The Armless Maiden narratives fascinated me in college, where I first heard a South African version of this tale from the great Xhosa story teller Nongenile Masithathu Zenani. When Terri Windling was putting together her very fine anthology, The Armless Maiden and Other Tales for Childhood's Survivors, I wrote a version of the story, along with an afterword that addressed the unique journey of the female hero in traditional tales. Later, I rewrote the afterword into a longer article, "The Armless Maiden and the Hero's Journey" that was published in Realms of Fantasy's Folkroots Column, and republished in the Journal of Mythic Arts (Winter 2006).
*Art by Alberto Giacometti.
Midori Snyder is the author of nine books for children and adults, published in English, French, Dutch, and Italian. She won the Mythopoeic Award for The Innamorati, a novel inspired by early Roman myth and the Italian "Commedia dell'Arte" tradition....
