Loathly Lady
The Loathly Lady arose from the stories my mentor, storyteller and writer, Sharon Blackie, tells, tales of fearsome crones who dwell deep in the forest, their ugliness a chosen mask. Though they appear hideous, they can just as easily take on the shape of a radiant young maiden. In the old tales, they test those who cross their paths, revealing the truth of a person’s heart by how they respond to what they believe is unbeautiful.
The Loathly Lady who came to me appeared in a waking dream. She showed me the “rents,” the delicate tears in the shimmering web that wraps the Earth. Then she offered me a task: to take the tiny stars from her bowl and place them gently into any openings in the sky where I sensed the fabric had worn thin.
At first, these stars looked like small, round seeds with hard, nut-like shells. Only when I cracked them open did the true light inside appear. Her own body shimmers with constellations. She gathers the world’s protective web in her hands, keeping it from unraveling. In this way, she is a Great Mother, an Earth Mother. She asks us not simply to witness her labor, but to join her in the work of repair.
The Loathly Lady arose from the stories my mentor, storyteller and writer, Sharon Blackie, tells, tales of fearsome crones who dwell deep in the forest, their ugliness a chosen mask. Though they appear hideous, they can just as easily take on the shape of a radiant young maiden. In the old tales, they test those who cross their paths, revealing the truth of a person’s heart by how they respond to what they believe is unbeautiful.
The Loathly Lady who came to me appeared in a waking dream. She showed me the “rents,” the delicate tears in the shimmering web that wraps the Earth. Then she offered me a task: to take the tiny stars from her bowl and place them gently into any openings in the sky where I sensed the fabric had worn thin.
At first, these stars looked like small, round seeds with hard, nut-like shells. Only when I cracked them open did the true light inside appear. Her own body shimmers with constellations. She gathers the world’s protective web in her hands, keeping it from unraveling. In this way, she is a Great Mother, an Earth Mother. She asks us not simply to witness her labor, but to join her in the work of repair.
Loathy Lady, sculptural needle felted and mixed media, approximately 48 x 40 x 35
The Lindworm
Lindworm-based on the Norwegian fairy tale, with Prince (inside Lindworm snake) and Shepherd’s daughter
The story begins:
There was once a King and his lovely Queen, who lived in blissful happiness, but for one thing. They had no children. One day, the Queen, in great sorrow consulted an old crone who lived in the forest and was told the remedy for her sterility. She should place a small goblet upside down in her garden, the crone said, and the next morning she would find two roses, one white and one red, growing underneath it on a single stalk. If she ate the red rose, she would have a boy; if the white one, a girl. In any case she had to choose one or the other. If she ate both a catastrophe would result.
The Queen was ecstatic and did as the old woman said, but after eating the white rose, she got greedy, forgot her promise, and ate the second rose also. When it came time for the birth, twins were born, but the first-born was a hideous Lindworm or serpent. The Queen was terribly frightened when she saw him, but he snaked out of sight with one quick, lithe movement, so that no-one else saw him. Besides, right after the Lindworm came a fine son who was so wonderful and handsome and made everyone happy that the Queen lived her life as if the Lindworm had never been….
The Lindworm, a twin to the ‘good’ child who was born second, represents ‘the resistance to change embodied in the dark side of the Self, which must be slowly transformed if renewal is to occur.’ The Lindworm carries the ‘loathsome aspects of the self.’
from Donald Kalsched, The Inner World of Trauma: Archetypal Defenses of the Personal Spirit, in the chapter, ‘Prince Lindworm and Transformation of the Daimonic through Sacrifice and Choice’
The story continues. As you might expect, the Lindworm shows up again when the prince wants to wed. Each time a princess is found, the Lindworm appears, claiming the bride for his own, as he is the first born. Two princesses die in this way. He eats them in the marriage bed.
Finally, the king asks a shepherd to offer his daughter as the Lindworm’s next wife. The shepherd’s daughter is “beside herself with grief” and runs into the forest where she encounters the old crone. The crone gives the shepherd’s daughter some strange instructions…
‘Dry your eyes, my child- and do exactly as I tell you…when the wedding is over, you must ask to be attired in ten silken shifts and when the Lindworm asks you to take off your shift, you must bid him shed a skin. When this happens nine times, he will be nothing but a writing mass of flesh and you must then whip him soundly with whips dipped in lye. When this is done, bathe him in sweet milk, and lastly you must take him in your arms and hold him close, if only for one brief moment.’
‘Ugh,’ cried the shepherd's daughter, ‘I could never do that!’
‘It is that or be eaten,’ chided the crone and she disappeared…
I chose to use seven instead of ten shifts in my version of the shepherd’s daughter. It was already unwieldy enough with the seven layers, but also, I wanted to make the seven layers correspond with the chakras and with stories such as the Inanna story. Seven is a sacred number.
The princess follows instructions, asking the Lindworm to shed a layer of skin for every shift he asks her to remove…
Layer by layer, the Lindworm sheds a layer of skin for each shift that the shepherd’s daughter takes off…I gave each layer of the skirts and of the skins a stitched edge with the color of the corresponding chakra…
Until of course under all those layers of skin, there is another prince.
The union of the prince and the brave shepherd’s daughter to me represents the union of the archetypal male and female within each woman. We carry both within us and I believe that one of the tasks of later cronehood is to unite these two sides of ourselves, as well as to integrate all of the selves that have come before. The crone who appears twice in the story is an important figure in the story and I haven’t yet made a doll to represent her. She is integral to the story, helping both the queen and the shepherd’s daughter. She brings wisdom and guidance and completes the circle of maiden, mother and crone that this story also alludes to.
The story begins:
There was once a King and his lovely Queen, who lived in blissful happiness, but for one thing. They had no children. One day, the Queen, in great sorrow consulted an old crone who lived in the forest and was told the remedy for her sterility. She should place a small goblet upside down in her garden, the crone said, and the next morning she would find two roses, one white and one red, growing underneath it on a single stalk. If she ate the red rose, she would have a boy; if the white one, a girl. In any case she had to choose one or the other. If she ate both a catastrophe would result.
The Queen was ecstatic and did as the old woman said, but after eating the white rose, she got greedy, forgot her promise, and ate the second rose also. When it came time for the birth, twins were born, but the first-born was a hideous Lindworm or serpent. The Queen was terribly frightened when she saw him, but he snaked out of sight with one quick, lithe movement, so that no-one else saw him. Besides, right after the Lindworm came a fine son who was so wonderful and handsome and made everyone happy that the Queen lived her life as if the Lindworm had never been….
The Lindworm, a twin to the ‘good’ child who was born second, represents ‘the resistance to change embodied in the dark side of the Self, which must be slowly transformed if renewal is to occur.’ The Lindworm carries the ‘loathsome aspects of the self.’
from Donald Kalsched, The Inner World of Trauma: Archetypal Defenses of the Personal Spirit, in the chapter, ‘Prince Lindworm and Transformation of the Daimonic through Sacrifice and Choice’
The story continues. As you might expect, the Lindworm shows up again when the prince wants to wed. Each time a princess is found, the Lindworm appears, claiming the bride for his own, as he is the first born. Two princesses die in this way. He eats them in the marriage bed.
Finally, the king asks a shepherd to offer his daughter as the Lindworm’s next wife. The shepherd’s daughter is “beside herself with grief” and runs into the forest where she encounters the old crone. The crone gives the shepherd’s daughter some strange instructions…
‘Dry your eyes, my child- and do exactly as I tell you…when the wedding is over, you must ask to be attired in ten silken shifts and when the Lindworm asks you to take off your shift, you must bid him shed a skin. When this happens nine times, he will be nothing but a writing mass of flesh and you must then whip him soundly with whips dipped in lye. When this is done, bathe him in sweet milk, and lastly you must take him in your arms and hold him close, if only for one brief moment.’
‘Ugh,’ cried the shepherd's daughter, ‘I could never do that!’
‘It is that or be eaten,’ chided the crone and she disappeared…
I chose to use seven instead of ten shifts in my version of the shepherd’s daughter. It was already unwieldy enough with the seven layers, but also, I wanted to make the seven layers correspond with the chakras and with stories such as the Inanna story. Seven is a sacred number.
The princess follows instructions, asking the Lindworm to shed a layer of skin for every shift he asks her to remove…
Layer by layer, the Lindworm sheds a layer of skin for each shift that the shepherd’s daughter takes off…I gave each layer of the skirts and of the skins a stitched edge with the color of the corresponding chakra…
Until of course under all those layers of skin, there is another prince.
The union of the prince and the brave shepherd’s daughter to me represents the union of the archetypal male and female within each woman. We carry both within us and I believe that one of the tasks of later cronehood is to unite these two sides of ourselves, as well as to integrate all of the selves that have come before. The crone who appears twice in the story is an important figure in the story and I haven’t yet made a doll to represent her. She is integral to the story, helping both the queen and the shepherd’s daughter. She brings wisdom and guidance and completes the circle of maiden, mother and crone that this story also alludes to.
Lindworm, based on the Norwegian fairy tale, with Prince and Shepherd's daughter, soft sculpture and mixed media doll, stretched out 89 x 8 1/2 x 9, curled up 11 x 20 x 17
