-| Disney Origins… Sleeping Beauty |-

So, I’m back to ruin another of your favourite Disney movies, you’re welcome!

I decided to go with Sleeping Beauty as the original author has a pretty shocking moral of the story!
Let’s not waste any time…

Sleeping Beauty and the King

We all know Sleeping Beauty as the Disney princess who becomes a damsel in distress when she pricks her finger on a spindle and falls asleep waiting for a prince to come and rescue her.

The original story was Sun, Moon & Talia by Giambattista Basile which was written in 1634 is about a girl named Talia. They do have similar beginnings, however instead of a spindle it would be a splinter of flax (textiles made from flax are known in the Western countries as linen) that would send her into a deep sleep. Her father then forbade any flax, hemp or material of that sort to be brought into the house. However, in the original story it says that “she fell dead upon the ground”. Everyone thought she was dead and her father lay her out in one of his country mansions under a canopy of brocade.

-This is where things get dark-

The man who came to ‘rescue’ her is actually a King who was out hunting and came upon the mansion. She was unconscious, yet he thought it would be a good idea to carry her to a bed and “gather the first fruits of love” basically rape her while she slept…

What did he do after he raped her I hear you ask, well he left her in the bed and went home to his kingdom thinking nothing more of the incident (and they say romance is dead).

9 months later (you see where this is going) she births twins while still unconscious, when one of the twins can’t find her breast to feed it ends up sucking the splinter out of Talias finger waking her up. Her king ends up remembering about the unconscious girl he left alone in the mansion so decides to go back and visit her, he found her awake with his twins. He was apparently overjoyed and decided to tell her who he was and what had happened, surely she would be disgusted and angry with him, wouldn’t she?

“When she heard this, their friendship was knitted with tighter bonds, and he remained with her for a few days” ARE YOU SHITTING ME?!
After the few days he goes back home again to his wife, yes he’s married. The Queen knows that something isn’t right so threatens one of the kingsmen until he tells her everything. When hearing he has twins she sends for them to be sent to the kingdom under the name of the King.

-Ready for things to take a twisted turn?-

Now, why would the queen send for her husbands children? So she can kill them and feed them to the king of course!
Thankfully the cook isn’t sick and twisted like the Queen, he hid them with his wife and killed two lambs in their place.
The Queen then sits down and watches the King eat what she believes are his children, whenever he compliments the food she repeats “Eat, eat, you are eating of your own” he has no idea what’s going on so he keeps eating.

Not satisfied with thinking that she fed the twins to their father, she sends for Talia to come to the kingdom, she had a large bonfire made of which Talia was to be cast onto. Being clever, the girl stalled and made enough noise until she gained the attention of the King who spoiled the Queen’s plan. Once the King was told that she had killed the children and fed them to him, he commanded that the queen should actually be the one cast into the fire.
So the “villain” of the original Sleeping Beauty isn’t actually Maleficent but the Kings wife, a woman married to a cheating rapist…

Of course there’s a happily ever after, Talia reunited with King and their twins and the couple marry.
Possibly the most disturbing part of this story is the last few lines as the author believes that this story brings the meaning of the proverb:
“Those whom fortune favors
Find good luck even in their sleep”

So he thinks this is the moral of the story?
She was lucky to be raped in her sleep as it led her to marrying her rapist King and having his twins? Maybe it’s just me that thinks this is fucked up, let me know what you think.

Being honest, that was a lot darker than I first expected when I found the original tale, I think it’s pretty obvious why Disney decided to change the story to make it family friendly!

See you in the next one…

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