Like all fairy tales, Sleeping Beauty teaches that good always triumphs over evil. And not only: there is information about the rules of hospitality, and about how important it is to believe in the power of love. What else should we think about when we read the story about the enchanted princess?
The story begins with a miracle happening: the king and queen, who have been unable to have a child for a long time, have a daughter. And the parents, the richest and noblest people in the kingdom, decided to share this joy by arranging a feast. But they invited guests not just like that, but for their own benefit – to receive gifts.
And they called not ordinary guests, but 7 sorceresses. Why 7? This number is sacred. 7 is the number of Osiris, the Holy Spirit, a symbol of eternal life and prosperity. And the choice of sorceresses was also not accidental. Each of them presented the gift that they rightfully owned. That is, the royal couple knew exactly what they wanted to receive for their daughter, and called those who had these gifts.
And suddenly the eighth sorceress appears on the stage – an old woman who has not been seen for 50 years and was generally considered dead. But it’s a castle! It is always well guarded, and you can enter it only by invitation or by being a relative or friend of the owners. And who is she? How passed?
Why wasn’t this sorceress called at all? Because they didn’t need her gift! She was erased from memory, since, apparently, it was unprofitable to maintain a relationship with her. Perhaps the king’s parents began to ignore the fairy, and he supported the tradition. No wonder the old fairy decided that this was done in mockery.
No one even thought about the eighth golden device, and the old sorceress understood that they simply did not consider it necessary to take care of her.
Imagine a man came to congratulate from the bottom of his heart, and he was humiliated in front of witnesses!
The owners could apologize to preserve her dignity, or ask one of the good seven sorceresses for the device and give it to the old woman. In general, if they wanted, they could solve this issue, but alas …
Do you remember the scene where the sorceresses began to make predictions, and one of them, realizing that something was wrong, decided to give her gift to the latter? According to the plan of the old woman, the girl was supposed to die at the age of 16 from a spindle injection, but thanks to the young sorceress, the sentence was mitigated – to a sleep of 100 years.
Why didn’t she just undo the curse? Why should a princess not sleep for a month or at least a year? Why a whole century? This means that after awakening she will be an orphan, living in another age and with strangers. Somehow not very merciful. Was that her gift?
It is also noteworthy that the curse actually came true. In psychology, there is the concept of a “self-fulfilling prophecy” – when a person is afraid of something and often thinks about it, then with his thoughts he “paves” a wide, well-trodden track for fulfillment.
This is what the king and queen probably did. After all, they understood that the old sorceress had reasons for revenge, but did not drive her away. And they had time for this – she did not climb forward and waited for her turn … to curse their child. Moreover, if one of the sorceresses guessed that everything would end badly, then the princess’s parents could understand this even more so.
Another question is why the princess had to prick herself with a spindle. The spindle is an attribute of female deities associated with life and death. For example, the Greek goddesses of fate Moira wind the threads of human lives around him. The spindle has become an image of fear that attracts everything that the royal couple is afraid of. So, protecting his daughter, the king forbade the use of the spindle in farms throughout the country. It is fear in action that has worked like a magnet. And drew the fulfillment of the prophecy.
“About fifteen or sixteen years later,” after this memorable event, the king with the queen and daughter went to the pleasure castle. There, running through the rooms, the princess met an old spinner. She also has many questions: how did it happen that the elderly lady did not recognize the princess? She didn’t hear about the king’s decree? This is possible only if she lived in solitary confinement. But then who could give her the spindle?
This is the second story with an old woman inside a fairy tale. One was forgotten for 50 years, the other for 16. And the latter somehow accidentally framed the princess in her own house. Are they by chance relatives with the evil fairy? But perhaps the spinner did not set up, but helped the girl?
The fairy tale does not say how the girl lived, whether she was happy. At the age of 15-16, princesses were already given in marriage. Maybe she wanted to sleep to avoid something unpleasant? During a lethargic dream, you are dead to ordinary life, but alive at the same time. And there is hope to wake up at a more auspicious time.
Vadim Zeland in the book “Tafti-priestess” clearly describes the mechanism of prophecy, according to which it is impossible to influence the scenario of another person’s life.
Each person has their own “film strip”, and other people need permission to get into it.
That is, the princess “invited” this frame to her life scenario.
Further, the same sorceress, who at one time saved the princess from death with her gift, immediately found out about the trouble and plunged the entire castle, with the exception of the princess’s parents, into a dream. Why did she exclude the king and queen from the circle of faces that the girl could see in the future? Or is it the princess herself? Suddenly, the sorceress understood the true motives of the dream and removed her parents from the picture, leaving everyone else?
And returning to the previous question, why did the dream have to last 100 years? Maybe the sorceress decided to play it safe and let the princess sleep through some intrigue and excitement? During this time, hopes and hopes for her will disappear, but the legend about her will remain. After all, it is no coincidence that everything around the castle was overgrown with grass and had a dull look. This helped to hide the princess from prying eyes.
It was not by chance that Charles Perrault came up with the twist about the prince and his kiss, and it was a very good move for that time. Then the theme of chivalry was very popular, so the scene where the princess wakes up from a kiss caused delight and awe among the ladies. And because of its attractiveness, few people paid attention to some details.
And Charles Perrault wrote that the princess woke up exactly one hundred years later. And at that moment, just at that time, the prince arrived there. That is, she would have woken up without him, because the magical contract had expired. But then there wouldn’t be this romantic moment and the idea that love conquers the spell. After all, it was for this idea that readers fell in love with the fairy tale so much.
And of course, for complete success, there must be a happy ending at the end of the story. The prince, as we remember, immediately fell in love with the princess and married her. In the second half of the tale, which few people know about, a completely different story unfolds – about family life and a cannibal-mother-in-law. But we’ll talk about this later.
And what conclusions can be drawn from the classic version of the fairy tale?
- Do not neglect the people with whom you are connected in one way or another – neglect can cost you dearly
- Spare other people’s feelings
- Remember that the last word is decisive
- When inviting guests, just in case, have spare gifts and cutlery
- Take an interest in the lives of people living with you under the same roof to be aware of their intentions – both good and not so
- The law of damnation works according to the same formula as the law of attraction: you attract what you think about, especially if emotions are connected to it.
- Let other people make their own decisions, otherwise they may make a choice not in your favor.
- Sometimes the wisest solution to a problem is to “sleep” with it. No wonder they say that the morning is wiser than the evening.
About expert
Inessa Zakharyan psychologist, mediator Her .