Raising a Mini Feminist Author Nicholas Jubber discusses amazing fairy tales with strong female heroines that you could consider reading to your kids.
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young woman bundles an ogre into an oven, then knocks down another with a hatchet. Another heroine sends a predatory male down a hill in a barrel studded with nails. A princess slays a couple of ogres so she can heal her beloved with their lard… These might sound like the sort of shiny ‘new’ tales you’d find in your local Waterstones, but they’re from centuries past. They remind us that history isn’t always linear: some long-ago storytellers were much more progressive than we expect, although all too often their work and lives were suppressed. Here are a few of the ‘traditional’ tales that should strike a chord with any mini-feminist:
‘Finette Cendron’ by the Baroness d’Aulnoy The author of this seventeenth century tale was exiled from France and possibly worked as a spy in Madrid, before setting up a storytelling salon in Paris. Her heroines are as dynamic as she was. None more so than Finette Cendron, whose tale mashes up several well-known fables. Finette is a princess, but her parents lose their kingdom and abandon their daughters. Spying an ogre’s castle, Finette leads her sisters there, tricks the ogre into his oven and cuts off the ogress’s head with a hatchet. Her ungrateful sisters insist she clean the castle while they go off to party. Thanks to a secret chest, she joins them at the ball, leaving behind a velvet slipper, which enables a handsome prince to track her down. Yes, she’ll marry him, she says - but only if her parents’ kingdom is restored. So she marries the prince as his equal - and they live happily ever after….
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