Talk:Transformation
Of course that assumes there is such a thing as a "fandom" From what I've heard the transformation community has fragmented into much smaller pieces.
So what we have are a a)a small group of academics who have been at it for a Very very long time( about 2 centuries or so) or b) several small groups who have been around 10-15 years tops 209.29.165.111
Molecular biology? WTF?
This is NOT what Transformation means in the fandom. MelSkunk 14:04, 19 Aug 2005 (UTC)
Just added a few things to the main article. It's naturally open to change. I just wanted to see more info on it.
Transformation in academia[edit]
Moving this here from my talk page --GreenReaper(talk) 20:42, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
This is the "credentials" for TF in Mainstream Society.Its just a small slice but shows how the Ivory Tower crowd view Transformation "Snake-maiden Transformation Narratives in Hagiography and Folklore
By Karen Smith
The medieval versions of Margaret of Antioch’s life are significant texts in the literatures of several medieval European languages. They have been interpreted in terms of the theological and psychological meaning they had for their readers, many of whom were women engaging in various forms of religious practice, both in and out of convents. These interpretations, both literary and historical, have not taken account of the influence of oral tradition and popular belief in the development of the Margaret narratives1. While hagiographic convention casts the life of Saint Margaret of Antioch in the mold of virgin martyrs who suffer to keep their faith, there are deeper narrative structures in this dragon-fighting virgin martyr tale that link it to a wider folktale tradition. In the St. Margaret narratives, the saint (a pearl-like, pure young daughter of nobility) is cast into a dungeon by a powerful and villainous suitor, then swallowed by a dragon from whose jaws she escapes unharmed. She then wrestles the dragon’s devil-brother to the ground, and finally after a series of further tortures wins eternal salvation by being beheaded for her faith2. The snake-maiden tales, with their themes of the serpent’s kiss, hidden treasure, and white-woman seeking mortal marriage, present the snake-maiden as belonging to the supernatural/divine realm. They comprise an important European folk narrative tradition in their own right, but do not have explicitly religious content in the sense that the hagiography does3. The motifs of serpent/maiden
(1 For a bibliography and a historical review of the Margaret narratives see Smith, K. P.:
Transforming Virgins: Margaret of Antioch, Snake Maidens and Medieval Mentalities.
Ph .D. dis s., Berkeley,Graduate Theological Union , 2000.
2 The version of the Margaret legend included by Jacobus de Voragine in the 13th century
Legenda aurea, along with many medieval vernacular versions based more or
less on the same 10th century Latin sources Jacobus used, has been carefully and
comprehensively studied, compared, and analyzed (mainly as medieval literature and
as ecclesiastical hagiography). For commentary on the English versions of the narrative
see Wolpers, T.: Die englische Heiligenlegende des Mittelalters: Eine Formgeschichte
des Legendenerzählens von der spätantiken lateinischen Tradition bis zur
Mitte des 16. Jahrhunderts. Tübingen 1964. For the French see Keller, H. E. (ed.):
Wace: La Vie de sainte Marguerite. Tübingen 1990. For analysis of German vernacular
versions see Van den Andel, G.G.: Die Margaretalegende in ihren mittelalterlichen
Versionen: eine vergleichende Studie. Groningen/Batavia 1933.
3 For a study of the snake-maiden’s history in German literature and oral tradition see
Frank, E.: Der Schlangenkuß: Die Geschichte eines Erlösungsmotivs in deutscher
Volksdichtung. Leipzig 1928.)
Fabula 43. Band (2002) Heft 3/4
252 Karen Smith)
transformation (Mot. F 562.1: Serpent damsel)4, and redemptive kisses, as well as plot sequences of “high-born women, seeking to be set free, who turn into serpents” are characteristic of the lives of St. Margaret5. Using the snakemaiden tales as intertexts to the medieval St. Margaret lives, I will argue that Margaret can be seen as a divine snake-maiden and that this identity helps explain the enduring popularity of her biography6. The snake-maiden legends The snake-maiden narratives occur in memorates, legends, and ballads of northern and western Europe, including Ireland and the British Isles7. Except for Emma Frank’s 1928 history of the serpent-kiss theme in German literature, these narratives have not been studied much as a group8. The gist of Frank’s
(4 This and the following parenthetical designations specify motif categories from
Thompson, S.: Motif-Index of Folk Literature 1–6. Bloomington 1955–58.
5 See Kühnau, R.: Schlesische Sagen. Leipzig 1910, 236. Particularly striking in this regard
are the snake-maiden local legends popular throughout Central and Northern
Europe; see Brüder Grimm: Deutsche Sagen. ed. H. Rölleke. Berlin 1994, 46–48 (no.
13: Die Schlangen-Jungfrau); also ibid., 46 (no. 12: Die Schloß-Jungfrau). She is
known by other names (e.g., die weiße Frau, die Schlangenkönigin, or die Schlüsseljungfrau)
in versions collected in the 19th and 20th centuries; see Jegerlehner, J.: Sagen
aus dem Unterwallis. Basel 1909; Kapff, R.: Schwäbische Sagen. Jena 1926; Kuoni, J.:
Sagen des Kantons St. Gallen. St. Gallen 1902; Peuckert, W.-E.: Schlesische Sagen.
Jena 1924; Schambach, G./Müller, W.: Niedersächsische Sagen und Märchen. Göttingen
1855; Schwebel, O.: Die Sagen der Hohenzollern. Berlin 1878; Vernaleken, T.:
Alpensagen. Wien 1858; Zingerle, I.: Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche aus Tirol. Innsbruck
1859. On the history of the legend in Germany, see Frank (above, note 4).
6 The significance of the St. Margaret figure has been discussed by theorists of the later
middle ages such as Delaney, S.: The Somaticized Text: Corporeal Semiotic in a Late
Medieval Female Hagiography. In: Textual Bodies: Changing Boundaries of Literary
Representation. ed. L. H. Lefkovitz. Ithaca 1997, 101–125; Fox, A.: The Boundaries
of Sainthood: The Enclosed Female Body as Doctrine in Seinte Margarete. In: Medieval
Perspectives 8 (1993) 133–142; Lewis, K.J.: The Life of St. Margaret of Antioch in
Late Medieval England: A Gendered Reading. In: Studies in Church History: Gender
and Christian Religion 34 (1998) 129–142; Pearce, C.: The Cult of St. Margaret of
Antioch. In: Feminist Theology1 6 (1994) 70–85. Devotion to St. Margaret as patroness
of fertility and childbirth is also addressed in Smith, K.: Serpent-damsels and
demon-slayers. In: Demons, Spirits, Witches: Popular Mythology and Christian Demonology
(Hungarian Academy of Sciences, forthcoming).
7 See Larminie, W.: West Irish Folk Tales and Romances. London 1893; Henderson,
W.: Notes on the Folklore of the Northern Counties of England and the Borders.
London 1866; Child, F.J.: The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. New York
1962; see also Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens 2. ed. E. Hoffmann-
Krayer/H. Bächtold-Stäubli. Berlin/Leipzig 1929/30, 928–931. Similar stories were
collected in Portugal in the 1980’s; see Pereira Bastos, J.G.: From the Chaos and the
Void of Symbols to the Rainbow of Symbolism – the Spectral Study of Symbols. In:
Maidens, Snakes and Dragons. CESIL [Centre for Symbolism and Imagination in
Literature, Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies, King’s College] Papers
(1991) 71–102, here 76.
8 A comparative approach has been taken by Vaz da Silva, F.: Symbolic Themes in the
European Cinderella Cycle. In: Southern Folklore 57 (2000) 159–180; Schuster, I.:)
Snake-maiden Transformation Narratives in Hagiography and Folklore 253
thesis is that the motif of the serpent maiden, or maiden in white, who can be freed from a curse by a hero that allows himself to be kissed by a snake, developed from a 13th–14th century melding of an Arthurian Romance episode with popular German traditional themes9. Chris Knight has discussed the snake-maiden-dragon symbolism in relation to the ritual authority of menstruating women10, and Francisco Vaz Da Silva has written on the theme in relation to dragon s layer folktales (AaTh 300: The Dragon-Slayer)11. A typical German ‘Weiße Frau’ (woman in white) or ‘Schlangenjungfrau’ (snake-maiden) legend contains some or all of the following interrelated motifs: a maiden of noble birth has been cursed (verwünscht), often for reasons... "
Transformation in mainstream society[edit]
I deleted this section because it seems to be a highly focused discussion of something other than "transformation in mainstream society" in general. Maybe it would make a good article in its own right, like "Medieval Dragon Legends?" A good discussion of this topic might include brief mention of ancient legends, and many other things such as, oh, television commercials, movies, and video games. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kris Schnee (talk • contribs) .