"If you would only listen..."

Temptation, the Boy and the Golden Bird

Sometimes you just don’t know where the story is going to go.

Many people think fairy tales are predictable. There’s an opening situation, a problem or deficiency that must be addressed and the story takes off from there. There may be adventures, love interests and lots of tests and tribulations. There will probably be magical elements, fantasy and whimsy may abound and all comes right in the end.

But not all fairy tales are like that.

The Golden Bird seems like it should follow this pattern. The King has golden apples and someone is stealing them. There are three brothers put to the test to find the culprit, but only one of them succeeds. There is a Magical Helper who gives the youngest boy everything he needs to accomplish his mission. And things do indeed come right but not in the way you might think.

Its as if the story as it is told is not really the story. As if the fairy tale template is used to tell us something more mysterious than derring-do and personal triumph.

It’s all about a Fox.

When a Magical Helper appears in a Fairy Tale it’s because something important needs to be done. The character meets someone, usually someone most unlikely who will give them important instructions. The Helper will outline the task at hand  – what, where and how – and they will always tell the character the one thing that should not be done. The character is then sent off to muddle through as best they can.

The caveat the Magical Helper offers is almost always of the ‘Don’t Do’ variety. Don’t drink the wine. Don’t stay past midnight. Don’t leave the path. Whether you call it an interdiction, a prohibition or just friendly advice it all leads to the same result. Do as you are told or things will go very badly.

A Fairy Tale up to that point has many active components but the Magical Helper has now introduced a new factor - the element of choice. There’s a task, a job to be done, but now it includes a test. Something that is usually very simple, something small and inconsequential. The character, of course, always succumbs to the temptation the impulse to do what they think best and so they do the exact opposite of what they’ve been told.

The boy in The Golden Bird is no exception. Again and again he disregards the Magical Helper’s, in this case the Fox’s instructions; and again and again the result is catastrophic. Each time he fails one of these little tests, makes the wrong choice the boy meets a new round of terrible consequences – he is imprisoned multiple times, he is given ever greater tasks that defy completion, he is betrayed, and finally he is left to die.

The temptations in this story are mundane and utterly meaningless. The boy’s choices are no better or worse than what you or I might choose. And yet he has to pay an ever-increasing penalty for his actions.

Somewhere deep in what might be the Second Act in this story, the boy collapses in hopelessness. He reaches the point of despair and that is just what is needed. Until the boy gives up his ideas, his way of doing things, he cannot become what he is meant to be and his true task will never be accomplished. The Fox has been waiting for this very moment.

There’s a conundrum at the heart of divine intervention. If you seek Magical Help then you have to play by its rules, and invariably that means a very specific yielding to something higher than us. The Fox keeps saying, “If you would only listen…” but the boy disobeys his instructions again and again.

Obedience has a bad rep. We tend to associate it with domination or compliance in a negative way. We forget that the original meaning of the word is to listen. Fairy tale guides are asking us to do just that. But it all goes terribly wrong when we start to have better ideas, when we think we know more. Magical Help demands a certain quality of submission – it asks that we work with it, cooperate with it, trust it, so that the true result can occur.

When the boy finally listens, finally hears what the Fox has to say, and obeys the instructions exactly, he is able to escape all his captors and his mission is complete. He has secured the Golden Bird, captured a Golden Horse and wooed a Princess from the Golden Castle. He heads home in triumph. The boy’s task is done.

Or is it?

At this moment the Fox asks for one thing. It is not an instruction, a caveat or a test. It is a simple request. It comes from the creature that has shown endless patience and persistence in helping the boy secure his fortune. It is a plea for help. And the boy says no.

The Fox must leave him. There is nothing more to be done. He gives the boy a few words of warning and then he is gone.

The story continues. In the final act, the boy, of course, falls into more danger. He needs more help. There are more rescues, more good advice and then the Fox is gone once again.  The story seems truly over and yet it feels so unfinished.

The boy has had his adventure. He has matured and triumphed. He has elevated his station. He has more than accomplished the task - giving the King even greater wealth than the King’s greedy heart had originally desired. He has married the Princess from the Golden Castle. He has all the happy elements of a fairy tale ending.

So what is missing?

Years later, when the boy is a grown man, living a life that he hasn’t really earned, knowing that everything he has he owes to the Fox, he meets the Fox again.

“You have everything that you can desire, but there is no end to my misery. It still lies in your power to release me.” It is the Fox’s last request and the boy who couldn’t listen, who couldn’t obey, who fell to temptation every step of the way is finally able to hear and he does what he is asked.

The boy’s mission was never about the Golden Bird. His task was to save the Fox.

Photo by Sunguk Kim on Unsplash