Maleficent

Maleficent

The Scorned Rival

Many tales over the ages speak of a woman scorned who has her terrible revenge in one form or another. This is the idea of a great beauty twisted by hatred and spoiled by evil, and is thus diminished for it. These women are often known as queens of darkness, terrifying sorceresses, miscreant fairies, or evil witches. They often have a female rival, these women, and a man who has wronged her, broken a promise, or discarded her for another. The stories of these women cross time and culture, but reflect the same horrid virtue: a lust for power, and in the history of womankind, power is born from beauty. 

Associated myths

A witch in the Arthurian legend known as Hellawes was one such woman. She died of a broken heart after being rejected by Lancelot’s love.

In Hebrew mythology, the first wife of Adam, Lilith, claimed to be his equal and when they quarrelled she left in a rage, eventually spawning innumerable demons which continue to plague mankind to this day. 

But what passes as history into legend and legend into myth, eventually fades to nothing more than mere fairy tale, all linked by the same characteristics: a vengeful lust for power, a quest to be the fairest in the land, and the wielding of dark magic. 

The story of the princess Fiorimonde was one about the daughter of a king who used an evil witch to turn herself into the fairest woman in all the land. This princess used a magical artifact, a necklace, to maintain her ascension over others.

Through the use of witchcraft, a queen sometimes known as Grimhilde, lusts to slay the beauteous rival which was prophesied to unseat her power. The fairy tale was based on the ancient celtic tale of Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree, but in the germanic tale, a magical artifact, a mirror, aids the queen’s magic.

There are some fairy tales, however, so old that even the names of the women involved shift, fade, or have been lost forever.

The Mistress of All Evil

One ancient fairy tale, perhaps the most fantastical of them all, is the tale of seven fairies invited to be godmothers to an infant princess. However, an eighth wicked fairy, overlooked and forgotten by the king and queen, curses the child princess, known as Talia, d’Aurora, or Briar Rose, with prophetic death at her sixteenth year of age. The wicked fairy has come to be known as “the Mistress of all Evil,” but her true name was long ago lost to the turning of time. In the folklore of modern storytelling, her identity was assigned the following name, a portmanteau of her greatest characteristics: malevolent and magnificent, and thus, is only known to us as the figure, Maleficent. 

Rebirths

1st Age – Spectra Lin

2nd Age – Elowen Merena

3rd Age – Evelara

5th Age – Maleficent

7th Age – The Lady of Shalott