The Maiden in The Tale

Abstract

The female character in Romanian tales is of major importance to the development of the hero. The maiden acts as the active principle regardless of the manner of action either by defying or aiding the emperor’s son. In tales there are two fundamental archetypal postures of the maiden, identified in Julius Evola’s study “The metaphysics of gender”: that of the demetrian maiden, a benefic, maternal one and that of the afroditian apparently malefic maiden. According to the structure of the traditional community and its economic-social development the two archetypes gain interesting determinations.