Preview

PDF (Final published version) 135001 Wood.pdf | Download (615kB) | Preview

Abstract

Works of fiction come into being through mysterious routes of knowing. It’s not at all unusual to hear a writer report that a story ‘came to them,’ as if stories were not things invented by writers, but pre-existing entities floating in the ether. Elizabeth Gilbert is far from alone in her insistence that “ideas are a disembodied, energetic life form,” and that they “spend eternity swirling around us, searching for available and willing human partners” (35).A few years ago, I was visited in this mysterious way by the idea that I should write about a woman who lived in the Tasmanian bush in a small, timber hut, high on a hillside. It seemed that instantly I knew the following things: the woman rescued and nurtured marsupial creatures that were orphaned when their mothers were killed on the roads; there lived beneath the floorboards of her home a Tasmanian devil; the woman was ageing, or perhaps ageless; and that she was a literary relative to Baba Yaga, the Slavic witch-crone of European fairy tale tradition. This last piece of knowledge might have meant that I was being invited to perform a fairy-tale retelling, but because Baba Yaga (unlike most other fairy tale characters) appears in a number of different tales, it was perhaps less of an invitation to retell a tale, than to relocate a character and see what she would do in new surroundings.

Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	Wood, D
Keywords:	fairy tales, Baba Yaga, Tasmanian devil, literature of Tasmania
Journal or Publication Title:	Marvels and Tales
Publisher:	Wayne State University Press
ISSN:	1521-4281
DOI / ID Number:	https://doi.org/10.13110/marvelstales.33.1.0157
Copyright Information:	Published and copyright by Wayne State University Press.
Related URLs:	UTAS Profile: Wood, D
Item Statistics:	View statistics for this item

Actions (login required)

Item Control Page