narcissism & fairytale beings

Elemental beings in folk legends and fairytales dwell in water, air, fire, earth, plants and animals. Among them are the nymphs, swan maidens, undines, and fairies. Emma Jung, in an essay titled "The Anima as an Elemental Being" compared the elemental to a man's internal anima.

While I read the essay, I noticed that the qualities Emma Jung described as belonging to the anima and the elemental coincided with qualities describing a narcissist.

I was intrigued and a little excited by this association. If a narcissistic romantic partner is similar in behavior to elemental beings of fairytales, then fairytales can be a guide on how to conduct a relationship with a narcissist in a positive framework instead of a negative one. After all, these elemental beings in fairytales have some very positive, magical qualities, along with their dangers.

Here is a list with some of the qualities of elemental beings which coincide with qualities of narcissists. Emma Jung, by the way, didn't mention narcissists in her essay. That's just my own observation. The list refers to narcissists in the feminine gender because the essay was on the anima, but I suspect the animus and male narcissists fit equally. The quotes are brief references to Emma Jung's essay.

1. The elemental and the narcissist deconstruct the partner in a relationship. "These beings (sirens, the Lorelei, and so on) lure a man into their realm, where he disappears forevermore, or..."

2. The Elemental and the narcissist use charm to captivated - to hold captive emotionally. "...they try to bind a man in love..."

3. The elemental and the narcissist lack a sense of self or "soul," so she adopts the interests of her partner. "...that they may live in this world with him."

4. The elemental and the narcissist are easily hurt in areas of unconscious content. "The nixie's disappearance into her element describes what happens when an unconscious content comes to the surface but is still so little coordinated with the ego consciousness as to sink back at the slightest provocation."

5. The elemental and the narcissist become easily angered because of a touchy inferior function. "There is a taboo connected with them that must not be broken."

6. The elemental and the narcissist take offense even if the offending action is unintentional. "The taboos are not always the same; sometimes the man may not touch his wife with iron, or he may not speak unfriendly words more than three times, and so on. But always the violation of the condition results from heedlessness, or a fateful accident; it is never intentional."

7. The elemental and the narcissist hide their reality, fearful of the partner seeing her true nature. "Purusavas must not be seen naked by Urvasi. ... Human reality is not to her taste."

8. The elemental and the narcissist lack empathy. "He, with human feeling, laments the loss of his beloved, he tries to find her again and wants to speak with her, but her words, when she says that women have the hearts of hyenas, are the expression of a soul-less elemental being passing judgement on itself."

9. The elemental and the narcissist cannot know the self and are largely not conscious of the Self. "We may conclude that the femininity represented by the nymph, Urvasi, is as yet too nebulous and incorporeal to live permanently and realize itself in the human realm, that is, in waking consciousness."

10. The elemental and the narcissist withdraw emotionally to make the other prove his commitment. "The (swan) maidens feel an overwhelming yearning for battle and, by flying away, draws the brothers after them..."

11. The elemental and the narcissist are restless and insecure in a relationship and look for other lovers outside of the relationship. "...In psychological language, this means that the yearning, the desire for new undertakings, makes itself felt first in the unconscious feminine."

12. The elemental and the narcissist desparately seek connections, even against being faithful to a different life, person or ideal. "From this it follows that they woo man, and that they seek him assiduously and in secret."

13. The elemental and the narcissist are cruel and make unreasonable demands. "Often she is cruel, demanding senseless and superhuman feats of her knight as the sign of his subservience."

14. The elemental and the narcissist have a godlike attitude. "The swan maiden's royal descent, shown by her crown, marks her as being from a higher order, and can be related to the superhuman, divine aspect of the anima."

15. The elemental and the narcissist when they lose their masks, and thus their power in a relationship, will end the relationship at the first opportunity. "Swan maidens... for the most part do not seek a relationship of their own accord, but by the theft of their garments fall into the man's power through a ruse. Hence they try to escape at the first opportunity."

16. The elemental and the narcissist are malicious without reason or remorse, just as nature and the weather have no moods. "To be discerned in the anima are the incalculability, mischievousness and frequent malice of these elemental spirits, which constitute the reverse side of their bewitching charm. These beings are simply irrational, good and bad, helpful and harmful, healing and destructive, like nature herself of which they are a part."

17. The elemental and the narcissist are easily projected upon. "It is easy for a man to project the anima image to the more elemental woman; they correspond so exactly to his own unconscious femininity."

18. The elemental and the narcissist find relationships opening when a man pours out his emotional problems. "He came upon three beautiful maidens sitting beside a stream, one of whom was Melusine. He poured out his sorrow to her and she gave him good counsel, whereupon he fell in love with her."

19. The elemental and the narcissist "seek soul" because they lack a sense of self. "Through union with a man they receive a soul and the children, too, of such a union possess souls."

20. The elemental and the narcissist use a mate's soul to compensate lack of self. "Her kind cannot win souls except through a bond of human love."

21. The elmental and the narcissist provoke conflict in order to test a relationship. "What brings about the catastrophe here is the conflict between the anima, that is the nature creature, and the human woman. In the Siegried legend this plays an important part, as the strife between the Valkyrie Brunnehilde and Chriemhilde, and it frequently leads to great difficulties in actual life. Fundamentally, such conflict expresses that opposition between two worlds, the outer and the inner, the conscious and the unconscious, which it seems to be the special task of our time to bridge."

22. The elemental and the narcissist have the power to captivate. "The song ends with the fairy taking her love away on the horse to her kingdom. Being carried away to fairyland is, psychologically, a very important motif." "That the anima rules this realm and leads the way to it is well known. The danger of getting lost there, that is, in the unconscious, seems to have been felt even in early times, for countless stories describe the knight, caught in the bonds of love, who forgets his knightly duties."

23. The elemental and the narcissist have a puer aeternus complex. "It is not a kingdom of the dead but is called 'Land of the Living' or 'Land under the Waves,' and is thought to be composed of 'green islands,' which are inhabited by fair feminine beings adn so sometimes called 'islands of women.' Eternally young and beautiful, these creatures enjoy a life without sorrow, full of music and dancing and joys of love."

24. The elemental and the narcissist bring sudden change into a relationship, moving from love to terror, to love to terror; the beautiful to the sublime.
From the Tannhauser Legend:
"Throughout the week they're fair all day
Decked out with silk and gold,
Rings and beads and crowns of May,
But Sundays they're otters and snakes."

25. The elemental and the narcissist can cause the other, in a relationship, to lose his or her sanity. "As life bestower and goddess of fertility, Cybele ruled the waters; as Mountain Mother and Mistress of Animals, she loved and ruled all that was wild in nature. She bestowed the gift of prophecy, but caused madness also."

26. The elemental and the narcissist with their ability to fascinate, lead partners to danger. "Fascinating all men who come her way with the beauty of Venus, the wisdom of the serpent, and the cruelty of the carnivore, she works irresistible magic upon them and without exception they perish. ... She is a purely destructive anima figure; those whom she enchants lose all of their masculine strength and virtue and finally die."

27. The elemental and the narcissist project themselves into their partner's world, and adopt his interests as her own, in order to "gain soul" or resolve a "lack of self." "When, as happens in so many legends, an elemental creature seeks to unite with a human being and be loved by him in order to acquire a soul, it can only mean that some unconscious and undeveloped component of the personality is seeking to become joined to consciousness and so to be informed with soul."

28. The elemental and the narcissist attach to a man's soul in order to uncover her own unconsciousness - to find herself. Because she does this in fear, she is prone to violence in the process. "The urge toward increase of conscousness in the material discussed above is expressed in the desire of a creature, still bound in nature and only half human, to approach a human being and be accepted by him, that is, by consciousness."

29. The elemental and the narcissist have father issues. "Elemental beings quite often possess a (more or less hidden) father. The Valkyries are Odin's maidens and Odin is a god of wind and spirit. In the tale of the huntsman and the swan maiden, who has to be released from the glass mountain, her father is with her and is released at the same time."

30. The elemental and the narcissist are nature-creatures and end a relationship without remorse or empathy, just as a storm in nature strikes without empathy. "The story comes to a natural conclusion; after they have lived together for a long time, the nymph one day says farewell to her husband, foreseeing that the end of her oak tree can no longer be averted. Then the tree is struck by lightening and she, whose life has remained bound to it despite her human quality, disappears forever."