed browsing the motif index due to the specificity of
certain motifs; S31.4 ‘stepmother feeds children with fish spines to kill them’ instantly peaked
my curiosity and made me want to read that story. I tried to track it down using the referenced
book in the motif description (Thompson-Balys’ The oral tales of India) but I was only able to
find another reference to a book that was not available for online purchase. So, I decided to
work from the two more general motifs regarding cruel stepmothers and I was able to find
quite a few stories:
- The Six Swans (recorded by Grimm): A widower king who had six boys and a girl is lost in
the forest and is shown the way out after promising to marry the daughter of a witch.
His new wife locates the children and changes the sons into swans. The sister sets out to
rescue them. Despite efforts by the wicked mother, the sister succeeds in rescuing her
brothers and in saving herself.
- Little Snow White (recorded by Grimm): A wicked queen who is also a stepmother is
jealous of the beauty of her stepdaughter and repeatedly tries to kill her. She is saved by
seven little men who have befriended her. Finally, the queen is successful in having
Snow White bite a poison apple. She dies and is resuscitated by a prince who has fallen
in love with her.
- The Juniper Tree (recorded by Grimm): A wealthy man's wife bears a son, dies, and is
buried under the Juniper tree. The man's next wife has a daughter whom she favors
over the son. The son is killed, cooked, and eaten for dinner. The boy's bones are turned
into a bird which flies away and tries to tell many what has happened. The bird's return
home leads to the death of the stepmother and the restoration of the little brother to
life with his father and sister.
- The White Bride and the Black Bride (recorded by Grimm): A beautiful and kind girl
married the prince of Denmark, which made her stepmother and stepsister jealous, so
they plotted to substitute the stepsister for the true bride. The prince eventually
discovered the substitution, punished the stepmother and her daughter, and reinstated
his true bride.
- Ye-Xian (Chinese ‘Cinderella’ variant): A young girl is orphaned and is raised by her
stepmother. Her only friend is a gold fish that talks to her, but her stepmother catches it
and eats it for dinner. An old sage tells Ye-Xian that if she prays to her fish bones, the
bones will make her heart desires come true.
These are just a few of the many stories featuring a cruel stepmother figure. I picked stories
that I recognized or are more well known, and all of them happened to be recorded by the
Brothers Grimm (a different variant of Ye-Xian was recorded by the Brothers entitled
‘Aschenputtel’). I would have liked to explore stories that use this motif from non-European
cultures, but because I wanted to use stories that I recognized for this assignment it limited
my options. I found “The Juniper Tree” very interesting because I have heard versions of
Cinderella that incorporate elements of this story, especially the mother’s grave in a tree.
Overall, it was not very difficult to find stories that use this motif, but I did find it difficult to
search and use the motif-index. I had more success with using Google to search for the
motif identifiers and names.
A storytelling session that featured this theme of a cruel stepmother would probably best
be suited for older children, as regaling the abuse their step-children received from them
back-to-back might be too much for younger children. These stories could be part of a
spooky or Halloween storytelling series, or a villain archetypes exploration series for older
children.