The evil females of European folklore.
Whatever the refined Victorian gentlemen thought about their ladies as "angels in the home" surely wasn't based on the traditional European folk culture which often had something unpleasant to say about women. Take, for instance, this song, based on the story of one sister killing the other and stealing her fiance. When the bard who had found the body came to the wedding feast and touched the lute, the wicked sister fell dead.
Apparently, in some European countries, such as Iceland, there was an extreme shortage of men, which led to only 47% of all women being married which could explain the attitudes demonstrated above. This shortage wasn't restricted only to mortal women, though, but also to the realm of elves, as shown by an Icelandic story about a guy who went to visit his mother and ended up dead after having refused to marry an elvish maiden (here is an instrumental version).
BTW, one of the versions of the appearance of elves states that they were unwashed and poorly treated children of Eve whom she tried to hide from God. Icelanders really had few illusions about mother's love being a universal virtue as is clearly demonstrated by one of their creepiest folk songs called Modir min i kvi kvi about a farmer's help who brought her illegitimate child to the forest to die wrapped in her best dress. When later she was complaining that she had nothing to wear for a dancing party, her daughter's ghost came and offered her her rags, driving the unlucky woman mad.
Of course, in Germanic folklore there were also Brünhild and Kriemhild who caused a lot of warriors to die because they couldn't settle peacefully the question of whose husband was more important, and the wife of Gunarr in Saga of Njall who was said to be born to be a curse for men and many others. So, I'm not so sure about sugar and spice, after all...
Here is why there exists this myth:
ReplyDeletehttp://societyofphineas.wordpress.com/2013/10/19/defining-tradcon-feminism-part-1-theory/
http://societyofphineas.wordpress.com/2013/10/23/defining-tradcon-feminism-part-2-principles/
Standing, half of everything on my blog is written tongue-in-cheek:)
ReplyDeleteAs for your link, I read Leon Podles and I'm not at all convinced. Modern feminism is the outgrowth of modern liberalism and French Revolution with its egalite, fraternite etc etc.
''Standing, half of everything on my blog is written tongue-in-cheek:)''
ReplyDeleteOh. I am too much of a serious person I guess.
''As for your link, I read Leon Podles and I'm not at all convinced. Modern feminism is the outgrowth of modern liberalism and French Revolution with its egalite, fraternite etc etc. ''
Modern feminism has an ancient assumption of female moral superiority(stemming from bridal mysticism) that enables it to thrive even as it uses the ideological weapons of the french revolution for its ends.
As well as the implicit evil of male sexual desire and of the implicit good of female sexual desire. It is an old foe that dates back to Queen Jezebel and others like her to the curse of eve of which women desires to usurp authority over a man(Genesis 3:16).
Modern feminism is just its latest incarnation and of which the internet enables documentation of its various evils.
"I am too much of a serious person I guess."
ReplyDeleteYes, lighten up:)
"As well as the implicit evil of male sexual desire and of the implicit good of female sexual desire."
May be true about some Christian sects, but it's certainly not true about secular liberals, unless they are Americans. Americans, whether secular or not, seem to suffer from a puritanical streak more than others.