“Lovely princess,” he said, hand on heart, “allow me to say what I have been yearning to say to you for a long time. You are the only woman I’ll ever love. You are my beloved, the lady of my heart. Do say you will let me court you, and perhaps one happy day to marry you.”
“Marry!” cried Snow Night, appalled. “I’m not ready to marry. But when I am, I will certainly marry a handsome prince, not an ugly old huntsman. Lord Hunter, you presume far above your station.”
Surprised in his turn by the vehemence of her rejection, Hunter snatched at her skirt with one hand and clamped her wrists together with the other. “You must not talk so to me,” he exclaimed. “I’m a nobleman. Princess or not, you’re only a young girl with little knowledge of the world. Maybe you should learn a lesson today.”
Angry and frightened by his boldness, she struggled to free herself. “How dare you lay hands on me?” she demanded. “Let go at once!” When he did not, she wrenched a hand free and struck at his face with her fingernails, drawing blood.
At this, Lord Hunter quite forgot himself. He wrestled her down to the ground and clawed at her clothes, with some dim idea of ravishing her into submission. Snow Night screamed and thrashed in a panic, struck him with her fists, and finally kicked him in the crotch. As he curled up gasping for breath, she sprang to her feet and spat at him.
“Never, never come near me again, do you hear, you repellent monster?” she cried. “I hate and despise you, and I always will.” She ran away, leaving Lord Hunter feeling that his ambitions—and other things—were thoroughly ruined.
Now Hunter’s desire for the princess was replaced by hostility. He wanted to see her injured, even dead, in recompense for his humiliation. He sulked and brooded and awaited his chance.
One evening he found the queen alone in her anteroom, consulting her magic mirror, which always told the truth. He sat quietly while she asked the mirror several questions. Then, as she was turning away, he said, “I wonder if Your Majesty has ever asked the mirror who is the fairest lady in the land?”
The queen smiled. “I know the answer it would give, huntsman. Snow Night is the fairest.”
“Doesn’t that anger you?”
“No, why should it?”
“Surely Your Majesty’s great beauty has always been fairest in the land. Wouldn’t that make the princess a usurper and an upstart?”
The queen laughed. “We all go through our cycles, huntsman. The wise expect it. Younger life takes the place of the elder; it’s the way of nature. Every mother of children feels it in her bones. To challenge nature is folly.”
“But don’t stepmothers always hate their stepdaughters?”
“That must be one of the ridiculous traditions about women invented by men. A stepmother has every reason to get along with her stepdaughter. Why cause unnecessary strife? In any case, I’m quite fond of Snow Night. She’s a good-hearted little thing, if a bit slow in her wit. Why would I be so foolish as to mistreat her?”
“Your Majesty wouldn’t undertake any such thing personally, of course,” Hunter said, his obsession having deafened him to all her words, which he still believed were dissembling. “According to an old story, the royal stepmother sends another to act for her, such as her faithful huntsman. He is the one charged with killing the stepdaughter and bringing back her heart in a jeweled casket.”
The queen gave him a shrewd glance. “You really are mad,” she whispered. “Huntsman, that is an exceedingly obnoxious idea. Put it out of your head at once.” But she saw from his slightly glazed look that the idea had already taken a firm hold on him. With a sudden chill, she realized that Snow Night was in mortal danger.
That night the queen went to her tower room and worked a spell to call a clever raven to her window. When the bird appeared, she censed it with herbal smoke and said, “Fly to the land of the dwarves and tell the queen that I need seven of her subjects, the ones most learned in techniques of concealment.” The raven flew off.
Three days later the queen put on a white wig, a long putty nose, a black cloak, and a black broad-brimmed crone’s hat. Thus disguised, accompanied only by her personal maid, she went to the village inn to meet with seven little men from the land of the dwarves.
They sat at a rough wooden table drinking flagons of ale. The queen produced a leather sack from the folds of her cloak and laid it before the leader, who opened it and poured forth a handful of glittering cut stones: sapphires, rubies, emeralds, and diamonds. The dwarves’ eyes sparkled like the gems, which dwarves love above everything else. “Magnificent,” said the leader. “For this we will do anything you ask, short of killing ourselves.”
“I want you to watch the king’s Master of the Hunt, whose picture I show you here,” said the queen. “I want you also to watch over the Princess Snow Night, without letting yourselves be seen. Here is her picture. If she leaves the castle, follow her. If the Master of the Hunt ever approaches her in such a manner as to do her harm, you are to seize and bind him, carry him back to Dwarfland, and keep him a perpetual prisoner. Your queen, who owes me a favor or two, will see to it.”
“We will obey you in every particular,” promised the leader of the dwarves.
The queen arose and shook his hand. “Then it is agreed,” she said. “From this moment on, let no one from the castle see you anywhere.” She left the inn and returned by dark of night to her own quarters.
Less than a week later all the courtiers except Lord Hunter were gladdened by the news that a fine young prince named Charming was on his way from a neighboring country to woo Snow Night in person. The king’s huntmaster kept to himself, avoiding his usual activities and his friends, who noticed that he was losing weight, seldom spoke, and never smiled any more.
Lord Hunter was obsessed by the demon of vengeance, which his violent nature could express only in violent terms. He never spoke to Snow Night, but he watched her always, even going so far as to hide in a cupboard near her chambers for many hours during the night.
On the day before Prince Charming was due, Snow Night took her lapdog and her maid, with a picnic basket, out for a greenwood lunch. Lord Hunter seized the opportunity to follow them. No sooner had they settled in a pleasant glade when he sprang from the bushes, grabbed the princess, and trussed her like a chicken, ignoring her shrieks and struggles. Her little dog yapped and snapped at him, and received a brutal kick that sent it flying against a tree. Her maid stood frozen with terror, until Lord Hunter commanded her to lie down on her face.
“No!” screamed Snow Night. “Don’t stop! Run back to the castle and tell them! Run, you fool!”
But the maid was too long accustomed to habits of passivity and obedience. Her knees buckled. She sank down helplessly, and Lord Hunter trussed her too.
Then he turned his attention to the squirming princess. He drew out his long hunting knife and advanced on her, madness gleaming in his eyes. Realizing that she was at the mercy of a murderer, she gave herself up for lost.
Suddenly the seven little men charged from all directions around the glade, disarmed Lord Hunter, and bore him to the ground. Six of them sat on him while the seventh untied the princess and her maid. They used the same ropes to bind up Lord Hunter even more tightly than a trussed chicken.
The head dwarf then doffed his cap and bowed to Snow Night. “This man will never bother Your Highness again,” he said. “We are under orders to return with him to Dwarfland, where he will be imprisoned for the rest of his life.”
Ignoring Hunter’s yell of protest, Snow Night said, “Excellent. How can I repay you for saving my life?”
“We have already been paid, Your Highness,” said the dwarf (for dwarves are honest folk), “by your lady mother, the queen. With your permission, we will go now.”
Six dwarves hoisted the tight-wrapped body of Lord Hunter to their shoulders (for dwarves are strong folk) and marched away after their leader, singing lustily to drown out his snarls and curses. As their noise faded into the distance, Snow Night an
d her maid collected their scattered picnic utensils and their wits. Snow Night carefully carried her little dog, whose ribs had been broken, home to a bed in her dressing room where he could rest until he was healed.
The next day Prince Charming arrived on schedule, and he proved to be charming indeed. He and Snow Night were delighted with each other. They soon became engaged and within a year were married in a magnificent ceremony. The queen was matron of honor. Snow Night never forgot her stepmother’s wise forethought, which had saved her life. Both royal couples, elder and younger, lived happily ever after.
As for Lord Hunter, his reason quite gone, he lived confined for the rest of his life as the dwarves’ prisoner. In later years he sometimes passed the weary hours by writing stories. It is said that he wrote an entirely different version of the story you have just heard.
FOUR
J. J. Bachofen said in Myth, Religion, and Mother-Right that Gorgo was a title of the death-dealing Crone form of the Goddess Athene, who also appeared in Greek myth as Metis, “Wisdom,” disguised as Athene’s mother. Metis was the Greek rendering of Medusa, “Wisdom,” eldest of the pre-Hellenic trinity of snake-haired Gorgons. The other two were Stheino and Euryale, “Strength” and “Universality.”
Before the Greeks mythologized her as the monster whose glance turned men to stone, Medusa was called a queen of the Libyan Amazons. It seems that Medusa-Metis and Gorgo-Athene were one and the same, for even the Greeks admitted that Athene came from Libya, not from the Greek city that bears her name. She was worshiped by Amazon tribes in northern Africa, where she wore the snake-haired Gorgon mask on her aegis, indicating her power to petrify men who intruded on her sacred mysteries. According to the myth, her ceremonial mask was carried to Athens by the culture hero Perseus, who learned its magic from Libyan warrior women.
The mythic fame of Gorgo’s women warriors provides a startling point for the story of Gorga. She and her prince unite as equals in a vision of Utopia, an anagram for their nation. Would that the little wizards behind our modern technological dragons could be so well controlled by the Gorgas among us.
She advanced toward the creature…
Once upon a time there was an Amazon named Gorga, the daughter of a well-known wisewoman. Gorga was not beautiful, but she was renowned throughout the queendom for her great strength and skill in the martial arts. She was the undisputed champion in kick boxing, wrestling, javelin-throwing, archery, and swordswomanship. Every holiday, she invariably won the footrace, high jump, and spear-chucking contests. Her fame spread far beyond the borders of her own country. One day it brought her a noble foreign visitor, the prince of Poutia in person. The neighboring nation of Poutia had been much troubled of late by the depredations of a fire-breathing dragon. The prince traveled all the way to Gorga’s village just to beg her assistance in conquering the dragon. Laying aside his pride just as he removed his plumed hat, he fell to his knees before Gorga and pleaded with her.
“The soothsayers insist that the dragon can be slain only by a single adversary,” he said, “but that no man alive can overcome it. Five of our mightiest heroes have tried and failed. They have plunged swords and spears right into its breast, without effect. I would make the attempt myself, but I am also a man. Besides, the royal succession must not be—ahem!—threatened, of course, you understand.” Gorga gave the prince a wry glance. He was plump and out of shape, clearly in no condition to fight dragons.
“You are a woman,” the prince went on, “as well as a great warrior. You must be the savior ordained for us. The dragon demands the sacrifice of a beautiful maiden every full moon. We are running out of beautiful maidens. Soon our young men will have no maidens left to marry except the ugly ones, begging your pardon, ma’am. Please, will you come with me to Poutia and slay the dragon for us?”
“What’s in it for me?” asked Gorga.
“My lord the king says you can name your price, even to half our kingdom. I agree to this. If the dragon isn’t slain, there won’t be any kingdom left for me to rule, anyway. And sooner or later it may invade your country too. I know it’s a great challenge. If you succeed, your fame will echo down the corridors of time forever.”
Gorga liked this kind of talk. “I will consult my mother the wisewoman,” she said. “Make yourself at home and take some refreshment.”
She offered him home-baked gooseberry pie and fresh cider. While the prince sat down to eat, Gorga fetched her mother, who listened carefully to the prince’s proposal.
At length her mother said, “I will advise Gorga to go with you, if she’s willing. You may rest here until we’re ready. We’ll need to make some preparations.”
The prince wept with relief and energetically kissed the hands of both Gorga and her mother. Gorga found this rather strange, as no man had ever kissed any part of her before.
Gorga’s mother rummaged among her magic supplies and brought out a heavy silvery suit of mail, together with a helmet carved in the likeness of a nest of rearing snakes covering the whole head, plus a hideous mask over the face. “You must wear these in any encounter with a fire-breather,” she told Gorga. “The suit is made of fiber of rock, and no fire can burn it. The mask carries a petrifaction charm, frightening enough to turn an opponent to stone. Take your sword, spears, and arrows. Dragon skin is usually impermeable, so remember to aim for the eyes or down the throat. Be bold, my daughter, and you will prevail where no man has yet succeeded.”
Gorga hugged her mother and bade her farewell, receiving a protective blessing from her hand. Then she and the prince mounted their horses and rode away to Poutia. Following her mother’s instructions, Gorga planned to stand in for the sacrificial maiden at the next full moon. The prince was dubious about this. He feared the dragon’s displeasure when it noticed that Gorga was not beautiful. But Gorga assured him that by the time the dragon got close enough to examine her, it would be already half dead.
She was wined and dined for several days in the king’s castle and treated like the greatest of honored guests, although some of the warrior heroes grumbled behind their hands and cast belittling glances at her. A few made sour comments, which she ignored with a bland smile. None were brave enough to pick a fight with her.
On the appointed day, Gorga donned her fireproof armor and girded herself with weapons, then covered herself completely with a voluminous white robe. Attended by the prince and a few warriors, she went to the front of the dragon’s cave, where she was tied to the maidens’ stake with false slipknots that would fall open at her touch. Then the Poutians fearfully withdrew and left her alone to face her fate.
Gorga calmly watched the sun set and the full moon rise. She also watched the black orifice of the dragon’s cave. Soon she saw a dim orange flare in its depths. The dragon was coming.
Under her robe, she quietly loosened her sword in its sheath. The dragon emerged from its cave and came closer, making peculiar screeching sounds and occasional roars. At intervals, fire gushed from its open mouth with a windy crackling. It was indeed a formidable-looking creature, with thick brown scales all over its body and huge green eyes. It bent its head toward her and roared in deep, hollow, but humanlike speech, “This is not a beautiful maiden. Where is my proper sacrifice?”
Gorga whipped off her ropes and sent an arrow right into each of the dragon’s eyes. “Now you won’t care what I look like, Worm!” she shouted. The dragon paused momentarily but continued its advance. No blood came from its eyes, which Gorga found puzzling. Next she sent a spear down its flaming throat when it opened its mouth to roar. Again, there was no effect, and no evidence that it had been wounded.
She advanced toward the creature, putting on her petrifying snake helmet, walking boldly right into the ribbon of flame that gushed from its mouth. As her mother had promised, the rock-fiber suit was not even scorched. With all her strength, she gave the dragon a resounding blow on the nose with her battle-ax. Its head bent to one side and remained there, apparently stuck.
Then Gorga
noticed something even more curious: The dragon’s left forefoot didn’t quite touch the ground but skimmed a few inches above it. She bent down and peered underneath to discover that within the structure of the foot, what rested on the ground was a wheel.
Her suspicions aroused, Gorga darted aside and down the length of the dragon’s body. Near the tail she saw an oval-shaped crack in the skin. She seized a knob of one of the scales within the crack and tugged as hard as she could. It flew open like a trapdoor, showing a hollow darkness within. The dragon was no living creature. It was a machine.
Sword in hand, she entered and made her way through the dark interior toward the head, where she saw the light of a fire. She came to a round chamber, where an ugly little man stood by a bank of levers, working a huge bellows that sent flames and noises through the tunnel of the dragon’s throat. He was peering through a series of lenses, trying to find out where Gorga had gone. She crept up behind him and put the point of her sword to his neck. The man turned, saw her terrifying serpent mask, screamed, and stood stock-still, petrified with fear.
“Just what do you think you’re doing, little worm?” Gorga growled. The man’s chin trembled, but he was too frightened to speak. Gorga pricked him slightly with the point of her sword, to encourage him to answer.
With blood trickling down his neck, shaking all over, the man fell to his knees and cried, “Please don’t kill me, Monster! I meant no harm! I only wanted a few beautiful maidens, but they would never give me a second glance unless they were forced to do so.”
“What did you do to them?” Gorga demanded.
“I didn’t hurt them, honestly I didn’t,” he quavered. “They’re locked up in my cave, perfectly safe. I gave special privileges and better food to the ones who let me make love to them, but I let the others alone, I swear. Please, Monster, let me go. You can understand, being so ugly yourself, that I’m too ugly to win a beautiful maiden by fair means. I promise I’ll never do it again.”
Feminist Fairy Tales Page 3