The Spirited Review - Spindle's End

Spindle's End by Robin McKinley

Talking animals are common elements in fairy tales and fantasies; from Narnia and Prydain to the Disney versions of Cinderella or Snow White, in fairyland we expect the unexpected to speak. Unfortunately, this is usually a plot device or accessory used with little care given to the how and why of a talking creature. Singing fish celebrate the marriages of human royalty, birds come to sew Cinderella's clothes -- such animals are largely anthropomorphized sidekicks that serve the needs of the human protagonists and antagonists. However, a few fantasy authors are more thoughtful about their animal peoples, including Newbery Award winner Robin McKinley.

McKinley's most recent title, Spindle's End, retells the story of Sleeping Beauty. On the infant princess' naming day, the babe is to be blessed by twenty-one fairies, one for each of her years of minority. Invitations are sent to all ends of the kingdom; one person from every village may attend the celebration. Katriona, a young fairy from the foggy nether regions of the north, draws the lucky straw and travels to the capital.

As we have heard many times before, a vengeful fairy Pernicia halts the ceremonies to curse the princess with death on or before her twenty-first birthday, but here, a horrified Katriona is the only person to break through the morass of the evil spellcasting; she clutches the princess in her arms and unknowingly bestows upon her the ability to speak with animals. The queen's fairy sends the baby off with Katriona for raising and safe keeping until the curse can be laid to rest, and thus a fifteen year old girl is suddenly faced with crossing the country with a hungry infant child in her arms. The babe must be hidden from the searchers from the city, and at the same time, she must be fed. A fox is the first to greet Katriona and her young charge, a fox that offers milk from its mate's breast. As they travel across the country, the word spreads and many animals nurse the baby - bear and lynx, doe and badger, polecat and pine marten and domestic species too. The child Rosie, princess, survives.

Perhaps in synopsis this could easily be Disney. What is different here are the assumptions that McKinley makes, not the least of which is that animals have languages of their own and even have their own legends. The animals do not learn to talk to Rosie, Rosie learns to understand the animals. Rosie, as she grew older, more and more evidently waited for the animals she addressed to answer her -- her face, with its transparent complexion, told any watcher that she believed they did answer her. The oddest thing, however, to the villagers' minds, was that she slowly stopped speaking human language to animals. Rosie's social graces are also impacted by the animals, Rosie felt that if mice did less chatting they would be supper for cats and owls less often, but this was not her concern. The most important rule of the beast world was: You do not interfere.

The animals also offer a perspective on the necessity for human-animal relations: But you are ours, princess, you have been our friend since before you learnt to speak to us, and -- we may not like it, but we need human friends, because we have human enemies whether we will or nay. There is a definite sense of belonging between Rosie and the animals, a sense that their lives and their fates are inextricably entwined. In the end, the partnership between animal and human is necessary to vanquish Pernicia, whose evil threatens not only Rosie, but the very land itself. Like McKinley's Deerskin, this Sleeping Beauty variant hedges on the notion that it is by the animals that we survive, and that from the animals we can learn perseverance, love, and constancy. McKinley carefully does not idealize the beasts of her story, but she shows them the honor, and respect for individuality, that they deserve.

Spindle's End offers an antidote to the fear that somehow we humans must save the world alone. In a time when many see humanity as irretrievably cursed by its own arrogance and greed, McKinley gives us a heroine who is only one animal among many, and a story where that many are enough.

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