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I found an amazing essay I had to share about The Folklore of Hearth and Home by Terri Windling. Utterly gorgeous view of how fairy tales and legends relate to the home, people leaving home, the modern home, and gender of adolescents and how it effects the general view of leaving home and what is expected.

Home is where we hang our hat, as the old song says, rather than a landscape grazed or farmed for generation after generation. Home means the place we live right now; tomorrow it may mean someplace different. We are now, most of us, like the female heroes in traditional stories who leave their home with no expectation of returning…and we do this not once in our lives, but sometimes again and again and again. Folk tales remind us, however, that moving home is not a simple act; it’s one with mythic reverberations. It’s a rite–of–passage, with all the attendant dangers and potential rewards that such passages offer.

Utterly wonderful and fulfilling read. Give it a go.