Fairy Tale Flip Ep 8: Donkey Skin Artwork

Fabric of Folklore

Folktales can be strange, mystical, macabre and intriguing. Join us as we explore the stories, culture and people behind the folklore. We go beyond retelling the legends, myths and fairy tales of old. We look at the story behind the lore, behind the songs and traditions to understand more about what they mean, and their importance. These stories, many originating as oral histories, inform us of what it means to be human; what it means to be an integral part of this Earth. Stories of magic and wonder bind us. They connect us through invisible strands, like the gossamer fibers of a spiders web. Folktales have the power to demonstrate how, although we live in drastically different locals, our hearts and minds beat as one human race. We are weaving the fabrics of our past and present stories, to help us better understand ourselves and to awaken us to a more compassionate and caring world community. As we explore the meaning of existence through folklore we hope to inspire future generations to lead with love and understanding.

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Fairy Tale Flip Ep 8: Donkey Skin

June 27, 2024 • Fabric of Folklore

Have you ever heard of the classic fairy tale, Donkey Skin by Charles Perrault? In episode 8 of Fairy Tale Flip @donnaleefields and Vanessa Y Rogers dive deep into the context of this French fairy tale found in some versions Tales of Mother Goose and discuss the famous author Charles Perrault. We explore why he wrote the first books meant for children, as well as the origins of the tale and connections to older tales such as The Golden Ass, Oedipus, and the story of the princess St. Dymphna who is now the patron saint of mental health. We discuss themes of grief, beauty, incest, empowerment, nature and natural order and its similarities and differences to Cinderella. It is a fascinating discussion on a half-forgotten fairy tale that was once very well known. Don't miss this incredible episode!

Donkey Skin 1970 French Musical: https://archive.org/details/donkey-skin
The Full Story Here: https://youtu.be/HLU845NA0vk?si=xKAPnVGjpX1SHntl

Timeline:

📜 Synopsis of 'Donkey Skin' (01:40)
Discussion on the origins and publication history of the tale. (17:50)
Mention of the tale's themes, including: incest (41:30) and empowerment (5:30)
🧵 Themes and Analysis (05:10 - 19:57)
Discussion on the themes of grief (7:35) , empowerment, and natural order (13:50) in 'Donkey Skin'.
Comparison of the tale's themes with modern perspectives on grief and incest.
Analysis of the symbolic elements in the story, such as the dresses (14:00) and the donkey (15:30).
📚 Charles Perrault and His Works (19:58 - 28:27)
Background on Charles Perrault (19:55) and his contributions to fairy tales (29:14).
Comparison between Perrault's approach and that of the Grimm Brothers (20:00).
Discussion on the moralistic nature of Perrault's tales (21:00).
👑 Symbolism and Modern Connections (28:28 - 38:30)
Discussion on the symbolism of beauty and physical appearance in 'Donkey Skin'. (31:45)
Analysis of the impact of modern beauty standards and plastic surgery on teenagers. (33:45)
Comparison of 'Donkey Skin' with other fairy tales like Cinderella. (47:45)
🔍 Historical and Cultural Context (38:31 - 48:59)
Discussion on the historical context of incest in royalty and mythology.
Mention of the story of Saint Dymphna and its similarities to 'Donkey Skin'. (44:45)
Analysis of the cultural differences in the perception of incest.
🎥 Media Adaptations and Audience Engagement (49:00 - 58:16)
The French musical adaptation of 'Donkey Skin'. (26:20)

Vanessa Rogers: 0:06

Welcome. Welcome, everyone, to fairy Tale Flip, episode eight. I'm Vanessa Y. Rogers of what is my podcast called? Why can I not? All of a sudden, I just went blank.

Donna: 0:20

Fabric of folklore.

Vanessa Rogers: 0:23

Oh, my goodness.

Donna: 0:25

So just so everybody knows, Vanessa has a lot going on at her house. She is a plumber there. She has kids who are hopefully still asleep. We're hoping to do this before her children wake up. And her children have so much personality. We will know when they open their first eye. So. And I just moved to Mexico, so I have a lot going on as well, because who knows when some workers are going to come by and ask me for a key to something, and, you know, who knows if I'll find the key? So we are with you. This is going to be really fun talk, but. All right, Vanessa, go.

Vanessa Rogers: 0:58

Okay. All right. This fabric of folklore, that's my podcast name. I don't know how. I just, you know, you just get brain fart sometimes and your brain just stops firing. And then once you get in that stuck section, you just can't get out of it. Okay. Welcome, everyone. Welcome, folksy folks. This is a really exciting episode. We're going to be talking about donkey skin. And don't worry if you've never heard of this fairy tale, because Donna is going to give us a synopsis of this story, and it's not found in many recent publications. It was originally published in the 16 hundreds, the late 16 hundreds by Charles Perrault. Perrault. It's a french name, so there's lots more letters than are pronounced. And so why don't you give us the synopsis and then we can talk a little bit about why it's no longer republished.

Donna: 2:00

Okay. I didn't know it was not republished. It's so sad because I use this as part of my doctorate, and I love this fairy tale, although not as much as I remembered. So that's going to be part of our discussion. All right, quick summary. And you can find Vanessa reading this on her YouTube channel, Fabrica folklore. Right, Vanessa? YouTube channel.

Vanessa Rogers: 2:19

That's right.

Donna: 2:21

Okay. But a quick summary is it's about a kingdom who has a donkey that's the source of all his wealth, and jewels actually come out of this donkeY's body. And where they come out is one of the topics of conversation that Vanessa's really happy to explain. It poops out jewels, which is something very symbolic. So we'll get there. But he promises his dying queen, and actually his queen insists on this promise that he will only marry a woman as beautiful and virtuous as she is, he comes to the conclusion that the only person who fits this description is his own daughter, the princess. Now, the princess. To get out of this incestuous marriage, she demands help by her fairy godmother, a series of seemingly impossible nuptial gifts in the hopes that her father will be forced to give up his plans of marrying her. However, the king miraculously comes through with each demand his daughter gives him, which is essentially making four dresses each of the color of. One is the color of the sun, one is the color of the moon, the color of the sky, and the color of the stars. And he makes them absolutely beautifully. But out of desperation, the fairy godmother tells her, ask him for the skin of his precious donkey, thinking that he would never kill this donkey just to marry his daughter. And he does so. That's where the name comes from. Donkey skin. The princess then escapes the kingdom. She goes to a neighboring kingdom, becomes the pig herd, or she works in the kitchen, whichever version you're thinking about. And eventually, she takes the dresses with her, and she tries them on periodically. And the prince sees her with the dresses on and falls in love with her. After a series of events, he. He identifies who she is, he discovers that she's a princess, and he marries her. The king apologizes, comes to the wedding, and everyone lives happily ever after. So that is the story. Did I leave anything out that you think I really significant, Vanessa?

Vanessa Rogers: 4:39

No, I'd only hired the version with three dresses and then the donkey skin, not the fourth, not the one of stars, but I think those are all the main points. There are some sanitized versions that we will talk a little bit about. But I want to know what drew you to the story to begin with, because you said you used it as a teaching tool, and I would love to hear the. What you found so fascinating about it as a teacher.

Donna: 5:09

Yeah, I think that it's pretty much the same as your initial reaction, that it's not the story of this weak princess. It's the story of a princess who at first feels unempowered and then realizes that she can take her destiny into her own hands and flees the kingdom instead of just going by inertia into this marriage with sheep feels is wrong. And whether incestuous marriages are wrong or not, we need to really talk about. She's not comfortable with it. And so I felt it was a story of empowerment of the woman, the empowerment of a princess, and a fairy story in a fairy tale. I have a lot more thoughts about that now. That we'll go into. What do you think about it? What drew you to this story?

Vanessa Rogers: 5:57

You know, now that we're thinking, now we're talking about this in the beginning, I would like to say that the family is portrayed as, like, the best and most happy family that there is imaginable. Everyone is so happy. The daughter is virtuous, the queen is beautiful, the king is so happy. And there's quite a bit of description about how happy this little threesome family is to start with. And then it kind of unravels quite quickly. I, you know, when the queen dies, my first thought is, this is a horrible request that she's making of the king. And it is actually stated in the story that she makes this seemingly impossible request in hopes that he doesn't remarry, which in my, you know, I have the mindset of a modern person, so I have to understand that's where my mindset is from. But I would like my husband to know that if I were to pass away, I would love for him to find happiness with another person and not always, you know, have to suffer and mourn me. Of course. I want to be remembered. Right. And this is hypothetical. Hopefully I'm not dying, but, yeah. So I. Anyway, so that first struck me. I didn't like that about the queen. And then secondly, that someone is so stricken with grief that they go mad. And I think that, you know, a lot of times, even today, even with our understanding of how people grieve and how people, there's lots of stages of grief and how waves of grief can come on even years past after a loved one has passed, even with our understanding today, there are still some people who just want others to move past it. They just want to move on with your life and no longer have to. To worry about other people's sadness and grief. And so I really think I appreciated this part, that he was really stricken with grief to an extreme extent. And I wonder what people's thoughts were during this time period of grief and if they had this mindset of, you just need to move on, or if it was normal to have a long grieving period. Do you have any idea about that?

Donna: 8:48

No, I don't. And it's really interesting, but you definitely brought up something that I didn't include in the summary. And then the summary of the fairy tale. It does say the king was so bereaved that of the loss of his wife that he went crazy. That's what this fairy tales. That's what the fairy tale says. Whether he actually went crazy or he really just desired his own daughter. We have to wonder. Grief is a really interesting thing. It's really important to feel the grief and to, but to move through it. And with the king, someone in power, unfortunately, usually this person, these people can do whatever they want because they're supported by people who are not going to necessarily go against them. So, yes, grief is a really touchy, a touchy subject. I would say, though, let's go back to the queen, though, because if we want to put this in context of the fairy tale, the queen turns out to because of her insistence that he marry only someone as beautiful and virtuous as she is. And you're saying your take on it, which I really value, is that she knew he wasn't going to find anyone as beautiful as virtuous. She wasn't thinking of her daughter necessarily. So she turns into the evil, quote, unquote, the evil character in the story where usually it's not the biological mother. However, on the other hand, usually in fairy tales, the biological mother does die in the first few lines of the story, and that's indeed what happens in this one. So we have the mother who is now gone, the father has a lot of power, the king, and is not mitigated by anything his wife, the queen might do. So all of a sudden, he can do whatever he wants. And what he wants is, what I would say is unnatural, although I'm really holding that lightly. Do we think, Vanessa, that incest, a marriage between the father and daughter, is unnatural? What do we think?

Vanessa Rogers: 10:36

Oh, yes. I mean, once again, coming from a modern mindset, but also biologically, I think that it doesn't make sense because, you know, when genes are too close together, it produces errors that are, you know, have distortions. Right. A lot of times. Right. And so I think scientifically as well. Right. But I do know that there are cases that a lot of times if people are separated, like the most when brothers and sisters are separated and then they come back together, that those are when incest usually are happen the most frequently because they're not raised together as siblings, but they come together later on in adult life and they are so similar. So they're drawn to one another because not only do they probably have similar features to one another, but they also probably share similar traits and personalities. And so that makes you feel linked to that person, and then it turns into something romantic in a way that we see as unnatural. What is your, what is your take?

Donna: 11:56

Yeah. And, and what I think you might have left out. And I think you mean to say is that they didn't realize they were brother and sister when they met each other's adults, is that right?

Vanessa Rogers: 12:04

Yes, most of the time, yes.

Donna: 12:05

Okay.

Vanessa Rogers: 12:06

And I think those are the recorded historical cases of when brothers and sisters end up coming together and marrying.

Donna: 12:13

Although historically also we know that in royalty, very often brothers and sisters married to keep the money and the power in the family. And first cousins married. And indeed, in the time that Perrault was writing this fairy tale, the king was married to his first cousin, who was the spanish queen. And so it was done. It was the norm. Although, again, as you saying, it's not necessarily, we can't say it's unnatural because it can happen. Biologically it can happen, but it's just not. It's not a safe way to move on genetically. But what I do say is that because sisters and brothers might be attracted to each other, or sisters and brothers and brothers, whatever we might, you know, whatever gender you're interested in, because we usually fall in, we want to fall in love with ourselves. We want to fall in love with our best selves. And so because brothers and sisters are so similar, we see in them what either we see we love in ourselves, or we want to love in ourselves and want to see in ourselves. That in that respect, is really interesting. So what I would say with that is the godmother is pretty brilliant, because what she asks the princess to do, she asks the princess to ask her father for dresses that represent the four elements of the earth, the sun, the moon, the stars and the sky. In other words, put nature back where it needs to be. Go back to the order of nature. Remind him what the natural existence on earth is.

Vanessa Rogers: 13:49

And that is.

Donna: 13:55

I just got that. When you send me some notes I was thinking about, I thought, yeah, she's trying hard to remind the king of what the natural order is. He doesn't get it. And he doesn't get it so much that he even kills his treasured pet, the donkey, to marry his daughter. So what are your thoughts on that? The dress is.

Vanessa Rogers: 14:13

Yeah, no, I hadn't really even thought of that idea. But I like that she's trying to remind him that there is a natural order and marrying your daughter is unacceptable. Now, there are sanitized versions, as I was saying before, that are published mostly for american audiences and sensibilities, in that the daughter is adopted rather than biological. So it makes less icky. Right.

Donna: 14:45

It takes the whole fun out of it. Takes all the fun out of it.

Vanessa Rogers: 14:49

And the other sanitized version, in the american versions, is that the donkey doesn't poop gold. It has gold coming from its ears, which seems. Seems less icky as well.

Donna: 15:07

Yeah, I love these notes. Vanessa sends me these notes, and usually they're very elaborated. In this one, it said, donkey poops gold. Thoughts? Question mark. And I thought, I'm not going to even touch that one, literally or metaphorically. And then, luckily, I had some more time to think about it. And here's what I came up with, Vanessa, and you tell me this makes sense, because then I went and I actually looked up donkeys because I thought, there's got to be some symbolism for donkeys. Hold on. Now I have to find these because it was so good. Shoot. I have 16 mentions of donkeys in my notes. Okay, here we are. So donkeys were portrayed in biblical works as symbols of service, suffering, peace, and humility. And actually, I mean, I'm not really someone who studied the Bible a lot, but I'm fascinated by the story. And Jesus actually went to Jerusalem on a donkey. So those of you who know the Bible really well will know that now. Why? There are a lot of different interpretations of why Jesus went to Jerusalem on a donkey. And there's a reason why the whole, I'm going to get back to the poop and the donkey. Historically, when a king rides war horse into war, but comes back riding on a donkey in peace, so the donkey has a lot of symbolisms. But then I decided to go deeper. How much, apparently, people actually measure how much a donkey poops a day. A donkey will poop 15 to 30 pounds of poop a day. This is actually very. Yeah, yeah. It's a lot of poop. It's a lot of manure. Lots of manure. But farmers love this. This is why they have donkeys, because it enriches the soil. So it's very valuable. Manure, Perot, like in many fairy tales, something will seem like, you know, a little duende or a little fairy who helps with the kitchen. That's what, you know, the women would most want to wake up in the morning and all the bread be made and all the dishes washed and all the house cleaned. So Perrault took the donkey's manure, which was so valuable to the farmers, and said, you know what? Straight away, it's golden. It's going to be the wealth of the kingdom. So that's what I came up with, Vanessa.

Vanessa Rogers: 17:29

And the donkey also has, like, a luxury stable. I don't remember the exact. But it's supposed to, like, have this, like, this beautiful place to sleep and stay, and it's very luxurious. So I thought that was also funny, considering that the donkey is usually, like, scorned upon. Like, it's. It's not treated necessarily very well by many masters. And in fact, it is thought that Charles Perot used the golden ass, which is a story from greek mythology, as its origins, to tell this story. Did you read about that?

Donna: 18:09

I didn't. Keep going with that one. That's interesting.

Vanessa Rogers: 18:12

Yeah. So let me see if I can find my notes about the golden acid, because I had never read this story before, and I thought it was interesting. Okay. So the roman author Apuleius shows his readers their everyday life from the perspective of a donkey. And the golden donkey is a funny satire and a realistic picture of the ancient mediterranean world. And basically, the main character at some point, starts interacting with a witch, and he somehow, when attempting a charm, he accidentally transforms himself into a donkey. He basically starts enduring the cruelty of humanity. And people are cruel to him, they're brutal to him. He suffers famine and cold and pain, and he witnesses much evil, little good, and remains more human in his donkey form than many of his owners do while in their treatment of him. So this. The donkey skin is thought to be one of the originating stories from where Charles Perot got his. Got this story from one of. One of the stories. And I thought that was really interesting. And so the donkey in that day had definitely this image of a creature that is not well treated and not well thought of. And so. Yeah.

Donna: 19:49

And yet what comes out of them can be considered gold. So it's ironic. It's. I think it's our underestimating a being on the earth.

Vanessa Rogers: 19:57

Yes. So since I did mention Charles and how he wrote this story, and I would like to go back to him a little bit, because we've talked a lot about the Grimm brothers and how they intentionally collected folk tales to put into their stories, and they were doing it in such a scientific manner, and they were probably considered one of the first folklorists, whereas Charles, he actually had kind of a similar purpose, but he was not doing it in a scientific way. So a lot of his stories are based on folk tales or ancient tales, but they aren't attempting to retain their exactness. He's not attempting to replicate the exact stories. So that's a drastic difference between the Grimm brothers fairy tales and Charles Perot's tales. And, in fact, some of his tales are just made up. They believe like, some of his tales are just from his own imagination, not based in any other folk tales.

Donna: 21:21

Yeah, and another note that I saw that you found was that he felt very strongly that his fairy tales are different from others because he intentionally includes morality in them. There's always a moral. And while I agree with that, I don't agree with the part that other fairy tales don't have morals. I think that the reason fairy tales are so long lasting and so attractive, not only to children but to adults, is because they are imbibed with morality and we intuit all the messages without having to read at the end. This is what you shouldn't do, you know, it's not okay to marry your daughter or something like that.

Vanessa Rogers: 22:02

Well, and I think it's stated that way, though, because I believe at the end of a lot of his stories, he actually has written out a moral similar to, like, Aesop fables. Right? The Aesop fables are short little stories, but almost all Aesop fables have, like, a stated moral. So that, in case you didn't get the message, here is the message that I am trying to pass on to you. Whereas, like a lot of the times when we read fairy tales, we interpreted based off of the reading what we believe the moral is to be. But I believe a lot of the morals are actually physically stated in his stories, which is why I think he's considered moralistic.

Donna: 22:50

Right. And that's exactly what I think. That is not necessarily. It's not necessary, although for some people it is necessary. I just feel like that we need to learn to think critically and intuit these meanings. It's the same thing as I'm going to. I'm going to do a little bit of a tangent here. I don't know if you've seen the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice, for instance. Have you seen the four or five part series of the BBC version?

Vanessa Rogers: 23:12

Oh, it's the mini series.

Donna: 23:14

Okay.

Vanessa Rogers: 23:16

I don't think I've seen the miniseries.

Donna: 23:19

Okay, you've got to, Vanessa. You've got to. It's golden. When I was in my thirties, I was supposed to be watching my four and five year old niece and nephew. And instead of doing things they liked, I made them watch the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice. They still talk about it. They still tell me that, well, they were actually really happy. Anyway, the whole point is that in the BBC version, they retain the original intention of Jane Austen and that someone looked at each other with enough meaning so that you could intuit what they were thinking without them. Having to say it. In the newest versions of Pride and Prejudice, they actually say, I don't believe what you're saying to me. I believe that you're lying. Instead of just looking. They verbalize everything for the people that are not able to intuit. And it's the same. It's similar to what Perot's doing. Instead of believing that his audience is going to understand through the story what the moral is, he states it at the end. If you need that. Wonderful. I liked that there to be a little bit of question, a little bit of room for different interpretations.

Vanessa Rogers: 24:24

That's me. Yeah. Well, I did want to read the. What is said at the end of his moral, because when I read it, I didn't get what the moral was. So once again, he's a french author, so this is translated to English, and it was translated many times. So, you know, sometimes there's, you know, things lost in translation, so there's that. And this is one of his only stories that is written in verse, whereas most of his stories are written in prose. This story is written in verse. So I'm not sure why he chose to do that, but he's good at writing in verse. Okay, so the moral, it is scarce may believed this tale of donkey skin but laughing children in the home yea, mothers and grandmothers too are little moved by facts by them twill be received.

Donna: 25:28

Can you read that one more time, please?

Vanessa Rogers: 25:30

Okay. It is scarce may believed this tale of donkey skin but laughing children in the home yea, mothers and grandmothers too are little moved by facts by them twill be received I don't know.

Donna: 25:50

Yeah.

Vanessa Rogers: 25:50

This is. This is the interpretation. It is better to be. To suffer great hardships than to do the wrong thing. And virtue is always rewarded in the end.

Donna: 25:59

And that is evidently that part I did understand.

Vanessa Rogers: 26:01

That part that I understand. Right. Yes. But the. The actual translated version, I. I don't know. I don't know what that is actually trying to say.

Donna: 26:11

Right. And as you say, it was written originally in French. Who knows about that? Interesting translation into English, but the interpretation works. Don't know how they got it out of that.

Vanessa Rogers: 26:21

Yeah.

Donna: 26:22

So the idea is that, and especially, I mean, the Catherine de nerve musical that were talking about in the very beginning, the musical of the french version of this story, it's hysterical because the fairy godmother is the end. Marries the king. The fairy godmother marries the king. That doesn't happen in the written version. But she says to. Yeah.

Vanessa Rogers: 26:46

Oh, she does?

Donna: 26:47

I don't know. To get her away from the princess. Who knows? But she does say to the princess, at some time, you, I know that this is going to be difficult for you, but you need to flee the kingdom, and you need to become a poor kitchen worker, because that's the right thing to do, to suffer doing the right thing to running from incest, than to stay and do the easy thing and marry your father. So.

Vanessa Rogers: 27:15

Okay. I think we might have been discussing that out.

Donna: 27:17

We don't necessarily need the end. Right, sorry, go ahead.

Vanessa Rogers: 27:21

I think were discussing that before we started recording, so maybe, I don't know that our audiences know what we're talking about. Donkey skin was recreated into a musical movie. Was it. Was it made to be a movie, or was it made to be on stage, do you know? Because it seems.

Donna: 27:39

Great question. Very. But I don't think that they thought it was over the top. I think that they were doing it seriously.

Vanessa Rogers: 27:47

Well, it was a satire. I believe it was supposed to be a satire, and it was. It was in the 1970s. And if we're gonna. We're going to add a link to this movie. You can find it. You can find it in the Internet archives. And the costuming is marvelous. It is, like, so giant and over the top, and it's almost like an opera form because almost everything is sung. Is that right?

Donna: 28:12

Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

Vanessa Rogers: 28:15

And it's just. It's so funny. I think it's meant to be funny, and I think that most people are familiar with donkey skin, that are familiar with it through this satire, because it kind of made. It. Brought it into prominence.

Donna: 28:29

Oh, that's so scary. That's so scary. I'm so sad to hear that.

Vanessa Rogers: 28:36

Okay, so. Oh, I did want to mention. So we did talk about Charles Ferreu in that he. So he was actually a lawyer. He was not a. He didn't actually start publishing anything until after he retired. And it is said that he wrote these stories. He published them in a book, and I would say the french version, but everyone's gonna laugh at my pronunciation because it's terrible. So it's just the english translation is the tales of Mother Goose. And the other stories that you might recognize are Little Red Riding Hood, the sleeping beauty, puss in boots, and Bluebeard are some of the ones that you might recognize from those books. Some of those are half forgotten folk tales. But one of the interesting things that I came across is that he really liked folktales. But the aristocracy of the Louis XIV court did not. So they, during this time period, in France, it was very common for them to have what is called salons, where they would have gatherings and people would tell stories. But a lot of their stories were based in fantasy, which is absolutely nothing wrong with fantasy. I love fantasy. But they, the aristocracy, really looked down their nose on what was considered peasant stories. So the folk tales, the stories of the common folk. Yeah, the foolish people, they didn't. So there was not an intermixing between with the folktales and the wealthy class of the French. And so it is thought that Charles really wanted to change that, and so he wanted these stories to be respected, and so he put them in written literary format that the French could actually respect because they respected written literature. And another note that I found really interesting was that these books were written for children, which was not done. I believe this was one of the very first books written, intended to be read for children, not to be read for adults. And so he is thought to almost be the father of children's literature in some circles. And then after he published these books, these tales, then it started to become more popular to write children's literature. But before that, it had never been done or was not popular to do. So I thought that was really interesting.

Donna: 31:23

Yeah, I love that. I think, to a certain extent, he really was making fun of the aristocracy, and as the peasants did, it was a safe way to do it, as we've talked about often in fairy tales, a safe way to mock the people with more money seem to have control over. So, Vanessa, if it's okay with you, I know that you have other points, but I'd love to go back to the reason why I was mentioning in the beginning that I loved this story so much when I was hit in my thesis. And then I was reading it again and thinking, the whole basis for the story is about beauty, is about your physical appearance. The queen, she did add virtue. Although in some versions, it was really just about beauty. Only marry someone who's as beautiful as I am. So the king is looking for beauty. He's not necessarily looking for someone he can get along with very well. The godmother directs him to make. Directs. The princess asks the king to make something, you know, beautiful dresses. Again, something beautiful. On the physical plane, however, they are imbued with the four natural elements, the stars, the moon, the sky and the sun. So, on the one hand, the king is out of control, and, as you're saying, probably mad. Although, who knows if he really was mad or just was really desirous of his daughter based on her beauty. She puts on the donkey skin, which is supposed to hide her beauty. Again, hiding her physical appearance. She goes to the neighbor, King Jing. They don't see her beauty. However, in the musical, it's much more obvious that she knows the prince is watching her trying the dresses. In the story, it's a little less obvious whether she knows it. She's trying on dresses and can see, and she turns into the beautiful princess again. She does her hair, and she feels beautiful. It's about physical appearance. And in trying on the dresses, I'll just go quickly back onto the aspect of the elements of earth. She's trying on the four elements. So in other words, the prince sees her putting nature back in order. And so by him falling in love with her and deciding to marry her, nature is now in order. She's not marrying her father. She's marrying someone from a completely different tribe, completely different genetics. So there is that. But there's a lot of emphasis on looks. And so I wanted to mention that because then I was thinking, so who cares? It's very obvious. In fairy tales, people are focused on looks. And so I told you what my mind jumped to was, in the modern world, plastic surgery, how are affecting us in how teenagers see themselves. And the fact is, Vanessa, I was doing some research on how many teenagers are getting plastic surgery, and the numbers are horrifying. They really are horrifying. We know, especially, and I thought this was interesting, especially since the pandemia, when people are online and seeing themselves, and all of a sudden, all your wrinkles are very obvious, and you didn't think they were before because you weren't looking at yourself all the time. People, facial plastic surgery just exploded. But with teenagers, it exploded as well. And that's really disturbing that teenagers who are just beginning to know themselves are putting such emphasis on their physical appearance. So it's not just the nose, which we're used to, and it's not. And then there's breast augmentations. There's breast reductions. There are cheek amplants, both cheeks, you know, now, yeah. There are so many different types of liposuction for teenagers. And so what my impression was, what responsibility do we have in these fairy tales to help the listeners get the message of the stories and still learn to appreciate themselves?

Vanessa Rogers: 35:17

Yeah. Recognize that looks is not everything and.

Donna: 35:23

Still get some of the message of these fairy tales. So I don't want to ask you a question you haven't thought about, because I did have time to think about that. But do you have any first opinions?

Vanessa Rogers: 35:35

Well, I mean, you know, it's hard because in so many fairy tales, the prince and the princess fall in love with each other within seconds based entirely upon looks. And, you know, looks can tell us some things about a person, you know, especially their nonverbals, like how they're groomed, for instance. How well they're groomed, how they hold themselves, for instance.

Donna: 36:00

Yes, very good. Very good.

Vanessa Rogers: 36:02

Those are all cues to another person that aren't necessarily entirely based upon your looks. But, you know, there are a lot of studies that show that people who are better looking are treated better. Right. If you have a more symmetrical face, you're more likely to get a job, to be. To have someone stop on the side of the road and help you with your cardinal. If you're a female and you're wanting to be helped, all of those are. And a lot of times, it's subconscious because we're biologically.

Donna: 36:36

Oh, yeah, it's subconscious. Yeah.

Vanessa Rogers: 36:39

A lot of it is. You know, we're biologically looking for certain features to pass on our genes because we are animals at our basest levels. So looks are important to us in our subconscious. So it's hard to get past that. Now, the messaging, though, that we want to give to our children is that, yes, looks, we want you to look good in your daily life, but that is not the most important thing. Right. The most important thing should be your character. But this story does really show her character. Right? Because she could, like you said, she could just bow to her father's obedience and decide to marry him. But she went against the grain, right. And she ran away, and she took her own life into her own hands. And so her character in this story seems to shine, in my opinion.

Donna: 37:42

Yeah, I love your conviction. I love your conviction. I am not. I don't completely agree with that, but what I do agree with is the fact that you believe it. And so it makes me want to believe it as well. And to strengthen your argument, she chooses the prince. And she chooses the prince by a note that you put in your comments, that she put her ring into the piece of bread, into the loaf of bread that she made for the prince that he then ate. And this is a common theme in fairy tales, a ring and putting it in bread. And even today, it often happens that you put little gifts, little details in pastry or bread. And so then I went to look up the ring, and I believe, again, I've told you this before. I mentioned this on this podcast before, that I'm not religious, but I'm very. I have deep faith and very spiritual. And in my spiritual practices, what most of the people who I agree with believe is that it's not necessarily the looks that attract, although, you know, our eyes do see, but it's a magnet. It's like this magnetic pull. And so we could say in fairy tales that the prince and princess have this magnetic pole. And what brings them together, aside from. We could tell our listeners that instead of just the looks and the ring, in fact, is a circle, it's a circle of infinity, and it's showing. And the ring often symbolizes this union, a spiritual union between the prince and princess. Have you done any research on the ring?

Vanessa Rogers: 39:14

No. No. The only thing I found was that it's still commonplace to, when you're proposing to an individual to place a ring as a surprise in the food, like in the champagne or in the cake when you're doing a proposal. So that is still today in modern times, a common gesture.

Donna: 39:36

Well, that's really interesting. And I'm going to. Here's a ploy to include greek myths in our podcast one day because I keep suggesting it not very. Not very subtly. And the ring has. I know, but it's okay. I'm not bothered. The ring comes out in greek mythology, where one of the greek gods, Polycratus, had a ring that he threw into the sea and he made a fisherman take out for him. And the ring for him represented the wealth of his kingdom, which also is tied to Solomon. Later in the biblical studies, they both threw their rings into the sea that represented the wealth and security of their whole kingdoms. A fisherman and both stories fished it out for them, and their kingdoms were saved. But the idea is that the rings have a long history and a lot of symbolism. And in this one, I believe that the princess chose the prince. And so, as you're saying, she was much more. She was much more empowered. She empowered herself to choose her destiny instead of letting her father choose it for her.

Vanessa Rogers: 40:49

Yeah. And it's interesting that you think, you know, we have ringsdore in wedding ceremonies and for engagements, and I don't feel like I even thought about the symbolic, the symbology of what a ring represents, but it is that infinity, that consistency, we will be together forever. And so I like that you did that research on the ring, because that is very interesting.

Donna: 41:17

Yeah. I think it's going to come up again, because one day we're going to talk about greek mythology, right?

Vanessa Rogers: 41:21

Yes. Yes. Maybe when the summer is over, we'll give several greek myths as options instead of a fairy tale. And we can discuss those because a lot of them are origins to fairy tales. Right. That is, a lot of fairy tales are based in greek mythology. So I think that would definitely flow in our fairy tale flip episodes. When you mentioned greek mythology, greek, the most famous incestuous story is found in greek mythology, Oedipus. Do we want to talk about that at all?

Donna: 42:01

I would say I would love to talk about that, but not today, because that is a huge rabbit hole to go down and a really magical rabbit hole. I love Oedipus, and I actually taught that one year in my high school classes. So let's do greek mythology and include Oedipus in that. Okay?

Vanessa Rogers: 42:21

Yes, for sure. But this, for those who, when we're thinking about, you know, ancestry stories, that is a very common one in greek mythology. So in our current day modern fairy tales, incest is not something we talk about or we really, in terms of are fairy tales. Right. We don't really. It's not something we want to share with our children. But it was included in a lot of tales back. Back in the day, in part because it was not as frowned upon. Right. Like were talking about.

Donna: 42:57

And actually, look, in egyptian mythology, Isis and Osiris were brother and sister, and it was just. It was part of life. And though you're saying that it's better not to talk about with our children, luckily, I don't have children, so I don't have to make that decision, because I probably would. I don't think that there's anything we should hide from them, necessarily. But a lot of times when we hear a brother and sister are living together because they never got married, what I've understood is that they often are lovers as well. So it does happen. They may not have children, but they do live a very secluded physical relationship behind doors. Is that a problem? Again, if the unnatural part is the genetics, having children and they don't have children, then is that wrong? I think wherever there is love, then it heals whatever wounds there are everywhere else.

Vanessa Rogers: 43:55

Yeah, it's a tricky thing. Tricky line, isn't it? That one's a hard one, because then you're really getting to ethics and morality and what is ethical and what's moral, and that one's hard, and it's.

Donna: 44:13

And it's filtered through our culture. So we just need. I think it's really important to be as open minded as we possibly can and not be judgmental because judgment separates us. And so without going too far, you know, into this, I think that we need to weigh the incestuous part a little more lightly. What? The important part of it here is that the princess at first felt disempowered and then became empowered, and so she got out of a relationship. She did not want to marry her father. She did not want to marry that man, and she didn't in the end.

Vanessa Rogers: 44:47

Now, in one of the notes that I sent you, I sent a note about a. A priest. No, a saint. A catholic saint of the insane. What was her name? Saint Dianthna. Are you familiar with who she is?

Donna: 45:08

I didn't read that one carefully, no. What do you know about her? You have a lot of notes about her.

Vanessa Rogers: 45:13

Okay, this is really interesting because this is supposedly historical. And so she lived in Ireland sometime after the time of Saint Patrick. Her mother was Christian. Her father was a pagan king, and they married, but her mother dies when she's 15. And the counselors advised the king to marry his daughter. And I guess pagan sensibilities were different than christian sensibilities in terms of marriage. And so he pursues his daughter, and his daughter does not want to marry him. And so she runs away, and she is protected by a priest. Saint Gerberine protects her, and they flee to Belgium, and they go to a small town in Belgium, and with money that she's stolen from the king, her father, she builds a place for the sick and poor, and her father ends up tracking her there, and he beheads her because she still refuses to marry him. And then I'm a little fuzzy on this part, but there are several mentally ill people come to the hospice that she has created to help with the sick, and a miracle happens. And she wakes up the next morning reheaded. So she wakes up.

Donna: 46:41

And so we just have to think about what really mentally ill means. It could just mean people who are much more connected to the spiritual world.

Vanessa Rogers: 46:50

Well, and they. They describe them as lunatics or insane. I use the term mentally ill because that is our terminology, but yes. And so she's actually the patron saint of the insane. So. But yes. Right. A lot of times, mentally illness was just entirely misunderstood.

Donna: 47:10

Right.

Vanessa Rogers: 47:11

Because people with epilepsy were often thought to be possessed by demons. Right. There are a lot of illnesses that presented in these different ways that were misinterpreted to represent what we now know is just, you know, different illnesses or misfiring in the brain they believed had different significances, but yeah. Or just hearing the really interesting part of the story that I really like. So they built this church in the 13 hundreds in her honor, and the town begins to because of this hospital that she's created, and it becomes famous for helping mentally ill people. The townspeople starts accepting these mentally ill people into their homes, and it is still a tradition today. So there's a tradition of town people opening their homes to the mentally ill. The border population, the people who are patients, they're called borders, live with the townspeople in their homes. It peaked in 1938 when the number reached 3736 borders in the town. So that was patients living in people's homes. About 1600 remained by the late 1970s, and today there's about 500 borders, and the total population of the town of Yale is 35,000, so it's a much smaller number. But the tradition has continued based on this. This saint story that is incredibly similar to donkey skin. So you have to wonder how much of that came. You know, this story was fed from this patron saint because the French in the 16 hundreds were Catholic.

Donna: 49:17

Yeah, that's really interesting. You know, maybe either Perot knew about the story or intuited. You know, things repeat. Stories repeat dynamics and paradigms repeat. So this is just a story that rings true to us because it's happened in the world. This isn't so fascinating. Vanessa. Sorry, go ahead.

Vanessa Rogers: 49:38

One thing we haven't mentioned, and I want to get your opinion about this, because the first thing that came to mind when I read this story that I don't think I remember to mention, was that it is very similar to Cinderella. And we haven't even touched on that because, right? When the king, when the prince is grievously feverish with love sickness and nothing can satisfy him except for the love of the woman he saw, but he can't identify because no one thinks that donkey skin is the woman that he saw, right? And when he finds this ring, he insists that his mother find the woman in this land that this ring fits on, somehow this ring doesn't fit on anybody's finger at all in this town, in this village, and they try in Cinderella, right? Somehow the shoe does not fit anyone in the ring. Doesn't fit anyone. In some versions, women cut off their fingers, right? And it goes.

Donna: 50:44

It goes back to the whole idea of smallness. Thinness is supposed to be more desirable. And we had, what is it, a thousand years in China of women thinking that if their feet were teeny, that they were worth more. So it's a very scary trend to keep up. Yeah. Her finger was very thin, and so the ring fit. And Cinderella, her feet were small enough, so the slipper fit. I know I did do some reading about the similarity between donkey skin and Cinderella. But I have to say that Cinderella really found the prince by inertia. The godmother did most of it, whereas in donkey skin, the godmother helped her. But it was really the princess who did most of the work.

Vanessa Rogers: 51:28

When you taught the class with your students, did they make the connection between Cinderella and donkey skin? Was that something that they latched onto?

Donna: 51:38

Yeah. I probably was so opinionated at that point that I wouldn't even entertain. I probably didn't even entertain the similarity. I wasn't as understanding. I had one student who said to me once, you know, Nana, when you don't agree with us, you really just ignore our opinions. And I thought, oh, I really need to do a little bit of reflection now.

Vanessa Rogers: 52:01

Yeah, well, that was my first thought. My first thought was, this is a Cinderella story. It's just a different take on it. So that's interesting that you didn't really, you didn't see that. I mean, in your perspective, that wasn't something that you saw.

Donna: 52:18

No. I really thought that this princess has a lot more backbone than Cinderella did. Cinderella was all about beauty and all about following what anyone told her to do. And in this case, the princess felt that it was not the right thing, and she was proactive. As much as I don't like the whole stress on beauty and on the physical appearance, this princess, I really did, doesn't fall in the same category as Rapunzel, who is one of my heroines, but she's pretty strong. We have to do Rapunzel one day, don't we?

Vanessa Rogers: 52:54

Yeah. I feel like now we need to do Cinderella because I want to read the original versions as well, because I did read a little bit of similarities and differences between donkey skin and some of the things that you mentioned were mentioned. One of the things that I found interesting was housework is donkey skin salvation, whereas in Cinderella, it's a punishment, which I thought was interesting. Cinderella does not choose her rags and dirt. They are imposed on her by her stepmother, whereas donkey skin chooses the skin. Although she doesn't like it. She doesn't like it.

Donna: 53:36

She does it for a reason.

Vanessa Rogers: 53:37

She doesn't like.

Donna: 53:37

She does it very intentional.

Vanessa Rogers: 53:38

She does it on purpose. In Cinderella, the danger comes from women, from other women, and the heroine is helped by magic in donkey skin. Her sisters, donkey skin and her sisters are usually threatened by men and helped and protected by women. So I like that as well. And maybe that was something that you saw as well.

Donna: 54:00

Yeah.

Vanessa Rogers: 54:00

You're giving me a lot more credit.

Donna: 54:02

Than I deserve in this case.

Vanessa Rogers: 54:06

And Cinderella is a story about social climbing, escaping poverty into wealth, whereas donkey skin is a story of how wealth may not always protect you from powerful men.

Donna: 54:17

Interesting, interesting. I would love to go into Cinderella. I have never studied Cinderella and actually intentionally didn't study Cinderella in my thesis, so I'm completely open to looking deeper into it in the original versions. Sure.

Vanessa Rogers: 54:32

You know, it's interesting to find the things that repulse us, you know, to, you know, things that not necessarily repulse us. But, you know, you say that you weren't ever interested in reading Cinderella, so it might be, you know, now that you feel that you have more open opinions, maybe more things will come to light. But I do think it is a good practice to try and like, find those reasons why those stories that we really don't attract us or don't connect with what it is about those stories that really push our buttons. So I think that is such a.

Donna: 55:12

Great, that is so powerful because we need to look at our own shadows. It's another way of saying look at your own shadows. So, yeah, I'm with you. I'm with you. Maybe that'll be next week.

Vanessa Rogers: 55:23

Well, do you have any other final thoughts?

Donna: 55:25

No. We've been going for almost an hour and I feel like we've really touched on most of the most important points. I have loved this discussion.

Vanessa Rogers: 55:34

Yeah. And I'm glad that you brought this to light because I honestly have never heard of donkey skin. So I'm curious. Before I did the reading, when we offered it to our audiences in the past to choose it as the option, I had never heard of it before. So this was a brand new fairy tale to me, and I would love to hear the audiences if they where you're from and if you'd ever heard it before or if you're.

Donna: 56:02

And please tell us your opinion. Watch the french musical. It is hysterical.

Vanessa Rogers: 56:08

We will definitely include that link. It is subtitled so you can just read it. And it's musical, so it's fun and it's very entertaining to see all the scenery and the setting is really good as well. I feel like we forgot to tell people to subscribe. Make sure you're hitting those subscribe buttons if you're listening on the podcast platform or you're watching on either one of our YouTube channels. Donnelly Fields is your YouTube channel. Mine is Fabrica Folklore podcast. Like remember my own podcast title? Now make sure you're hitting the subscribe buttons wherever you're tuning in. And you might be confused as well if you are used to this as a live episode. But today we decided not to do a live episode because I'm having some social media issues.

Donna: 57:04

Challenges.

Vanessa Rogers: 57:05

Yeah, some challenges. So we decided just to do recording. And plus, it's the summertime, so it's just a. We're relaxing some of our, what we're doing right now because the summertime is a time for, you know, just relaxing a little bit. So. So, yes. If you've been listening, please comment down below. What your, what are your thoughts? What did we miss? What did we not cover that you feel like was important? If you have a greek mythology story that you want us to cover, since Donna really wants us to do a greek mythology comment on one of those. And until next time, keep the fairy tales alive. Any last thoughts?

Donna: 57:55

Be clear about the message you want your listeners to get when you're reading these stories. But hopefully the most thing they'll get out of it is that you love fairy tales as much as Vanessa and I do.

Vanessa Rogers: 58:08

Yes. Yes. All right. And until next month, keep the fairy tales alive.

Donna: 58:15

Bye, everyone.