there are a NUMBER of folktale Woman-Creatures like selkies who exist to make the inherently coercive nature of heterosexual marriage explicit and to externalize male anxiety about how if your wife had actual autonomy she very well might disappear and you might never fucking hear from her again
which is a FASCINATING category of Woman-Creature imo
someone said it’s also a cautionary tale about mistreating your wife and I think that’s spot on especially for other related types of stories e.g. the crane wife. like I think these stories are very much Husband Anxiety Stories. the Woman-Creatures are black boxes whose interior experience it is impossible to know and who have strange and often seemingly arbitrary rules that you must follow or else they will disappear. idk. like. that’s why I think that any empowering-to-women-ness qualities of these stories is incidental. I think they’re externalized anxiety about coercive societal heterosexuality and the inability to truly Know one’s wife in such circumstances.
you also see a variant of this formula a lot (generally at the more literary end of the fairy tale space) where it’s not a creature you capture, but a magical lady who picks you for seemingly arbitrary reasons, bettering your fortune enormously with her magic and wealth and second-hand status.
and then, for reasons usually at least slightly less arbitrary, fucks off again.
the husbandly anxiety here is more about not having access to coercion as an option.
currently thinking about: this photo of richard sandells kissing the eros statue in piccadilly circus as part of an outrage kiss-in protest against the prosecution of gay people showing affection in public.
THEY FOUND THE WHITE WITCH CATERPILLAR! THIS IS NOT A DRILL!
For context: the white witch is one of the contenders for the largest moth in the world (biggest *wingspan*–loses to the atlas in terms of wing surface area, and loses to the regal for weight). It has a huge range, and the adult is fairly common.
But no one had ever seen a caterpillar. At all. There were only guesses as to what it might look like and what it ate. until this year. These are some of the first images ever taken of it!!
Add a little-guy-holding-a-shiny-thing patch to an item of clothing. You will not regret this. Bonus points if the little guy has a whole nest of shinies.
i have turned it into a letterboxd list: good films that are free on the internet archive!!!! Each film is linked in the notes on letterboxd. this will be continually updated so it’s a good link to save if you want to keep up!
