THE STORY OF THE MOUSE MASK AND THE PRINCESS MASK - PART ONE

By Rita Grimaldi

The Mouse Bride: A Story Summary

Out of jealousy, a Lapland Witch has turned a Princess and all her servants into mice. Only when one man agrees to marry the mouse and another tries to kill the mouse by submerging her in water will the mouse regain her human form. After a series of events, the two conditions are fulfilled. The mouse, now in her human form, marries Jukka, the man who promised to marry her when she was a mouse. Together they go to live in the Princess’ restored castle.

Making the Mouse And Princess Masks

The Mouse face was sculpted in two hours.

  

          

But making the Princess mask was another matter.

I think we all have certain images of animals in our minds. These images are general shapes. As long as a mask conforms to the general shape of the animal it represents, then we “experience” the animal as real.

But when it comes to making a mask of the human face, we are much more exacting. We want things anatomically right. We also want the emotions in the story being told to be compatible with the mask face.

In the case of a transformation story such as The Mouse Bride, it gets even more complicated because both masks used in this story must have some common feelings because, in reality, they are one person.

My Criteria For The Two Masks

So here are the criteria I arrived at for making the two masks I used in the telling of ‘The Mouse Bride’.

1. The princess mask must have the same feeling as the mouse mask.

2. The visual characteristics must be consistent between the mouse and human female masks. At the beginning of the story, the mouse has a positive and optimistic attitude. She also has confidence in her skills and those of her helpers. So when she transforms back from her mouse form into her human form, her human face must read as positive, confident and strong.

3. The Princess’ human face must be beautiful. The story tells us that after transformation into her human form, she is “the most beautiful maiden Jukka has ever seen”.

My Failure To Achieve Both Beauty And Similar Feelings

After I completed the rice paper shells of each mask, I waited to absorb what I have made. A few days later, I decided to stop the process of mask making and to work on the costumes and headdresses.

Ten days later, when these were complete, I looked again at the mask shells and I realized that the female mask was not right for the story. She was neither beautiful nor did she possess similar feelings to the mouse mask. Below on left is Mouse mask without painting or adornments. On the right is Princess mask. See how she is far too masculine looking, not beautiful. And, to my eye, she is not similar in feeling to the mouse.

I began to think about what to do. I tried cutting the female mask smaller. But still, it was not right. I considered using my Young Girl mask with leaf headdress. But beside Mouse, her feeling was too small, too gentle and too innocent. She lacked the Mouse Princess’ strength and optimistic courage.

Making The Second Princess Mask

I began to feel old - too old to make such a face. Then I decided that it was necessary for me to re-acquire my own feelings of strength, innocence and beauty, as you cannot create what you do not feel inside. So doing this and not anticipating either success or failure, I began to re-sculpt the Princess’ face once more.

I worked from the plasticene form I sculpted for my original Princess mask.

Here is what I did.

1. I removed the detail across the forehead.
2. I re-shaped the nose, removing almost all of the plasticine.
3. I removed all details from around the eyes.
4. I re-sculpted the mouth to make it less open.
5. I removed plasticene from the circumference of the mask to make the mask smaller.And finally, I brought the features of the face forward to make it flatter and rounder in feeling.

Now satisfied with the new, re-worked form, I made the rice paper shell. Pictured below, beside the Mouse mask, is my second Princess mask.

She has a much simpler face. Her eyes and nose are almost my own eyes and nose. Only her lips and the shape of her face are different from my own face.

As this mask is far closer to my real face, I feel more rapport with it. I can also see potential strength in it and I know that this strength would emerge once the mask was painted.

In my mind, as I looked at the mask, I began to choose colours to paint it - blue for the eyes (as in the story, the mouse has very blue eyes), off-white for the nose (as the mouse has white on her nose), gold under her eyes for beauty, pink on her cheeks for health and lastly, very red lips.

In Part Three you will see the painted Princess mask and enjoy her beauty.

Part Two will come soon. 

It is about the making of the costumes.

TO BE CONTINUED...

‘The Mouse Bride’ can be found in 
Scandinavian Folk and Fairy Tales.

Edited by Claire Booss.

New York: Gramercy Books, 1984.