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By Root 5623 0

which shows that he is not inwardly imprisoned in egocentricity. So long as that condition is met, showing that he is connected with life, the role of the `helpful animal' is to symbolise all those mysterious instinctive powers in his psyche which will help to carry him to maturity. For a long time, provided that his heart is in the right place, he will be able to rely on these unconscious powers, beyond his conscious understanding, to carry him upwards. But the nearer he gets to his goal, the more he will have to show a conscious grasp of what he is doing. Not the least reason why the story of Aladdin is so profound is that it emphasises this point so explicitly, in how the genies eventually impress on him that he can no longer just rely on them to do everything and that he must begin to rely consciously on himself. In masculine terms, to reach complete union with the Self means developing complete self-reliance, self-mastery and selfunderstanding. It can only be achieved by the hero who has shown himself to be autonomous or self-controlled; who in the end can see exactly what he has to do.

In stories where the central figure is a hero, the `helpful animal' thus stands for powers which he has not yet fully integrated into himself. Although these powers may be working for the hero's good, as aspects of the Self, so long as they are still operating semi-independently, or in a way which is beyond his conscious understanding, they appear in an `inferior' form, as forces split-off from and outside him. Indeed it is by no means only in the form of the `helpful animal' in folk tales that we see this principle at work in storytelling. Again and again, in different ways, we recognise in some ally or companion of the hero an `inferior' version of some quality which the hero will eventually have to develop and integrate into himself - at which point the `inferior' figure often vanishes from the story. One of the most celebrated instances of this is the role played by the Fool in King Lear: the wise idiot who sees the truth of what is happening more clearly than anyone else. But at the moment in the story where Lear himself begins to understand and to see clearly the Fool disappears, because he was the `inferior' version of the Wise Old Man that Lear himself is now becoming.

The same motif may appear in tales where the central figure is a heroine, as in the seven dwarves who play such an important part in the adolescence of Snow White. As these little masculine figures spend their days mysteriously digging gold out of the mountains (symbolising the build-up of those life-giving instinctive powers which are unconsciously carrying her towards maturity), on a more conscious level she develops her loving, maternal femininity by looking after their household. But eventually there comes the crisis where the dwarves can help her no more. Frozen on her mountaintop, she has to wait for the emergence of her fully-developed masculine `other half', in the shape of a loving Prince, to liberate her. In other folk tales such as Beauty and the Beast, The Frog Prince or Snow White and Rose Red, we again see the masculine appearing in the heroine's life in an `inferior' form, except that here her initial reaction is one of fear or revulsion. Only when the heroine reaches the point where she can show love to this alarming creature does this prove to be the key to the Beast, frog or bear turning into a handsome Prince. This initially threatening presence is her animus, that which governs her relationship to the masculine both within her psyche and outside it. Only when the heroine has fully developed her femininity do we see the figure representing her inner masculinity emerging from his original negative, inferior disguise into his proper light identity.

In a wider sense this motif of the `helpful animal' helps to underline one of the most important general principles of storytelling, which is that for a long time in a story the elements which will eventually prove to be the key to salvation may appear in some inferior, obscured or distorted form.