Hey, all!
I’m continuing my birthday bash today! Yesterday, I gave away a copy of Phoenix Fire but today I’m giving away a copy of One Knight Only to one lucky reader who comments on today’s guest post, which you will love!
Today I’m pleased to host author Michelle Synder, who has several books out on decoding symbols. Plus, we have the same name! I think you’ll like her post, plus there’s a really cool drawing to go along with it. Please be sure to say hi to let her know you were here. If your comment is held in moderation, I’ll approve just as soon as I can. Welcome, Michelle!
The Symbologist – #11 – Once Upon a Time…
Damsels in distress appear in stories of love and faith like Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White, recently made famous by the brothers Grimm, and Walt Disney. According to Duncan-Enzmann’s ice-age translations these stories had their start 14,500 years ago, with the Sun Child. This was a time when daughters were precious, representing the circle of life. Faerie tales that refer to spinning or weaving also began here, when women taught the children with stories while working at their looms.
Love stories about youthful girls such as Beauty and the Beast and The Frog Prince come from a time when girls married young. Fathers always want their daughters to marry well, and the slightly older gentleman with means and manners could provide and protect. In these tales, the young girl starts out despising the doting gentleman, as if he were a beast or slimy frog, but after a time she decides he is not so bad and falls in love with him. Even popular tales about very young children, such as Hansel and Gretel and Babes in the Woods, are about love between siblings, and warnings about getting lost in the Great Woods. We can trace these tales to ca. 8000 BC, when there were dangerous, enormous thick forests, miles and miles wide; it was possible to be lost in them forever.
Faerie tales also bring us fairies, pixies, dwarves, elves, kings and queens, and a variety of merchants and tradesmen. These characters are found in legends, tales, and mythologies, from the earliest to the most modern cultural stories; their presence tells us our ancestors understood a great deal about the nature of human beings. This knowledge was preserved, along with their history, in Faerie tales told to children generation after generation, in true oral tradition. This tradition has preserved unique parts of history that would otherwise be lost. Within our favorite Faerie tales are lessons about love, loyalty, tradition, and deceit, coupled with historic events, told over and over as verisimilitudes. The ability to recognize the historic (once upon a time…) elements of these great stories, and to place them in context of time, event, and climate, provides clues to the roots and age of the stories. Symbology: Decoding Classic Images reveals more about the history of Faeries – the “Fair Folk” of northern Europe, so called because of their white skin and platinum blonde hair. Magnificent tales of love and courage have been told for hundreds of generations by and about these long-ago people.
Article and artwork © 2011 Michelle Snyder, author of Symbology: Decoding Classic Images, available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble online, and at The Book Rack Bookstore in Arlington. Post your questions on her blog at www.whiteknightstudio.com.
About Michelle Snyder
Michelle is an author, speaker, columnist, blogger, and teacher. Her post-graduate degree from the University of Wales is in the discipline of decoding ancient symbols, and has been teaching art and visual language to students of all ages for 35 years. She has written two print books and two ebooks about decoding symbols, all available at Amazon. Her artwork has appeared in galleries from Massachusetts to California. Michelle is co-owner of White Knight Studio with her husband Jay. Together they produce multimedia presentations about unlocking symbols. Her passion for decoding visual language is contagious, and their presentations are educational, enlightening, and entertaining: You will discover the prehistory and origin of classic images like mermaids and dragons, and find answers to questions like: Why is Venus female? She believes if you ask and seek, you can know.
Where to get Michelle’s Books:
Wonderful post. Lots of cool info. I love learning about the origins of things.
Glad you came by, Jillian!
Thanks so much for the opportunity to share my passion with your readers!
Happy to have you today, Michelle! 🙂
Michelle always has such wonderful posts. She submits to my blog Two Ends of the Pen regularly and they are very popular. I have her books and they are simply beautiful. If you want answers about symbols, Michelle is your go-to gal.
Debra, thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment! Michelle’s post is great today and I’m glad to have her as a guest 🙂