I decided to rehash an old subject that I went over at length on Twitter as a #FairyTaleTuesday prompt. I asked my followers recently what their favorite fairytales were, and a few responded with Sleeping Beauty. Mostly, they’re thinking of the Disney version. One writer who responded, Katherine Macdonald, is even writing a more feminist take on it, which I believe is a fantastic idea. You can check out her book “Kingdom of Thorns” on Amazon!
However, the Sleeping Beauty I read about when I was a young woman, thinking fairytale research was going to be all rainbows and unicorns, is possibly one of the most gruesome stories I’ve ever read in my life. Here’s why Sleeping Beauty is creepy.
TRIGGER WARNING – RAPE & VIOLENCE
Lack of Consent
Consent is a huge issue that we are tackling now in the days of the #MeToo movement. I know that some people may be thinking that a quick peck to break a sleeping curse isn’t so bad. I would agree, for the most part. Would I kiss someone to bring them out of a curse that’s keeping them in a coma? Sure. Would I kiss a sleeping person because they looked hot and I couldn’t help myself? No, that’s not cool at all.
However, the King (not a prince) in the original Sleeping Beauty does so much more than kiss the Princess. He repeatedly rapes her comatose body, impregnating her in the process. That’s right. In the original story, true love’s kiss (which, come on, how is it true love if she’s asleep and doesn’t know the dude?) didn’t break the spell!
Instead, Sleeping Beauty gives birth to twins, and a fairy cares for them and the Princess. The babies breastfeed, and one of them misses the nipple, going for the finger that got pricked on the cursed spinning wheel instead. He sucked so hard that the splinter comes out, and the Princess awakes at last. Anyone who has ever breastfed feels exactly how plausible this part of the story is, and let me tell you it is so much more believable than a dude woke her up with a kiss.
Anyway, the King returns to get some more coma loving and discovers the Princess is awake, and he’s a dad to two children named Dawn and Day (Sleeping Beauty is a hippie y’all). They decide they’re in love with each other, which is really convenient. However, though this story is already disturbing beyond belief, this definitely isn’t the end.
Cannibalism
The King and Sleeping Beauty get hitched, but just as soon he has to go off to war (Likely story – I bet that’s what he told his last wife when he wandered off to find Coma Girl.) He leaves her and their children at his home with his mother, who happens to be an honest-to-goodness, man-eating ogre. Mommy Dearest is nowhere near as cool as Shrek and Fiona.
The King’s mother decides that her new grandchildren are so adorable she could just eat them up. She orders her chef to cook them up for dinner. Fortunately, the chef has something resembling human decency. He finds some young animals with tender meat and cooks them up instead, lying to the ogre that they are her grand-babies. Dawn and Day remain hidden in his home.
Unfortunately, they only served as hors d’oeuvres. Sleeping Beauty is the main course. Once again, the chef finds an animal that resembles what he thinks her intended victim would taste like (that alone is kind of creepy if you think about it). Monster-in-Law has a satisfying and delicious dinner, and the Princess goes into hiding with her kids, whom I imagine she was thrilled to see alive.
Unfortunately, the King’s mother is walking nearby the chef’s house when she overhears her grandchildren being really loud and realized she’s been conned. She’s about to kill everyone when the King returns home and is like, “Whoa…WTF, Mom?! I totally didn’t see leaving my brand new family alone with a man-eating ogre going this sideways!” He slays his mother, and they supposedly live happily ever after.
In Conclusion
Societal norms and priorities have really changed over the centuries. However, I think even by the European standards common when Sleeping Beauty was written that this would be considered a horror story. Think about it. A dumb but beautiful female lead, a rapey and chauvinistic male lead, and a monster who wants to eat everybody? If only the whole story had occurred in a summer camp during the 1980s. I’m always glad to see that we are taking classic tales like this and making them better. However, I still think it’s worth looking at the originals. As George Santayana once said, “Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.”
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Princess Eya’s life changes forever with the discovery of the Statue of the Goddess Winds, just as she’s coming of age. The long-overlooked kingdom of Hicares finds itself in a war it isn’t prepared for against the far more powerful empire of Pescel. To survive, Eya must flee her home, losing everything and everyone she loves in the process.
Yet, by leaving behind all she’s ever known, she learns that her sheltered life didn’t prepare her for the real world’s strange and frightening nature. She encounters people, places, and creatures beyond anything she ever imagined, along with sinister enemies from every direction. Perhaps her most surprising revelation is that she is developing terrifying powers of her own. Will Eya be able to find happiness in her new life, or will she continue struggling with the current?
Struggling With the Current is the first book of The Telverin Trilogy, a fantasy war story that takes place between several countries in the world of Telverin.
Like reading my blog? Then, you’ll love my book!
Struggling With the Current is the first book in The Telverin Trilogy, a story about an exiled princess who finds herself in a terrifying world with equally frightening powers.
Read the Beginning Now!
Click on the download button below to receive the prologue and first chapter.
Coming November 30th, 2020!
Princess Eya’s life changes forever with the discovery of the Statue of the Goddess Winds, just as she’s coming of age. The long-overlooked kingdom of Hicares finds itself in a war it isn’t prepared for against the far more powerful empire of Pescel. To survive, Eya must flee her home, losing everything and everyone she loves in the process.
Yet, by leaving behind all she’s ever known, she learns that her sheltered life didn’t prepare her for the real world’s strange and frightening nature. She encounters people, places, and creatures beyond anything she ever imagined, along with sinister enemies from every direction. Perhaps her most surprising revelation is that she is developing terrifying powers of her own. Will Eya be able to find happiness in her new life, or will she continue struggling with the current?
Struggling With the Current is the first book of The Telverin Trilogy, a fantasy war story that takes place between several countries in the world of Telverin.
Like reading my blog? Then, you’ll love my book!
Struggling With the Current is the first book in The Telverin Trilogy, a story about an exiled princess who finds herself in a terrifying world with equally frightening powers.
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