On Personal Mythologies and story cores and circles of light

[permetaform]

I spent part of today trying to explain the story of The Little Matchstick Girl to someone who, in hindsight, I don't think ever had a childhood story. Or not the kind that The Little Matchstick Girl was to me.

I remember first hearing this story one night flopped on my parent's bed. My dad told me the story, and at the end of it...I did not have words, then, for how incredibly shaken that story made me. I don't think I have words for it now, even. I'd stumbled off to bed, and I don't remember sleeping.

The story, as it has made it into my personal mythology, as I remember it and perhaps not necessarily the way it was told, is this:

An orphaned little girl sold matchsticks that she made on the streets of a town solstice eve, as she had ever done to feed herself. They weren't selling well so she still had a lot and by and by her eyes fell on a the window of a home nearby. It was golden inside, family around a table and the light spilled out in buttery puddles and she could almost touch the warmth through the cold and the dark around her.

She lit a matchstick and then it was like she was in their circle of light and warmth for a brief moment, until the matchstick went out and she was alone again.

She lit another one and it seemed like they were closer and she imagines the smell of the food on the table and the voices around her and before that match went out she lit another one.

The next day they found her, frozen, with used matchsticks all around her; she looked happy.

This is the story I know; or rather, that I remember, that is part of me. I kept returning to the thought of this story, even though it made my stomach curl up on itself.

I mentioned to kintail yesterday about the heart of a story, and essential core that attacks the animal hindbrain of people, and that doesn't let go.

For The Little Matchstick Girl, for me, it's the image of that solitary little girl, in the darkness, with a match, and by wish or will or strength of imagination taking herself to a place where she's not so alone anymore.

Fiat Lux

let there be light
He didn't really understand, I think. We dropped the topic. And it makes me kinda sad and kinda frustrated because he stated that he doesn't really read for pleasure. I cannot comprehend this. Or rather, I can comprehend it, but I can never comprehend *myself* giving up pleasure reading. I can't imagine living without a personal mythology.

This is my creation myth, that once there was darkness, and then there was one spark, and then there was more and more and the universe exploded into something beautiful, ending one state to begin another, killing itself to create again.

And...and I'm trying to talk out, figure out, here, why this seems so important to me to say, to work out. And.

And I realize, what is this but a personal creation myth as well? What is this, but the way that *I*, speaking as a collected bundle of thoughts and ideas, was born? Not I-as-part-of-my-mother, not I-as-part-of-my-culture, not I-as-child-of-my-circumstances, but *I*, here, thinking, writing, feeling, tearing up, *I* as vidder, *I* which I came to be, here, now. A...reason to live, I think.

Or perhaps a mythology for living.

I don't think I got that across to him. I'm happy though, that at least I figured it out, for myself.


On that note: what are your myths?

Comments

[otterdemon.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't know about my myths, but maybe the one that influenced me the most as a child? Probably that of the red shoes. It was...well, probably not one that I would ever, ever recommend to a child. It was a little too horrendous, though the message it sent will always be remembered by me (even if sometimes ignored).

[myniamh.livejournal.com]

=)
I loved that story too.
A few years ago I saw an animated kids show which used the original story but changed it slightly.

It started out with a small match girl on the street watching the windows of a fancy, warm restaurant, lighting matches to keep warm.
Inside a violin player was asked over and over to play 'happy' music for the rich men and their girlfriends. He kept loosing himself in the music and bringing out the loneliness he felt, this got him fired.
The little match girl, so captivated by the music the violinist played while walking home, followed him. When he got home he was still playing and did not notice when the flame of his gas lights blew out. The little girl crept up the stairs to listen, lighting her last match as she went through his door.
BOOM.
The animation ended with the two of them floating up to heaven, the musician finally playing happy music on his own.

[calicokat.livejournal.com]

"The Tinderbox."

I remember a lot of the original stories, but that story sticks with me, always. I'm not sure what it is about it that resonates with me. Sometimes I make up the ending for myself because I forget it.

The Secret Garden is like this for me, too. The words of the book and the images from the Hallmark verison (read: One True Version) sort of jumble together into something very real to me in retrospect.

Those are the big ones for me, I think. :) I totally feel what you're saying, tho.

[aliaswestgate.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I think the one that always struck me as the closest to my heart is The Little Mermaid. Told as Hans Christian Anderson originally did, with the princess giving her life instead of living happily ever after. But in the end, she was still content. Prince or no prince, she made her own decision.

The disneyfied version's music will always be close to my heart. But there was one done back in the mid or early 80s. Half hour long animated special and it was so sweet, so softly done that it stays with me to this day. Even the music i remember, faintly. I'd know it if i ever saw it again. Just by a quiet little song, sung by a true light soprano while she was human. We used to have it taped on VHS. I think i nearly wore it out by the time i turned 18. I wish i could find it on DVD now. But for me The Little Mermaid and it's original tragic ending speaks volumes.

Go for what you want. If you can't, you can still make an independant decision no matter the cost. Yes, hers was essentially death. But she still ended up happy as a Daughter of the Air watching over others.

[calicokat.livejournal.com]

While people are remembering back to childhood stories... This is as good a place to ask as any, I guess. There's also this story, and I don't know the name of it, and I want to say, like...

I think it's about a chick. And the chick goes on this quest. I think to see a king. Chicks are always going to see the king. And on the way he meets this turkey, and there's a bit about him getting stuck in the turkey's gullet with the rocks, I'm pretty sure, or something about the turkey's gullet -- this is the most outstanding feature to me -- and he meets some other characters, and I think something rather violent happens in the king's courtyard, but I could be confusing it with The Half Chick...

Does ANYONE know what story this is? I know it's not "The Half Chick." Is it some expanded version of Chicken Little? T_T This has been bothering me for like... six years. The bit about the turkey!

[lierdumoa.livejournal.com]

I read so many children's stories as a child. My parents had a large book a greek myths, a large book of Dickens' work, and two huge old comic anthologies. The Tin Soldier comes to mind as the first love story I ever read. He's a children's toy and falls in love with a ballerina doll. In the end he's thrown into the fire and they later find him melted into the shape of a heart.

I remember loving Thumbelina, and how she didn't want to marry that gopher and live underground in a dusty hole and she didn't want to live "comfortably" she just wanted to be free.

I also particularly remember the The Uncle Remus Tales (originally written entirely in African-American dialect) particularly "Brer Rabbit and the Tar-Baby," in which Brer rabbit pisses off Brer Fox and Brer Fox tricks him into getting stuck in this doll he made out of tar is about to kill him and Brer rabbit tells him, "Oh, skin me alive, shoot me, just don't send me to the briar patch!"

Of course, Brer Fox immediately sends him right there, and Brer Rabbit runs off laughing, "I was born and bred in the briar patch, suckah!!" (or, you know, something to that effect) ensuring I developed a love for trickster figures early on.

The whole story is here, and it's really short.

[nightengale.livejournal.com]

So there was this emperor, right? (He was Chinese but this detail only matters slightly.) And he was lucky enough to find a beautifully singing nightingale but botched his chance, 'cause he overworked and imprisoned her, and she flew the coop, never to return. And then his golden replica broke. Or they got sick of it, either way, he was screwed. As the emperor lay dying, the nightingale came back, he begged forgiveness, and depending on which version you know, she did or did not grant it.

The story, and my understanding of it, have been evolving (seperately and together) for me since the first day I heard it (only about 8 years ago, max), and through the use of it, or references to it, in various animes, media, chance encournters, the works...Now, I am the Eggman Nightingale. Several details about the story which are important to me now, but weren't necessarily visible to me when I first learned it:

- The emperor was one lucky bastard to find her, and wasted his chance.
- The bird was a her.
- She was the only nightingale. The *only* one.
- The mechanical bird was a good replacement only at first, only long enough for the nightingale to get the hell out of dodge before the Emperor realized he wasn't, in fact, better off with his gold.
- However, the mechanical replication *did* perfectly mimic her, if only for a little while.
- She, unlike the mechanical one, had a huge repetory of songs to sing, and constantly changed bits of them, which was what made them good.

Make of all that what you will.

[For your curiosity, the animes in which the nightingale is referenced, that I know of, are Otogizoushi (very obliquely) and The Big O (very directly, as part of the overall theme).]

I completely agree with you when you speak of a creation story of your independent self. (The Nightingale did that for me.) I feel it's the same theory as that behind renaming yourself. Your birth 'given' name could feasibly become equalled by one you give yourself, in terms of self-identification-connotation. In fandom, I find that's often the case with screen names, or if not the actual names, then the proper name from which the 16-character-long, underscores allowed, SN is culled [Thirteenth Nightengale becoming th_nightengale; the series of permutations and languages which ended with your nickname of Perma]. To put this all in simpler terms and less runons: I answer to Nightengale as easily as to Emily. I have re-named myself, but that doesn't make my newest name any less accurate. Simply contains/explains different aspects of my self than Emily can encompass. [Perhaps 're' name is wrong because it implies a replacement...I'm trying to convey a duality, or multiplicity, of cooexisting and equally accurate names which can be applied to one person; moreover, the 'additional' names being equal to the given first, or rather the name chosen as preferredaddress, and not subordinate like middle names tend to become. And I may not be making any sense, forgive me.]

Re: thinking thinking singing

[lierdumoa.livejournal.com]

Oh! I remember reading that story!

I can't for the life of me remember how it ends, though. Does he just die lonely?

Re: thinking thinking singing

[nightengale.livejournal.com]

dammit, I moved my comment. ^^; sorry 'bout that.

Well depending on what translation/version you read, yes. Or no. Or sorta.

Sometimes the bird forgives him and he recovers his health in one night, as she sings him back into the world of the living (and this is a note I should have made as to the personal power of said bird).

Sometimes the bird says no, sorry, too late, and he dies lonely.

And sometimes he's not all that close to dying, and so he just lives lonely...

And in one version, my favorite, and incidentally the one contained in the anime Big O (though it's not only in there), the story ends way early. It ends with the mechanical bird, and the emperor being satisfied with it; before the mechanical bird breaks, before the emperor falls sick, this version of the story just says, "Bird, Emperor; Emperor replaced bird; bird was alone; mechanical bird pleased the Emperor, the end."

Now does that mean that the Emperor was settling, or that he truly had plebian taste and couldn't tell what he'd lost? Or, was the mechanical bird truly that good? *G* This is why this one's my favorite version, 'cause there are no answers. ^_~

[kintail.livejournal.com]

Before I can even give this conscious thought with all its reasons and rationalizations and justifications, before I can protest that I remember too little of my childhood clearly, my hindbrain immediately answers "The White Cat."

Oh...

Oooh. Ghods, no wonder I'm so completely taken with Goujun and Hakuryu. Good grief I'm slow on the uptake sometimes. Oooh.

*takes a few minutes to catch breath, choked up and shaken*

Oh.

While most of my brain is too busy reeling over that gutpunch connection to even begin to explain yet (though I would definitely like to explore it), I want to say that "The Little Matchstick Girl" is definitely a close second as personal mythology for me. I'm pretty sure I read that in an illustrated story book, because I immediately get an image in my mind's eye of a picture of the girl being so desperate not to lose the image of family and food and warmth that she lights all the matches she has left to make one last big fire -- I see her with the bundle of matches on fire, held in both hands and not caring that it's about to burn her hands and catch fire to her ragged gloves, and all the things she's seeing in the firelight gathered are around her. And I think in the version I read, it was a case of "evil stepmother" issues too, where she was not allowed to go home until she's sold all the matches and had the money for her stepmother, so she knew if she couldn't sell them she'd freeze to death that night anyway. Definitely another aspect of my own personal mythology, and one I'd considered very seriously and thought furiously about as a child, so maybe this one rather than The White Cat is the one I first tried to really consciously pick apart and recognize as mythology.

Perhaps that is also where I picked up the understanding that creation and destruction go hand in hand, something has to end for something else to begin, and so on, even if what is ending or being destroyed is darkness, cold, void. And the power of the image of a fire cupped in the hands, without fear.

The idea of not only imagination corrolating with creation, but that imagination can connect to a different world that is as real in its own way as this one (which is not really one reality but a collection of consensual realities), is another very important aspect of my own personal mythology. What I read for pleasure, and what I aspire to write, is connections with those other worlds.

[cicer.livejournal.com]

I love fairy tales and myths. Have you read the series of rewritten myths by Ellen Daltow and Terry Windling? There are several collections by tons of great authors: Silver Birch, Blood Moon (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0380786222/qid=1118720041/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/002-1477603-3523243?v=glance&s=books&n=507846), Snow White, Blood Red (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0380718758/ref=pd_sim_b_6/002-1477603-3523243?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance), Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0380778726/ref=pd_sim_b_2/002-1477603-3523243?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance), Black Heart, Ivory Bones (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0380786230/ref=pd_sim_b_3/002-1477603-3523243?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance), and more. They're all amazing.

There's a great version of the match girl story by Anne Bishop in Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears. It's terrifying, and definitely not for the faint of heart, but very very good.

I'm not sure what my favorite myths are. I love Greek myths a lot, especially the ones about the gods. The story of Psyche might be my favorite, especially because of how C.S. Lewis did it in Till We Have Faces.

I cannot understand people who don't love reading the way I do. I just can't relate to that at all. Reading is maybe my favorite thing in the world, so I just don't get how anyone couldn't adore it.

Re: thinking thinking singing

[kintail.livejournal.com]

Have you read "Sailing to Sarantium" (and sequel "Lord of Emperors") by Guy Gavriel Kay? I think he draws on that nightingale myth, as one of the major subplots involves mechanical birds that an alchemist tries to create as gifts for the Emperor, and to make them better than any others, he finds a way to give them souls... of course this comes with a price... so much fascinating mythology and history (Sarantium is based very closely on Byzantium) in those books.

[aliaswestgate.livejournal.com]

You know The White Cat as in the old french fairy tale? Third son on a quest and all the usual parts. Yet it's the ending of it that makes it hurt the most?

If we're talking about the same fairy tale, you'll be the first person i've met besides the ones that compiled the fairy tale book that i read it in that knows of its existance.

[xoverau.livejournal.com]

I remember that story. *shiver*

[scarletseraph.livejournal.com]

Allah said to the South Wind: "Become solid flesh, for I will make a new creature of thee; to the honour of My Holy One, and the abasement of Mine enemies, and for a servant to them that are subject to me."

And the South Wind said, "Lord, do Thou so."

Then Allah took a handful of the South Wind and He breathed thereon, creating the horse and saying: "Thy name shall be Arabian, and virtue bound into the hair of thy forelock, and plunder on thy back. I have preferred thee above all beasts of burden, inasmuch as I have made thy master thy friend. I have given thee the power of flight without wings, be it in onslaught or retreat. I will set men on thy back that shalt honour and praise Me and sing Hallelujah to My name."

As far as faerytales go... When I was very, very young - probably before I could even read the book myself - my aunt and uncle gave me 'Fairy Tales from Around the World'. It was set around East of the Sun, West of the Moon - divided into four sections, with each Wind telling a different set of stories to the young girl who was searching for her Prince.

Then my grandmother found a huge, ancient book of faerytales at a yard sale, and brought it home for me. It was full of the old stories; the gory, morbid stories. Grimmies and Andersen and Lang and things I can't even identify. The Snow Queen. My favourite, though, was always The Colony of Cats. I wanted to be Lizina so very badly. ^^;

I don't know what happened to that one. *Mourn* I found a complete illustrated Grimm's at Goodwill a few months back, though.

[kintail.livejournal.com]

Yes!! French fairy tale by (checks google) la comptesse Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy.

Here is a version similar to the one in the book I have (packed, alas, and this post had me almost ready to tear my closet apart to get it out and scan it, but Tav is trying to sleep AND the main light in my room is burnt out so I can't see into the closet at night anyway), but not quite the same: http://www.ongoing-tales.com/SERIALS/oldtime/FAIRYTALES/WhiteCat.html

The book I have is a large grey-blue covered one with nothing at all written on the spine, and the title is one of those generic ones like "A Treasury of Fairy Tales" -- the amazing thing was every single page being full-paged illustrated with just a space for 50-100 words of the story per page -- it was like a manga, the visuals affected me as least as much as the words. And so it really showed me about form not mattering at all when it comes to connections and bonds between souls, and of course the ending with its very painful message about complete trust needing to come before the selfishness of love for that love to actually have a chance, and so much more....

*si~igh* Yeah.

[aliaswestgate.livejournal.com]

That's the one! *flails*

It always struck me as once again, brutal but right. And utterlu unique as well. I don't have the same interpretation of love beyond form that you do. But the imagery is still there. It struck me as a sad story, between the giving to each other. The curse and much more when i think about it. Yet it wouldn't have stuck with me if it hadn't some power.

I wonder if we have the same book? I think i got mine from one of my canadian uncles and the art of that little thing is as vivid as the traditional stories encased in it. Art done like the old Illuminations used centuries ago. It's part of why i kept that book. The art, the obscure stories. Many of them as striking as The Little White Cat.

Many of them staying with me because they have that power and lyrical tone. That little book is one of many reasons i'm so into storytelling. (IE:mythology in its deepest essence). *grins* Fanfiction is only the latest outward aspect of it for some reason. Choirgirl, a little bit of stage acting. Devoured movies as a child, and a few striking series along with all the inane crap shown to me as a child. But the old world fairy tales stuck with me more than the sanitized idiocies. And why i go searching the world over into other cultures, to see how we differ and how much we're all still very much the same at heart.

[nightengale.livejournal.com]

Hm. Am thinking, need to read this book. As well as the others that you recced. Memo to self, write these titles down in the morning....*yaaaaaaaawn*

[scarletseraph.livejournal.com]

...I remember that one! But not where I read it, though. o.o It definitely wasn't the book you two have.

[kintail.livejournal.com]

Hmm, my book isn't "little" -- I think it's about 9" x 12" and almost an inch thick. Other stories in it were one about the Sandman taking a kid to witness various things like a mice wedding in his dreams, and one about a proud darning needle, and a story about flowers that got up in the middle of the night and danced so they looked tired in the morning... hmm, can't remember the others for sure, it's The White Cat that I always went back to. I really will try to dig it out and at least scan a few pages.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

This is what I love so much about your posts (oh, and your excellent pimping, of course XD) - you make me think. I don't believe I have a single childhood story that has affected me so deeply, but that feeling that you evoke with your words, your description of it, I know that so well. And I'm absolutely with you on one thing - how can you not read for pleasure? How can you not read to become involved in other worlds, in other people's lives, in experiences that you will never have? That's been such a big part of my existence since I was five.

This is my creation myth, that once there was darkness, and then there was one spark, and then there was more and more and the universe exploded into something beautiful, ending one state to begin another, killing itself to create again.

That's exactly it. The living come from the dead, and dead is gone, but that doesn't matter. Our society is all wrapped up in fear of dying, and it comes to everyone, it's the way it is. But in the meantime, I'm me, and there has never been a me before and never will be again. I enjoy what I have, I want to be the most I can be, and do the things I want to do, and at the end of that I will have enjoyed just being me, and creating and being different. I steer my life towards the things I want, and I can't lose, I can only win, because I'm here.

[aliaswestgate.livejournal.com]

If you could? My copy is back at my parent's house about 200 miles east. I have a feeling it's the same book, because i remember those stories too. I think of it as little because of the one inch thick aspect of it. I have a larger complilation that is about 3 or 4 inches thick. But isn't as beautiful, though the stories are just as engaging. (fairytale geek, bibliophile? yes!)

'Hop'O'Mythumb' is another one inside it. A little boy, a giant. Seven league boots, and helping his poverty stricken family. A little red haired boy in the illustrations.

[kintail.livejournal.com]

Oh and the other important thing I meant to say is that the personal mythology is always evolving too, and seeking new sources it can "recognize" and make part of itself. For me, most recently, it has been connecting with Saiyuki, which is a very powerful experience since that is drawing on such a powerful meta-myth itself and reinventing it.

[kintail.livejournal.com]

Yes, I remember that story in it too, it must be the same book. ^_^

It was a "big" book for me because I got it when the other books I was reading were Little Golden Books and Dr. Seuss. (And I think "Fox in Socks" may also be part of my early personal mythology. >_<; Love of words and the things they can do...)

[aliaswestgate.livejournal.com]

I think my favorite Dr. Seuss is The Sneeches. Very much part of my own personal mythology, and relavent to my worldview(and of myself as well) today. I read some of the Little Golden Books too, and i remember one Beatrix Potter in my early collection as well. I wish i was back home with my parents. I could go see what i kept. *sighs happily*