Exploring relationships between brothers and sisters in Fairy Tales
Discover the magic and challenges of sibling relationships
Unless you are an only child, your siblings have formed an important part of your identity. The presence of siblings, both good and bad, appear in many of our favourite fairy tales: Hansel and Gretel, The Three Brothers, Snow White and Rose Red, Six Swans/Seven Ravens but of course we also have step-siblings, who usually treat their step-siblings horribly: Vasilisa the Fair, Cinderella variants, and Strawberries in the Snow.
“Sibling relationships are unlike any other and the fairy tales explore those relationships - adventures together, facing challenges, one sibling rising to support or save the others, animosity and just having them in our lives.” - Alyssa Curtayne
In this post, I’m primarily concerned with siblings. In other blogs, I’ll address solo children, step-siblings, parents, and step-parents because they deserve their own space. Disappointingly, it was difficult to find research articles^ on siblings in folk and fairy tales, however in psychology and child development Brody says: that interactions between siblings can “promote young children's language and cognitive development, their understanding of other people's emotions and perspectives.” Our siblings influence us positively and negatively in many ways, but we are bound by shared genetics that can be difficult for others to understand. Our sibling relationships are filled with love alongside conflict and a deep connection that unites us, regardless of the status of the relationship. Davies says: “sibling relationships can be a fundamental part of how our identities and sense of self are formed,” that is, we compare ourselves to our siblings, and our identities are built around our relationship with our siblings and parents. I suspect that the deep love we have for siblings is stronger than any other relationship, regardless of how much we’ve hurt each other, sharing parents is the thing we have unique to each other and that’s special and subconsciously we know this.
In the past, families, particularly Catholic ones, were large. There could be potentially many siblings in a family. Two fairy tales with large families are The Twelve Dancing Princesses (Grimms - but there are many variants of this story, possible origins from the dancing plague of 1518, but also the underground harks back to Inanna) and The Twelve Brothers (Grimms - again, possible origins in Irish mythology with the transformation of siblings into birds i.e. Children of Lir) but what is common with (most) sibling relationships in fairy tales, as opposed to step-sibling relationships, is the protagonist would do anything to help their siblings. They (generally) support and love each other regardless of their challenges.
In the Scottish tale Molly Whuppie, Molly saves her two sisters from a giant and then steals from said giant to marry her sisters (and self) off. In The Three Princesses (a variant of The Three Little Pigs) the sisters work together to save themselves from the wolf*. The Three Brothers (Grimms), The Three Golden Hairs, and the Water of Life (Russia) all have brothers working together and of course, Hansel and Gretel, The Six Swans (and variants), and Little Sister and Little Brother the sister saves the brother/s. There are a few tales, particularly two or three brothers, where one brother disowns the other, so it’s not all love and roses. An example of this is The Golden Bird (Grimms) where the two brothers kill the youngest, but because of his earlier kindness to creatures, they bring him back to life.
It’s no accident that there is zero research on the role of siblings in fairy tales because our relationship with our siblings forms part of our deep psyche, our identities, and how we move about in the world. We take our sibling relationships for granted and to research our deep feelings about sharing a womb and childhood is not easy. Sibling relationships are unlike any other. Fairy tales with siblings explore those relationships - adventures together, facing challenges, one sibling rising to support or save the others, animosity and just having them as a presence in our lives. For my part, I love my siblings with a deep fierceness, and although we don’t see each other often, I would be there in a heartbeat if they needed me. And I think that’s what the fairy tales capture, if it came to it, we would not speak for six years and sew them shirts that make us bleed, sacrifice our lives to give them a better one, or push an old hag into an oven to rescue them.
In this spirit, here is another of Giambattista Basile’s stories. You may find it somewhat familiar.
Like many fairy tales, sibling tales reflect family life. The bond between siblings is an important part of childhood, young adolescence, and adulthood. And although as adults we are far away and sometimes we have emotional and physical distance, we share an unbreakable bond and a deep love. And if any of my siblings happen to read this, I love you all, LOTS!
^If you find any academic papers on siblings in fairy tales, please let me know.
*I have read this version somewhere but do you think I could find it?!
Feel free to share your favourite sibling fairy tales in the comments below.
References:
Brody, G. H. (2004). Siblings’ Direct and Indirect Contributions to Child Development. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 13(3), 124–126. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20182928
Davies, K. (2015). Siblings, Stories and the Self: The Sociological Significance of Young People’s Sibling Relationships. Sociology, 49(4), 679–695. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44016699