“To have the antiquarian Grimm Brothers regarded as the fathers of modern folklore is perhaps to forget the maternal lineage, the ‘mothers’ who in the French veillées and English nurseries, in court salons and the German Spinnstube, in Paris and on the Yorkshire moors, passed on their wisdom. The Grimm brothers, like Tereus, Ovid, King Shahryar, Basile, Perrault, and others reshaped what they could not precisely comprehend, because only for women does the thread, which spins out the lore of life itself, create a tapestry to be fully read and understood. Strand by strand weaving… is the true art of the fairy tale–and it is, I would submit, semiotically a female art.”
-Karen E. Rowe, “To Spin a Yarn”
Advertisements
