Sleeping Beauty (tale)

## Story

When this princess was born, all fairies were invited to her christening. Except an old one, who was not seen for the past 50 years and believed to be dead. She wasn't; and quite angry at the king and queen. So the old fairy predict that the princess, before she's 16, will prick her finger on a distaff and dies. All others fairies already made gifts, except one, not powerful enough to completely undo the malediction. She stated that the princess won't die, but fell into a 100 years slumber.

Her parents were still concerned, and the king and queen order all spinning wheels to be burned. When the princess was 16, she decided to explore her castle, and arrive in a distant tower, where an old lady is busy spinning with a wheel, having never heard of the king 's interdiction to do so.

The princess had never seen a distaff, and asked to took it; she pricked her finger, and fell asleep. Her parents carried her to her bed, and her fairies godmothers put everyone who lived in the castle in a slumber.

100 years later, the general opinion was that the castle was haunted; however, older people remembered a beautiful princess slept there. A prince heard the rumors, and decided to go to the castle despite it was invaded with brambles and vines. But the plants moved aside as soon as the prince arrived. He crossed rooms filled with sleeping people dressed as his grandparents. The prince finally arrived in the princess's bedroom.

As the end of the 100 years had arrived, she opened her eyes, and saw the prince. The castle's inhabitants woke up as well, and the princess and prince were soon married.

## Trivia

-Her kingdom remains unknown.

-The most famous version is the Grimm one, but in the Perrault's one, it's a bit longer. The prince turn out to be the son of an ogre queen. As soon as he go to war, his mother decide to eat her daughter in law, and also their son and daughter, during the prince absence. At first, the cook is ordered to kill the little Aurora, the young princess, but he does not dare to, hide the little girl, and present the queen veal's meat instead. Similarly, he gave her lamb when she wants to eat Jour ("day") , the young prince. And finally, he use a doe when the queen wish to eat the Sleeping Beauty.

She was about to pretend to her son that wolves had eaten his wife and their two children, but once heard their voices inside the cook's house, where they were hidden. Furious, the queen put snakes and toads in a giant vat, and was about to throw in her daughter in law, Aurora, Jour, the cook, his wife, and their servant. However, the prince came back precisely at this moment, and the queen, rather to face him, committed suicide by throwing herself in the vat. This ending is often missing in adaptations as the story look a bit long; the ending seems happy already when the princess wake up.

-The Grimm called the princess Briar Rose; she have no name for Perrault but her daughter is named Aurora. Said name was used for the princess, herself, in the ballet and the Disney version. In said version, Briar Rose is also used as a pseudonym. Still in the ballet, the old fairy is named Carabosse.

-The princess being raised far from her castle to protect her until she's 16 is proper to the Disney version.

-There is a similar story from Italy called "The Sun, Moon and Talia" where Aurora is called Talia. The prince finds her asleep and instead of kissing her, what he does to her is not very appropriate. She wakes up with children and is almost murdered.

-In older versions known as *The Sun, the moon, and Thalia* by Basile or *Perceforest,* no angry fairy*:* it's simply predicted by astrologists that Thalia, or Zellandine, are going to be put in a slumber. Also, when a married king (named Troïlus in *Perceforest)* arrive in the bedroom, the heroine is raped, but don't wake up. She don't wake either when she give birth to twins, but one of the babies, wanting to suck his mother's bosom, suck her finger instead, and remove the splinter in the finger; thus the princess wake up. The king have a wife (instead of a mother) who's an ogre, and she act like in the Perrault version. When she dies, the king remarries to the heroine.

Of course, storytellers soon changed details due shocking elements. The princess is the most often kissed to be woken up instead of raped; or she wake up by herself like in the Perrault version. Also, the king's wife became his mother, before being evinced.

-Sleeping Beauty is considered, with Snow White, as a "seasonal heroine"a variant of the Hell goddess Persephone. She spent half a year with her mother Demeter (the spring and summer) and the other half with her husband Hades (the autumn and winter, as Demeter was sad without her and let the nature fell into a slumber). Since the christianisation, Persephone 's role was attributed to saints (like Lucy) or fairy tales heroines nicknamed the " May Maiden ". Their common feature was to be put in slumber, then wake up thanks to a prince- to symbolize nature is waking up. This is materialized by the names of the princess's children, either Moon and Sun (for Basile) or Aurora and Jour (Dawn and Day).