“As for me and my family, we will worship Yahweh.” The people replied, “We will certainly not abandon the Lord to worship other gods! For the Lord our God brought us and our fathers out of the land of Egypt” ~ Joshua 24:15b-17a,
The Israelites did what was evil in the Lord’s sight. They worshiped the Baals and abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of Egypt. Judges 2:11-12a
“They told her to be ready for a visit which would be made to the stone that day. She would be, they said, asked to open the door, but, whoever came, with whatever blandishments, she must by no means open the door, nor let the visitor in, as it might perchance be the death of them all. This she promised…”[1]
One of the key aspects of any Snow White story is our heroine’s foolish disobedience. No matter how many times she’s instructed not to open the door, she always, always does. Vilfridr is no different.
The dwarves instruct her not to open the door, and then leave to go hunting. Meanwhile, Vala asks her magical mirror (the first mirror we see in one of these stories!) how “Vilfridr Fairer-than-Vala fares now,”[2] gleefully knowing (or thinking she knew) what the answer would be. The mirror, however, says that Vilfridr is well, and housed by two friendly dwarves. In a rage, Vala disguises herself, but upon finding Vilfridr, she tells her who she is. She entreats Vilfridr with “motherly affection” to open the door, saying she had a ring from Vilfridr’s grandmother that she wished to give her.[3]
Now, Vilfridr doesn’t technically open the door – she just sticks her finger out the keyhole. Once the ring is on her finger, her mother casts a spell on it, saying the ring shall squeeze her to death unless “gold of the same kind be found to match.”[4]
That was in the morning, and Vilfridr suffers all day as the ring grows tighter and tighter. When the dwarves come back in the evening, they are able to find gold of the same kind and free Vilfridr from her sufferings.
The next day, the same situation ensues, except with a golden shoe, which belonged to Vilfridr’s great-grandmother. To her credit, Vilfridr is “slow and unwilling to listen to her mother’s entreaties” at first; but by noon, she gives in, and sticks her foot through a hole in the door. The golden shoe grows tighter and tighter, but once again the dwarves are able to find the gold to match it and relieve Vilfridr from her pain.[5]
Just like Vilfridr
We like to shake our heads at Vilfridr’s foolishness, just as we shake our heads at the Israelite’s when they continually forsake Yahweh.
We know the stories from the Old Testament: how “every man did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 17:6), how they constantly looked to foreign gods, and how the True God constantly pursued their hearts in order to bring them back to Himself.
Yes, we shake our heads and say “How could they be so foolish?”
But we shouldn’t. We should bow our heads in sorrowful reverence and shame. We should look in our mirrors and see the logs in our eyes (Matt. 7:3-5). Unlike Vala’s mirror, our mirrors are silent; yet their silence accuses us of abandoning our God, of going back on our word.
Perhaps, like Vilfridr, we didn’t technically go back on our word; perhaps we found a way around it. We found other “gods” that seemed so much more appealing, and while doing all the “Christian” things, we really sought their approval over Yahweh’s.
We are no different than foolish Vilfridr, or the wayward Israelites.
Sources
[1] Heidi Anne Heiner, “The Story of Vilfridr Fairer-Than-Vala,” Sleeping Beauties, 195.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid., 196.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
