Hello lovely people. It is Niina and you are watching Fairychamber Channel.
Maybe you already guessed. Today´s topic is Sleeping Beauty.
Origins of the fairy tale.
I did my best but this hair is not meant for curles.
First version of Sleeping Beauty was written in Catalonian
in 14th century.
First one was a very short novel.
I haven´t managed to find the first story but I´ve read synopsis of it.
Later on during the same century there was a larger romance
based on this novel. Romance was called "Persfore".
Persfore tells about a princess in a coma.
Because she touched a thorn that put her into sleep.
There was a young king on a hunting trip and
he saw the princess sleeping in the castle without any guards.
He "fells in love" to the princess and rapes her.
Literally.
Direct quote "Beautiful Zelandine lost the right to call herself as a virgin"
Princess hasn´t woken up and the prince continues his life.
Princess has become pregnant.
After nine months she gives birth a child while sleeping.
At one point the baby starts to suck her finger.
Baby removes the thorn and the princess wakes up.
This is the first version of Sleeping Beauty and this version doesn´t have recognized author.
This idea
that person can fall asleep when they touch a thorn
is universal.
It can be found from folk magic around the world.
It can be found from Finland, from Haiti and from African countries.
Maybe that was the inspiration for this fairy tale.
Another universal fairy tale motif
in Sleeping Beauty is the sleep.
Princess being dead outside but her body does not decompose.
There is another similar princess fairy tale.
That is Snow White of course.
Sleep is very common fairy tale motif.
We can find similar stories from different myths around the world.
They can be found from Indian myths.
Also from Norwegian heroic sagas.
From Edda poems.
There is one historical story about Harald Hårfagre
and his wife Snöfrid.
Snöfrid was very beautiful woman who died in a very young age.
Harald grieved her a lot.
Legend tells that Snöfrid´s body remained beautiful three years before she was buried.
Harald used to stay up next to the body grieving.
Very sad story.
There is another story that is a myth about Brunhilde.
Straight from Wagner´s opera.
Originally from Norse and Germanic mythology.
Brunhilde was valkyria
and sister of the chief god Odin.
Brunhilde made an oath never to marry.
Odin (Wotan by his old Germanic name)
got really mad about that and with a thorn put her sister to sleep.
Her body was put to rest into a top of a mountain.
Odin created a circle of fire around the mountain.
Until a brave prince arrived
and ride through the fire circle Brunhilde would wake up.
Sigurd became this nobel prince
who saved her.
This story comes straight from Wagner´s opera.
In 1630´s
first official written version of Sleeping Beauty appears.
Written by Giambattista Basile.
He was Italian author.
His fairy tale book "Pentamerone" "the story of stories"
also known as the "stories for the little ones"
appeared in 1630´s.
Basile wrote the first versions
about "European fairy tales" like Snow White,
Puss in boots and Sleeping Beauty.
He was (and is) quite well-known.
He had collected fairy tales around the world (and altered them).
Name of the book "stories for the little ones"
is satire because all the fairy tales were meant for adults.
They can be perv and there is lots of sex and violence.
Not really recommended for children.
Basile´s Sleeping Beauty
story was called "The Sun, The Moon and Talia".
In this story name of the Sleeping Beauty is Talia.
Basile´s version is rather brutal.
It begins with king getting a daughter.
He goes to visit every single fortune teller and astrologer to ask
how he can protect his daughter from all the harms.
All astrologers and fortunetellers tell him that
something bad will happen and it has something to do with cotton.
King decides to burn all the spinning wheels in the kingdom.
Of course when Talia is of age
which is 16 in the fairy tale realm.
She sees a woman in the street and the woman is carrying a spinning wheel.
She just has to touch it.
Thorn puts her into sleep.
Father takes her body into the middle of the forest
into a beautiful palace.
Father goes away to grieve his daughter to some other place.
King of the neighbor kingdom is hunting and sees
Talia´s body and rapes her.
It´s not depicted this straight forward
in the original story but that is what happens.
Talia does not wake up. She becomes pregnant.
She gives birth twins. Boy and a girl.
She still does not wake up.
Again other of the babies starts to suck her finger
removes the thorn and she wakes up.
She is delighted to see the twins and straigth away takes the role of the mother
and starts to breastfeed the twins.
No she doesn´t question at all how did this happen.
At least that is not mentioned in the story.
Then the king of the neighbor kingdom starts to think about this beautiful....corpse.
He goes back to the castle and
tells that he is the father of the children and Talia doesn´t think that is weird in any ways.
In fact she is delighted that this king is so handsome and fancies her.
Kings wife finds out that the husband has been cheating her.
She orders the chef to make dinner
of Talia´s children.
Chef refuses and secretly makes
dinner from animal meat.
Queen enjoys her revenge when she thinks that his husband is eating his own children.
Then the queen realizes that chef was lying and the children are still alive.
In fact chef had hidden children to his own home.
Queen starts to blame Talia and wants to burn her alive.
Burn alive.
King arrives just in time and saves Talia.
Queen is the one
who get´s burned alive. Now that´s cruel.
In all these early versions of Sleeping Beauty there is a coma patient
who gets raped in this fairy tale.
Make your own conclusions (totally messed up fairy tale)
I´ve been thinking maybe this motif comes all the way from
ancient Greece and times even before that.
Think about Zeus in Greek mythology.
God of thunder and chief god of mount Olympos.
He had lots of affairs with mortal and immortal women and men.
Zeus had very jealous wife. Hera. Who never punished her husband.
But she always punished his lovers.
Maybe this fairy tale motif comes from very early myths.
In the Middle Ages kings were beyond any punishments.
When we now interpret this fairy tale
we do that from modern day perspective.
Patriarchalism that exists in this fairy tale was part of every day life in the 17th century.
Kings were allowed to do whatever they wanted.
People were allowed to criticize their actions but they were beyond punishments.
It was believed that being born as a king was a gift from (Christian god) so it was meant to be.
That is why king was allowed to do whatever he pleased.
Women only had three roles in Middle Ages.
Would I dare to say during Christian times women have only had three roles.
Fortunately not anymore in Christian circles (at least not that much) but definitely before.
These roles were: virgin, whore and the mother.
In this story Talia is first vigin.
Then she becomes the mother and the hostile queen is the whore.
In the Middle Ages queens guide books told them to worship their husbands.
They were allowed to criticize the king or king´s behavior.
They weren´t allow to say anything about the king´s other love affairs.
Those were the things that were expected from the queens.
When the king´s (soon to be ex) wife doesn´t like that
that the king has an affair with another woman.
She breaks the unwritten rule.
Basile himself lived in the 17th century in the Italian court
and saw all kinds of questionable behavior there.
Despite the fact that many of Basiles fairy tales sound very brutal
there is lots of satire towards the society where he came from.
He makes fun of the court life.
You can also see that in this particular fairy tale when he
makes his characters appear slightly foolish and unthinking.
Sleeping Beauty has been edited so much during the last few centuries
thanks to many fairy tale writers and film makers.
Raping scene has been pretty much completely forgotten and
and Sleeping Beauty has become a fairy tale for children.
I don´t know if I would read these original version for children.
At least not for the youngest.
It is also good to remember that fairy tales are always reflections of their time.
First person who edited Sleeping Beauty
was Charles Perrault.
In the end of the 17th century when he worked as the official fairy tale author in the French court.
There is violence in Perrault´s version.
All these erotic scenes are gone.
Perrault´s version is very chaste.
There isn´t the raping scene instead
there is the 100 years of sleep.
There is the wall of thorns around the castle.
There is a prince who fights his way throught the thorn wall and saves the princess.
If I remember right in Perrault´s version prince didn´t even wake her up with true love´s kiss.
He just woke her up.
Maybe he shook and screamed her to wake up..I don´t know.
In away Perrault´s fairy tale has two parts.
There is 100 years of sleep and the arrival of the prince.
After few years they return to the prince´s kingdom.
Prince´s mother..who also might have been step-mother
turns out that she is an evil troll queen.
She wants to eat their children.
Perrault did took some inspiration from Basile´s story and the older versions.
But changed the story to his own.
Troll queen wants to eat couple´s children.
Because she craves blood of "Christian" children.
In the 19th century Brothers Grimm took Sleeping Beauty to their fairy tale collections.
By the way Perrault´s fairy tale was called "Sleeping princess of the forest"
Perrault´s princess did not have a name.
But Brothers Grimm named their princess as "Dornröschen"
which means "thorn rose". or "rose thorn"
Brothers Grimm dropped away the troll queen
and the evil queen.
Maybe that was a good solution
but problem with that was that the fairy tale became very short.
As the solution they added lots of repetition in the fairy tale.
"Chef who was about to pull his young assistant´s hair fell asleep while standing"
"water in the fountain stopped flowing"
"pigeons stopped chirping"
"horses fall asleep" and so on.
I remember vividly as a child reading about the
chef who was pulling his assitant´s hair and the fountain
that stopped. That scene was very beautifully written.
Brothers Grimm brought the rose to the story.
Rose became the symbol of Sleeping Beauty.
All the most famous fairy tales has their own symbols.
Snow White has an apple. Cinderella has glass slipper.
Sleeping Beauty has a rose.
From that we can thank Brothers Grimm.
There is no "Maleficent" in the Brothers Grimm version.
But there is sadistic details that you can find
from all Brothers Grimm fairy tales.
When prince arrived to the wall of thorns.
Corpses of the princes that had gone to do the same mission were hanging on the wall.
With all there guts out and thorns peaking through.
Yack.
Rose is very universal symbol.
In Christianity rose symbolizes both Virgin Mary and Mary of Magdala.
Different colored roses had different symbols.
Red rose symbolizes deep love and beauty.
Maybe in this particular fairy tale rose symbolizes the stillness.
Despite the fact that in away Sleeping Beauty is in a come for years and years
she remains young and beautiful.
We also have Finnish fairy tale version of Sleeping Beauty.
Written by Zacharias Topelius.
He is not really my favorite Finnish fairy tale author
because majority of his fairy tales emphasize Christianity.
As a child I had Sleeping Beauty written by Topelius
and illustrated by Rudolf Koivu.
When I go home next time I need to check if I can find it again.
Anyway story of Topelius is same as Perrault´s fairy tale.
His Sleeping Beauty is extremely good.
She represents all the Christian virtues you can imagine.
Prince is called Prince Florestan and Maleficent is called Tuonetar.
Tuonetar comes straight from Finnish mythology.
1949 appeared Sleeping Beauty film directed by Edvin Laine.
That was first fairy tale film ever made in Finland.
I´ve seen that years ago. Maybe it´s on YouTube.
Most famous film version of Sleeping Beauty is the Disney animation.
I infact watched it again the other day.
I watched it three times!
I watched the actual film.
Then I watched the film with extras. All kinds of tiny information popped up between the scenes.
Then I watched it for the third time with
commentary from Andreas Deja and John Lasseter.
If someone doesn´t know who Andreas Deja is. He is one of my favorite Disney animators.
Some of the characters he animated were Jafar and Lilo among others.
John Lasseter is the creative officer of Pixar.
Very famous Disney people.
There they shared memories of those people who were part of making the Sleeping Beauty back in the days.
Definitely I highly recommend to watch Sleeping Beauty with all the extras.
It took about 9 years to finish Disney´s Sleeping Beauty.
Production was started in 1951
and it costed about 6 million dollars.
Back then it was the most expensive Disney animation ever made.
Disney´s Sleeping Beauty is based on both Perrault´s and Brothers Grimm fairy tales.
They were adjusted of course to fit the Disney brand.
There isn´t the sleep of 100 years.
Aurora sleeps only 24 hours or something.
During that time prince arrives and there is fight between him and Maleficent.
Time that Aurora sleeps is relatively short.
She and Phillip meet before he wakes her up.
They fell in love during the song "Once upon a dream"
There is lots of Disney style cute animals.
Aurora is not considered to be the most active Disney princess.
But that is because she is sleeping half of the film.
Character doesn´t get to be fully developed.
Which is quite sad because she comes out as very interesting character.
Sleeping Beauty completely changed the artistic direction of Disney films when it first appeared.
It is completely filmed in large screen format.
That is why it has highly developed background art.
The moss, the trees and tiny leaves are carefully detailed and beautifully animated.
Sleeping Beauty was the last Disney animation where...
cels...animation cels were hand colored.
Walt Disney himself wasn´t too much involved what it came to making Sleeping Beauty.
He was way more occupied about another project called Disneyland.
It was left for the animators to
finish Sleeping Beauty.
Style of Sleeping Beauty was developed by an animator
called Eyvind Earl.
Eyvind Earl he created this extremely detailed
Middle Age visual world to the animation.
Among other things he researched Persian miniature paintings for inspiration.
That is why Sleeping Beauty is like visual fire works.
If it wouldn´t be one of the animated classics
it could be an episode in Fantasia (if shortened).
It is beautiful visual world they created for it.
There is that one very funny scene where Hubert and
Stefan are drinking in the castle and
the court jester drinks himself under the table
and he is drinking wine from the mandolin.
That´s a good scene.
Film begins with the story book.
Is that the same book that is in Disneyland in Paris?
in the castle of Sleeping Beauty?
That book is sized 50 x 60 cm.
It was filmed against a massive background
for the beginning of the movie and
and there was animated candle light added afterwards.
Movie begins with the story book opening.
Story book is handmade, it´s painted with gold and
it´s covered with gemstones and diamonds and it fits great to the style of the film.
Film itself sparkles constantly.
There is very rich colors.
Film has quite dark backgrounds so the characters have quite colorful dresses.
Another of my favorite scenes is the one where Flora and Merryweather fight
is Aurora´s dress pink or blue.
I was really annoyed from the fact that this figurine I bought has the pink dress.
Well...I bought a box of figurines.
I feel that her dress should be blue.
Merryweather is probably my favorite character in the Disney version.
In the first Disney story version
fairy godmothers names were Tranquility
the dream fairy and
Fernadelle the forest fairy and
Merryweather (Ilomieli in Finnish).
Fortunately Tranquility and Fernadell was changed into Flora and Fauna.
I´m pretty they must have been changed at least for the Finnish voice over.
Tranquility was the dream fairy
and Fernadell was the forest fairy and
and Merryweather was the fairy of alchemy.
It is very interesting to research the way Sleeping Beauty was developed.
Originally Walt Disney planned to have seven fairies
but the amount was changed into three.
It was also suggested that all three fairies would be identical like
Dewey, Huey and Louie.
Also that the fairies would be as young and beautiful as Aurora.
However they ended up being older kind godmother fairy ladies.
It´s better that way and
their names were changed into Flora, Fauna and Merryweather.
There is few very famous Finnish Disney voice overs in
in the Finnish Sleeping Beauty.
Mervi Hiltunen is Aurora and she is amazing. Also does Finnish voices for Belle and Alice.
Hannele Lauri is maleficent.
She is brilliant maleficent.
She was also Cruelle De Vil in 101 dalmatians.
Finnish voice over is very good.
Must confess I haven´t seen Sleeping Beauty in other languages.
Some animations I can only watch them in Finnish since I love the Finnish voice over so much.
Then there is some animations that I rather watch the English version or with some other language.
Like Frozen I´m not huge fan of the Finnish voice over so I prefer to watch it in English.
Though I really love the Finnish version of "Let it go" as well.
Sleeping Beauty changed the visual style of Disney animations.
Before that the characters were more round and cuddly. Sometimes over-the-top cute.
With Sleeping Beauty the style of the animation became more graphic.
Characters became more streamlined.
This can also be seen in the next Disney animation which was 101 Dalmatians.
Animation in 101 Dalmatians is more graphic than in Sleeping Beauty.
I personally have always loved the style of 101 Dalmatians.
It is quite graphic and even bit abstract.
Roots of that are in the concept art done by Eyvind Earl
I highly recommend checking those.
Marc Davis was
head animator of Aurora.
He also was the head animator of Maleficent.
According to Davis Maleficent is "gigantic bat".
Davis was very famous animator. He belonged to the nine old men -group.
He was known as the animator of the beautiful characters.
His own personal character that he created was Tinker Bell.
When I did watch Sleeping Beauty
I must say Aurora is very beautiful.
Some other famous film version inspired by Sleeping Beauty.
2014 movie Maleficent is worth mentioning.
Anglina Jolie played Maleficent. I should watch that film again.
I´ve seen it once but I was doing someting else at the same time so I wasn´t focusing.
I can´t analyze that very deeply...yet.
Another more familiar for me is Once Upon A Time-series.
There is also Maleficent but her story is completely different.
Movie Maleficent and Once Upon A Time
both of them are interesting because they explain
the way evil is not born evil.
There is always a reason why person becomes evil.
Is person really evil when we know why they became
evil in the first place?
In both versions Maleficent is
betrayed woman.
It is the same story line in all these old story versions.
Bad guy is the woman who was cheated.
Who gets mad when king wants to be with another woman.
Well..in these first stories we can not speak about love because king rapes a coma patient.
Still queen gets cheated.
Especially in these old versions fairy tale world is patriarchal
and even worse it degrades women when man is the one to blame.
What is interesting in these more newer versions
..filmed versions of this fairy tale.
The way the birth of evil is explained.
I really like that.
One learns to understand the motifs of the "evil characters".
Another thing that endlessly fascinates me in these different stories about Maleficent.
Is the way Maleficent is former fairy
who´s wings were cut.
It is actually corresponding with Christian mythology
and to Lucifer being the devil and the fallen angel.
Angel who also lost his wings.
It is the same story motif in the story of Sleeping Beauty.
There is three good fairy godmothers. Anglic creatures.
Maleficent is the fallen fairy. She has the devil´s horns.
In the Disney animation..I don´t know if it is the same in the English spoken version.
In the Finnish version Maleficent says to Phillip "Now you will meet Maleficent. The lover of evil"
In away Maleficent is reflection of the (Christian) devil.
If one wants to compare that to Christianity.
Or any very archaic religious archetypes.
Maleficent in away she is left out from the crowd.
There is the group of the fairies
and Maleficent is left out from the community.
She gets either bitter by that or
the relationship of the king and the queen or
something totally different. There is always a reason for the bitterness.
Why Maleficent is not invited to the Christening party.
It is not because they don´t have enough golden plates for the guests or
they forgot to send the invitation.
There is always a real reason why she is bitter.
It is like the bullies in the school yard.
Familiar situation to many I dear say.
The one who has been bullied becomes a bully.
We can analyze this particular behavior pattern in Sleeping Beauty forever. It is so complex.
These were the origins of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale.
Like you probably noticed originally it was very cruel.
There is all kinds of suspicious things going on.
Disney animation is important to me artistically.
Understanding about the symbolism of this fairy tale.
The way fairy tales are always reflections of the times they were told.
I hope you enjoyed this video.
Thank you for watching and I will see you on my next video. Bye )O(
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