ABSTRACT
The women endure separation, when they are forced to leave their families; liminality, as they struggle to adjust to a new role; and incorporation, when they finally unite with the Robber Bridegrooms in marriage, or when the bridegroom is transformed from an ugly beast to a handsome prince. The advice given to women in folktales varies widely, depending on the time and culture of the story's telling. When oral folktales were collected, edited, and published, they were altered to suit the morals and values of the literate upper class. In Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene, the heroes and heroines are learning to become virtuous and well-balanced human beings. Because some of his protagonists are women, Spenser needed sources of information about women's transitional experiences, rarely described in early modern literature. In the House of Busirane episode, Spenser imitates the Mr. Fox tale by separating the initiand into some women, each at a different stage of liminality.
