Supernatural Aid

This image presents Odin as the "Grey Wanderer" who appears to Aid Sigurd in the Volsung Saga.  Incidentally he was the basis for JRR Tolkiens' "Gandalf the Gray"

As we saw with the reading for today, the refusal to answer the call of your own destiny can lead to being permanently "bound" in a state of inaction and stagnation.

The princess and the frog highlight the seeming insignificance of the Call to Adventure. The princess' golden ball seems to roll into the well by accident. In actuality it is the forces of life moving her toward her future. This reminds me of Lindsey's story that she posted yesterday.  It was no accident that her friend pushed her to go out and meet some handsome stranger.  It was life and destiny calling her forth from her shell of life negating pity and depression.  

It also worth noticing the symbolism of the golden ball and the well. Gold, as well as the circle or sphere, are symbols of perfection and the Well is a symbol of the unconscious mind. When the ball falls into the well we are immediately aware that the girl has moved into the realm of unconscious action and that something significant will happen.  Namely she has lost the beauty of her childhood, to the growth which is necessary for all of us to become adults.  Take a look at Dylan Thomas on the subject of childhood in his poem Fern Hill and you will see the beauty and wonder of childhood recreated there.

It is at this moment where the frog appears from the well with the ball. This leads us to believe that he is a messenger of her destiny that, because of his repugnant form, is an unacknowledged part of her own unconscious. In this story the frog is her other half, the male aspect of her own nature which she must come to terms with in order to become a woman.

Daphne represents the extreme case of the princess, as she rejects wholly the message that the time has come to be a woman, apart from her father. She clings to her infantile notions of male/female relationships and thus becomes an image of life in suspension. Nevermind Apollo's grief, Daphne's suspended state requires a real hero to break. If we remember sleeping beauty it was the prince who won through and woke the princess to the wonders of life as a woman. Until then she was merely sleeping and not awake to her own life cycle.

If the call is accepted, the hero will usually encounter a beneficial figure who gives aid to the hero in order to enable his success. History is rich with Supernatural Aid figures such as Merlin, Athene, Yoda and others. It is often this figure who helps the hero cross the initial threshold and reach the zone of adventure. The great hero Jason from greek myth had Medea to facilitate his success and as we find out he is not much of a man without her.

I suppose it is also necessary to address the question of Destiny, what it is and its purpose.  Destiny is referred to often in reference to these Hero stories as a force supporting the Hero.  As far as i can tell Destiny amounts to that Dionysian impulse of life that resides within each of us and guides our actions.  If we are psychologically and spiritually aligned with it there is nothing we cannot accomplish.  But Destiny also ties us to the greater stories that we have been reading.  If you remember the Thomas poem i posted earlier; "The force that through the green fuse drives the flower, drives my green age" is the force that connects and binds everything.  Destiny is tied to this and makes the mundane magical.

Here is a selection from the Volsung Saga which became Wagners greatest Opera. This outlines Sigurd after he accepted the call. Sigurd

Another classic hero tale that illustrates the "Belly of the Whale" literally is Jonah. Jonah and The Whale

Note the similarities between the Jonah tale as a cosmological myth and the folk tale Little Red Cap or Little Red Riding Hood.