The Brothers Grimm, but Feminist: Stacy Sivinski’s “Fairy Tales of Appalachia” https://ift.tt/yxvz9fD
Magic meets academia in the wonderful new collection by Stacy Sivinski entitled, Fairy Tales of Appalachia. These stories bring to life unique regional variants of more classically known fairytales where women are not damsels in distress but are instead depicted as clever, resilient, and adaptable. Readers are warned that for many of these tales, there is very little in common with their Disney counterparts. Traditional tales such as Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella, while still recognizable, are sometimes more reminiscent of the original, darker tales portrayed by the Brothers Grimm.
At the beginning of each chapter, Sivinskim provides a brief history of the tales and provides related tales of different origins. Beauty in the Beast may have inspired the first story in this collection, White Bear Whittington, but the story also has ties to a tale originating in Norway entitled, East of the Sun, West of the Moon. This blending brings to light not only how stories evolve over time, but how each can intermingle with others to produce something truly spectacular and unique that occurs in the oral tradition of storytelling.
A great example of the folklore portrayed in this collection is the story The Old Woman and the Green Gourd, which features a melting pot of historical influences having to do with vegetables and fruit. Stories such as the Danish The Princess and the Pea, the English Jack and the Beanstalk, the German Rapunzel, and the Russian The Gigantic Turnip all influence this unique tale which, “follows a familiar fairy tale trope while also reinventing another: the characterization of elderly women as evil witches,” as Sivinski writes in the story’s introductory passage. In a departure from the elderly woman as a witch narrative, the old woman in this tale isn’t an evil witch; she’s a normal human being that calls on the help of her animal neighbors when the witches in her gourd start to attack her. What sets this piece apart is how this woman goes to gruesome lengths to repay her saviors. With pure intentions, the old woman in this story demonstrates how we sometimes go to extreme lengths to repay and protect our friends – lengths that might ultimately be more violent and less ‘pretty’ than the Disney-fied versions of these stories.
Sivinski details how she came across a vast underrepresentation of these stories during her time at university, an event that ultimately became the catalyst that inspired this collection. Having grown up in Virginia, she’d been told tales of heroic women and great adventure – stories such as Gold in the Chimney and Pocketbook, Ring, and Rusty Fork – where familiar tropes were present, but the stories themselves were unique and the heroines turned gender stereotypes on their heads. The stories where women were supportive rather than dysfunctional and sought their fortunes away from home, however, weren’t as well known and didn’t make it into her curriculum. Rather, she was exposed to the more traditional “Jack Tales” where men were the heroes and women the victims that are common in popular anthologies. Her tenacity and extensive research gained her access to a vast archive of recorded content that allowed her to transcribe these region-specific stories in a way that preserved the cadence and voice in which they were originally told.
In The Little Princess of the Forest, the regional dialect is represented on the page and it’s as if the reader is ‘hearing’ the story out loud:
“One day, mother was going to market with her milk pail about four o’clock in the evening. Mother started up the path, and as she went along with the little one a-tottlin’ behind her, a big shadow zoomed over. The baby couldn’t keep up with her mother. She had just begun to walk and was a-tottlin’ along, falling down…And a great big eagle soared down and grabbed this little girl…Mother threw away her pail and led into a-hollerin’ and a-shouting.”
While reading, it’s easy to picture the familiar gestures that go along with the telling. This is a characteristic that makes the atmosphere of these stories truly magical in their realism because the text directly relates to the spoken word. This language transports the reader to another place; one where stories are told as the sun is going down and children are gathered around, desperate to know what happens next.
Sivinski’s research for this collection draws from the Archives of Appalachia at East Tennessee State University and the special collections at Berea College, where she gained access to extensive recordings of the live storytelling that provided the content needed to create this book. From there, she was able to draw inspiration from famous folklorists and form her own, unique collection that gives life to a previously underrepresented area.
Rich in culture and with a fresh dose of female empowerment, this collection is not one you’re going to want to miss. Sivinski makes sure to ground readers while also taking them on a folklore journey. She does this while also providing much-needed female empowerment through strong female characters. Not only does she tell the tales, but she keeps the narrative authentic to the voice of Appalachia and gives the readers the experience of reading an oral story in the manner it would have been told.
FICTION Fairy Tales of Appalachia
By Stacy Sivinski
University of Tennessee Press
Published February 9, 2023
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