What springs to mind when you picture a fairy tale? Maybe Cinderella sweeping the hearth in tattered rags; Hansel and Gretel trailing bread crumbs through a dark forest; or Snow White, her face deathly pale, lying motionless within a glass coffin.
These images are burned into our collective consciousness. But besides sharing similar folklore roots and being reimagined by Disney, they all feature the same villain: the wicked stepmother.
Wicked stepmothers have haunted the pages of fairy tale books for centuries, seeking the downfall of the plucky heroine. But who is this evil crone, and where did she come from? And what do we make of her as a modern-day archetype?
