Adorkabella

The original Disney animation captured the feel of the Grim’s ‘Sleeping Beauty’/’Little Briar Rose’ and the even darker original tale was very different to the sleeping Beauty we know. The name Briar Rose come from Charles Perrault’s ‘La Belle au bois dormant’. Perrault version was the first to introduce the basis of the Bad Fairy (popularly known today as Maleficent.), as the original not not include a Bad Fairy. The Bad Fairy element is kept in the popular Grim Brother’s version. If you have not read Giambattista Basile, then you will be shocked at how dark and twisted the tale truly is. Much has been softened and romanticized in later versions. Thankfully the Perrault and Grim’s addition of the Bad Fairy add that essential dark element that would have been otherwise missing without her. The Bad Fairy is so iconic because she stands out of the pretty Fairytale and embodies the darkness hidden within. Thus it still is a dark fairytale although more subtle and more palatable to children and moral sensibility. Why was it made more subtle, you may indeed ask, because so many elements of the original are very shocking. The original ‘Sleeping Beauty’ was Giambattista Basile’s ‘Sun, Moon and Talia’ in where a King and a Queen had their child’s horoscope read by wise astrologers who far saw that the baby Talia would be endanger by a splinter of flax from a spindle. Her father ordered that all spinning wheels be banned from his lands. Unfortunately an old woman is unaware and shows the teenage Talia how to use the spinning wheel (she had never seen a spinning wheel before and was fascinated by it). She pricks her finger and falls into a deep sleep. Her parents abandon her in a castle where a King finds her sleeping. He tries to awaken her but instead of finding her help or kissing her as with later versions, he does the unthinkable, he has sex with her while she is sleeping. He then abandons her and returns to his kingdom. Poor sleeping Talia becomes pregnant as a result of her rape by the King. She somehow gives birth to twins. One of the babies tries to feed and not knowing where sucks on his mother’s finger, thus removing the flax and Talia is awoken to find two beautiful babies. She calls them ‘Sun’ and ‘Moon’. The King can’t get Talia out of his mind and return to rape Talia again but is shocked to find that instead of finding her asleep, she is awake with two babies his then knew to be his own. He confesses to Talia to how the babies cape to exist, that he had sex with her while she slept. The naive sheltered young woman forgives him, beause in those days woman had so little rights and was probably more scared to be left alone rather than focus on the reality that the horrid man had raped her. The King vows to return to Talia and go back to his Castle to meet with his … Wife (in Perrault’s version it is his mother). Yes the king not only raped Sleeping Beauty but he was a married adulterous swine too. I’m sure you think this story couldn’t get any more twisted. His wife the Queen, hears the stupid King mention the names Sun, Moon and Talia and the Queen’s mind quickly becomes suspicious of her husband.husband. Talia come to their Kingdom and the Queen is understandably enraged, but she does the unforgivable, she orders that the cook kill, cook the twins to her husband. later at dinner, the Queen smiles as the Kings eats his dinner. She feels triumphant as she reveals that he is eating his Mistress and his own children. Talia is kept prisoner and is ready to be burnt alive. The Queen had saved her for last. The King finds the Queen about to burn Talia alive and has the Queen thrown into the flames instead. He is about to order the death of the Cook, but the Cook reveals that it was two lambs and that he had kept the twins hidden from the blood thirsty Queen. The King marries Talia and they live twistedly happily ever after. 

My version of 'Sleeping Beauty' has The Bad Fairy as the antihero who ends up saving the princess from a wicked young king who attempted to defile the sleeping beauty but is stopped by the ‘Bad Fairy’ who is an outcast from her kind due to her performing darker elements of magics. 

Here are a few of my favorite re imaginings of some of my favorite  dark tales;

~Wicked the life and Times of The Wicked Witch by Gregory Mature

~Confessions of an Ugly Step-Sister by Gregory Mature

~The 10th Kingdom by Kathryn Wesley

~The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter