Questions About The Book of Gothel: Memoir of a Witch

by Mary McMyne (Goodreads Author)

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Answered Questions (4)

What lead you to the story of Gothel and Rikka? I see you lived in michigan where you gained inspiration from the forest around you, but why medieval folklore and not a more well known branch?

Mary McMyne Good question! Fairy tales are often associated with peasant women, but the people who wrote down the stories we know were anything but. You can tell…more Good question! Fairy tales are often associated with peasant women, but the people who wrote down the stories we know were anything but. You can tell this from the stories' biases. The girls are largely flat characters, older women and mothers are ignored or vilified. The Brothers Grimm were wealthy men who claimed to get their stories from country folk, but the truth is they collected their tales largely from people they already knew, and they changed them quite a bit as they released later editions to suit popular taste, sanitizing and Christianizing them. If you look at the other famous writers of fairy tales that are still popular today, they're all part of elite, wealthy social groups, and they're mostly men.

I wanted to try to extrapolate what Rapunzel and other tales might have been like before they were written down, when they actually were being told by peasant women. I’m really interested in the way folktales spread and change as they are passed from person to person, culture to culture, how older folktales and myths became the stories we know today. Some scholars say Rapunzel and other tales may have their roots in ancient matriarchal Indo-European myths. I wanted to explore the pagan roots of these stories, so I chose a time period early enough that the survival of a pre-Christian religion would be more believable.

Also, selfishly, I wrote the first draft as an escape from my everyday life, after I finished teaching at the university where I worked, after I brought my toddler home from daycare, after I fed them, told them a story, and put them to bed. The medieval era fascinates me. There are so many gaps in what we know of it, especially with regard to the daily lives of women. It was fun for me to research those gaps and then try to fill what we don't know with my imagination. And the act of doing that fit right in with my overall goal for the novel, which I wanted to explore the forgotten stories of women.(less)

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What happened to Ursilda in the end?? Maybe I missed it, but she never comes for her daughter and Haelewise raises her as her own? I guess it's implied in the book when Haelewise writes about the baby in her arms being "right" and Ursilda not feeling like a mother, but...

Alisunflowerr I was wondering this, too! Ok, so Kunegunde prevented Hael from taking the alrune and communicating with Ursilda. Then what kept Hael from contacting …moreI was wondering this, too! Ok, so Kunegunde prevented Hael from taking the alrune and communicating with Ursilda. Then what kept Hael from contacting Ursilda after Kunegunde died? (less)

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How dark does this get? Content and magic wise I mean. Thanks, Quill

Mary McMyne

This answer contains spoilers… (view spoiler)

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What inspired you to write this book?

Mary McMyne I moved to Upper Peninsula, Michigan when my eldest child was small. It was the most remote place I'd ever lived, and I found the giant trees and dark…moreI moved to Upper Peninsula, Michigan when my eldest child was small. It was the most remote place I'd ever lived, and I found the giant trees and dark woods enthralling. When my eldest was about three, we started visiting the forest together, and I told them the folktales my mother told me, so often I started wondering who first told the tales and why. As they got older, I did what all storytellers do: change the stories to suit my needs. Passive princesses became strong, male characters became girls, and I started imagining the "real" stories behind female characters I thought were treated unfairly. Thus Haelewise, the witch of the tower of Gothel, was born.(less)

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