Disney Origins: Sleeping Beauty

The source materials for Walt Disney’s 1959 animated classic Sleeping Beauty are widely known to be Charles Perrault’s ‘Sleeping Beauty’ (“La Belle Au Bois Dormant”, 1696) and The Grimm Brothers’ ‘Little Briar Rose’ (“Dornröschen”, 1856) with music from and inspired by Tchaikovsky’s ballet (first performed 1890). However, in true fairy tale tradition, versions of the story existed long before any of these were written, and have evolved into various new versions since.

A tale with key elements from this story appeared as early as the 13th century, though there may be earlier texts lost to us today, or versions that were shared by word of mouth alone. Indeed times that we deem today as “prehistoric”, are times when histories were heard rather than read. The Icelandic Völsunga saga and the Old Norse Poetic Edda both contain the story of Brynhildr, who is condemned to live as a mortal woman by Odin, as punishment for choosing Agnar as the victor of a battle over Hjalmgunnar, the king who Odin preferred. She is imprisoned in a remote castle atop a mountain, sleeping in a ring of flames, until she is finally awakened from her deep slumber;

"Sigurd now rode a long way until he arrived right up on Hind Fell and turned off south to Frankland. On the fell he saw a bright glow ahead as if there was a fire blazing, and it lit up the sky. And when he got up to it he saw before it a fort with a banner out on top. Sigurd went inside the fort and saw a man there, asleep and lying fully armoured. First he removed the helmet from his head and saw that it was a woman. She had on a hauberk and it was as tight as if grown into the flesh. Then he sheared right down from the neck, then right along both sleeves, and the blade cut in as if cutting cloth. Sigurd said she’d been asleep too long."

Harry George Theaker, 1920

In the Poetic Edda, finally transcribed by the Icelandic between 1000 and 1300 BC, Brynhild sings;

"Long have I slept
And slumbered long,
Many and long are the woes of mankind,
By the might of Odin
Must I bide helpless
To shake from off me the spells of slumber.

"Hail to the day come back!
Hail, sons of the daylight!
Hail to thee, dark night, and thy daughter!
Look with kind eyes a-down,
On us sitting here lonely,
And give unto us the gain that we long for."



[Content warning: the following stories contain incidents of rape, scroll to the next emboldened line to skip this section]


Now some of you may have heard that an early version of Sleeping Beauty involves the rape of the sleeping princess, but perhaps less of you will know that this occurs in two separate tales, one of which proceeds the infamous 'Sun, Moon, and Talia'. 'The story of Troilus and the Beautiful Zellandine' takes place in Book Three, Chapter 46 of the Perceforest, a history of Britain before King Arthur. The story at first seems to closely resemble the story we know and love today, as goddesses come to offer gifts to the newborn child, but one is offended, and curses the child to prick her finger on a spinning wheel and fall into a deep sleep. As long as the splinter is stuck in her finger, she cannot be awakened.


Before Zellandine pricks her finger she meets and falls in love with Troilus, but she must wait a while to be with him as Troilus has some business to attend to first. Of course, before he returns, the princess pricks her finger and falls into a deep sleep, after which her father, King Zelland, places her naked in a tower that can only be entered by its one window. After Troilus returns and is informed as to what has happened to his beautiful Zellandine, a spirit named Zephir carries him up to her window. Upon seeing her naked body, and encouraged by Venus, he rapes the sleeping woman, impregnating her, before exchanging rings and swiftly leaving. Zellandine sleeps through the ordeal and does not awaken until nine months later;

"And then, one evening at the end of the nine months, fair Zellandine gave birth to a most handsome son. Just after the delivery her aunt came to visit her as usual and found the lovely child beside his mother, who was still fast asleep as ever. The lady was utterly amazed, even more so when she saw the newborn child stretching his neck upward as if seeking his mother's breast, and in doing so finding her little finger and starting to suck upon it eagerly. He kept sucking till he began to cough, and the lady, feeling very sorry for the child, took him in her arms and said: "Ah! You poor little thing! No wonder you're coughing: there won't have been much milk in there!" At that very moment the girl awoke and started flailing her arms in bewilderment."

Zellandine grieves for her lost virginity, both her and her aunt unaware of who impregnated her. Matters only get worse for her however when a bird-like creature swoops in and steals her new born child. It is only after this that she sees the ring on her finger and realises it is her beloved Troilus who took her virginity, and he shortly returns, taking her back to his kingdom.

Those familiar with ‘Sun, Moon and Talia’ will recognise the similarities between the two tales. Giambattista Basile’s fairy tale was published posthumously in Italy 1634, in his Pentamerone, just over a century after the Perceforest was printed in Paris in 1528. Despite the King learning of his daughter's fate not from a curse, but from a prophecy, the tragedy cannot be prevented, and the King believes Talia to be dead as he leaves her in one of his country mansions and closes the door forever.

Gustaf Tenggren

It is not a prince who comes along next but another king, and upon seeing her he is overcome with lust, 

"Crying aloud, he beheld her charms and felt his blood course hotly through his veins. He lifted her in his arms, and carried her to a bed, where he gathered the first fruits of love. Leaving her on the bed, he returned to his own kingdom, where, in the pressing business of his realm, he for a time thought no more about this incident."

Talia, like Zellandine, becomes pregnant, and nine months later gives birth to a son and a daughter whom she named Sun and Moon. And just like Zellandine's child, one of them mistakes her finger for a nipple and sucks on it, removing the splinter, and waking her. It just so happens that shortly after, whilst hunting, the King remembers her and goes back for a visit, finding her awake with his two children. Talia doesn't seem upset in the slightest when the King explains what happened, and the they share a few days together, long enough for his wife to grow suspicious. Upon hearing where the King had been spending his time while he was away, she sends a secretary to the house to tell Talia that the King would like to see the children, and to send them to the palace. This she does happily, completely unaware of the Queen's evil plan...

The Queen orders the cook to murder the children, and to cook them in delicious meals to be served to the King. Instead however, the cook takes the children to his home and asks his wife to hide them, while he prepares meals from two lambs instead. These meals the King enjoys, and so the Queen, thinking she has won, sends for Talia, again the message being that the King wants to see her. It is the Queen who greets her however;

"Welcome, Madam Busybody! You are a fine piece of goods, you ill weed, who are enjoying my husband. So you are the lump of filth, the cruel bitch, that has caused my head to spin? Change your ways, for you are welcome in purgatory, where I will compensate you for all the damage you have done to me."

The Queen doesn't accept the princess's explanation that she is not at fault, and is about to have her thrown into a fire, but her husband arrives just in time. The Queen tells him of her wickedness, and in his rage, he has her and the secretary thrown into the fire instead. He is about to do the same to the cook, but the cook explains that his children are in fact safe, and he is saved. So the King goes on to marry Talia, and they live happily ever after with their two children.

William Arthur Breakspeare

Before we examine Perrault and The Grimm Brothers' tales, there is one more obscure variant of the fairy tale left to take a look at. This is the story of Sittukhan in 'The Ninth Captain's Tale'. Now this appears in J.C. Mardrus's French translation of the Thousand and One Nights (published 1898 to 1904), but does not appear in the Arabian Nights manuscript. In fact, it was apparently lifted out of Guillaume Spitta Bey's Contes arables modernes (1883), a collection of Egyptian folk tales unrelated to the collection of stories that Mardrus was trying to pass it off as being part of. Nevertheless, it is interesting to see how the fairytale has been told in other parts of the world.

We are firstly introduced to a woman who is unable to have children, and prays to Allah that he might let her have a child, even if she be allergic to flax. Of course years after Sittukhan is born she comes across a spindle, and after some flax is caught under her fingernail, she dies suddenly. Now an old woman tells he parents that she is far too beautiful to be buried in the ground.

"What shall we do then?" they asked, and she replied, "Build her a pavilion in the midst of the waves of the river and couch her there upon a bed, that you may come to visit her."
So they built a pavilion of marble, on columns rising out of the river, and planted a garden about it with green lawns, and set the girl upon an ivory bed, and came there many times to weep."

The old woman also tells the prince, who had seen her one day while she was alive and fallen instantly in love with her, of her passing. He goes straight to her and weeps by her bed. As he reaches for her hand to kiss it he notices the flax under her fingernail and removes it, from which she wakes up. They embrace and sleep together, and he stays with her for 40 days and 40 nights. He goes to leave a few times but always turns back, until eventually he one day decides he must return home and tells her he can never see her again. Sittukhan goes off weeping and wandering, and stumbles upon a ring. After rubbing it she is granted a wish, and she wishes for a palace next to the prince's, and to be even more beautiful than before.

After her wish is granted, the prince sees her and, not recognising her, falls in love with her. He sends his mother to her with gifts in exchange for her hand in marriage, but Sittukhan uses the fine fabrics as rags, and the emeralds as bird feed, and tells his mother that for her hand in marriage he must fake his own death, and they must wrap him in linens and hold a procession for him around the city, before burying him in her garden. The prince agrees to this, and afterwards Sittukhan goes to him and mocks him. After realising the lengths he will go to for the woman he loves, they are finally together again. 

Gustave Dore

And now we finally arrive at the variants of Sleeping Beauty more recognisable to a modern audience. The first came from Charles Perrault, and it plays out similarly at first to the Disney version, except their are seven fairies invited to the Christening rather than just the three. When the princess is older, she comes across and old woman with a spinning wheel who has never heard of the spinning ban, and after asking to try herself, she pricks her finger and falls into a deep sleep. The good fairy whose wish stopped the princess from dying from the curse is called, and she arrives in a fiery chariot drawn by dragons. She puts the rest of the palace in the same deep sleep (except for the King and Queen), and protected the palace by growing an enchanted forest around it.

100 years later, the son on the reigning King (of another family) is out hunting and sees the old castle. He makes his way through the woods and to the princess's chamber, who has already awakened. He marries and has children with her in secret, going home frequently and pretending that he had gotten lost each time he was away. This is of course where Disney, Grimm, and Tchaikovsky part ways with the story, preferring to omit the second half of the tale which, like 'Sun, Moon, and Talia', involves a cannibalistic Queen, this time an ogress. The King has since died, and our prince is the new King, but he goes away unaware of what his mother will plan to do. Being an ogre, she has quite a taste for little children, but the cook deceives her and cooks her lamb instead. She then wants to eat the new Queen but she is again deceived. It is not until she hears a baby crying that she realises what the cook has done.

"The ogress presently knew the voice of the queen and her children, and being quite mad that she had been thus deceived, she commanded next morning, by break of day (with a most horrible voice, which made everybody tremble), that they should bring into the middle of the great court a large tub, which she caused to be filled with toads, vipers, snakes, and all sorts of serpents, in order to have thrown into it the queen and her children, the clerk of the kitchen, his wife and maid; all whom she had given orders should be brought thither with their hands tied behind them."

The King arrives just on time of course, and the ogress throws herself in the tub instead. The moral reads:

Hans Zatzka

"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 from fretting, free from fears.

Now, our story seems to show
That a century or so,
Late or 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 here.
Though philosophers may prate
How much wiser 'tis to wait,
Maids will be a sighing still --
Young blood must when young blood will!"

Edward Frederick Brewtnall

The Grimm Brothers' 'Little Briar Rose' is the closest to the story we know and love today. The most noticeable difference is that there are twelve fairies, and the thirteenth isn't invited because they don't have enough gold plates. 

Other variations of Sleeping Beauty from around the world were translated into English in the 20th century, and you can find out more, and find out where to read them, here!

Lord Alfred Tennyson also adapted the tale into a poem he called 'The Day-dream' in 1842. (Full poem here) The narrative focuses on the castle after the curse is under way, and everyone in it is asleep, frozen in place, until the prince arrives, and wakens the princess with a kiss.

"A touch, a kiss! the charm was snapt.

There rose a noise of striking clocks,

And feet that ran, and doors that clapt,

And barking dogs, and crowing cocks;

A fuller light illumined all,

A breeze thro’ all the garden swept,

A sudden hubbub shook the hall,

And sixty feet the fountain leapt."

Imperial Ice Stars, 'Sleeping Beauty on Ice'

Now it is time to look at how the tale has translated into other mediums. The first opera 'La Belle au Bois Dormant' appeared in French in 1825, composed by Michele Carafa. The German opera 'Dornröschen' was composed by Engelbert Humperdinck in 1902, and the Italian opera 'La bella dormente nel Bosco' was composed by Ottorino Respighi in 1922.

Tchaikovsky's ballet, which we can thank for inspiring the much loved 'Once Upon A Dream' was composed in 1890, and this has even been adapted to a ice show.

Sleeping Beauty, under the name Briar Rose, appears in the popular comic series 'Fables' from Vertigo comics. Beginning in 2002, it features characters from fairy tales who are forced to live in New York when their homelands are conquered.

The popular fairytale has also been adapted countless times on the screen in multiple different languages. It even has a Barbie and a Hello Kitty version!

Of course Sleeping Beauty's most recent appearances on screen have been in ABC's 'Once Upon A Time' and Disney's 'Maleficent'. Whilst Disney produced the most loved and most famous version of the tale, I hope I have shown that the story has had so many variations going back hundreds of years, that we'll never be able to pinpoint an exact "origin". What's more, I'm sure we'll see the story adapted for audiences of the future, although I do hope the all alien cast production happens sooner rather than later!

Thank you for taking the time to read my first blog post! Comments are welcome, and if you liked this format and have a favourite Disney film you want me to write a similar post for, let me know below!

References:

Online:
Völsunga saga, <http://vsnrweb-publications.org.uk/Volsunga%20saga.pdf>
The Story of the Volsungs (Volsunga Saga) which excerpts from the Poetic Edda, <http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1152/1152-h/1152-h.htm>
Sleeping Beauty tales of Aarne-Thompson-Uther type 410 translated and/or edited by D.L Ashliman, June 2013 <http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0410.html>
The Ninth Captain's Tale, <http://www.maerchenlexikon.de/texte/te410-001.htm>

Books:
Perceforest: The Prehistory of King Arthur's Britain, trans. by Nigel Bryan, (Cambridge: D.S Brewer, 2011)
Jack Zipes, The Enchanted Screen: The Unknown History of Fairy-Tale Films, (New York: Routledge, 2011)
Ulrich Marzolph, The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia, Volume 1, ed. by Ulirch Marzolph, Richard van Leeuwen, Hassan Wassouf (California: ABC-CLIO, 2004)