Tag Archives: The Fairytale Keeper

Star-Crossed Lovers Week: Heloise’s First Letter to Abelard

Heloïse imagined in a mid-19th-century engraving

Heloïse imagined in a mid-19th-century engraving (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

At the time this letter was written, Heloise and Abelard had been parted for over a decade.  Never once had Abelard sent Heloise a letter recognizing the immense sacrifice she made for him or to check after her well-being.  Heloise’s response below comes after a letter was passed to her from a third-party in which Abelard wrote of his fears for his life at the hands of his own pupils.  After ten years of separation, Heloise worries after her lover of so long ago and writes poetically of her devotion to him and yet pain at his ignoring her.  And so while Heloise and Abelard may have been the Romeo and Juliet of their time, so may Heloise have been the Shakespeare, as well.  Below are bits and pieces of Heloise’s first letter to Abelard.

Not long ago my beloved, by chance someone brought me the letter of consolation you had sent to a friend.  I saw at once from the superscription that it was yours, and was all the more eager to read it since the writer is so dear to my heart.  I hoped for renewal of strength, at least from the writer’s words which would picture for me the reality I have lost.  But nearly every line of this letter was filled, I remember, with gall and wormwood, as it told the pitiful story of our entry into religion and the cross of unending suffering which you, my only love, continue to bear.

…You revealed the persecution you suffered from your teachers, the supreme treachery of the mutilation of your person, and then described the abominable jealousy and violent attacks of your fellow students. 

…No one, I think, could read or hear it dry-eyed; my own sorrows are renewed in the detail in which you have told it, and redoubled because you say your perils are still increasing. …We beseech you to write as often as you think fit to us who are His handmaids and yours.

…You have dealt us fresh wounds of grief as well as re-opening the old.  I beg you, then, as you set about tending the wounds which others have dealt, heal the wounds you have yourself inflicted.

…In the precarious early days of our conversion long ago I was not a little surprised and troubled by your forgetfulness, when neither reverence for God nor our mutual love nor the example of the holy Father made you think of trying to comfort me, wavering and exhausted as I was by prolonged grief, either by word when I was with you or by letter when we had parted.  Yet you must know that you are bound to me by an obligation which is all the greater for the further close tie of the marriage sacrament uniting us, and are the deeper in my debt because of the love I have always borne you, as everyone knows a love which is beyond all bounds.

Abelard and his pupil, Héloïse, by Edmund Blai...

Abelard and his pupil, Héloïse, by Edmund Blair Leighton (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You know, beloved, as the whole world knows, how much I have lost in you, how at one wretched stroke of fortune that supreme act of flagrant treachery robbed me of my very self in robbing me of you; and how my sorrow for my loss is nothing compared with what I feel for the manner in which I lost you. Surely the greater the cause for grief the greater the need for the help of consolation, and this no one can bring but you; you are the sole cause of my sorrow, and you alone can grant me the grace of consolation.  You alone have the power to make me sad, to bring me happiness or comfort; you alone have so great a debt to repay me, particularly now when I have carried out all your orders so implicitly that when I was powerless to oppose you in anything, I found strength at your command to destroy myself.  I did more, strange to say—my love rose to such heights of madness that it robbed itself of what it most desired beyond hope of recovery, when immediately at your bidding I changed my clothing along with my mind, in order to prove you the sole possessor of my body and my will alike.  God knows I never sought anything in you except yourself; I wanted simply you, nothing of yours.  I looked for no marriage-bond, no marriage portion, and it was not my own pleasures and wishes I sought to gratify, as you well know, but yours.  The name of wife may seem more sacred or more binding, but sweeter for me will always be the word mistress, or if you will permit me, that of concubine or whore.  I believed that the more I humbled myself on your account, the more gratitude I should win from you, and also the less damage I should do to the brightness of your reputation. …You kept silent about most of my arguments for preferring love to wedlock and freedom to chains.  God is my witness that if Augustus, Emperor of the whole world, thought fit to honor me with marriage and conferred all on the earth to possess forever, it would be dearer and more honorable to me to be called not his Empress but your whore.

Article written by Andrea Cefalo, author of The Fairytale Keeper: a novel of corruption, devotion, and the origins of Grimm’s fairytales.  To follow Andrea Cefalo and hear more about The Fairytale Keeper series, please visit:

Source:  Héloïse, and Peter Abelard. The Letters of Abelard and Heloise. Trans. Betty Radice. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974. Print.

Holiday Sale

shutterstock_11595145685% off the cover price.  The kindle version of The Fairytale Keeper is only 99 cents.

15% off the cover price.  The paperback version of The Fairytale Keeper is only $10.19.   Amazon sellers also offer new and used versions for as low a $2.30.

(Offers are done by Amazon and not under the control of the publisher.  Offer expires at the discretion of Amazon.  For a limited time only.)

Who would make the best Ivo?

The Countdown Begins

It’s hard to believe that the release for the second book in The Fairytale Keeper series is only eight months away.  If you didn’t know, the book has a tentative title, The Fairest of Them All.   At this point,  I am halfway done with writing and beginning work on revisions.  For me, this is the perfect time to start revising.  It’s quite fun to read parts of the book that I’d written months ago.  They feel so new. Thankfully, I am very pleased with the first chapter.  For those of you who know me personally, I am no good at keeping surprises.  I am absolutely dying to post the first chapter of The Fairest of Them All today!  But I think I will be a good little author and wait until after the entire book goes off for editing. For those of you who are dying to have a sneak peek into The Fairest of Them All, visit my Pinterest page, which holds clues as to what will happen in the next installment of The Fairytale Keeper series.

Five Things You Didn’t Know About the Cinderella Story

Written by Andrea Cefalo, author of The Fairytale Keeper series

While Cinderella is one of the most widely known tales, here are a few facts about it that are not…

1.  From Russia to India and Vietnam to Scotland, nations from all over the world have their own traditional telling of the Cinderella story.  A few examples of titles are The Story of Tam and Cam (Vietnam), Baba Yaga (Russia), The Saddleslut (Greece),  Pepelyouga (Serbia), Ashey Pelt (Ireland), and Conkiajgharuna (Georgia).

2. Many Native American tribes fused the European Cinderella with their own legends to create unique versions of the tale.  For example, Mi’kmaq Native Americans combined the French Cinderella with their own legends to come up with a version called The Invisible One.  Some other Native American versions include The Turkey Herd and The Rough-Faced Girl.

 3.  The tale was first recorded in 9th century China by Tuan Che’ng-shih, but the tone of the tale suggests it was already a well-known story to its readers.  That makes the story at least 1,140 years old!

4.  The next recording didn’t come until over eight hundred years later when Charles Perrault of France published it in 1697.  This version is the one Americans are most familiar with. That’s probably because it is kinder than most other versions which result in the maiming or killing of the wicked stepsisters in the end.

5.  There are approximately 1,500 versions of the tale when one includes retellings, movies, musicals, operas, and picture books!

Resources:

http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0510a.html

http://www.native-languages.org/oochigeas.htm

http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/cinderella/history.html

The Real Snow White: A 16th Century Countess?

Portrait of Margarete von Waldeck

Most of us associate the origins of Snow White with Willhelm and Jacob Grimm’s 19th century publication of Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children’s and Household Tales) which is a volume of German folklore collected by the Grimm brothers and not actually composed by the two.  So where did this tale actually come from?   Is it really just the product of an unknown story-teller’s imagination or was this famous fair-faced maiden based on historical fact?   German scholar Eckhard Sander presumes in his book Schneewittchen: Marchen oder Wahrheit? (Snow White: Is It a Fairy Tale?) that the real Snow White was in fact Countess Margarete Von Waldeck.

Margarete was daughter to Count Phillip von Waldeck-Wildungen and step-daughter to Katherina of Hatzefeld, whom Margarete did not get along with.  At the age of sixteen, Margarete was sent away to Wildungen, Brussels where she met and fell in love with Phillip the II, who would later become king of Spain.   A marriage between the Spanish prince and German countess was seen as politically disadvantageous by many and Margarete’s untimely death all-too-conveniently ended the affair.

According to Sander, Margarete did not die of some unknown illness, but was poisoned by the Spanish secret police to keep her from marrying the future king.  However, her “wicked” stepmother couldn’t have been the culprit since she was dead before Margarete’s death.  While it is unlikely that the weapon of choice was an apple, poisoned apples were given out by a man living in Wildungen who didn’t want children stealing his fruit.  And as for the seven dwarves, Maragerete’s brother owned copper mines in Wildungen which employed children who worked twelve hour days.  The children grew crooked and crippled from the work. Their hair grayed prematurely and most were dead before the age of  twenty.  Thus, they looked much like the dwarves from the Brothers Grimm’s tale.  According to Sander, the many parts of the story from this particular region were told and retold until they became the tale that the Grimm’s brothers recorded and we now know as “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.”

Article written by Andrea Cefalo, author of The Fairytale Keeper: a novel of corruption, devotion, and the origins of Grimm’s fairytales.  To follow Andrea Cefalo and hear more about The Fairytale Keeper series, please visit:

Amanda’s Writings Book Review

“There was never a slow moment, and I couldn’t put the book down… And then came the end. Gah! That can’t be it! It was perfect, and I was excited and it ENDED! I sincerely hope there will be a book two!”

Oh yes, Amanda, there is definitely a book two coming.  To find out what else Amanda had to say about The Fairytale Keeper click here.