Sleeping Beauty

A tale with far fewer dragons and a horrifying history.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
School of Humans.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
This episode discusses sensitive topics. Please listen with care. My
name is Miranda Hawkins. Welcome to the Deep Dark Woods.
Today's story is at U four ten, or Sleeping Beauty.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
In pastimes, there were a king and queen who said
every day, oh, if only we had a child, but
they never received one. Then it happened one day, while
the queen was sitting in her bath, that a frog
crept out of the water onto the ground and said
to her, your wish shall be fulfilled, and before a
year passes, you will bring a daughter into the world.

(01:07):
What the frog said did happen, and the queen gave
birth to a girl who was so beautiful that the
king could not contain himself for joy, and he ordered
a great celebration. He invited not only his relatives, friends,
and acquaintances, but also the wise women, so that they
would be kindly disposed toward the child. There were thirteen

(01:28):
of them in this kingdom, but because he had only
twelve golden plates from which they were to eat, one
of them had to remain at home. The feast was
celebrated with great splendor, and at its conclusion, the wise
women presented the child with their magic gifts. The one
gave her virtue, the second one beauty, the third one wealth,

(01:51):
and so on with everything that one could wish for
on earth. The eleventh one had just pronounced her blessing
when the thirteenth one suddenly walked in. She wanted to
avenge herself for not having been invited, and without greeting
anyone or even looking at them, she cried out with
a loud voice, in the princess's fifteenth year, she shall

(02:13):
prick herself with a spindle and fall over dead. And
without saying another word, she turned around and left the hall.
Every One was horrified, and the twelfth wise Woman, who
had not yet offered her wish, stepped forward because she

(02:34):
was unable to undo the wicked wish, but only to
soften it. She said, it shall not be her death.
The princess will only fall into a hundred year deep asleep.
The king, wanting to rescue his dear child, issued an
order that all the spindles in the entire kingdom should
be burned. The wise Woman's gifts were all fulfilled on

(02:57):
the girl, for she was so beautiful, well behaved, friendly
and intelligent that anyone who saw her had to love
her now. It happened that on the day when she
turned fifteen years of age, the King and Queen were
not at home, and the girl was all alone in
the castle. She walked around from one place to the next,

(03:18):
looking into rooms and chambers as her heart desired. Finally
she came to an old tower. She climbed up the narrow,
winding stairs and arrived at a small door. In the lock,
there was a rusty key, and when she turned it,
the door sprang open. There in a small room sat

(03:39):
an old woman with a spindle, busily spinning her flax.
Good day, old woman, said the princess. What are you
doing there? I am spinning, said the old woman, nodding
her head. What is that thing that is so merrily
bouncing about, asked the girl, taking hold of the spindle,
for she too wanted to spin. She no sooner had

(03:59):
touched the spindle when the magic curse was fulfilled, as
she pricked herself in the finger the inn that she
felt the prick, she fell onto a bed that was
standing there, and she lay there in a deep sleep,
And this sleep spread throughout the entire castle. The King
and Queen, who had just returned home walked into the

(04:21):
hall and began falling asleep, and all of their attendants
as well. The horses fell asleep in their stalls, the
dogs in the courtyard, the pigeons on the roof, the
flies on the wall, and even the fire on the
hearth flickered and stopped moving and fell asleep. The roast
stopped sizzling. The cook, who was about to pull the

(04:42):
kitchen boy's hair for having done something wrong, let him
loose and fell asleep. The wind stopped blowing, and outside
the castle not a leaf was stirring. In the trees.
Round about the castle, A thorn hedge began to grow,
and every year it became higher, until it finally surrounded
and covered the entire castle. Finally, nothing at all could

(05:07):
be seen of it, not even the flag on the roof.
A legend circulated throughout the land about the beautiful, sleeping
little briar rose, for so the princess was called. Legends
also told that from time to time princes came, wanting
to force their way through the hedge into the castle. However,
they did not succeed, for the thorns held firmly together

(05:31):
as though they had hands, and the young men became
stuck in them, could not free themselves, and died miserably.
Many long, long years later, once again a prince came
to the country. He heard an old man telling about

(05:51):
the Thorn Hedge. It was said that there was a
castle behind it, in which a beautiful princess named Little
Briar Rose had been asleep for a hundred years, and
with her the King and Queen and all their royal
attendants were sleeping. He also knew from his grandfather that
many princes had come and tried to penetrate the Thorn Hedge,

(06:12):
but they had become stuck in it and died a
sorrowful death. Then the young men said, I am not afraid.
I will go there and see the beautiful Little Briar Rose.
However much the good old man tried to dissuade him,
the prince would not listen to his words. The hundred
years had just passed, and the day had come when

(06:33):
Little Briar Rose was to awaken. When the prince approached
the Thorn Hedge, it was nothing but large, beautiful flowers
that separated by themselves, allowing him to pass without harm,
but then behind him closed back into a hedge in
the courtyard, he saw the horses and spotted hunting dogs

(06:53):
lying there asleep, and on the roof the pigeons perched
with their little heads tucked under their wings. When he
walked inside, the flies were asleep on the wall. The
cook in the kitchen was holding up his hand as
if he wanted to grabbed the boy, and the maid
was sitting in front of the black chicken that was
supposed to be plucked. He walked further and saw all

(07:13):
the attendants lying asleep in the hall, and above them,
near the throne, the King and the Queen were lying.
He walked on still further, and it was so quiet
that he could hear his own breath. Finally, he came
to the tower and opened the door to the room
where Little Briar Rose was sleeping. There she lay, and

(07:34):
she was so beautiful that he could not take his
eyes off her. He bent over and gave her a kiss.
When he touched her with the kiss, little Briar Rose
opened her eyes, awoke and looked at him kindly. They
went downstairs together, and the King awoke, and the Queen
and all the royal attendants, and they looked at one
another in amazement. The horses in the courtyard stood up

(07:56):
and shook themselves. The hunting dogs jumped and ragged their tails.
The pigeons on the roof pulled their heads out from
beneath their wings, looked around, and flew into the field.
The flies on the walls crept around again. The fire
in the kitchen rose up, broke into flames, and cooked
the food. The roast began to sizzle once again. The
cook boxed the boy's ears, causing him to cry, and

(08:17):
the maid finished plucking the chicken. And then the Prince's
marriage to little Briar Rose was celebrated with great splendor,
and they lived happily until they died.

Speaker 2 (08:36):
This fairy till was the most difficult one for me
to get through, because sleeping beauty isn't beautiful at all.
Stories of royal children being isolated from the world for
their protection dates back to ancient Egypt, in this case
around the eighteenth dynasty. The story known as the Doomed
Prince is a winding tale about a prince evading his fate.

(09:00):
A king wants a son more than anything. The gods
grant the king's wish, but the seven hath or fates,
predict the prince will die suddenly by a crocodile, serpent,
or dog. The king builds a royal house in the
middle of the mountains to protect his son from his fate. There,
the prince grows big and strong. One day, he climbs

(09:23):
to the roof and sees a man with a dog.
When the prince learns what the animal is, he begs
his father for one. Despite the curse, the king acquiesces
and gives the young prince a boar hunting puppy. As
the prince becomes a young man, he gets tired of
being locked up and petitions his father to travel. The

(09:45):
king relents and sends his son out with weapons and
his dog. The prince travels north until he comes upon
another kingdom. The chief fair has a beautiful daughter who
he keeps in a seven hundred foot tower with seventy windows.
Her beauty is famed across the land. The chief promised

(10:06):
whoever can climb the tower and reach her can have
her hand in marriage. The young prince asks to join
the other suitors in the climb, and they agree. As
he climbs, he and the maiden lock eyes, and when
he reaches the top, she embraces and kisses him. When
the chief discovers who reached the top of the tower,

(10:27):
he's angry that it was the Egyptian prince, for the
prince had told others of how he had left his
kingdom because he was fleeing from his stepmother. I'm unsure
if the prince is lying or if this was another
reason he wanted to leave his kingdom, because the story
doesn't say either way. The chief doesn't want his daughter
to marry an Egyptian fugitive. Two times the king tells

(10:51):
the prince to leave, and two times the chief's daughter protests.
The third time, the chief calls for the prince to
meet him. The prince is wary, but the chief receives
him with open arms and tells the prince he will
love him as if he were his own son. The
prince and chief's daughter Mary. The Egyptian prince then tells

(11:13):
the chief and his new wife about his fate, that
he will die from a serpent, crocodile, or dog. The
wife wants to kill the prince's dog because she's afraid
the animal will hurt her new husband, but the prince
would not have it. Later, the prince and his bride
returned to the prince's home in the mountains. But while
the prince has been away, a giant has taken residence

(11:36):
and his royal house. The giant won't let the prince
venture out after dark because a crocodile emerges from the
river each night. Two months go by, and the prince
holds a great feast. Later that same night, after he
has gone to bed, his wife sees a serpent rise
up to sting the prince. The princess orders a servant

(11:57):
to fill a bowl with milk and honeyed wine for
the snake to drink from. Once the snake is drunk,
the princess draws her dagger and slays the serpent. Many
days later, the prince and his dog take a walk
that leads him far from home. The dog catches an

(12:17):
animal in flight. The prince chases after them until they
reach a river bank. Now, the dog ends up beside
the crocodile, but the giant also happens to be there.
The giant bewitches the crocodile so the reptile can't harm
the prince, but the crocodile promises that if he and
the prince meet again, the prophecy will come true and

(12:41):
the prince will meet his doom, and this is where
the story ends. No one knows what happens next, and
no one ever will, because the end of the tail
was destroyed. The unknown author of the story wrote this
tale on a piece of papyrus, which was later stolen

(13:02):
by the British when they excavated the tomb of King
Into and put it on view at the British Museum
under the name Harris five hundred. The sheet contains love
poems and another story. Egyptologists have trace a tale back
to the Eighteenth Dynasty, which is from fifteen fifty BC
to twelve ninety two BC, but part of the scroll

(13:25):
was burned off, so the ending of the Doomed Prince
remains one of the greatest mysteries in folklore. This story
represents the deep ties the Egyptians had and believing that
a person's fate begins at their birth. In fact, one's
fate was integral to how they interacted with the world
around them, and The Doomed Prince might not seem like

(13:48):
a sleeping beauty tale at first glance, but the central
theme of agency and escaping one's fate aligned with the
sleeping beauty lineage. It also includes the idea of isolating
one's child, although in the prince's case it's for protection,
not a curse or punishment. Another story that could be
an early sleeping beauty tale comes from Norse mythology. It's

(14:12):
from the thirteenth century Icelandic saga called the Saga of
the volsungs Valkyrie. Princess Brunhild is tasked to decide the
winner and a war between two kings. She chooses Ognar
and kills the other king, but Odin, the ruler of
Asgard and father of Thor and Loki, wanted the other

(14:32):
king to win. In his anger, Odin strikes Princess Brunhild
with a sleeping thorn and puts her in a castle
surrounded by fire. However, the princess has the power to
modify her punishment and makes it so that only Sigurd
can ride through the fire and awaken her with a kiss.
When he comes to her, she wakes, and the two

(14:53):
spend three nights together and fall in love. Brunhild's story
is a long saga with adventure and betrayal, but this
is where we leave her. The slumber in her castle
is where her connection to Sleeping Beauty ends. So how
did this tale start from a doomed prince and a
valkyrie to become the third Disney Princess. Well, the next

(15:16):
story takes our princess down her darkest path yet. Sometime
between thirteen hundred and thirteen forty four, an anonymous author
wrote a tale called the Story of Troilus and the

(15:37):
Beautiful Zelandine. It was written in French and a region
of Europe called the Low Countries, which are Belgium, the
Netherlands and Luxembourg. The story appeared in a multi volume
collection called Perciferist. It's in book three where Prince Troylis
finds the sleeping Princess Celidine and what happens after he

(15:57):
finds her is horrific. When Zeladeine was a baby, she
was cursed by the goddess Themis, who presided over her
her birth with two other goddesses. themUS was angered that
she wasn't given as nice a knife as the other two,
so Themis cast her curse. She said, when Zeladein touched
a piece of flax, it would stab her finger and

(16:20):
put her into a sleep from which she could not
be awakened, but Venus, one of the other two goddesses
at the birth, decided to use her powers to save Zeladeine.
There are different interpretations of the next part, but what
happens to Zeladeine remains the same. Venus sends Zeladein's love
Troilis to save her. He rides a bird to Zeladin's

(16:43):
room in the tower. Once there, he finds her asleep naked.
Although Troilis is nervous and knows better than to touch
a maiden while she sleeps, he reminds himself of the
healing power of kisses. He asks the dormant Zeladein if
he can kiss her. With no answer, he proceeds. When

(17:04):
she does not wake, he is beside himself, but then
the goddess Venus pushes him to have sex with the
sleeping Zeladein. At first, Troilis hesitates, but then is overcome
with desire. The text says he takes Celandine's quote write
to the name of maiden. Afterward, he jumps back on

(17:24):
the bird and flies away. Nine months later, Zeladeine gives
birth to a son. She wakes up when the baby
sucks the splinter out of her thumb. Zeladein and Troilis
are then reunited. Zeladein struggles with guilt but ultimately loves Troilis.

(17:45):
I couldn't believe this was a sleeping beauty story. It's
so far removed from the Walt Disney film I grew
up on. I didn't really care for the Walt Disney film,
but still I was horrified to learn Zeladein had been raped,
and angry, angry that she wasn't protected, and disgusted that
it was another woman who encourage this to happen to her,

(18:07):
regardless of the fact that she's a goddess. Unfortunately, throughout
the centuries, sexual assault is common and sleeping beauty tales.
It's also typical to have mythic god's encouraging bad behavior
among humans or doing it themselves, like in Leda and
the Swan, where the Greek god Zeus disguises himself as

(18:28):
a swan and rapes and impregnates the human Lina. We
don't know who the writer is of Zeladein's story, but
it's apparent they knew rape is wrong. That is made
clear from what Troylis says about understanding consent and him
feeling bad. There is also part in the story where
Zeladein makes a sound while he's raping her and he

(18:50):
pulls back ready to act all innocent. This tale stays
true to the central themes in many sleeping beauty stories,
a lack of agency or inability to escape your fate.
In this version, Zeladeine has no say in what happens
to her. As for Toilis, this story presents Venus driving

(19:10):
him to override his judgment or to indulge in his lust.
It could be interpreted that none of us have agency
over our lives, which would make sense considering how strongly
people followed religion back in those days. Because a lack
of human agency in the face of the supernatural tracks
with the Catholic belief systems that govern every part of

(19:32):
life in the Middle Ages. Then in sixteen thirty four,
Italian author John Patiste Bazille published Sun, Moon and Talia.
His story is similar to Zeladine's, but he treats the
rape trope in a less compassionate way. A great lord

(19:54):
asks some wise men and astrologers to predict the future
of his daughter Talia. They say she will be endangered
by the splinter from a piece of flax. The plant
used to make linen. The lord then forbade all flax
from entering his house. Years later, when the girl is grown,
she sees a woman spinning and is curious. Talia asks

(20:16):
the woman to come to her and begins playing with
a distaff or spindle and the flax yarn winds around
while spinning, but Talia gets a splinter under her nail
and immediately falls down dead. The terrified old woman runs away.
The lord is so distraught he has his daughter placed
upon a bed in one of their country homes and

(20:39):
then closes the doors forever. After a time, a king
is hunting in the woods when one of his falcons
flies off. He sees the bird fly through a window
of a shuttered house, and he uses a ladder to
climb through the same window. He doesn't find anyone in
the house until he happens upon Talia's body in the parlor.

(21:02):
He is so struck by her beauty that he carries
her to a bed where he quote gathered the first
fruits of love. Then he leaves and thinks nothing of it.
Nine months later, Talia gives birth to twins. Fairies try
to help the babies find her nipples, but when they can't,
the two babies begin to suck at her fingers. The

(21:24):
splinter of the flax comes out, and Talia wakes as
if from a long sleep. Upon waking to her two children,
Talia finds them dearer to her than her own life.

Speaker 3 (21:36):
She names them.

Speaker 2 (21:37):
Sun and Moon. As time goes on, the king finds
himself thinking of Talia and decides to hunt again in
that part of the forest. This time he finds not
only her, but also the twins. The king explains that
it is he who had sex with her while she
slept and father the twins. The two become friends while

(21:58):
he stays with her for a few days before promising
to return and take her to his kingdom. But when
he gets back, he can't sleep. He's preoccupied with thoughts
of Talia, Sun and Moon. The king has a wife
who now suspects something isn't right and becomes jealous. She
threatens a king's secretary into telling her what's going on.

(22:21):
When he does, the queen orders a secretary to go
to Talia and ask for Sun and Moon to accompany
him back to the kingdom because the king wishes to
see them. With great joy. Talia does as she's told.
The queen then commands a cook to kill the kids
and serve them to the king, but the cook is

(22:41):
tenderhearted and cannot. Instead, he serves two lambs. The Queen's
rage isn't satisfied, and she bids a secretary to bring
Talia to her under the guise of the king wanting
to see her. When Talia arrives, the queen blames her
for her husband's misdeeds and has a large fire built

(23:01):
in the courtyard for Talia to be thrown into. Before
being tossed in the flames, Talia asks if she can
at least remove her robes, and the greedy queen says yes,
eyeing the golden pearls from Talia's magnificent gown. As Talia
removes each piece, she lets out a scream. Talia lets

(23:24):
out the loudest will as she takes off the last
piece of clothing. The king arrives as she is about
to be tossed into the fires. The king, learning of
his queen's misdeeds, tosses her and the secretary into the fire.
The cook is spared and rewarded for saving the children.

(23:44):
The king marries Talia and the family of four enjoy
their life to the last of their days. The moral
Basillie wrote at the end of the story says, those
whom fortune favors find good luck even in their sleep.
I had such a hard time with this story. It's

(24:06):
the first time I found myself crying because what happened
to these women is absolutely heartbreaking. But then you add
this moral, and what the fuck? This moral is downright andsane.
Not only is Basilli's version almost worse because a king
thinks he did nothing wrong, but neither does Talia. If anything,

(24:30):
the moral at the end of this tale feels like
it's saying Talia should be thankful a king chose to
rape her. There is such a different perspective of rape
between Basilei and the unknown author. Zeladein's story was about
a goddess trying to save her from a curse, although
saving someone through the act of rape is just about
as messed up as you can get. But as I

(24:53):
said previously, there are elements in the story that shows
the characters new rape was wrong. But in Talia's story
there is no remorse or anything to elude to rape
being considered wrong. Instead, it's used as a way for
the king to get his happily. Ever, after all of
it is mind boggling, and not in a good way.

(25:20):
French author Charles Perrot's story builds off of Bazilli's story,
but thank goodness, not in the way you think. In
The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, seven resident fairies of
a kingdom are invited to celebrate the birth of a princess.
As the bank would start. Another older fairy arrives. No
one had invited her because they all thought she was

(25:43):
dead or bewitched. The king tries to have a place
set for her, but only seven settings had been made.
The fairy thinks they slighted her on purpose, so as
her gift, she curses the princess. She says the girl
will prick her finger on a spinning wheel and die,
But a younger fairy who hid behind a tapestry comes

(26:05):
forward changes the curse so that the girl will sleep
for one hundred years, at which time a prince will
awaken her. When the girl reaches fifteen or sixteen, she
is exploring the castle and climbs to the top of
a tower, where she comes upon a woman spinning. The
young princess pricks her finger on the wheel and falls

(26:25):
into a deep sleep. The seven fairies then put everyone
else to sleep except the king and queen, although the
story doesn't say why the two were the exception. Within
fifteen minutes, a dense forest of brambles and thorns encompasses
the castle and hides a sleeping princess and slumbering citizens

(26:47):
from prying eyes. One hundred years pass and another king
and queen sit on the throne and a different castle.
Of course, the prince is hunting when he sees a
tower in the distance. He's heard many rumors about the tower,
including one that tells of an ogre capturing children and
dragging them into the forest to eat, But when he

(27:07):
hears the story of a sleeping princess waiting to be
awakened by a prince, he instantly heads that way. Intrigued
when he arrives, the thorns and brambles part before him.
He makes his way to the top of the tower
and sees the beautiful princess. He falls to his knees
beside her, and at that moment their curses lifted and

(27:30):
she wakes up. In Pirout's story, the prince does not
kiss the princess to break the curse, is it you,
dear prince, She says, you have been long in coming.
As she slept, the fairies had blessed the princess with
pleasant dreams so she would be prepared to meet the prince.

(27:51):
The prince, on the other hand, is shy and awkward
and not ready for this, but her words are pleasing
to him, and the two fall in love. They talk
for hours. Meanwhile, the other people in the castle wake up,
and they are hungry. Finally, the two lovers are interrupted
and called to dinner. After supper, they marry. When the

(28:14):
prince returns to his home the next day, he lies
and tells his parents he got lost. His mother doesn't
believe him. The prince hides his marriage for the next
two years, but his mother notices that he slips away
two to three nights a week and is sure he's
meeting a lover. During this time, the prince and princess

(28:34):
have two kids. The first is a daughter named Dawn.
The second is a boy named Day. The queen keeps
trying to get the prince to spill his secret, but
he won't. He is scared of his mother, who comes
from a line of ogres and has a hard time
controlling herself around children. But after two years, the king

(28:55):
dies and the prince takes the throne. He then announces
his marriage and brings forth his wife and two children.
Not long after, the country goes to war and the
new king has to leave for the summer. He entrusts
his wife and kids to his mother, the Queen Regent.
The queen sends a family to the country to help

(29:16):
stifle her cravings, but the next time she visits them,
she tells the steward to cook dawn for supper. When
it's time to kill the girl, the steward cannot. Instead,
the steward's wife hides dawn and he serves lamb to
the queen. Eight days later, the queen once again summons
a steward. This time she tells him she will eat

(29:38):
day for supper. Again, the steward serves lamb while his
wife hides a boy. Then the queen approaches the steward
a third time, asking for the princess to be served
in the same sauls her children are served in. The
steward means to kill the princess, thinking he has no
way out, but in the end he cannot. His wife

(30:00):
hides her too, and the steward finds another animal to
serve the queen la The queen overhears the two children
and the princess. When she learns she has been tricked,
she orders a vat to be filled with as many
creatures as possible, vipers and toads, and snakes and serpents
of every kind. The princess and her two kids are

(30:21):
brought out with their hands tied behind their backs. As
they are about to be tossed into the vat, the
king rides up. He's arrived earlier than expected. At such
a turn of events, the queen tosses herself into the vat.
The king is at first upset that he loses his mother,
but in the end he finds peace with his wife

(30:42):
and beautiful kids. As with Little Red riding Hood, Perrot
adds a moral to the end of this story. Too
many a girl has waited long for a husband brave
or strong. But I'm sure I never met any sort
of woman yet who could wait a hundred years, free

(31:03):
from fretting, free from fears. Now, our story seems to
show that a century or so later, early matters not
true love comes by fairy lot. Some old folk will
even say it grows better by delay. Yet this good advice,
I fear helps us neither there nor hear. Though philosophers
may prate how much wiser tis to wait, maids will

(31:25):
be a sighing still young blood must when young blood will.
Despite the many adventures throughout the story, Pero's moral was simple.
He advocated to take time falling in love A complete
one to eighty from bazile A, I will say, for

(31:46):
the time period Perou lived in and wrote his versions
of Little Red, Riding Hood and Sleeping Beauty, he was
kinder to women than most in an era that wasn't
even remotely woman forward. There's discussion on if he was
a feminist. Even though he was kinder toward women, his
version of feminism was held through the male gaze, which

(32:07):
is that women were meant to uphold moral character regardless
of what happened to them. But other than the doomed prince,
Perot's tale is the only one not to involve a
kiss or rape, or any unconsenting touch to Wig the
sleeping Maiden. However, the princess still doesn't have agency, and
she still relies on the prince to save her. Once

(32:29):
the story made its way to the Brothers Grim, though
the kiss was back. The brothers Grim heard this story
through the hausen Fluch sisters, who we learned about in
the Little Red riding Hood episode, and the brothers almost
rejected adding Sleeping Beauty or Briar Rose as she was
called in their version of the tale to their collection.
They knew the story was by Perrot and therefore it

(32:51):
wasn't German enough, But it was Brunehild's story in the
Norse Mythology Saga that convinced the brothers it was authentically German.
Notice how Brunehild and the Egyptian prince had agency in
their tales. They might have been cursed, but both took
action to change their fates. Not so Frizelendine and Talia,

(33:11):
who are fully stripped of all agency. It did not
matter what they did, they could not escape their fate.
Even though Pirot's story is the kindest to Maidan's, Sleeping
Beauty continue to be a passive character through both his
and the Grim stories. So the big question now is
has that changed today? On January twenty ninth, nineteen fifty nine,

(33:49):
Walt Disney released its third animated Princess film Sleeping Beauty.
It was largely based on Perrot's version of the tale,
but unlike Cinderella and snow White, we barely see or
hear from the Princess Aurora, only eighteen lines and a
little less than eighteen minutes of screen time, and of course,

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the prince kisses her without consent. To top that off,
Aurora doesn't say a word after she has awakened, and
again she's powerless over of fate already decided for her.
Contemporary versions have also focused on other characters in the story,
like we've seen with Rumpel, Stilskin and the Wolf, storytellers

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focused on the villain and Sleeping Beauty. In twenty fourteen,
Disney released the feature length film Molificent, starring Angelina Jolie.
Doctor Claudia Schwabe is a professor of German studies at
Utah State University. She says, even though the movie puts
the evil fairy in context, it revives similar themes to

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the medieval tales, including sexual assault.

Speaker 1 (35:00):
This entire film is mostly about Malificent and not Sleeping Beauty, right,
so she sort of fades into the background a little bit,
but it's all about Maleficent's backstory and the attempt to
then rehabilitate the villain to enlighten the audience why did

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she even turn evil in the first place. But what's
interesting to me is that in this version with Angelina Jolie,
she has these big wings, bat like wings, and we
have a scene where his name is Stephahn, like she's
in love with him and he is allegedly in love
with her, but then he decides to cut off her wings,

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which is metaphoric for rape.

Speaker 2 (35:51):
Another film that explores this plot device is Netflix's Sleeping
Beauty from twenty eleven. The story is set in contemporary
times and follows broke college student Lucy, who ends up
taking a job with Madam Clara. The madam serves tea
to Lucy that puts her to sleep, while clients are
allowed to come in and do as they please to

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the girl as long as there's no penetration. As Lucy's
life begins to spiral, she asks if she can put
a camera in the room to see what's happening during
these sessions. The madam refuses, citing the possibility that clients
would be worried about blackmail, but Lucy secretly installs one anyway.

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Spoiler alert. During the final scene, Lucy's very first client returns.
This time he drinks the tea with her, but in
a much larger dose. The next morning, the madam comes
in to find the man dead, but when she tries
to wake Lucy and finds her unresponsive, she panics and
gives Lucy mouth to mouth. Lucy awakens to find the

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naked dead man beside her and screams. The last shot
is a still from the hidden camera of a sleeping
Lucy and the dead man lying together in the same bed.
It's not Truelove's kiss that breaks a curse, but mouth
to mouth resuscitation that awakens Lucy to a nightmare. The
film is unsettling at best, but it does raise critical

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questions about the nature of consent. The update does give
Lucy agency to find a way to make a living,
but at what cost, because at the end of the day,
she's still getting drugged. Sleeping Beauty is dark. In most
versions of the tale, the storyteller removes the woman's ability

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to act in her own interest. She can't speak or
move to avenge her father's sins. She can't protest as
men do what they want with her. Then she's alive
again and grateful to the men that saved her. But
doctor Schwabe says that's not necessarily the only way to
read it.

Speaker 1 (38:00):
I also want to mention which is often overlooked. I
think that, especially Sleeping Beauty, she is also an adventurer,
so the fact that she is exploring the castle when
as soon as her parents are gone and she's sort
of left to her own devices. She is actually quite
active and she is curious. The only difference is that

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her curiosity is punished, whereas the princess curiosity is rewarded.
In a sense, she is actually not as passive as
people might think.

Speaker 2 (38:36):
Author Alex E. Harrow took a different approach to the
tale and her twenty twenty one book A Spindle Splintered.
I want to take a moment and say how much
this book impacted me. It's all I could think about
for weeks after reading it, and every time I found
myself getting so sad. I related to the idea of

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feeling stuck, of not having a say in my own life.
Zinia is a modern day girl who is dying from
a rare People who have this disease never make it
past twenty one. She's obsessed with a story Sleeping Beauty
and compares herself to the princess. Here's a quote. I
used to see Sleeping Beauty as my wildest, most aspirational fantasy,

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a dying girl who didn't die, a tragedy turned into
a romance. But suddenly I saw her as my mere reflection,
a girl with a shitty story, a girl whose choices
were stolen from her. On Zinia's twenty first birthday, her
best friend throws her a sleeping beauty party in an
abandoned tower in their town. Spindle included as a dare.

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Zinina touches a spindle, but when she does, she's transported
back in time into a sleeping beauty tale. In this story,
the princess's name is Primrose. Zinnia's arrival interrupts Primrose just
as she's about to prick her finger on the spindle.
She convinces Primrose that they can change her fate, so
the two pack up to find the wicked Fairy and

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ask her to remove the curse. What they find is
not what they expected. The evil fairy is not evil
at all. It's Zelandine, the woman who was raped by
her lover. In this adaptation, Zelandine was taken in by
the fairies after she woke and learned magic, and ever
since she's been trying to help women like herself. Zelandine

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tells it too that the point of the curse is
to save Primrose when she awakens, hopefully it will be
during a time that Primrose would have more control over
her life. Also in this version, Primrose is queer and
doesn't want to marry the prince. Zelandine tells them she
can't remove the curse. Primrose and Zinia returned to the

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castle as night falls, and Primrose falls under the spell
that leads her to the spindle. Zenia follows, hoping she
can get back home to her time, but the two
are intercepted by the King's guards and Zenia is thrown
in jail. In another twist, Zinia falls asleep and travels
through the other versions of Sleeping Beauty, calling for help.

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Her call is answered by her best friend and two
other women, one being Brunehild. The group successfully interrupts Primrose's
marriage to the prince, but as the running away, it
seems time has run out for Zenia and she passes out.
But this is still a fairy tale. Zinia awakens in
a hospital room. Her best friend is there. In surprise,

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so is Primrose. Turns out, Zinia's best friend is primroses
Nidas and shining Armor. And as for Zinnia's disease, it's
still there, but all the blockage that had been building
for twenty one years is gone. Zinia is still on
borrow time, but it's a chance to do things differently.
It's a story of hope, of righting wrongs, and a

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chance for Sleeping Beauty to take charge of her own destiny.
It's the closest to a true happy ending I've run across.
Sleeping Beauty reminds us how far we've come in terms
of women's agency. Minus the blatantly wrong rape troop. Women
were meant to be passive and to rely on men
for everything. They were also meant to be thankful, regardless

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if they were thinking those who hurt them. But we're
starting to see modern Sleeping Beauty tales with the princess
defying the role she's meant to play. She has agency,
and she uses that agency to take fate into her
own hands, with or without a prince, and the idea
of having control over one's fate. Well, that's something everybody

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can relate to. Next time, tall towers are made to
be climbed with golden hair. The Deep Dark Woods is
a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It
was created, written, and hosted by me Miranda Hawkins. This

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episode was produced by mikel. June was senior producer Gabby Watts.
Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, Elsie Crowley, and
Maya Howard. Stories were voiced by Julia Christgau. Theme song
was composed by Jesse Niswanger. This episode was sound designed
and mixed by Chris Childs. If you enjoyed the show,

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please leave a review and you can follow along with
the show on Instagram at School of Humans.