Although “Beauty and the Beast” and its many variations grew out of the tradition of literary fairy tales, written mostly by women in the French salons, the roots of the story can be found in animal bride and bridegroom folklore in many cultures around the globe. Whereas the European tradition tends to feature a beautiful woman accepting and eventually falling in love with a monstrous husband, the myths of the indigenous people of North America focus on the primordial power of nature and the lure of beastly bridegrooms.
This late nineteenth-century wood-cut illustration from the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast depicts a version of animal-bridegroom story. Although this motif is found in folklore around the globe, the plot familiar to Americans comes through Charles Perrault’s 1697 text, which was popularized by the 1991 film of the same name. This Disney version also drew heavily upon the work of Madame Leprince de Beaumont, whose 1757 text focused on themes of self-sacrifice, the redeeming nature of love, and the key notion that one should not judge a book by its cover. (Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy)
The narrative plots of European “Beauty and the Beast” tales mirror the structure of the Latin text Transformations of Lucian, Otherwise Known as the Golden Ass, written by Apuleius in the second century CE. This collection included the popular story of “Cupid and Psyche.” In this particular tale, Cupid is reputed to be a beast. The beautiful Psyche frets over the restrictions imposed upon her by her unseen bridegroom, who only visits her at night under the cover of darkness. Her sisters, jealous of Psyche’s life of ease in a beautiful palace where she is attended by invisible servants, convince her that her lover is actually a monster. When the beautiful girl betrays her husband’s restrictions and lights a lamp to look upon his face, the god of love departs. Punished for her disobedience, the pregnant girl must then undertake an arduous journey and complete three impossible tasks in order to regain the attentions of her love.
The text of Apuleius’s The Golden Ass remained obscure and relatively unknown until it resurfaced in the late Middle Ages. As in many animal bride and bridegroom stories, “Cupid and Psyche” includes a few familiar motifs: the marriage of a beautiful girl to a nonhuman figure or “beast”; the loss of the magical and mysterious lover due to the heroine’s disobedience; and a pilgrimage made by the protagonist in order to regain the attentions of the lost loved one. Although many traditional folktales end after the second part of the cycle, several stories including the Scandinavian narrative “East of the Sun and West of the Moon” and the literary fairy tale “Beauty and the Beast” focus on the curse of the beast, which can only be broken through the heroine’s redemption.
Unlike most traditional fairy tales, “Beauty and the Beast” follows the development of two primary characters—the physical transformation of the cursed Beast and the virtuous nobility of the doomed Beauty. Coming at the end of the first wave of the literary fairy tale tradition, Charles Perrault and Madame d’Aulnoy simultaneously published versions of the “Beauty and the Beast” story in 1697, and yet with striking differences between them. Perrault’s version, “Riquet à la Houppe,” centers around the ethics of a monster turned man through the lens of love. D’Aulnoy’s version offers a more tragic conclusion; in “Le Mouton,” the beast in question dies in the absence of the heroine.
In 1757 Madame Leprince de Beaumont became one of the first French writers to recast the seventeenth-century, literary conte de fées (fairy tales) as children’s stories. Beaumont rewrote Villeneuve’s “Beauty and the Beast” tale as the famous moralized story of an enchanted beast who finds redemption through the love of a beautiful woman after she finally is able to see the virtues of the man trapped inside the visage of a monster. Beaumont’s version of the fairy tale focuses on the heroine’s obedience to her father and her willingness to deny her own happiness for the sake of her family. Through her virtues, the beautiful girl discovers the transformative power of love and learns that physical appearances have nothing to do with the internal qualities of kindness and good character.
Beaumont’s version was well received and spurred the growth of a tremendous body of European literary work linked to the “Beauty and the Beast” theme. Over the centuries, it has been translated and reenvisioned in poetry, comedy, drama, ballet, music, art, and fable. Modern interpretations of the “Beauty and the Beast” tale in American literature range from such classic novel interpretations as Robin McKinley’s Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast (1993) to such evocative short stories as “The Lion and the Lark” by Patricia A. McKillip.
Although European and American literature and art, centering on Beaumont’s plot, focus on the heroine’s virtues and the hero’s transformation through the power of love, the tradition of the beastly bridegroom in Native American folktales tends to take a more ominous form. Many of these stories deal with “monstrous” sexual appetites and often contain bizarre twists and bawdy humor absent from Beaumont’s moralistic fairy tale. In another departure from European versions of “Beauty and the Beast,” many of the animal bridegrooms in Native American folktales are actually animals in both form and function—not just humans in disguise.
Topics that would have been considered taboo in seventeenth-century French salons are embraced in Native American stories of beastly bridegrooms. The penance for adultery is addressed in such stories as the Tewa tale “Apache Chief Punishes His Wife” and the cautionary Ntlakyapamuk fable “The Woman Who Became a Horse.” In “The Apache Chief Punishes His Wife,” the chief’s wife is abducted by a big white buffalo. Her human husband eventually saves her from White Buffalo Chief, but when she cries over the demise of her animal lover, the Apache chief shoots her as well. On the other hand, “The Woman Who Became a Horse” explores the idea of forbidden eroticism. In this tale the chief’s wife falls in love with a stallion and slowly transforms into a wild horse.
Animal bridegrooms in Native American tales include a wide array of beasts, including coyotes, bears, buffalo, horses, owls, crows, butterflies, rattlesnakes, and other creatures of the wild. They also include supernatural creatures from the spirit world. There is no redemption, no regret from these beings who decide to take human women as lovers and wives. In the Passamaquoddy story “The Owl Husband,” a beautiful woman who refuses all suitors is tricked into marrying a great horned owl. She discovers his human disguise the next morning and flees from the evil bird. He attempts to trick her a second time, but his disguise is once again unmasked. Finally, he uses a magic flute to capture her. They live as husband and wife until she finally becomes used to being married to a great horned owl.
In many of the beastly bridegroom folktales preserved by the indigenous people of North America, the women chosen as brides by amorous animals and supernatural creatures are discovered through their vices. For example, in the Zuni tale “The Serpent of the Sea,” a beautiful maiden, who defiles a sacred spring with her incessant bathing, draws the attention of Kolowissi, the Serpent of the Sea. To pay for her transgressions, she is forced to marry the monster and leave her home for her husband’s. At the end of the fable, the maiden’s penance is rewarded when the serpent transforms into a handsome man, who promises they will live together forever in all the waters of the world.
In the coupling between a human woman and an animal bridegroom, humanity and nature are joined through story in much the way that two families are united through marriage. Whether for the purpose of easing the fears of young girls entering arranged marriages or of celebrating the eroticism inherent in the wilderness of human sexuality, folklore in the tradition of the “Beauty and the Beast” tale continues to entertain and instruct.
Carina Bissett
See also Animal Bride; Animal Tales; European Sources; Folklore and Folktales; Monsters in Native American Legends; Women in Folklore
Further Reading
Erdoes, Richard, and Alfonso Ortiz. 1984. American Indian Myths and Legends. New York: Pantheon Books.
Tatar, Maria. 1999. “Beauty and the Beast.” In The Classic Fairy Tales. New York: W. W. Norton, 25–73.
Warner, Marina. 1996. “Reluctant Brides: Beauty and the Beast I” and “Go! Be a Beast: Beauty and the Beast II.” In From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers. New York: Noonday Press, 273–318.
Zipes, Jack. 1989. Beauties, Beasts and Enchantments: Classic French Fairy Tales. New York: Dutton.