The Maiden King

Book excerpt: From Robert Bly, author of the groundbreaking bestseller Iron John, and famed Jungian analyst Marion Woodman comes an interpretation of a primordial folktale that takes the message behind Iron John to its next phase: the reunion of masculine and feminine. Bly and Woodman interpret the archetypal symbols embedded in an ancient Russian story, The Maiden King, a tale woven of an absent father, a possessive stepmother, a false tutor, and a young man over-whelmed by a beautiful maiden. When the young man's weak response to the maiden ss her retreating in anger, he must go on a quest for self-discovery that leads to Baba Yaga, the fierce yet empowering old woman of Russian folk tradition. The male tency toward impotence in the face of feminine magnificence, the female fear of power and abandonment that leads to rage, the need to get beyond oppositional thinking en route to the Divine, these are issues the book addresses with wisdom and lyricism. The true heir to Iron John, The Maiden King may be the intellectual answer to Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus.