The Mystery of Myths in an Equitable Society

The mythological hero, setting forth from his common day hut or castle, is lured, carried away, or else voluntarily proceeds, to the threshold of adventure. There he encounters a shadow presence that guards the passage. The hero may defeat or conciliate this power and go alive into the kingdom of the dark, or be slain by the opponent and descend into death. Beyond the threshold, then, the hero journeys through a world of unfamiliar yet strangely intimate forces, some of which severely threaten him, some of which give magical aid. When he arrives at the nadir of the mythological round, he undergoes a supreme ordeal and gains his reward. The triumph may be represented as the hero’s sexual union with the goddess mother of the world, his recognition by the father-creator, his own divination, or again--if the powers have remained unfriendly to him--his theft of the boon he came to gain; intrinsically it is an expansion of consciousness and therewith being. The final work is that of return. If the powers have blessed the hero, he now sets forth under their protection; if not, he flees and is pursued. At the return threshold the transcendental powers must be left behind; the hero re-emerges from the kingdom of the dread. The boon that he brings restores the world.

Joseph Campbell, 1949. The hero with a Thousand Faces, pp.245-6.

 

Campbell refers to this pattern as a "universal monomyth"

The Mystical Marriage with the queen goddess of the world represents the hero’s total mastery of life; for the woman is life, the hero its knower and master.

The Hero with a Thousand Faces, p 120.

Campbell’s language makes it very difficult to justify the claim as a "universal monomyth" when he excludes approximately half the human race. His generic use of the male pronoun may be excused on the grounds that when he wrote Hero with a Thousand Faces the generic used of "he" was widely accepted and went unquestioned and unnoticed. However the same cannot be said for the hero’s triumph A message that offers pliant and passive females as a reward for the success of a young male’s endeavors can hardly be said to offer an equitable role for both young men and women. Thus Campbell’s pattern cannot be regarded as either "universal" or "mono".

To offer criticism of Campbell's work is not to deny or in any way diminish the enormous contribution Campbell has made. However, Campbell. like us, was a child of his times. If we can perhaps see a little further than he was able to it is because we stand on his shoulders rather than his face. Campbell's hero's journey offers a metaphor for the lives of approximately half the human race. This is an unparalleled contribution. Campbell demonstrates that the pattern he developed is evident in stories from around the world. Thus we may grant his claim of universality. But to regard it as unitary is another matter. In the remainder of this paper I shall attempt to show that it is not a monomyth but a universal demi-myth. The hero does not represent us all, as some would have it ,but a young man with a sword venturing forth into a wider and perilous world. Young women in stories rarely wield swords and rarely venture forth voluntarily. They follow, as we shall see, quite a different but equitable pattern.

The Female Way Station

Where do females appear in the hero’s journey? The answer is that they to stand or rather, lie, in wait alongside the Hero’s way in order to participate in a sexual encounter that Campbell calls the Mystical Marriage.

One of the examples Campbell uses is the traditional Irish story, Prince of the Lonesome Isle. After much journeying and adventure he happens across the Lady of Tubber Tin Tye lying (waiting?) on a spinning couch. The Prince declares that here he will rest and does so, for six days and nights. How the Lady feels about all this is not worthy of mention. The Prince then moves on, leaving the Lady behind, to complete his quest.

So much for the ambitions of the Hero. But what of the aspirations and desires of the Lady? What of her life before the arrival of the Prince? What brought her to that place at that time? How is her life to continue after the passing of the Hero? We are not told because it is not important to know because this is the Hero’s story. But if we do indeed take Campbell at his word and accept this story as an example of a "universal monomyth" then the male’s story tells us all that there is; all that is important to know. The omission of approximately half the world’s population is not even recognized as a problem or raised as an issue.

If the Hero’s story offers a message to the young that Life demands a journey out into a hazardous world to face, fight and outwit titanic forces of destruction in the personage of a young man with a sword where then is the comparable message for young women. Like "he" must one male myth serve for both men and women? Is the Warrior Princess to serve as a role model for all young women?

A truly universal monomyth must be one that includes both sexes, which values both male and female for their differences and which treats both with equal respect.

 

The Magical Earth Maiden

In both traditional and modern literature there exists a female pattern which is complementary to the male pattern identified by Campbell. For reasons which will become obvious it is called the Magical Earth Maiden.

1. A young orphaned girl, on the brink of womanhood.

2 lives in a remote place of power.

3. The maiden does not usually travel; she may be carried off by an evil female.

4. The Maiden is possessed of a power but may not realize it.

5. The power may be symbolized by a token, ring, necklace, or jewel.

6. The Maiden’s power is transformative, healing, or creative connected to the earth.

7. She may be threatened by a powerful rival female who turns out to be a witch.(See #3)

8. She may have a wise mentor who teaches the arts of the earth and to use her attractive power prudently. The mentor is often her deceased mother.

9. The Maiden attracts a young male, often a prince or a person of power and prestige.

10. The Prince may already be on a quest, which may be the rescue of the Maiden; or he is set a quest by the Maiden.

11. The Prince needs help from the Maiden and she gives it.

12. The quest is completed successfully and the pair are united in a bond of friendship, facial love or marriage.

Below is an example of the story from classical Greece of Medea.

1. A young orphaned girl, on the brink of womanhood.

Medea is not orphaned but she is young.

2 lives in a remote place of power.

Medea lives in Colchis where the Golden Fleece is kept..

3. The maiden does not usually travel; she may be carried off by an evil

female.

Medea grows up in Colchis and does not travel until after she meets Jason.

4. The Maiden is possessed of a power but may not realize it.

Medea is a witch.

5. The power may be symbolized by a token, ring, necklace, jewel.

The power of Colchis is symbolized by the Golden Fleece.

6. The Maiden's power is transformative, healing, or creative connected to the earth.

Medea gives Jason the salve to protect him from the breath of the fire-breathing bulls.

7. She may be threatened by powerful rival female who may turn out to be a witch. (See #3)

Medea is threatened by the political power of her rival in love, the princess of Corinth.

8. She may have a wise mentor who teaches the arts of the earth and to use her attractive power prudently. The mentor is often her deceased mother.

Medea's mentor is Hecate, the goddess of the underearth.

9. The Maiden attracts a young male, often a prince or a person of power and prestige.

Jason falls in love with Medea.

10. The Prince may already be on a quest, which may be the rescue of the Maiden; or he is set a quest by the Maiden.

Jason is in quest of the Golden Fleece.

11. The Prince needs help from the Maiden and she gives it.

Medea helps Jason acquire the Fleece and escape from Colchis.

12. The quest is completed successfully and the pair are united in a bond of freindship, familial love, or marriage.

Jason and Medea are married in Thessaly and have two sons.

Analysis by Thomas J.Sienkewicz

 

Some two thousand years later an American writer decided to re-write a version of an old north of England folk tale. What follows is an example based on a marvelous adaptation by Jane Yolen(1989):

1. A young orphaned girl, on the brink of womanhood.

Dove Isabeau

2 lives in a remote place of power.

A castle in Craig’s Cove

3. The maiden does not usually travel; she may be carried off by an evil female.

Dove is banished to the rocks around the base of the castle.

4. The Maiden is possessed of a power but may not realize it.

She unknowingly has access to her last drop of innocent blood.

5. The power may be symbolized by a token, ring, necklace, jewel.

Not present.

6. The Maiden’s power is transformative, healing, or creative connected to the earth.

She turns Kemp Owain back from stone to life.

7. She may be threatened by powerful rival female who turns out to be a witch.(See #3)

Her stepmother is a witch.

8. She may have a wise mentor who teaches the arts of the earth and to use her attractive power prudently. The mentor is often her deceased mother.

The spirit of Dove’s dead mother guides through her cat.

9. The Maiden attracts a young male, often a prince or a person of power and prestige.

The king’s son , Kemp Owain, returns from afar.

10. The Prince may already be on a quest, which may be the rescue of the Maiden; or he is set a quest by the Maiden.

He comes to rid the castle of the monster and save Dove.

11. The Prince needs help from the Maiden and she gives it.

The spirit of Dove’s dead mother gives Kemp Owain advice.

12. The quest is completed successfully and the pair are united in a bond of freindship, famial love or marriage.

Dove and Kemp Owain are married.

 

This is the wonder and the magic of story and the human mind. Are we all connected by some kind of supermind as Carl Jung would have it or has the story traveled, changed in every aspect except its essence, through all the passages of space and time from ancient Greece to the USA of today? Either possibility strains credulity.

 

Searching for Examples: Help Wanted

My students and I, working at the University of Victoria have searched through retellings of folk stories for children and science-fiction stories and fantasy stories written by women in which the central character is a female. Our thinking was that if a metaphor intended for the benefit of young women on the brink of womanhood were to appear it would do so with a higher frequency in such sources. Our efforts continue to be richly rewarded. In the bibliography I list what we have found up to the time of writing.

Even with the help of eager undergraduate students the search is long and laborsome. If any interested reader knows of any stories that make use of somewhat more than half the features on the Magical Earth Maiden pattern would you please email me at the address at the end of the paper. In return I will send you a compilation of results. It would be of great help if you would show how the story fits the pattern as is shown in the two examples above. Be sure to include the bibliographical details of the source.

Zipes, Jack D.(1979) Breaking the magic spell: radical theories of folk and fairy tales. University of Texas Press.

please email your responses to: tjohnson@uvic.ca