lorraine sharma nelson
Fantasy
Writing happily ever after
Ever wonder what happens after the happily ever after? After the handsome prince marries his beautiful princess? Find out in this collection of fractured fairy tales, which includes my story, Beauty and the Beast: The Beast Within. Available on Amazon.
** ON FIRE anthology -- # 1 in paperback and #2 in Kindle books -- in the Supernatural category on Amazon.. **
CONSUMED, by his desire for fire, by his obsession for the Goddess of Fire. Ultimately consumed by both.
Mythology of Fire in Different Cultures
Fire
The emotions it evokes in the human animal goes back to the dawn of man. Back to when early man first discovered it and never looked back.
Fire. It is many things to many people down through the ages. It represents wild, uncontrollable passion. It represents power. It is a savage beast that can’t be tamed, but only contained, and even then, it has the ability to escape its confines.
It can provide comfort and safety. And it can kill.
Creation myths were one way to explain what otherwise would be unexplainable. The mythology of fire exists in every culture around the world, and in the great majority of them, fire is described as a powerful and fascinating god or goddess. In a number of stories, these divine beings forbade humans from using fire.
In the world of Greek mythology, only the gods on Mount Olympus had access to this precious commodity. Humans down below had to make do without it. They fared so badly that Prometheus, a Titan, gave the humans the gift of fire. Unfortunately for him, he did so without Zeus’ permission. Zeus was the king of the gods, and was royally ticked off with the Titan for having the audacity to give those lesser beings something as priceless as fire. Enraged, Zeus had Prometheus chained to a rock, and subjected him to having his liver torn out and eaten daily by an eagle. The moral of this story? Don’t tick off the king of the gods. You can bet he’ll plan something really, really bad for you as punishment.
Both the Greek and Roman god of fire share similar attributes. To the Greeks he was Hephaestus, and to the Romans he was Vulcan. (No, not the Vulcans from Star Trek). Vulcan was a destructive god, associated with volcanoes.
Asian mythology covers an enormous spectrum of cultures, including Buddhist, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Phillippine, Babylonian, Arabian and Indian mythology, and that’s just for a start. Under the umbrella of Indian mythology are many subgroups, including Vedic mythology. The Vedic period precedes modern Hinduism.
In Indian mythology, Agni was one of the most important of the Vedic gods. He was the Hindu god of fire, associated with all forms of it, including the sun, lightning and fires used in ceremonial rituals. Agni was also associated with funeral pyres used in cremation rituals, where he was said to deliver the dead to Yama, the god of the Underworld. Agni was loved by the Vedic people, as he was also the god of domestic fire, which was used for cooking and heating, two necessities of life. But he was feared as much as he was loved, as he was also the god of destructive fire, which could wipe out an entire village in the blink of an eye. In art form, Agni is depicted as having two heads – one signifying immortality, and the other symbolizing life. His daughter, Agneya was a powerful and revered goddess in her own right. (Note: Agneya is one of the two main characters in my story, “Consumed,” featured in the “ON FIRE” anthology from Transmundane Press).
African mythology is as wide and varied as the continent of Africa itself. From the Egyptian god, Ra, the god of the sun, to Oya, the Yoruba goddess of fire and death, to the great god, Kaang, of the San people from southern Africa. In that creation myth, the people and animals lived underground and could communicate with each other. One day, Kaang created a tree with branches that stretched over the world. He then dug a hole that reached down underground to where the people and animals lived, and allowed them to come up to the surface to admire his creation. He allowed them to stay on the surface, and instructed them all to live peacefully together, but forbade humans from building fires. He feared that they would cause much destruction and frighten the animals. Of course the humans disobeyed him, and their fires terrified the animals. Ever since then, animals have a basic mistrust of humans, and both groups can no longer communicate with each other. Once again, disobeying an all-powerful god brings with it dire consequences.
In North America, the Native Americans did not share a common fire mythology. The numerous tribes all developed their own mythologies explaining creation. From what I can discern, it seems that most of their mythology have a common theme running through them -- that the elements of earth, sky, fire and water were somehow connected -- and that humans and animals were connected to them in turn.
From the beginning of human history, man has tried to understand the power and mystery surrounding fire. It is ironic that in their creation of these fascinating stories involving the gods and their refusal to give man fire, people grasped the importance of it to the human race.
Fairy Tales and Their Significance in Society
Fairy tales in general, the most obvious ones made famous by Disney, and the lesser known tales hailing from the far corners of the world, originated as stories that teach a lesson, impart a warning, or convey the importance of critical thinking (thinking through a problem in order to solve it). They all end with a moral -- some blatant, some subtle, but there is always one.
One such fairy tale is Little Red Riding Hood. The little girl ignores her mother’s advice to beware of strangers. She stops to talk to a wolf who, by all accounts, is as dangerous as he looks. This is when Red’s problems begin. In her innocence she blurts out all the vital information the wolf needs, without thinking things through. When she arrives at her grandmother’s house, where the wolf waits in disguise, she realizes that all is not as it seems, which is made evident by her questioning the wolf’s appearance. “What big ears you have,” etc. Of course, poor Red realizes too late that this is not in fact her beloved grandmother. In the Brothers Grimm version, the preferred version by many a child, a woodcutter happens by, cuts open the wolf, and frees grandmother and Red.
The moral here is obvious: Always obey your mother, and never talk to strangers.
In “Beauty and the Beast,” the message (or moral) here is just as obvious. The Beast is a hideous creature, who should be monstrous in nature as well as in appearance. As it turns out, he has a warm and loving nature that completely belies his outer appearance. The moral in this beautiful fairy tale cautions us never to judge a person by their appearance; that true beauty does indeed come from within.
In “Aladdin,” the genie in the lamp represents untold power. In the wrong hands this power can prove deadly, not only to the person who wields it, but also to the populace at large. When an ordinary mortal in possession of the lamp is granted three wishes, things can take a tragic turn for the worse. As Lord Acton, a historian, so eloquently and succinctly phrased it in a letter to a colleague in 1887, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
The moral in this delightful tale is where I believe the old adage, “be careful what you wish for,” comes into play.
Finally, let’s discuss “Rapunzel,” a story fraught with highly-charged sexual innuendo. A very popular interpretation of this fairy tale suggests that the high-walled tower represents Rapunzel’s virginity, and the prince climbing up the tower via her hair, and entering through the lone window, breaches that virginity. Once the prince enters Rapunzel’s room, there is no going back; her innocence is gone.
Another interpretation argues that this tale is proof that true love conquers all. In other words, locking up your daughters just won’t work; love will find a way.
There is one point that many scholars agree on when it comes to this particular fairy tale, and it is that love is blind to the obvious. Why the heck didn’t one of them suggest cutting her hair and using it to escape the tower together? They could have been miles away before the witch realized Rapunzel had escaped.
The moral here is that children grow up and lose their innocence despite parents’ best efforts to prevent this from happening.
It is worth noting that these stories were written so long ago that there are myriad versions of them available. They have been told and retold at least a thousand different ways, yet one thing remains clear through all these retellings. The morals and lessons threaded through these fairy tales are as effective today as they were in ages past. Ask any child what Little Red Riding Hood did wrong, and they’ll immediately tell you that she shouldn’t have talked to the wolf. Ask them if the Beast is bad, and they’ll disagree. He may look scary, but he’s really nice deep down inside.
The questions remains: Do we still need fairy tales in today’s society? The answer is a resounding “Yes.” These fables, heavy as they are with their morals and lessons, show children that they can overcome the dangers presented by the big, bad world out there. Yes, there are some tales that don’t end well for the hero/heroine (the original Little Mermaid comes to mind), but for the most part they prevail and vanquish the bad guys. The evidence is overwhelming and compelling; fairy tales and the lessons they impart really are timeless.
