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Allison Cox, Elisa Pearmain, fran stallings, Margaret Read MacDonald, mary grace ketner, megan hicks, Naomi Socher, Nick Smith, richard martin
David and Jonathan window at St. Mark’s Portobelo, Edinburgh, Scotland. 1882 (detail)
Dear Activist in Oslo–We wonder if anyone has sent you the list of stories from traditional sources with GLBTQ-friendly themes (or LGBT-friendly; doesn’t seem to matter) compiled by Storytell Listserve members a few months ago. It’s not very long, but there are some good stories there. Some involve storyteller changes, and others are the true to the original source. We hope others have more stories to add.–Stella and Amy
1. “The Blue Rose” Chinese Folktale. The princess says she will marry whoever brings her a blue rose. Several try, but she sees through their tricks. When the one she loves appears, they devise a plan so the chosen one will win. Traditionally her beloved is male, but…Richard Martin of Darmstadt, Germany, says: this morning while cycling in to school, (I was) thinking about a girl in one class who recently happily explained to me that she would be missing the next lesson because her mother was marrying her partner (since this was in German, the “partner” had a feminine ending to the word). This morning I told the class the Blue Rose (http://tellatale.eu/tales_blue_rose.html), and had the princess marry a woman.
And Nick Smith adds: It is one of the stories that lends itself to unusual variations without damaging the heart of the story itself.
2. Naomi Socher tells “a version of Catskin that ends in her marrying a nobleman’s daughter instead of a son. In my version, the nobleman holds grand balls to find the perfect mate for his daughter and all the eligible lords and ladies are invited, since she’s bi.”
3. Naomi also suggests The Arthurian tale of Percival, who was raised as a girl until a teenager, and later becomes one of King Arthur’s knights, making his tale an interesting exploration of gender.
4. David & Jonathan. “And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.And Saul took him that day, and would let him go no more home to his father’s house. Then Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as his own soul.” Samuel 18 ff.
5. Another biblical story which includes a covenantal relationship is Ruth, who gives Naomi a vow, to follow her in her life. When Ruth bears a son, the women say “There is a son born to Naomi.”
6. You might find some encouragement in good companions quest stories, although the protagonist usually ends up with a bride. Fran Stallings gives the example of “Tatterhood” from Ethel Johnston Phelps’ book Tatterhood. Two sisters have an adventure, and Tatterhood shows trust in “the prince,” but we don’t see her marry him.
7. Another example of such a story which does not end in a marriage is “Kanu Above and Kanu Below” in The Storyteller’s Start-Up Book by Margaret Read MacDonald. Four animal/insect friends go on a quest and successfully reunite a family. Though his people dislike the four, Chief Kanu Below stands up for each of them and, in the end, reminds the people that they wanted to kick the friends out of the village, yet it was those four who brought his daughter back to him.
8. Yet another such tale is the Spanish folktale “The Flea.” A shepherd boy and his animal companions go to the palace to take on a challenge given by the king where the reward is to marry his daughter. They solve the riddle, but decline the marriage.
9. Fran also suggests “Mandowmin” (legend of the origin of corn, found in Joseph Campbell’s The Masks of God, Volume I, Primitive Mythology (p. 216 ff).
10. From “Bi-anonymous,” by Melanie Ray, an essay in The Healing Heart – Families, edited by Allison M. Cox and David H. Albert. comes this entry from her “pitifully short list of some sources for stories”: Kissing the Witch by Emma Donahue, a literary retelling of 13 fairytales told through the eyes of the unique women in these stories.
11. “The Tackety Boots,” a Scottish Folktale retold by Hazel Lennox. In this time-warp tale, a man is cast out, becomes a woman for a time, marries and has children, and then is returned to being a man–without missing more than an evening in his home time/place. Also from The Healing Heart – Families.
12. “The Necklace” as retold by Elisa Pearmain (“Empowering Middle School Students to Stop Bullying,” in Storytelling Magazine, November-December 2012.) Bullying is always a core GLBTQ issue, and this all-girl tale seems particularly fitting for questioning youth.
13. Include “Truth and Story” in a GLBTQ-friendly program, reminding all of how people don’t really care as much about the bare, naked truth as they do about a heartwarming, human story.
14. In the rhythmic Limba tale “Ko Kongole,” a vain girl considers marrying a porcupine, an antelope, a bull, then finally decides upon a rooster because he is handsome. The notion of marrying someone who will make you look respectable in the wedding album is dispelled. Also from Margaret’s (Read MacDonald) The Storyteller’s Start-Up Book.
“My what a good start!” said Simplia, after listening to Sagacia read Stella and Amy’s list aloud.
“Indeed,” Sagacia agreed. “I do hope our magical friends have more tales to add!”
Fairy Tale Lobby 
THE GIRL WHO PRETENDED TO BE A BOY
from ANDREW LANG’S FAIRY BOOKS
VIOLET FAIRY BOOK
http://mythfolklore.net/andrewlang/053.htm
I tell this in a 45 minute concert – a fantastic story that includes all sorts of fantastic beings and a destined love between two women that no religion or culture could stop!
Allison Cox
In Legends of the Rhine, I found a tale that, although not explicitly, reads very much like a knight falling in love with his page, who saves his life, and in the end turns out to be a “spirit” (angel). The story is called The Angel Page, you can read it here:
https://archive.org/details/legendsrhine00unkngoog
Also, the “Princess who became a man” also exists in India:
https://archive.org/details/groupofeasternro00clou
And in Greece, under the name Iphis in Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
Cheers!
Great to share this info!!!
In one of her Five Hundred Kingdoms fantasy series, *One Good Knight*, Mercedes Lackey has a different than expected gender for one of her characters (don;t want to spoil it by being more specific. Also, in Tolkien’s *The Return of the King*, when the Lord of the Nazgul taunts that he cannot be killed by a man, he is first cut down to size (literally) by Merry the Hobbit cutting his leg, and then by Eowyn pulling off her helmet, in which she has been disguised as Dernhelm, and points out that she is no man, just before she slays him. One of the best such moments in literature or movies, IMO.
When I tell my version of The Talking Eggs (aka Diamonds and Toads), the heroine takes her riches, moves into town and refuses all offers of courtship and marriage because she feels in her heart she does not need a man in her life to complete it in any way. She sets herself up in a comfortable home, and uses the money from the sale of diamonds that flow from her mouth to set up a school for girls and women to teach them skills, to give them a place to become their own selves. She is happy with being herself among women. And she lives out her life in that way – well respected by everyone in the town. The end.
What excellent suggestions, everyone! Thanks so much!
In The Boy Who Had No Story, he becomes a woman, has children, etc. and then turns back to a man. Then there’s the Story of Silence, powerfully told by Dolores Hydock, which plays with gender.
Not quite the same thing, but I end The Tale of the Squire’s Bride with, “The squire never did get married after all, not that day, not any day. And Astrid? She might have gotten married and she might not have, but she was left to dream her dreams and not the squire’s.”
I do my own retelling of the Norwegian “The Boy Who Turned Himself into a Falcon, A Lion and Ant”. It is now a story ‘based on’ that tale. I was so annoyed at the number of stories where the princess was ‘forced’ to marry some stable boy, or some trickster, that the boy hero became a girl. I do not usually make changes to classic folk tales, but this is one instance I have done and so the now-girl chooses not to marry the princess at the end of the story. I took a couple of other liberties and made some other changes with the tale too, but I do not think it loses anything in the telling and in fact has become a favourite of my ‘fans’.
I can’t let this conversation slip by without mentioning “The Princess Who Became a Man” in Steven Badman’s “Odds and Sods”, a translation out of Danish from the collection of Evald Kristensen.
There is a Czech tale, the Wood Fairy, that to me has a LGBT theme in the two women dancing in the forest. Always thought it would make a great ballet.
There is an Arabic tale in which a woman disguised as a mans is betrothed to a prince. She is ‘cursed’ by a genie “If you are a man, become a woman, if a woman become a man” She, now he, marries and lives Happily Ever After. Sorry but I have lost the source. Help anyone?