The Role of Sleep in Fairy Tales with Examples

by Tolovaj

Sleep is crucial in numerous fairy tales. What are the main things we can expect to happen while sleeping and dreaming?

Sleep plays an important part in fairy tales. While it's not considered an activity, a lot of important, maybe even fatal things may happen while the character sleeps. It may even define the character as in the most famous of presented examples below - The Sleeping Beauty.

The main characteristic of fairy tales is transformation and sleep can be crucial for that. We'll examine a few fairy tales to see the role of sleep or what it represents.

Here are 10 fairy tales with sleep in a decisive role.

Time Flies

1 Sleeping Beauty

By far the most famous fairy tale with sleeping as an alternative to death. The baby girl is cursed to die, but a fairy manages to change death into one hundred years of sleep. When she falls asleep everybody else in the castle is asleep too, so her inner circle of friends, relatives, and servants doesn't really change.

But something is very different in the moment of her waking up. That's the prince, of course. The final message of this story (we are talking about the version by the Brothers Grimm) is pretty simple. Sometimes you just have to wait and everything will be fine.

If you want to explore different versions and how the messages (lessons) change with them, please visit:

https://wizzley.com/sleeping-beauty-versions/

Sleeping Beauty by Johann Georg van Caspel
Sleeping Beauty by Johann Georg van Caspel
2 Rip Van Winkle

We can look at this story as the opposite of The Sleeping Beauty. A man who is already married falls asleep and when he wakes everything looks different. His old life is gone and he doesn't fit in anymore.

In a way, he overslept his own life. The name of the character became a phrase for depicting somebody who sleeps a lot but also somebody who doesn't like changes. Well, probably none of us is very happy with too many changes but Rip Van Winkle truly hates them.

Rip van Winkle by N. C. Wyeth
Rip van Winkle by N. C. Wyeth

Vulnerability

While we sleep we are vulnerable, our lives can be in serious danger which is clearly seen in the next examples.

3 Hop-o-My-Thumb

A group of boys comes to the ogre's house. When they are put to sleep the youngest (Hop-o'-My-Thumb) notices the strange behavior of their dangerous-looking host. He arranges the switch with the ogre's daughters who are sleeping in the same room.

Ogre doesn't only kill his offspring while the girls are asleep, he also falls asleep when he tries to catch the boys and loses his magical seven-league boots.

Hop-o'-My-Thumb by Gordon Browne
Hop-o'-My-Thumb by Gordon Browne
4 Wishing Table

As in many other fairy tales, we are dealing with three brothers in identical situations. All of them own magical objects and all spent the night in the same inn.

Only the youngest can get through the night without being robbed. Even more, he gets back the magical objects previously owned by his brothers and brings everything safely to their home.

Wishing Table by Heinrich Leutemann
Wishing Table by Heinrich Leutemann
5 Princess Rosette (The King of Peacocks)

Princess Rosette is one of the best fairy tales written by Madame d'Aulnoy. The princess is on her way to marry the King of Peacock but she doesn't have reliable servants.

While she sleeps, she is thrown into the sea together with her bed and the daughter of her nurse steals her identity. The sleep of princess Rosette doesn't endanger just her life but the life of her brothers too.

Princess Rosette by William Heath Robinson
Princess Rosette by William Heath Robinson
6 Brave Little Tailor

Brave Little Tailor is a nice fairy tale on the theme of climbing up the social ladder. The title character deals with all the dangers, including giants and a unicorn, he even deals with a tricky king and marries his daughter but the greatest danger awaits for him while he sleeps.

In his bed, he reveals his true social origin and his wife organizes his killing. Fortunately for him, he escapes such a sad fate but he'll probably never sleep easy from then on.

Brave Little Tailor by Carl Offterdinger
Brave Little Tailor by Carl Offterdinger

Irresponsibility

7 The Three Bears

The Three Bears, more known as Goldilocks is a fine example of a careless person. She is not just indifferent to the privacy of others, she doesn't care about her safety as well. She breaks into a house owned by bears, eats their food, breaks their furniture, and finally sleeps in their bedroom.

She is very lucky to survive the encounter with the owners and we can only hope she learned something from her experience.

Three Bears by Charles Robinson
Three Bears by Charles Robinson
8 Golden Bird

When somebody starts stealing golden apples from the king's garden, his sons are put to the test. The first two fall asleep while guarding the royal garden and the youngest proves to be the most responsible of them.

Later in the story, he makes a few mistakes as well but his older brothers prove way worse. In the end, we are convinced who deserves the kingdom and everything starts with a sleeping test.

Golden Bird by Max Teschemacher
Golden Bird by Max Teschemacher

Revelation

9 Beauty and the Beast

Beauty comes into the Beast's castle and spends days alone and bored. The fairy tale is more discreet than the myths from which Beauty and the Beast origins but her sleep still plays an important part at the end of the story.

He left the Beast with a promise to return in a few days but her sisters tricked her to stay longer. Her dreams reveal the Beast's suffering and she returns just in time to save him. Even more, he changes into a handsome prince and they marry.

Beauty and the Beast by Eleanor Vere Boyle
Beauty and the Beast by Eleanor Vere Boyle

Salvation

10 Little Match Girl

This fairy tale written by Hans Christian Andersen is an extremely sad variation of the Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (they knew each other pretty well). The poor girl is trying to sell some matches while dreaming about a better life.

These dreams help her to forget the harsh reality but in the morning people discover her dead body. Sleeping and dreaming was just an intro to death - an eternal rest and kind of salvation for the match girl.

Little Match Girl by Count Pozzi
Little Match Girl by Count Pozzi
Updated: 01/03/2024, Tolovaj
 
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What are your thoughts on sleep in fairy tales?

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Tolovaj on 01/10/2024

I am not very interested in her. Goldilocks is not among my favorite Top 100 Characters. And I stopped writing sequels more than 30 decades ago. I prefer adaptations with a twist at the moment. Especially fables turning into fairy tales or fables with the opposite moral of the originals.

DerdriuMarriner on 01/10/2024

The seventh fairy tale, The three bears, is such a telling example for the irresponsible role of sleep.

That subheading leaves us with the compassionate pondering that "She is very lucky to survive the encounter with the owners and we can only hope she learned something from her experience."

You mention elsewhere of yourself as a fairy-tale writer. Might you consider a sequel about whether or not Goldilocks obtained wisdom from her irresponsible experiences?

Jo_Murphy on 01/09/2024

Ha Of course!

Tolovaj on 01/09/2024

That's why I am here, Jo_Murphy;)

Jo_Murphy on 01/09/2024

Again! I have never thought about all of this.

Tolovaj on 01/09/2024

I wouldn't say that they are the same. They share certain elements but this is true for all stories. I can even say there are only two basic stories: Cinderella and Puss in Boots and everything is just a ariaton on one of these. Or make a step further and say that everything starts and ends with Cinderella and try to prove that Puss in Boots is just a variation where the beginning of the story is a bit later ... Anyway, Water(s) of Life is a great story on its own.

Jo_Murphy on 01/08/2024

Graphic description!

DerdriuMarriner on 01/08/2024

My sister tells me that an interesting takeaway from her recent re-read of meditator-mindfulness physician and microbiologist Jon Kabat-Zinn's Wherever You Go There You Are is that he devoted four pages to "The Water of Life" fairy tale (pages 88-91). He describes "The Water of Life" as a "richly crafted tale" with "many turns in its unfolding." He sees the tale's point as being willing to admit not knowing and to being open to "help from unexpected places." She discovered in researching "The Waters of Life" that there are numerous sleep episodes and that American folklorist Stith Thompson suggested many similarities between "The Waters of Life" and "The Golden Bird" in his book, The Folktale (published in 1977).

Would you have found in your research that "The Waters of Life" and "The Golden Bird" are one and the same fairy tale?

Tolovaj on 01/08/2024

I believe the illustrator just tried to emhasize the monstrosity of the ogre and his daughters.

DerdriuMarriner on 01/08/2024

Your first example, Hop o' my thumb, to the sleep role in its vulnerable aspect considers Hop o' my thumb and his brothers versus the Ogre's daughters and ultimately the ogre.

The Gustave Doré illustration in your wizzley Hop o' My Thumb: 10 facts to know has the girls sleeping under covers whose upper surfaces have perhaps bird bones and wings. The girl closest to her father perhaps holds a (bird?) bone in her mouth.

Is the image based on something in the fairy tale? It looks like either the girls fell asleep eating or that their father moved from the dining table with his mouth full!


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