Canonical Problems in Fairy Tales

As a father of three young children, I enjoy reading and listening to fairy tales with my kids. But I can’t help but notice that in addition to all of the strange and supernatural features of these tales, there are a striking number of canonical irregularities . . . particularly in how the characters approach the sacraments of baptism and holy matrimony.

Let’s start with one of the most famous fairy tales: the story of Cinderella. Versions of this story have existed for millennia, dating back at least to the ancient Greek story of Rhodopis, from about the time of Christ. Charles Perrault’s 1697 version is the most famous, serving as the basis for the 1950 Disney film. It’s a charming story, but it’s hard not to be alarmed at the canonical irregularities. To wit:

At last the happy day came; they went to Court, and Cinderella followed them with her eyes as long as she could, and when she had lost sight of them, she fell a-crying.

Her godmother, who saw her all in tears, asked her what was the matter.

“I wish I could—I wish I could—” but she could not finish for sobbing.

Her godmother, who was a fairy, said to her, “You wish you could go to the ball; is it not so?”

Hold on a moment. Her godmother is a fairy?

The first canonical problem this raises is the whole idea of having a non-human godmother. A godparent (technically called a sponsor in canon law) must “be a Catholic who has been confirmed and has already received the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist and who leads a life of faith in keeping with the function to be taken on” (874 §1.3). Are we to believe that this fairy has been baptized and confirmed, and has received her first Communion?

But the second canonical problem is that fairies are notorious dabblers in magic. Lest you think this an uncharitable stereotype, I’ll point you to the text:

Cinderella went at once to gather the finest she could get, and brought it to her godmother, not being able to imagine how this pumpkin could help her to go to the ball. Her godmother scooped out all the inside of it, leaving nothing but the rind. Then she struck it with her wand, and the pumpkin was instantly turned into a fine gilded coach.

Magic wands? Sorcery? What kind of godmother doesn’t realize that “all practices of magic or sorcery, by which one attempts to tame occult powers, so as to place them at one’s service and have a supernatural power over others—even if this were for the sake of restoring their health—are gravely contrary to the virtue of religion” (CCC 2117)? This hardly sounds like someone “who leads a life of faith in keeping with” her role as Cinderella’s godmother.

Whatever canonical problems apply to Cinderella, they apply sevenfold to Sleeping Beauty. I don’t mean that hyperbolically, either. Read for yourself:

At last, however, the queen had a daughter. There was a very fine christening; and the princess had for her godmothers all the fairies they could find in the whole kingdom (there were seven of them), so that every one of them might confer a gift upon her, as was the custom of fairies in those days. By this means the princess had all the perfections imaginable.

This is quite contrary to canon 873, which specifies that “there is to be only one male sponsor or one female sponsor or one of each.”

Admittedly, canon law acknowledges the proper place of local customs (23-28), such that a reasonable “custom contrary to or beyond canon law” (24 §1) may nevertheless carry the force of law in a particular community of the faithful. Still, it’s hard to defend the “custom of fairies in those days” on any kind of moral or canonical grounds. After all, “no custom which is contrary to divine law can obtain the force of law” (24 §1), and a custom of occultic rituals performed by inhuman godmothers would certainly seem to fit that bill.

As is so often the case, the most egregious canonical problems come from Germany . . . in this case, from the story Hans-My-Hedgehog by the Brothers Grimm. The story begins with a peasant couple unable to conceive, such that the frustrated husband finally declares to his wife, “I will have a child, even if it is a hedgehog.” The story only get weirder from here:

Then his wife had a baby, and the top half was a hedgehog and the bottom half a boy. When she saw the baby, she was horrified and said, “Now see what you have wished upon us!”

The man said, “It cannot be helped. The boy must be baptized, but we cannot ask anyone to be his godfather.”

The woman said, “And the only name that we can give him is Hans-My-Hedgehog.”

Although the text doesn’t tell us whether any human woman, hedgehog, or fairy was asked to be godmother, it appears that Hans-My-Hedgehog (why not just Hans?)’s parents have decided to deprive him of a godparent of any kind for . . . unknown and vaguely malicious reasons. This is contrary to both Christian charity and canon law, which says,

Insofar as possible, a person to be baptized is to be given a sponsor who assists an adult in Christian initiation or together with the parents presents an infant for baptism. A sponsor also helps the baptized person to lead a Christian life in keeping with baptism and to fulfill faithfully the obligations inherent in it (872).

There’s good reason for this. As the earlier (1917) Code of Canon Law points out, “from baptism a spiritual relationship is contracted only between the one baptizing, the one being baptized, and the sponsor.” So seriously does the Church take this spiritual relationship that it was previously required (although this is no longer the liturgical norm) that the sponsor “himself or through another physically hold or touch the one to be baptized in the act of baptism or immediately lift him up or receive him from the sacred font or from the hands of the one baptizing.”

We could perhaps excuse the misguided actions of Hans-My-Hedgehog’s parents, as they may not have been particularly educated and were almost certainly feeling overwhelmed by both the usual stresses of becoming new parents and the unusual stresses of your child being half-man and half-hedgehog. This is a place where both the priest and the Rite of Baptism can help. The Order of Baptism of Children explains the role of the brief homily provided by the celebrant:

After the Reading, the celebrant preaches a brief homily in which light is shed on what has been read, and those present are led to a deeper understanding of the mystery of baptism and to a more eager fulfillment of the responsibility that arises from it, especially for parents and godparents.

So this would be a great opportunity for Mr. and Mrs. -My-Hedgehog to be led into a “deeper understanding of the mystery of baptism,” and to realize that perhaps their child does need godparents after all to help him through life’s many challenges. But alas, the pastor in this story fails dramatically in his duties:

When he was baptized, the pastor said, “Because of his quills he cannot be given an ordinary bed.” So they put a little straw behind the stove and laid him in it. And he could not drink from his mother, for he would have stuck her with his quills. He lay there behind the stove for eight years, and his father grew tired of him, and thought, “if only he would die.” But he did not die, but just lay there.

The behavior of both pastor and parents is alarming in this account. Hans-My-Hedgehog’s parents would perhaps have benefited from a brief homily explaining that “parents’ respect and affection are expressed by the care and attention they devote to bringing up their young children and providing for their physical and spiritual needs” (CCC 2228). But instead of focusing on this, or the sacramental richness of baptism, the pastor’s homily seemed indifferent toward (or even fearful of) baby Hans-My-Hedgehog, choosing to focus on the dangers that quills can pose to ordinary beds.

The pastor here would do well to remember that the Christian faithful have their own mission “in the Church and in the world” (can. 275 §2), which he should be promoting rather than micromanaging. Admittedly, he’s probably right that quills aren’t going to go well in a bed, and the parents don’t seem to be doing a great job, but that’s why they need support!

Lest you think I’m being nitpicky about the canonical irregularities of various fairy tales, let me point out that I’ve been focusing on only the irregularities around baptism. Do you want to talk about marriage? In Sleeping Beauty, after the Prince awakens Sleeping Beauty, they eat dinner, and “after supper, without losing any time, the lord almoner married them in the chapel of the castle.”

This appears to have been a secret wedding. Ordinarily, that would be forbidden (the Council of Trent forbade the general practice of clandestine marriage), but in this case, the Prince’s motivation was that his mother “was of the race of the Ogres, and the King married her for her vast riches alone.” More specifically, the Prince had a fear (which later proved well founded) that if his mother learned that he was married, she would try to eat his children. Fortunately, canon law provides that “for a grave and urgent cause, the local ordinary can permit a marriage to be celebrated secretly” (1130).

So the clandestine nature of the wedding isn’t the canonical problem this time. The canonical problem is that “before a marriage is celebrated, it must be evident that nothing stands in the way of its valid and licit celebration” (1066). Even in the case of a clandestine marriage, there are certain “investigations necessary before marriage” which must first take to ensure that the couple is free to marry (1067, 1131.1). Since there’s no imminent danger of death for the couple (see can. 1068), the lord almoner should have made the couple wait until appropriate preparations and investigations could occur.

Unsurprisingly, the weirdest fairy tale wedding is in Hans-My-Hedgehog. First, a king promises Hans-My-Hedgehog his daughter’s hand in marriage and then breaks the promise. Hans-My-Hedgehog responds by invading the king’s castle and shouting to the king to “give him what he had promised, or it would cost him and his daughter their lives.” This is quite specifically forbidden in canon law, as “a marriage is invalid if entered into because of force or grave fear from without, even if unintentionally inflicted, so that a person is compelled to choose marriage in order to be free from it” (1103). This first marriage is in fact a ruse: Hans-My-Hedgehog attacks the woman, sticking her “with his quills until she was bloody all over” and then sending her home bloodied and accursed.

After this, Hans-My-Hedgehog attempts marriage with a second princess. This time, “when the princess saw him she was horrified, because he looked so strange, but she thought that nothing could be done about it, because she had promised her father to go with him. She welcomed Hans-My-Hedgehog, and they were married.” Nothing about this seems obviously irregular, other than the groom being half-hedgehog. But that evening, Hans-My-Hedgehog is cured of his half-hedgehogness and is transformed into “a handsome young gentleman.” And then we’re told that “when the princess saw what had happened, she was overjoyed, and they got up and ate and drank. Now their wedding was celebrated for real, and Hans-My-Hedgehog inherited the old king’s kingdom.”

It’s not just the fact that we’re still calling him Hans-My-Hedgehog even now that he’s not a hedgehog anymore that’s confusing. It’s also the throwaway reference to the wedding now being “celebrated for real”? Are we to take from this that the earlier wedding was a sham for some reason? Perhaps this was a convalidation of some sort (cans. 1156-60). That might be appropriate here, as the idea of marrying half-hedgehogs appears canonically dubious.

Don’t worry: I’m not unpacking the canonical implications of these different fairy tales to my children while we read these stories (nor am I letting them anywhere near Hans-My-Hedgehog until they’re older). But it’s a pleasant diversion to ponder the bizarre worlds of these fairy tales, if for no other reason than to think more clearly about the irregular sacramental situations we sometimes find ourselves in in this one.