Chapter 02: Old Stories airs today on Eldritch Girl!
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In Chapter 02: Old Stories, we learn about Yelena and Velna’s youth, and also we hear the stories about a Beast that lives in an enchanted castle in the forest:
“Over the sun and past the moon, a Beast lived in an enchanted castle, in the darkest part of the forest. He was so monstrous that he could kill with a single kiss. He was cursed as a man, and the curse was contained in an enchanted flower from the realms of death.”
– Yelena
The story is more of a Bluebeard type story, which I feel Beauty and the Beast can so often merge into, especially with retellings on the darker side of the scale. I really enjoy blending stories that way.
In this case, the girl is warned not to eat from the enchanted food on the banquet table – which she does not. She forages outside the castle and eats only what the Beast hunts.
She is warned not to go into the forbidden wing – and she doesn’t.
She is warned never to kiss him, because unless there is mutual romantic love between them, she will die at sunrise.
The story’s protagonist sticks to all these rules, but the Beast is losing patience, and the last petal is due to fall from the flower any day now, so that the curse can never be lifted… So he keeps coming to her at night, asking her if she loves him yet, and warning her that soon the last petal will fall anyway, and he will kiss her regardless of what her answer is, as he has nothing to lose.
Yelena’s lips twisted up in a wry smile. “The girl did not go into the forbidden wing of the castle, but kept to the rooms she was permitted in. And she never, ever kissed him, no matter how polite he was, no matter how… charming.”
Yelena’s grandmother had always sighed then, wistful and sad. Yelena kept this in. “And he was charming. And persuasive. But she kept to the three rules regardless, hoping he would spare her life.”
Taryl sat straighter on their stool, although they knew how it ended.
Yelena relished this part – you can do it all right, my darlings, you can live by all the rules, and it doesn’t matter. Those with the power will get you anyway if it suits them.
“The final night, he came to her room, and said, ‘O Katalina, do you love me now?’ and she knew this was the night that she would be kissed, and she didn’t know how to answer him. But she had discovered that a secret passage in the castle led to the dungeons, where she might find a way out.”
Yelena paused, lowering her voice as much as she could to still be heard above the taproom hubbub. “So she told him no, and he was furious. His rage was so terrifying that he lost all control, and she managed to flee the room and find the hidden passage. She made her way below the castle before he could find out where she had gone, and dived into the river that fed the castle well, and nearly drowned, but was washed up very near here, by the bridge over the old king’s road.”
Velna took over, folding her arms. “Now. You may not believe the story, but in that forest there is a monster, and if nothing else – you should learn that sometimes people do not wish to be kissed by you, no matter how much you want to kiss them.”
Rosella made a little gasping sound, and as Yelena turned to her, the girl hurried off.
Yelena looked back at Velna, who rolled her eyes and shook her head. She moved closer to Yelena, squeezing around the table to whisper in her ear. “She’s been after the baker’s boy.”
Yelena stifled a laugh. “But he’s—”
“Oh, yes. He’s very.” Velna shook her head. “She’ll learn. You don’t get what you want just because you want it.”
Yelena kissed her fondly on the cheek. The dramas of the village youth were neither Yelena’s concern nor of any particular interest to her, but it was gratifying to know they were learning the same lessons as every generation before.
“Not quite the moral I was going to go for,” she said, but Bellac stuck his head around the door and broke up the story time.
An early beta reader said she would like to hear the original story the way the Grandmother character told it, and in later revisions, I put this in. I think it works here in a number of ways:
- It shows the tradition of storytelling in the culture of the protagonist, and Yelena’s relationship with her traditions and her heritage. I think oral storytelling is a key part of heritage and learning, as it was a central part of Welsh culture (and arguably still is).
The way you keep family members and events alive and relevant is by telling their stories. Yelena says this to the younger listeners at the hostelry, and reminds them to count ‘in the old way of counting’ when telling this particular tale, to conserve the memory of how this was done in the past. Their culture has shifted dramatically since the Revolution, and this isn’t a case of colonisation, it’s about the influence of the Interior upon the Provinces, and how the centralisation of power has impacted the periphery of the country.
Storytelling continues to be a key theme in the book, both oral and written, as a form of collective and individual memory.
… - It tells you a version of the story that isn’t, in fact, the whole truth or the only version of the story, which you learn later on. You do get a sense of Yelena’s grandmother before the flashback where you see her on her deathbed, and I liked that.
… - It creates an atmosphere and you get to see what life is like for the village kids, which I also enjoyed writing.
… - Stories have multiple uses and layers to them. Yelena’s moral wasn’t the one Velna went with, and Bellac yells after the children that one day the monster will come out of the forest to eat them, and that’s another thing you could choose to take from it…
I love playing with stories and storytelling as a device.
Which books/authors have you enjoyed that also plays with the medium of storytelling? Tell me in the comments!
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