---
title: ArmlessMaiden
created: 2008-04-16 17:42
updated: 2008-04-16 17:42
revision: 1
author: Auriea
summary: "FataleVrouwen In the language of folktales, abstract ideas are represented by concrete and emotionally evocative images. Traditional storytellers . . ."
---

[[FataleVrouwen]]

In the language of folktales, abstract ideas are represented by concrete and emotionally evocative images. Traditional storytellers use terrifying events to create the emotional experience of grief and abandonment, in which a young woman is not only set out on her journey away from home, but assured of the impossibility of ever returning. In the "Armless Maiden" narratives a girl is mutilated by a trusted family member and then thrust like a wounded animal into the forest. There can be no return to a childhood home corrupted by such cruel violence. The girl must move forward in her journey to a new destination where she will reconstruct not only her severed arms but her identity as an adult woman as well.

http://www.endicott-studio.com/rdrm/rrHJourney.html