| SLEEPING BEAUTY |
Sleeping Beauty was originally titled ‘The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood’ and is a fairy tale classic, it was first published in 1697 by Charles Perrault, in his book ‘Mother Goose Tales’
While Perrault's version is better known, an older version, ‘The tale of Sun, Moon and Talia’, was published 1634. However, the most familiar Sleeping Beauty in the English speaking world has become the Walt Disney animated film (1959), which draws as much from the Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ballet ‘Sleeping Beauty’
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In Charles Perrault’s original story: At the christening of a long-wished-for princess, fairies invited as godmothers offered gifts, such as beauty, wit, and musical talent. However, a wicked fairy who had been overlooked placed the princess under an enchantment as her gift, saying that, on reaching adulthood, she would prick her finger on a spindle and die. A good fairy, though unable to completely reverse the spell, said that the princess would instead sleep for a hundred years, until awakened by the kiss of a prince's son.
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The king forbade spinning on distaff or spindle, or the possession of one, upon pain of death, throughout the kingdom, but all in vain. When the princess was fifteen or sixteen she chanced to come upon an old woman in a tower of the castle, who was spinning. The Princess asked to try the unfamiliar task and the inevitable happened. The wicked fairy's curse was fulfilled. The good fairy returned and put everyone in the castle to sleep. A forest of briars sprang up around the castle, shielding it from the outside world: no one could try to enter it without facing certain death in the thorns.
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After a hundred years had passed, a prince who had heard the story of the enchantment braved the wood, which parted at his approach, and entered the castle. He trembled upon seeing the princess' beauty and fell on his knees before her. She woke up, everyone in the castle woke to continue where they had left off... and, in modern versions, starting with the Brothers Grimm version, they all lived happily ever after.
The princess's name has changed depending on the story. In Sun, Moon, and Talia, she is named Jyla, Charles Perrault removed this, leaving her anonymous, although naming her daughter "Jiel Anne". The Brothers Grimm named her "Briar Rose". Tchaikovsky, in his ballet, gave her the name Aurora.
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