Let’s celebrate one of literature’s coldest motifs: ice queens.
What is a motif?
A motif (mow TEEF) is like a symbol on steroids. It not only appears in one story but in many stories through the ages and often in stories from many countries.
A deep, dark woods is a good example of a motif. The blackened forest can be symbolic of confusion or a time of testing. What stories can you think of that include a patch of dark woods? (I’ve listed a few at the end of this prompt, but try your hand at listing some before you read mine.)
A motif can be an item (like dark woods or a magic ring), a recurring event (like being sent on a quest or conducting a contest to find a spouse), or a character type (like the jester or an ice queen). Basically, it keeps appearing in tales or stories throughout time and even across the world.
The ice queen motif
So here we are, back to the ice queen. This character is a motif that occurs in fairy tales in Russia, Finland, and other “cold” countries. Snegurochka is a woman made of snow in Russian fairy tales. You are familiar with the White Witch in C. S. Lewis’s Narnia tales who forces Narnia to endure a seemingly endless winter without Christmas. Hans Christian Andersen, from Denmark, created an Ice Maiden who was queen of the glaciers, but before that, he created a woman made entirely of ice, the Snow Queen. She made her debut in The Snow Queen, which Disney has adapted into the movie Frozen.
Unlike Disney’s version of a snow queen, however, other snow or ice queens in literature and fairy tales tend to be nasty. For instance, Andersen’s Ice Maiden couldn’t wait to get a particular boy onto one of her glaciers so she could crush him. Lewis’s White Witch turned Narnian citizens into stone and, of course, perpetuated winter.
Now it’s your turn: Write a story in which ice or snow is involved. You may include an ice queen, a snow queen, or any other characters that sound good to you. Use a motif, if you wish—dark woods, a mirror, a quest, royalty in disguise, and so forth.
Examples of the dark woods motif
The dark woods motif can be found in Mirkwood in The Hobbit, where the dwarves and Bilbo are sorely confused and leave the path. It is also where Bilbo proves his mettle by being clever and brave and by saving his companions from the giant spiders. This experience also serves to unify what had been a rag-tag group of individuals.
Dark woods are also found in The Wizard of Oz movie; Dorothy and her friends are set upon there.
Snow White is to be killed in her dark woods but escapes into another dark forest before finding the dwarves’ cottage.
And who can forget the Fire Swamp in The Princess Bride, where Westley and Princess Buttercup encounter fire, sandpits, and rodents of unusual size?
