Liz Warren | Storyteller

The promised child is a motif of folktales found thorough out the world.  Often times a child is promised to a witch or other supernatural being in exchange for help (Rumpelstiltskin) or for payment in a wrong doing (Rapunzel).  In earlier versions of the “Rapunzel story, it is the mother herself who steals from the ogress or witch.  It is the mother who gives away the child, not once but twice in some versions.  In the Grimm’s Brothers version of Rapunzel it is the father who gives away the child.  Some scholars argue this change reflects a silencing of the female characters.