Up: [[Fairy Tales]] Related: [[Myth-Making]] Created: 2025-11-19 Jung noticed that fairy tales from different cultures had similar basic themes, which he called mythologems. He said they were evidence of the [[Collective Unconscious]]. Jungian Anne Baring adds, > [!Orbit] Anne Baring in *Psyche’s Stories: Modern Jungian Interpretations of Fairy Tales, vol. 1* > Fairy tales speak with the immemorial wisdom of the soul to provide the elements that have been ignored or devalued by the conscious cultural tradition. They tell the story of what has happened to the missing elements and what still needs to happen for the balance in archetypal imagery to be restored. (p. 51) A fairy tale’s mythologem describes at least three things: 1) A particular personality structure 2) A problem someone with that personality structure will have 3) A solution to the problem ### Example: Fortune and the Woodcutter In this fairy tale from Asia, an old woodcutter lives with his wife. He worked from dawn to dusk for twenty years cutting wood to sell in the village. Finally he was tired of his relentless effort so he took to his bed, vowing to his wife that he had worked for Fortune all his life and she had given them little enough for it. *From now on, if Fortune wants to give us anything, she will have to come looking for me.* Later that day, a stranger knocks on the door and asks if he can borrow the old man’s mules for a few hours to do some work in the forest. The old man agrees. The stranger, who is in reality a magician, knows the exact spot in the forest where there is a treasure of gold and jewels. He loads up the two mules and prepares to leave, but spots soldiers marching down the road. He abandons the mules because he’s afraid the soldiers will ask questions, discover he is a sorcerer and condemn him to death. The soldiers don’t notice the mules which wait for several hours in the forest and then walk the well worn trails home that they have always followed with the woodcutter. The old man and his wife are rich for the rest of their days and beyond. Fortune has come to them. ### Reflections from a Jungian A more elaborate version of this tale appears in *In the Ever After: Fairy Tales and the Second Half of Life* by Allan B. Chinen. He points out that yes, there are magical events and a happy ending, but there’s so much more than that. Elder tales often begin with poverty. This wasn’t historically accurate, but if we think about poverty as being deprivation, the connotations are of the losses of aging: health, loved ones, financial security, time. Poverty also symbolizes depression and the man has taken to his bed. For elders who see aging as a slow decline to death, this fits. However, the man in the fairy tale made a choice to not work, a choice which actually makes him psychologically active because retiring without preparation after many years of hard work is very difficult. So by choosing not to work he is actually clearing the way for something new to be in his life. If he had still been working, the mules wouldn’t have been available to the stranger and wouldn’t have returned laden with treasure. And if he hadn’t worked as hard as he did, the mules wouldn’t have known their way home. So the ‘magic’ of life’s third act is actually a return on investment bringing the old man and his wife a successful retirement.