Hey, Jenn (though anybody can answer, really)

[conuly]

When it comes to fairy tales...

Do you want the GOOD kind, where the parents abandon their kids, and the witch eats children and locks Hansel in a cage and is eventually hoisted on her own petard? Or the wussy kind where the kids innocently get lost and the witch turns the kids into gingerbread decorations?

The GOOD kind, where Granma gets eaten and the wolf gets chopped into bits? Or the dull kind, where Granma hides in the cloest and the wolf runs away?

The GOOD kind, where the Queen wants to eat Snow White, and ends up dancing in iron slippers? Or the strange kind, where the girl leaves for some unknown reason?

*waits*

Comments

[rachelkachel]

I don't think I know that version of Sleeping Beauty. O_O

[conuly]

Yeah, the original. He doesn't kiss her, he rapes her and she wakes up nine months later with twins. And then she goes to his home, and his mom is an ogress. When he's away, she tries to eat first one kid, and then the other (but they hide out at the cook's home) and eventually tries to kill the woman herself. JUST as she's about to push her daughter-in-law into a vat of snakes, her son shows up again, and she can't bear to admit what she was doing, so she herself dives in.

[rachelkachel]

Oh. *blinks* I've read a bunch of Grimm's fairy tales, but that wasn't one of them.

[conuly]

That's because it's a Perrault.

[bridgetester.livejournal.com]

Have you seen Anne Rice's trilogy version? It's definitely adult.

[conuly]

Never read Anne Rice.

[adiva_calandia]

Woah, weird. I've got this great book called "Little Lit", and it has the second half of that story, but not the fact that it's part of the Sleeping Beauty story.

Do you know any good resources for some of these original versions? Now I'm curious.

[conuly]

No, I don't. I remember reading that the Ogress was the second part of Sleeping Beauty somewhere scholarly, but I can't recall where.

[anotheralice.livejournal.com]

I'm reading that for a class now. Apparently, in the old, old versions of Sleeping Beauty, there was a King who came and impregnated her in her sleep, but he was already married. Meanwhile, Sleeping Beauty got pregnant with twins, and I can't remember if breastfeeding or the faeries taking care of her were what sucked the poison out, but anyway. The "ogress" was originally the King's wife, who tried to kill the children he had by his mistress beauty and feed them to him. But they adapted it to be his ogress mother in the later versions. ;)

I actually have a theory about Sleeping Beauty -- apparently all the older versions began with something along the lines of "There was once a Queen and King who wanted a child very much but couldn't have one. Eventually, they had a daughter..." Which is, y'know, an odd way to start a faerie tale. Then Sleeping Beauty pricks her finger and starts "bleeding" as she enters adolescence, and goes into a deep sleep while thousands upon thousand of princes try desperately to break through the difficult, tough brambles that encase her castle. Eventually, one strong robust Prince makes it through, at which point she wakes up, and the entire Castle comes to life. ... Can we say, fertility tale? ;)

[anotheralice.livejournal.com]

Perrault was the guy who compiled a bunch of faerie tales for the French courts, which is where Disney gets the kernels for a lot of their versions (he really cleaned them up a lot for the upper-class sensibilities -- though Sleeping Beauty's ogress is in that one!) And of course, Grimm is the source for most of the down-and-dirty versions. If you *really* want to get archaic, Basile and Straparola were the early Italians who seemed to first start recording faerie tales. And Bruno Bettleheim is one of the leading authorities on faerie tale interpretation, if you're into that.

Hope that helps! ;)

[adiva_calandia]

Thanks! I'll check those out.