Witches of Glum – Results

Results

True or False:

1. The city was called Bung.
   • False. The city was called Glum. The kingdom was called Bung.
2. The city was ruled by an old king, who could no longer walk.
   • False. We are not told the king’s age. He may or may not have been old. Those who said he was old were probably making an assumption based on the fact that he ‘could no longer walk’.
3. The castle was in the center of the city.
   • True.
4. Gorga was a wicked witch, who lived in a cave on the other side of the lake.
   • False. At no point are we told that Groga is wicked. Participants probably assumed she was wicked because she was ugly and disfigured. We know too that the king doesn’t like her, but again nowhere does it say the king is good!
5. Princess Christina was very beautiful.
   • False. Princess Christina was “popular.” She was also happy and always willing to help others. But nowhere in the story are we told she is beautiful.
6. The stranger was a knight from far away.
   • False. The crowd “included knights”. We don’t know that the stranger was one.
7. The stranger wanted to be made king in return for killing Groga.
   • False. We don’t know if the stranger is even a man, so we don’t know if he/she would be a king or a queen. Anyway, the stranger only asks for the crown –and doesn’t specifically state he/she wants a title or even power. For all we know the stranger may have wanted to sell the crown to the highest bidder -on eBay!
8. The king offered the stranger a great fortune instead.
   • False. The king offers the stranger half of all the gold in the treasury. We aren’t told how much gold is in the treasury –maybe none!
9. A good witch lived to the West of the city.
   • False. We are not told Gwendolyn is good –only that she is beautiful and wears a sparkly gown!
10. The stranger agreed to give Gwendolyn half of his gold, if she helped him.
    • False. He/she agreed to give her “a share”. We are not told what the share is. And, of course, we don’t know the stranger is a ‘he’.
11. Gwendolyn mixed a potion, which she poured into a green bottle.
    • True.
12. The stranger rode from Gwendolyn’s house to Groga’s cave.
    • False. We don’t know the stranger ‘rode’. The story says the stranger “traveled”.
13. Groga had killed many other men before.
    • False. We don’t know whether Groga had killed anyone before. All we know is that those sent to kill her had not returned. Perhaps they had a change of heart and left the kingdom?
14. Groga’s magic was no match for the stranger.
    • False. We are not told that Groga used magic.
15. The stranger used a magic potion to defeat Groga.
    • False. We don’t know if the stranger used the potion given to him/her by Gwendolyn.

Conclusions

This exercise helps show our implicit associations about fairy tales and how that might relate to our own implicit biases towards groups of people. Despite the story seeming like a traditional fairy tale, there are many things in the story that we assumed were true but actually are not true. Often times, implicit bias works in a similar fashion to this.

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