The Magic Tinderbox
part two...
the text
“I say, good soldier, would you like to earn a bag of money?”
“Money? I'd do anything for money . . .”
“Good!” went on the witch.
“It won’t be difficult, you'll see!
All you have to do is go down that hollow tree till you reach a cave.
There, you’ll find three doorways.
When you open the first door, you’ll see a big dog with eyes like saucers, guarding a large chest of copper coins.
Behind the second door lies a treasure of silver coins, guarded by a dog with eyes the size of mill stones.
When you open the third door, you’ll come upon another dog, with eyes the size of a castle tower, beside a treasure of gold.
Now, if you lay this old apron of mine before these dogs, they’ll crouch on it and do you no harm.
You’ll be able to carry away all the coins you want.
What do think of that?”
kristo’s interpretation:
*okay...backtracking just a little bit:
...his pockets were empty and his only possession was his sword.
So despite evident poverty our brave soldier does have one possession, i.e. a sword, the significance of which tends to mean the possession of Logic.
Let me explain...
In the Tarot there are 4 suits: Disks, Cups, Wands, and Swords...
each corresponding to one of the 4 so-called functions of consciousness.
Disks equal Sensation, Cups equal Feeling, Wands equal Intuition, and Swords equal Thinking.
Jung’s Psychological Types are combinations of these 4 concepts, with each Type having a dominant and an auxiliary function such as Intuitive / Thinking, Sensate / Feeling, etc.
We all seem to be hard-wired into one of four dominant pigeonholes...
but this doesn’t mean we lack any of the functions.
Instead, we tend to naturally shy away from using what would amount to our less developed (3rd) auxiliary function, and then positively abhor that least understood aspect of our own consciousness...our so-called Inferior function...more popularly known as the Shadow (function).
According to this theory, Swords correspond to thinking, reason, and logic...
and are the typically dominant function of men and the male gender.
And just to expand on this a bit, Thinking tends to be about splitting things up into basic components in order to understand and have power over them.
It also contains the notion of decisive action.
And so our soldier, having learned to make use of his decisive powers in the context of wrestling with opposites, now has nothing but this personally dominant capacity in hand.
If he is to grow in character...and if we are to have a story of any significance, he’s got to shake things up and DO something significant with this function.
Just don’t go thinking though that Freudian theory doesn’t apply here.
Because it does!
(Hey...we can’t have make-up sex without it...and I promised you some, didn’t I?)
In terms of character and significance though, our soldier can’t be content to just go out and win / accumulate more and more (of the same old) stuff, he must eventually learn to conquer himself.
And in Jungian terms, that means confronting his own Shadow...
which in this particular case means dealing with the very opposite of Thinking, i.e. Feeling.
So whaddya know...
As he walked through a forest, he met a witch
Hence the witch.
She represents the flip side of not just the Sword, but of our very conscious nature...living as she does in the forest of our own unconscious.
I could say more about the Feeling function here, but will limit myself to saying that Feeling is the function which allows us to value someone or something.
It is of course, always part of the decision making process, unless we are simply being random, either out of ignorance or innocence.
But consider how we tend to believe that our choices are simply either logical or emotional, and yet are actually often a combination of (at least) both.
Okay, if you follow me, then you realize that the witch is inevitable.
She is Psyche's way of shaking things (and often shaking us) up.
But the encounter can only be appreciated if the soldier manages to grow in character.
Hey...we meet the Shadow every single day and yet if we are to grow we MUST make that meeting somehow consciously significant.
We’ve really GOT to recognize our trips through the forest / daily jungle as vital excursions!
And we must also recognize that while meeting the Shadow is often repugnant, it’s not something to run away from or abhor.
And now I could also say something here about gender business...
and how Thinking or Feeling as the dominant function is not exclusive to either anatomic gender...
But I think I’ll just point out the fact that this fairytale seems to be speaking to the male psyche...
So (a brave man’s) Shadow says to him: “I say, good soldier, would you like to earn a bag of money?”
Well, well, what do you know?
Shadow really does have something substantial to offer.
Of course, the enticement has to be something conscious ego can understand...i.e. cold, hard cash...but what Shadow really means is pure, raw, undifferentiated psychic energy.
Money is a conceptual commodity which depends upon mutual agreement among all of the monkeys involved as to its VALUE.
In other words, money is what Thinking actually calls Feeling...and yet Thinking / Logic won’t (or can’t) consciously acknowledge this.
(Think about that for awhile.)
This should lead us on another wild tack to explore what Feeling actually calls Thinking...but we’re dealing with this current tale, which is a Western European, i.e. patriarchal product.
And Patriarchy assumes Thinking as the Dominant function.
Tales that assume Feeling as Dominant are another (important) story, and provide delicious food for future work.
“Money? I’d do anything for money . . .” says the soldier, now paying some attention to an otherwise despised, feared, and unacknowledged aspect of himself.
And this is how Shadow entices us towards Transformation...i.e. towards Integration...i.e. Integrity.
“Good!” went on the witch. “It won’t be difficult, you’ll see!
That's definitely NOT true!
But for the ego to take the bait and die, a few lies need to be told.
And it makes sense to remind ourselves that the death of the ego is NECESSARY for Integration / Transformation / Wholeness / Integrity...because ego is nothing much more than a belief.
A belief that assumes we are identical with a single, dominant (otherwise known as Superior) function.
Hey...ego believes what it wants to believe.
Just don’t expect all of your beliefs to turn out to be the Truth.
All you have to do is go down that hollow tree till you reach a cave.
Now things get interesting.
This is a simple task for the brave soldier, who will now have to seriously use his courage to face the strange, unknown emptiness implied at the end of this short, peculiar journey.
This doesn’t sound difficult.
But in the world of Sword / Thinking / Logic, money just doesn’t grow on trees.
And in that world we’re never, ever given something for nothing.
So the translation of this journey into a bag of money that can be brought back to the real world begs the question: “What’s the catch?”
Or “Who do I gotta kill?”
Before attempting to answer, it’s interesting to note that descending a hollow tree and arriving in a cave sounds an awful lot like a reversed version of the birth experience....no?
There, you'll find three doorways.
Well, now.
Why three?
And where’s the fourth?
And while this is already starting to sound like some annoying runaround of hoops and conditions...these are the very same questions the alchemists often asked.
To be honest, I’m at a loss myself right here, but this often happens with dreams and fairytales.
We’re all forced to give up the hope of deciphering the exact meaning of some twist or turn until further down the line...
Often, it takes reading some other version of the tale to shed light on the particular situation from a completely different angle.
And in this case we DO have quite a few other versions to choose from and sort through...
But all that’s for later...
Now it’s a matter of trusting that synchronicity will eventually intervene and provide the clue that releases a great, triumphant “AHA!”
(Kinda like a crossword puzzle...but only better!)
When you open the first door, you’ll see a big dog with eyes like saucers, guarding a large chest of copper coins.
Behind the second door lies a treasure of silver coins, guarded by a dog with eyes the size of mill stones.
When you open the third door, you’ll come upon another dog, with eyes the size of a castle tower, beside a treasure of gold.
Doors, guard dogs, precious metals, and increasing diameters.
I’m guessing that “the size of a castle tower” refers to its diameter or base circumference, rather than its height.
(Okay it’s dumb...but as a kid, this detail really puzzled me.)
So the “catch” seems to be all about getting by these huge guard dogs...to say nothing of how to get back up that hollow birth / initiation canal with enough loot to make the journey worthwhile.
Another logical question concerns those 3 doors.
Why even bother with copper or silver when gold is easily the most efficient means of transporting the available energy?
Just so you know, there ARE other fairy tales that imply something similar, and it has been my experience to understand them as symbolic of the three occult arts of Astrology, Witchcraft, and Alchemy.
Copper is the metal of Venus.
This alone doesn't make for a crystal clear connection with Astrology
But Silver, as the metal of the Moon, makes a strong case for Witchcraft
while Gold is pretty obvious in terms of its connection to Alchemy.
It would seem then, that the witch is offering an initiation into the occult sciences.
Not just as a means of making a living...but as a means of achieving a worthwhile life.
With this as a possible metaphor, the dogs then represent the greater degrees of Intuitive (or perhaps Sensate) insight (and difficulty) required to assimilate the various occult arts and become an adept.
As such, they would also represent one of the soldier’s two auxiliary functions (most likely, the one that is less consciously developed).
Mastery of this auxiliary function will likely allow one to master (i.e. integrate) the Shadow.
It’s now december 2009, and nearly 3 years since I wrote these first 5 installments...
and I’ve since done a thorough job of interpreting this fairytale (and 3 others), in my jungian lecture series in Chicago.
The only problem is...none of it was written down or recorded...
This winter (january 2010) I’ll be taking a semester off from my usual teaching gig to complete this jungian interpretation of the Tinderbox in writing.
And as my written project progresses I expect to publish the updates here...
Now as much as I love doing this, it’s time consuming and expensive for me to just sit down and write...
So please, if you find my work to be of personal benefit to you, consider making a small donation to help support kristo’s Fairy Tale Project.
I’m grateful for any sum you care to donate...
And if this current writing project proves successful, I can immediately proceed to bring you my interpretation of more fairytales
I guarantee that if you like what I’ve written so far...you’re going to love what happens in the rest of the story...
Thank you
kristo
continue reading The Magic Tinderbox...
part one
part three
part four
part five