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interprets Type 514 in Eastern European tales as indication of how limited the options are for a
strong and active female; there are only two of them: 1) she can either reject her cross-dressing
past and become a docile wife or 2) she can become a male with all the attendant rewards. 24 It is
possible that the tale actually exists in both of the described manifestations, as described by
Lanclos and as described by Hooker, in the Central Asian tradition. Jessica Hooker’s
interpretation allows making sense of tales in which the female character searches for
alternatives to the limited order, including her transformation into a hare and removing herself
from the society (as, for example, in the Tuvan and Buryat tales quoted above).
Narratives Told from Female Protagonist’s Point of View
Seeking Adventure
Internationally, the woman’s transgression of cross-dressing, that is “dressing up,”
upgrading herself to a social sphere with more power and freedom, 25 and proving herself as
strong as a man appears justified to a degree only under the circumstances when the masquerade
is on behalf of a male relative. In Chinese oral histories, legends and literature devoted to a
warrior-woman Hua Mulan, her career as a soldier is prompted by a need to help her father. 26 In
researching a Russian bylina “Vasilisa and Staver,” in which cross-dressed Vasilisa rescues her
husband from the prince’s prison, Amy Goldenberg concludes that “it is socially acceptable for
women to be considered equal to men on the condition that it benefits at least one male
24
“‘The Hen Who Sang:’ Swordbearing Women in Eastern European Fairytales” in Folklore (Vol. 101, Number 2,
1990) 178-184.
25
Roland Altenburger, “Is It Clothes that Make the Man? Cross-Dressing, Gender and Sex in Pre-Twentieth-
Century Zhu Yingtai Lore” in Asian Folklore Studies (Vol. 64, #2, 2005), 165-205, 171.
26
Joseph R. Allen, “Dressing and Undressing the Chinese Woman Warrior,” in Positions (4:2, 1996), 347 and Note
9 on Page 375.
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