Page 40 RAIN April/May 1983 FROM: The Maid of The North The Maid of the North; Feminist Folk Tales from Around the World Ethel Johnston Phelps Holt, Rinehart, and Winston 383 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10017 $10.95, 1981, 176 pp. I always rued the fact that traditional fairy tales portray beautiful princesses who are passive and obedient, while clever strong women are usually wicked witches or jealous stepmothers. In an attempt to balance this, contemporary tales give women the role of heroine, shaping the stories around feminist values of our time, but these modern tales often lack that special magical quality that comes out of long-standing oral tradition. Hooray! Ethel Johnston Phelps has collected twenty-one traditional stories, primarily from the nineteenth century, representing a wide variety of ethnic cultures, to provide us with model heroines who are "resourceful girls or women” of independent spirit. These women "take action to solve a problem posed by the plot” rather than meekly accepting the dilemmas they face. In Phelps’ stories. Woman as heroine goes beyond stereotjqje; she is depicted through many images. In addition to the title story about a maid of the North country who is determined to marry whom she will, there is a young Irish mother bravely confronting the Fairy Queen to recover her stolen child; a clever peasant woman who outwits the devil himself to enhance her social status; an old Japanese woman who escapes from a tribe of ogres; a young troll woman who is able to incorporate into her own way of living a thing or two she learns from humans; and the beautiful and moving story of Lady Ragnell and the knight Gawain who solves a mysterious enchantment by his understanding of what it is that a woman desires above all else. Phelps’ rediscovered heroines contribute to our growing awareness of women as multifaceted beings rather than as the one-dimensional figures that oft’ told tales would have us believe. And the awareness of this reality can enable women to discover the heroine within herself. —JVC RAIN 2270 NW Irving, Portland, OR 97210 (503) 227-5110
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