The Sleeper and the Spindle

“It would not have occurred to the dwarves to give the young queen anything they had dug themselves from beneath the earth. That would have been too easy, too routine. It’s the distance that makes a gift magical, so the dwarves believed.”

In this moment, the narrator alludes to the power of the quest in traditional folklore. Rather than the geographic distance itself, the practice of journeying and exploring creates power in these motifs. Unknowingly, the dwarves are following an ancient tradition of seeking one’s fortune in a far-off land in order to obtain something of value.

“She wondered how she would feel to be a married woman. It would be the end of her life, she decided, if life was a time of choices.”

Much of the story, in particular the queen’s own personal journey, deals with the freedom or lack of personal choice. Even though Gaiman presents the queen as a strong warrior figure and a leader, she recognizes the inescapable gender expectations on which her society is built. Once she becomes a married woman, the identity she has built for herself with her own strength will become a secondary concern, pointing to the story’s thematic interest in Freedom and Constraint.

“She called for her mail shirt. She called for her sword. She called for provisions, and for her horse, and then she rode out of the palace, towards the east.”

This moment uses anaphora, a literary device in which repeated clauses are used at the start of successive sentences for rhythmic effect. It also alludes to the fairy tale power of three, in which motifs often recur in this pattern. Additionally, this scene positions the queen as a