I love a good once upon a time and happy ever after, and best of all I love a reimagined fairy tale. But the gender roles in many fairy stories are depressingly predictable. The boys go on adventures and quests. The girls wait: for something to happen; something to change; for a knight in shining armour to ride up, slay the monster and save them.
Sometimes, the poor dears can’t even be bothered staying awake – those girls are so passive they’re asleep.
It’s more ho hum than fe fi fo fum.
I prefer stories where women get to do some questing, stomping and slaying of their own.
The new Heroines Anthology from The NeoPerennial Press is full of such tales, including a short story I wrote about the daughter of the medieval monster countess, Melusine.
A quick refresher, in case you thought she was just the two-tailed logo on the Starbucks coffee cup (yes, but…). Melusine married the Count of Anjou on the clear understanding with her husband that she’d have one day a week to herself. Curiosity, thy name is Raymond! He broke his promise and spied on her in the bath, only to discover she was half-serpent. She was unimpressed by his betrayal, sprouted wings and flew out the window, denouncing him.
You go, girl!
I’ve loved Melusine ever since I read The Wandering Unicorn by Manuel Mujica Láinez, a couple of years after that novel was translated into English by Mary Fitton in 1985. So when I needed to reimagine a woman’s story from myth or history to submit to the anthology I thought of her and her children. Now, most accounts of Melusine say she bore ten monstrous sons for Raymond, Count of Anjou.
And I wondered… what if she had a daughter?
The other influence on Melusine’s Daughter was the medieval ballad, from the Dutch folk tale, of Heer Halewijn. This thoroughly repulsive, magically powerful bloke was the progenitor of Bluebeard and other horrible mass-murdering chaps in folk stories and songs. The unnamed heroine princess of The Song of Lord Halewijn is a delight. She rescues herself from a dangerous situation and doesn’t take any lip from her would-be killer. Or his mum.
You can check out one of the versions of the ballad and its translation here, if you like a bit of medieval sass.
If you’d like to read Melusine’s Daughter, you can purchase the Heroines Anthology: volume 2 from The NeoPerennial Press. She’s keeping company with Cassandra and Bast and Boudicea and many more intriguing imaginings of marvellous women, all of them written by intriguing and marvellous women writers.
I enjoyed writing a character who comes to understand it takes more than scales to make a monster, and who embraces her monstrous heritage. Just as well – there’s only three weeks left for me to finish my short story to submit for the next CSFG anthology, Unnatural Order, which is all about telling the monsters’ side of things.
So, wish me luck as I polish up some more scales.
They’re what all the cool monsters are wearing this season.