The Love Between Sisters

by sara cleto & brittany warman

As you know, the theme for this first year of the reborn Fairy Tale Magazine is love.And, when peopletalkaboutloveinfairytales,romanticloveis what almost always bubbles up first. The words “fairy tale” and “wedding” pair so consistently together in pop culture, and the wedding industry, that the concept is pretty much unavoidable. (If Sara hadanickelforeverytimesomeoneaskedherifshe was going to have a fairy-tale wedding, she could have bought the Beast’s library herself.) Tropes like true love’s kiss and the quest for the lost husband are staples of many of our most famous fairy tales, especially in how they tend to appear in films, theater, and novels (we can probably thank Disney for that!). And while we will talk about romantic love in this column in a future issue (there’s a lot to say!), we want to begin by acknowledging the fact that fairy tales contain different kinds of love stories, love stories that are too often overlooked in favorofheteronormativeromance.

When you think about fairy-tale sisters, top of thelistmightbeCinderella’snotoriousstepsisters,who consign her to a life of domestic drudgery and ashes. Their rivalry and animosity are so heightened that they attempt to take her place by literally cutting off pieces of their feet. Or you might think of the “good” sister and “bad” sister in stories like “Diamonds and Toads,” girls who are so diametrically opposed that the whole point of their story is to show the world which one is truly worthy. Beauty’s sisters hate her so much that they conspire to sacrifice her to save themselves and then manipulate her in hopes of destroying her bond with the Beast. In other words, many of the most famous fairy-tale sisters do not exactly sit around braiding each other’s hair. They’re more likely to sabotage you than help you, especially if romance or wealth is on the line. In the world of fairy tales, sisters are—much too often—competition. A sister is an obstacle to overcome on your way to your happily ever after.

Butthat’snotthewholestory.

Beyond the stories of cruelty and competition, there are stories of kindness and love. Stories where sisters are devoted to each other, help each other, even save each other from horrible fates. These are the stories we want to talk about here—and there are so many!

Take, for example, the Grimms’ fairy tale (which they shamelessly stole from Caroline Stahl) “Snow White and Rose Red.” In this story, Snow WhiteandRoseRedareincrediblyclosesisterswho and Rose Red are incredibly close sisters who live with their mother in a cottage in the woods. The sisters are very different from one another. Snow White is quieter and more domestic than the rambunctious, adventurous Rose Red. But their differences are presented as complementary, and they happily do everything together. They wander the woods, help their mother, and read stories together by the fire. They firmly believe that whatever one has, the other should have as well—and they will not settle for less. At the end of the story, when the bear-prince asks Snow White to marry him, she seemstoonlydosoontheconditionthatRoseRedmarryhisbrother,andthattheyalllivetogetherin thecastle,includingthegirls’mother.Whilemuchoftheactionofthestoryisbasedaround the castle, including the girls’ mother. While much of the action of the story is based around thwarting an evil dwarf and saving the prince from a life confined to the shape of a bear, the sisters’love for each other is always the tale’s central feature. They work together to solve their problems, and there is never any sense of jealousy or frustration between them. The story is a romance too, technically, but it is also the story of the profound love between sisters, a concept even Disney has embraced in recentyearsinfilmslikeFrozen(2013).

If you want another example of sisterly love in fairy tales, you might look to the Norwegian tale “Tatterhood.” It’s one of our all-time favorites—you’ll see why! The story opens with a pretty standard “Diamonds and Toads” vibe, and it seems like it’s going to be another story about a Good Sister and a Bad Sister. Of these two sisters, one is exceptionally kind, quiet, and stunningly beautiful, and the other is… well, let’s just say she’s… not. Tatterhood is tough, loud, ugly, and fiercely protective. She rides around on a goat and uses a wooden spoon as her weapon of choice. But the two girls are not enemies—instead, they are fiercely devoted to each other, and they refuse to be parted, even when their nurse tries to separate them because of Tatterhood’s truly exceptional repulsiveness. No matter what people did or said, Tatterhood “always had to be where the younger twin was, and no one could ever keep them apart.” When a band of trolls and witches attack the castle and the beautiful sister’s head is chopped off and replaced with a calf’s head (yes, that’s really what happens), it is Tatterhood who comes to her rescue, snatching her sister’s head from a window and and the beautiful sister’s head is chopped off and replaced with a calf’s head (yes, that’s really what happens), it is Tatterhood who comes to her rescue, snatching her sister’s head from a window and beating up the pursuing witches with her wooden spoon. When a king falls in love with the beautiful sister, she refuses to marry him unless he can convince someone to marry Tatterhood as well. The relationship between the two of them matters more thananyromance.

Lastly, we want to reflect on the story of “Fitcher’s Bird,” a Grimm tale closely related to “Bluebeard” but much less well-known. In “Bluebeard,” the bride and her sister wait helplessly for their brothers to come and rescue them, deus ex machina style. The sisters of “Fitcher’s Bird” need onlyeachother(andsomeseriousgumption)tosave onlyeachother(andsomeseriousgumption)tosave themselves. In this story, an evil wizard marries each sister in a family one by one, brings them back to his castle, kills them, and then chops their bodies up and adds them to his immense cauldron of murdered ladies in his forbidden chamber. (Fairy tales:notforthefaintofheart!)Whenhemarries the youngest sister, she uncovers what he has done to her sisters. She plans her revenge and also manages to bring her sisters back to life. All three of them escape from the castle and arrange their killer’s demise. Here is perhaps the strongest example of sisters working together to defeat their foe: The youngest sister may be the leader and protagonist of the tale, but her plan only works because of her sisters’help.Their love and trust in each other drive the story (and punishes the man who has wronged allofthem!).

Stories about the love between sisters have alwaysbeenimportanttous.Wecollaborateand always been important to us. We collaborate and write together all the time, which, paired with our similar aesthetics, has led friends and colleagues (and the occasional bartender) to call us the “Grimm Sisters” or the “Fairy-Tale Twins.” The very first Halloween after we met, we dressed up as Snow White and Rose Red (complete with a bear). We’ve spoken and taught about fairy-tale sisters many times (and we’re even working on a whole poetry collection about fairy-tale sisterhood!) because we think that they deserve more attention and acknowledgement in the world of fairy tales. After all, they’re everywhere! The grieving sisters of the little mermaid in the tale of the same name, the twelve sisters of “The Twelve Dancing Princesses,” the sisters who are so prized in Jack tales: These girls often face hardships and sorrow, but they do it together,justlikewedo.

While we have focused on fairy-tale sisters in this article, the love between fairy-tale siblings of other kinds should not be overlooked either. Hansel and Gretel only survive their terrible ordeal by working together. Even more strikingly, they each take turns in the leadership role. Hansel thinks to leave a trail leading back to their home, and Gretel tricks the witch, allowing for their escape. In the fairy tale “Brother and Sister,” the love and care the sister shows her brother, who has been transformed into a deer, speaks volumes. The swan brothers and their sister have a bond that cannot be broken in “TheWild Swans,” and the sister will not betray her brothers or lose the chance to change them back to their true shapes even when faced with the accusation of witchcraft and the prospect of being burned alive at the stake. These love stories are