See also
- Ladyhawke a 1985 film with a similar plotline
The Day Boy and Night Girl, also referred to as The Romance of Photogen and Nycteris, is an 1882 fairy tale novel by George MacDonald. A version of this story appeared in Harper's Young People as a series beginning on 2 December 1879 and completing on 6 January 1880. [1]
The Day Boy and the Night Girl begins by telling of a witch named Watho who, in her pursuit of complete knowledge, undertook an experiment to mould two people from birth by strictly controlling their environments.
Watho convinced two expectant mothers to visit her castle. Lady Aurora (whose ambassador husband was away on business) was given spacious, sunlit rooms to stay in; she gave birth to a boy. The witch promptly whisked him away, sending his mother back to her home burdened with the lie that her son had died shortly after birth. The other woman (who had recently been widowed and become blind) Watho settled in windowless, tomblike chambers elsewhere in the castle. Vesper died in childbirth, leaving her daughter to the witch's keeping.
Watho did everything in her power to ensure that the boy Photogen grew up strong, able, and fearless. However, her foremost concern regarding the boy was that he should never see the night. Watho desired the opposite for the girl Nycteris, who knew no other world than the stony chambers she had been born in and no other light than that provided by the single dim lamp. Watho, however, taught her music, which she became good at.
It came about that Nycteris, in her sixteenth year, found her way out of these chambers into a night lit by a full-moon. Nycteris was filled with wonder at this glorious new light and the rest of nature; she returned to her rooms before daybreak, desiring to see the outdoors again and not wanting to spoil her chance by arousing Watho's suspicions. Around the same time, Photogen (who spent his days hunting) one morning spied a big cat of some sort slinking off to the forest and took it in his mind to hunt this skilled hunter. As the sun went down, Photogen left to hunt the nocturnal beast, violating the witch's constraint. Once darkness fell, Photogen was beset with terror. He came across Nycteris in one of her outings, and gathered some measure of comfort from the strange girl's calm. She agreed to watch over him while he slept, and so it was that she was for the first time yet outdoors when the sun rose. Photogen regained his courage immediately; assuring Nycteris that there was now nothing to fear, he went on his way, despite her terrified pleas that he stay and protect her from the blinding light.
Photogen (wishing to prove his courage) stayed up for another night, only to experience similar results. Photogen and Nycteris eventually learned to use their strengths to bear the other up through their weakness. In this way they were able to defeat the witch Watho. Photogen and Nycteris married; they continued to rely on and rejoice in each other's strengths, to the point that Photogen came to prefer the night and Nycteris the day.
Photogen (from Ancient Greek φῶς (photo-) 'light',and -γενής (-genēs) 'producer of')
Nycteris (from Ancient Greek νύχτα (nýchta) 'night')
Aurora (from Latin aurōra 'dawn, dawn goddess')
Vesper (from Latin vesperī 'evening')
Elsewhere in his writings, MacDonald used the more orthodox symbols of light representing goodness and darkness standing for ignorance and evil. In The Day Boy and the Night Girl such a distinction is not clearly set forward, although night and day are vividly polarised. MacDonald may seem to be leaning towards Manichaeism by allowing as much credit to the night as he does in The Day Boy and the Night Girl, but he avoids this by linking evil not with darkness, but rather with self-love. In this way, evil is not portrayed as a force striving against good (which suggests a power equal but opposite to good) but is seen rather as a gaze misdirected inwards towards the self. Photogen and Nycteris are both less than whole beings until they learn to care for each other in spite of their differences and opposing weaknesses. [2]
The three main characters each seek progress, but through different channels. Watho attempts to gather and subjugate, Photogen tries to conquer through ability, and Nycteris uses her imagination to further her understanding and knowledge of the world to better see how she fits in it. The Day Boy and the Night Girl is essentially a tale which depicts MacDonald's belief in the imagination's ability to take the focus off of self, thereby opening the imaginer to a world of companionships which can lead to true wholeness. [3]
Sleeping Beauty, or Little Briar Rose, also titled in English as The Sleeping Beauty in the Woods, is a classic fairy tale about a princess who is cursed to sleep for a hundred years by an evil fairy, to be awakened by a handsome prince at the end of them. The good fairy, realizing that the princess would be frightened if alone when she awakens, uses her wand to put every living person and animal in the palace asleep, to awaken when the princess does.
"Hansel and Gretel" is a German fairy tale collected by the German Brothers Grimm and published in 1812 in Grimm's Fairy Tales. It is also known as Hansel and Grettel, or Little Step Brother and Little Step Sister.
Maleficent is a fictional character who appears as the main antagonist in Walt Disney Productions' 16th animated feature film, Sleeping Beauty (1959). She is represented as an evil fairy and the self-proclaimed "Mistress of All Evil" who, after not being invited to a christening, curses the infant Princess Aurora to "prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and die" before the sun sets on Aurora's sixteenth birthday.
Rapunzel is a German fairy tale recorded by the Brothers Grimm and first published in 1812 as part of Children's and Household Tales. The Brothers Grimm's story developed from the French literary fairy tale of Persinette by Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force (1698).
In folklore, a crone is an old woman who may be characterized as disagreeable, malicious, or sinister in manner, often with magical or supernatural associations that can make her either helpful or obstructive. The Crone is also an archetypal figure, a Wise Woman. As a character type, the crone shares characteristics with the hag. The word became further specialized as the third aspect of the Triple Goddess popularized by Robert Graves and subsequently in some forms of neopaganism, particularly Wicca in which she symbolizes the Dark Goddess, the dark of the moon, the end of a cycle; together with the Mother and the Maiden she represents part of the circle of life. In New Age and feminist spiritual circles, a "Croning" is a ritual rite of passage into an era of wisdom, freedom, and personal power.
The Evil Queen, also called the Wicked Queen, is a fictional character and the main antagonist of "Snow White", a German fairy tale recorded by the Brothers Grimm; similar stories are also known to exist in other countries. Other versions of the Queen appear in "Snow White" derivative works, and the character has also become an archetype for unrelated works of fiction.
In fairy tales, a fairy godmother is a fairy with magical powers who acts as a mentor or parent to someone, in the role that an actual godparent was expected to play in many societies. In Perrault's Cinderella, he concludes the tale with the moral that no personal advantages will suffice without proper connections.
"East of the Sun and West of the Moon" is a Norwegian fairy tale.
The Black Bull of Norroway is a fairy tale from Scotland. A similar story titled The Red Bull of Norroway first appeared in print in Popular Rhymes of Scotland by Robert Chambers in 1842. A version titled The Black Bull of Norroway in the 1870 edition of Popular Rhymes of Scotland was reprinted in an Anglicised version by Joseph Jacobs in his 1894 book More English Fairy Tales.
The Brown Bear of Norway is an Irish fairy tale collected by Patrick Kennedy which appeared in his Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts (1866). It was later included by Andrew Lang in his anthology The Lilac Fairy Book (1910), though Lang misattributed his source as West Highland Tales.
Vasilisa the Beautiful or Vasilisa the Fair is a Russian fairy tale collected by Alexander Afanasyev in Narodnye russkie skazki.
Little Daylight is a fairy tale written by George MacDonald and included as a story within a story in At the Back of the North Wind, published in 1871. It has subsequently been published as an independent tale, and in collections of his other fairy tales.
Esben and the Witch is a Danish fairy tale first collected by Jens Kamp. Andrew Lang included it in The Pink Fairy Book. A version of the tale also appears in A Book of Witches and A Choice of Magic, by Ruth Manning-Sanders. It is Aarne-Thompson type 327B. In it, a boy named Esben outwits an evil witch to get the magical treasures for the sake of his brothers.
Prunella is an Italian fairy tale, originally known as Prezzemolina. Andrew Lang included it in The Grey Fairy Book. It is Aarne-Thompson type 310, the Maiden in the Tower.
The Wicked Fairy Godmother or the Wicked Fairy, a rare figure in fairy tales, is nevertheless among the best-known figures from such tales because of her appearance in one of the most widely known tales, Sleeping Beauty, and in the ballet derived from it. Anonymous in her first appearance, she was later named in some variants Carabosse and is called Maleficent in Walt Disney media.
White-Bear-King-Valemon is a Norwegian fairy tale. The tale was published as No. 90 in Asbjørnsen and Moe's Norske Folke-Eventyr. Ny Samling (1871). George Webbe Dasent translated it for his Tales from the Fjeld.
Aurore and Aimée is a French literary fairy tale written by Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont. Like her better known tale Beauty and the Beast, it is among the first fairy tales deliberately written for children.
The Land of Stories is a series of children's fiction, adventure and fantasy books written by American author, actor and singer Chris Colfer. The first book, The Wishing Spell, was released on July 17, 2012. The sixth book was published in July 2017. During a live video chat, Colfer revealed plans for a prequel series, which have now been published. The books are described by Colfer as a "modern-day fairy tale", following twins Alex and Conner Bailey as they fall from the real world into a world full of fairy tales they have only ever read about before and discovering there is more to this world than meets the eye.
Timbre Cierpke, better known as Timbre, is an American musician, composer, harpist, singer and songwriter based in Nashville, Tennessee. Timbre fronts her eponymous neoclassical / baroque pop band "Timbre", which has toured throughout Europe and the US. After receiving her Bachelor's of Music in Harp Performance from Trevecca Nazarene University., Timbre went on to record with Jack White on his album Lazaretto. In 2017, she announced on Twitter that she was on tour as part of Karen Elson's band opening for Ryan Adams. Timbre is also a founder and the rehearsal director for SONUS choir and plays harp for the Jackson Symphony Orchestra
