Star Lovers in Folk Tales: A Primer
Adapted from my Winter 2022 Twitter thread
One common variation of animal spouse tales is the star husband or star bride. In this case, the lover is a celestial creature from the otherworld of the sky. Sometimes they fall to earth, and other times they beckon a mortal to join them.
Star husband tales are common to North American indigenous cultures, often featuring pairs of maidens who long for more than mortal lovers and so are whisked into the sky to marry star husbands.
In these tales, the mortal brides are compelled to dig, either to find roots or other food on earth, or to escape the sky world. In either case, the digging is a transgressive act, one that triggers the bride’s passage from one world to another.
Another star husband tale comes from Korea, merged with another animal husband tale in which he is banished from the sky by his father, the King of the Stars, cursed to live as a frog in a pond until he can marry the most beautiful woman on Earth.
In this tale we find motifs of the frog consuming all the water and fish in the pond, and the bride cutting away (rather violently) the frog’s animal skin to reveal a handsome man. The happy couple then returns to the sky, and two new stars appear in the heavens.
Star brides have much more in common with swan maidens. Many myths compare the sky to a body of water, and in some tales, celestial beings are actually aquatic creatures as well. These brides are often captured by a mortal hunter or held captive by a mother goddess.
Like the mortal wives of star husbands, star brides often come in groups, like the Pleiades in a South African tale who send their husband on a hunt from which he never returns. Similarly, a group of 10 Hungarian star brides take mortal husbands only to lose them in a war.
In all of these stories, the fall to earth is a kind of death, whereas the ascension is a rebirth or even the achievement of immortality. Water, hunting, and agriculture are prominent in these stories, indicating the importance of celestial patterns to human subsistence.
Obedience or defiance to parental figures is another major theme in star lover tales. While it is defiance that opens the path to the otherworld, the lovers are often punished for it until they show obedience to the parent.
Lastly, while not every star couple gets a Happily Ever After, they usually leave some eternal mark on the earth or sky. The tears of separated star lovers sometimes form fresh springs or even monsoons, bringing new life to the earth.
Sources:
In Search of the Swan Maiden: A Narrative on Folklore and Gender by Barbara Fass Leavy
24 notes
·
View notes