We all know the story of Sleeping Beauty. Beautiful princess, evil witch, spindle, sleep for one-hundred years, et cetera. And it's a great story. Especially those three little fairies who argue over dress colors and make really questionable cakes. But the truth is the original story . . . is a little bit different.
***Now remember yesterdays post, the one where I discussed the sexual undertones in Little Red Riding Hood and Rapunzel? Well, this post has some similar themes . . .
The original tale was written by Giambattista Basile in 1634, entitled Sun, Moon and Talia. In this version, Sleeping Beauty, aka. Talia, gets poisoned when she pricks her finger, and falls into a deep slumber. When a king stumbles upon her unconscious body, he "sleeps" with her, resulting in the birth of twin babies. She only awakens when one of the babies sucks on her finger, drawing out the poison from her body. She thus wakes up to find that she's been raped and is now the mother of two small children. She winds up married to the man who raped her and they live dysfunctionally ever after.
The original tale was written by Giambattista Basile in 1634, entitled Sun, Moon and Talia. In this version, Sleeping Beauty, aka. Talia, gets poisoned when she pricks her finger, and falls into a deep slumber. When a king stumbles upon her unconscious body, he "sleeps" with her, resulting in the birth of twin babies. She only awakens when one of the babies sucks on her finger, drawing out the poison from her body. She thus wakes up to find that she's been raped and is now the mother of two small children. She winds up married to the man who raped her and they live dysfunctionally ever after.
Suffice it to say, this is not a happy story people!
My favorite version:
I'm pretty excited about the upcoming Maleficent film.
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This post is part of the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. My theme (in case you didn't already guess) is Fairy Tales. Stay tuned for the rest of the alphabet, and if you'd like to check out the other participants, simply click here.
It's amazing how such dark tales have ended up children's bedtime reading isn't it. Was the child all right if it sucked out the poison? That doesn't sound good for a youngster.
ReplyDeleteTasha
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I'm looking forward to Maleficent too. I had heard the original summary of Sleeping Beauty and it isn't such a fun story o.O
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Wow. I had never heard this version. Interesting how it went from a man being the villain to an evil witch.
ReplyDeleteHe isn't considered a villain though. His half ogre wife --who is understandably angry when her husband comes home with a mistress and two children --is. She tries to cook his kids. Thus the dysfunctionally ever after.
DeleteWell, did the baby get poisoned after sucking out the blood?
ReplyDeleteI was wondering about the same thing Rusty asked....
ReplyDeleteHeavens!! Reminds me of the Chaucer tales from the period. Sex was popular in stories then, and aren't we lucky men can now find it online every single minute of the day...
ReplyDeleteI thought I was pretty familiar with most of these old fairy tales, but I did not know about this original version! That's pretty awful.
ReplyDeleteI remember the baby sucking out the splinter from Sleeping Beauty's finger, which she got from the spinning wheel, which would probably be less dangerous for the baby especially if it didn't share Sleeping Beauty's curse. I could be remembering wrong, though -- I did a study on Sleeping Beauty in college, but that was 12 years ago!
ReplyDeleteNow that's a twisted story!
ReplyDeleteI wondered about the baby, too. Looking forward to the new choreography of the Tschaivosky ballet coming up on PBS next month.
ReplyDeleteAnd that's what I was talking about without talking about it!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you brought it up.
I always liked Sleeping Beauty and I can't wait to see this new film.. hmmm Rapedwhile asleep-maybe gave her that rape drug but the tales are rife with daddy's lusting after daughters and not believing them so off with their head-they are all a bit dysfunctional but you have to love them:)
ReplyDeleteThat's just creepy and disturbing. I have to say, I like Disney's version much better.
ReplyDeleteUgh, no! Sheesh, who decides to make these into children's stories?! Sleeping Beauty was always my fave as a kid- the Disney version of course. I'm interested to see how Maleficent turns out.
ReplyDeleteJust caught up on your posts. Really loving the fairytale theme!!
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