ABSTRACT
Like the female protagonists of folktales, Britomart undergoes a threshold experience that reflects her maturation process.3 On her journey she encounters women who reflect her stage of development at that time: she rescues Amoret, who is not bold enough, in an episode that echoes the folktale “The Story of Mr. Fox,” and she later defeats Radigund, who is too bold, in an episode that has similarities to the story “East of the Sun and West of the Moon.” Spenser thus makes use of different types of female maturation tales to show the stages of a woman’s journey.
