The Interpretation of Fairy Tales by Marie-Louise von Franz

Author:Marie-Louise von Franz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shambhala

Who is this father of the frog-princess? Who is the anima’s father? In many European stories in which there is a Christian influence, the father of the anima is called the devil. In European countries with less Christian influence, the father of the anima is characterized as the older image of God. For instance, in Germanic countries the anima’s father appears as an old man with a Wotanic character, in Jewish legends he is an old desert god or a demon; in Islamic fairy tales the fathers of the anima are great jinns, which means pagan demons of the pre-Islamic time. In general, therefore, the frog-princess’s father would represent an older image of God which is in contrast to, and repressed by, the new dominant God-image. The new ruling dominant of consciousness usually superimposes itself on an older image of the same kind, and often there is still a secret tension between these two factors. That is what makes the anima diverge in this way.

This is important in practical life also; for example, we often see that a man’s anima is an old-fashioned being. She is frequently bound to the historical past, and this explains why men who in conscious life are courageous innovators, inclined toward change and reform, become sentimentally conservative as soon as they fall into an anima mood. They can be amazingly sentimental; for example, a thoroughly ruthless businessman who thinks nothing of ruining people will sing childhood songs under the Christmas tree, as if he couldn’t hurt a fly. His anima has remained in the traditional world of childhood. You can see the same thing in the area of Eros—for instance, the belief in institutions held by some men. This too is an anima effect. With such beliefs men are strongly bound to the past. Women, who are known to be more conservative in their conscious lives (which accounts for the statement that they would still stir the soup with a stick if men had not invented a spoon), often have an animus with an eye to the future and a talent for effecting changes. This is often seen in women’s interest in new movements. In ancient Greece, the Dionysian cult was for the most part picked up first by women and carried out by them. Then again, the early Christian communities were mainly carried by the enthusiasm of women, not men.

When the old God-image binds the anima to the past, then naturally a rift opens up between the new conscious attitude and the older layer, where the anima comes from. So there is a germ of truth in the contention that the telling of fairy tales belongs to the paganism of the past, as the Grimm Brothers said. According to the Russian story, the frog-princess is the fairy tale teller, and she cannot quite come up to the realm of the ruling czar. The real conflict is between the two father figures. This is something one often meets with if there is a conflict in

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