Our next Sleeping Beloved shows up in France only 50 years after Basile’s story. Although some scholars point to Basile’s “Sun, Moon, and Talia” as the inspiration,[1] it’s also possible that it came from a variant called “Sun, Pearl, and Anna,” which cleans up the story a great deal.[2]
Regardless, The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood was written by Charles Perrault in 1697 for King Louis XIV’s niece.[3] It is one of my favorite versions. Hands down, I will read it to my children. It has beautiful imagery (the good fairy has a chariot pulled by dragons!), and has all the delightful qualities of a “fairy tale”.
When people talk about “original” versions, they generally point to this one. It has the fairies, it has the spindle, it has the wall of thorns, it has the 100-year sleep…and it has an ogre…who tries to eat Sleeping Beauty
Yep, I was shocked too! After my first read-through, I put down the book and thought, “What did I just read???”
It took me few days, but then it hit me: I had read how God triumphs over His Enemy and saves His Beloved.
In an earlier post, I talk about the “300 year blip” of the Enlightenment. It was a time when western society began to abandon God…yet God did not abandon man. He continued to inspire our stories to be about Him, and Perrault’s Sleeping Beauty is the epitome of that.
Zellandine’s story showed us how God’s Love can overcome any evil that befalls us. Through Talia, we got to see how God’s tender, fatherly love comes through for us when we need Him desperately.
In Sleeping Beauty’s story, we’ll see how the power of God’s Love will vanquish our Enemy and Awaken us to New Life.
Sources
[1] Ruth Bottigheimer, Fairy Tales: A New History, p. 66-72
[2] This story can be found in Sleeping Beauties: Sleeping Beauty and Snow White Tales from Around the World, edited by Heidi Anne Heiner
[3] Bottigheimer, Fairy Tales, Bottigheimer, 64
