For our next tale, we’ll travel to the far north, to the cold but exotic land of Iceland.
Iceland is unique among storytellers, for it has a history of recording oral tales accurately over long periods of time. Also, Iceland is rather far from everything, which allows the tales to flourish without outside influences. Their stories often have Germanic and Norse origins, so this could be a very early rendition of the Germanic Snow White.
The reason I chose this particular story is two fold. First, it is the first tale that has most (if not all) the Snow White themes we grew up with. Second, it has many aspects we did not grow up with, and are extraordinarily strange.
My guess is that the mainland version of this tale (the one we know as Snow White) dropped off the second half due to its strangeness. It belongs in another world, not ours. It is similar to how we’ve forgotten the full version of Perrault’s Sleeping Beauty.
We’ll be spending a little while in Iceland, for this story deserves care. Vilfridr, our heroine, is a fragile lass, being betrayed by both her parents. Yet there is always someone watching out for Vilfridr, working to protect her.
And that is the divine lesson in this story: although our Enemy strikes at us in personal, intimate ways, God is always working to protect us. He may use strange means of doing so, but His protection is sure and certain, and we need never fear because of it.
I would like to mention that I’m leaving out of our discussion a very wonderful story called Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree, which is of Celtic origin. The Icelanders often dealt with Celts in Scotland and Ireland,[1] so it’s possible Gold-Tree’s tale could have effected Vilfridr’s. I doubt it however, and only mention it to say that you should read it (it can be found here). It’s one of the “original” tales and has some Snow White themes; but it bears more resemblance to Sleeping Beauty (in my opinion) than Snow White, and so I shall not cover it here.
Sources
[1] http://naturalhistory.si.edu/vikings/voyage/subset/iceland/sagas.html
