Crochet Watch: Hungarian Folk Tales

I’m a multi-tasker, which means I crochet while I watch TV or internet videos. I searched for something to watch while I crocheted, I happened upon an animated show about Hungarian fairy tales. It should go without saying that I’m a sucker for mythology and folklore, and apart from Babi Yaga and Chernabog, I’m not too familiar with Slavic stories.

But I ended up falling in love with them. Most of them are more proletarian than the well-known ones. The lesson behind them are to always work hard, be diligent and be kind (like every fairy tale), but more so than the French stories, from a working-class standpoint. Your Hungarian protagonist is mostly an every-person, just sent out to work by their parents, and the lesson is how to be a good person and contribute to society (rather than to accept an arranged marriage, be wise and just, or be nice to your subjects or they’ll eat you – we need to re-teach that last lesson to some people in the world). And the every-person protagonist, if they become a royal, it’s through their hard work, not because they were royalty all along.

But if they are, the lessons are more pedestrian and speak to a folk audience. For instance, the King Who Didn’t Want His Daughter to Marry is about letting your children grow and find love on their own terms. And while I could go hours and hours on the symbolism in this story, the one part that struck me the most was the part where the king enchanted his daughter to turn into three different animals, and in order to break the curse, the prince had to embrace each animal.

At first, it sounded like overprotective bunkum that appears in a lot of fairy tales, but as I was thinking, reflecting on my own marriage, I concluded why the princess took these forms in succession and why the prince had to kiss and embrace each one if they were to be together. Each form, in order, is how women present themselves to the men they romantically love. And to stay with the women they love back, their lover must accept each form in kind.

The rabbit is the easiest and most enticing to love. She’s cute, coquettish, dangling promises of submission and endless sex to her man. She is easy to embrace. She’s fluffy, harmless. She’s the ideal woman, the dream.

But then, secure in her embrace with her prince, she grows bold, and shows him her strong side: a steadfast, ferocious lion. While she was a fantasy of docility as the rabbit, the lion shows the prince that she is not a toy; she never was his plaything nor will she be. There is grace in her strength, but passion and ferocity, too. The prince must embrace her by respecting her, showing no fear or loathing at her assertiveness. She is tenacious, she is cunning and wise, she is no greater nor lesser than him.

So begrudgingly, if he’s worthy of her love, he embraces her. However, her final form is the hardest to accept, sacrificing the idea of the little bunny rabbit he could snuggle with forever. She comes with hellfire, breathing sulfuric acid and putrid heat. She is a three-headed dragon, and if you’re not careful, she will eat you alive.

This is her ugly self, her shadow side. And in any relationship, straight, gay, bi, pan, and in nonromantic ties with friends and family, every bond of love between humans, the shadow side eventually emerges. This is our anger, our malice, our perversions, dark thoughts, hatred, triggers, our earliest wounds squeezed and wrought open again.

Now there’s a complication that the fairy tale glosses over, if it mentions it at all: this stage is where abuse can emerge. The dragon also has a responsibility to contain their shadow side enough where they still be emotionally vulnerable, but not cause harm. However, the prince has a responsibility to accept their partner’s “ugly” so long as it doesn’t cross the line.

But before he embraces this dragon, he sits with her. He sits with her pain, with her rage and loathing. He lets her be angry, he lets her have her pain. And once he’s ready, and once she’s ready to have him, he embraces her three times.

And she becomes a woman again: a human being, complete with all her wonders, her strength and her flaws. Her selves are united, and since the prince can handle her at her worst and her best, they re free to live happily ever after.

I love what crochet can do for my multitasking. I can crochet and watch animation about old folk tales and think. And thinking leads to ideas and ideas lead to great things, like revolution, and creative writing. And that’s what I love about it – it’s subversive. Back in the olden days, when it was regaled to being “women’s work,” if anyone realized how many creative and intellectual juices it got going, I think the hook would have been banned.