10 Versions of Sleeping Beauty: What Changed through Centuries?

This is a German epic where we meet Brunhilde. She is a Valkyrie, a warrior maiden who is disobedient and punished by the supreme god Odin. She falls in everlasting sleep and is surrounded by flames which protect her from possible attacks or the rescue. But Sigurd crosses the fire and wakes her. Unfortunately, this is not enough for a happy ending. Another woman and Sigurd's brother enter what ultimately leads to the death of Sigurd. In some versions, she dies too, but in others not.

Anyway, she is a very powerful female character. Some people believe she is based on real Princess Brunhilda of Austrasia (543-613).

More about this:

http://reallycoolblog4you.blogspot.com/2013/12/was-brynhild-real-sleeping-beaty.html

In this story, we have a Zellandine, a beautiful princess of Zeeland. At her birth, three goddesses were invited. One of them was unsatisfied with a knife given her at the meal, so cursed the princess to fall asleep when she touches flax.

When this happened many years later, a knight comes by, is magically (helped by other goddesses) transported to the tower where she sleeps and is unable to resist her beauty. He sleeps with her and nine months later she gives a birth to a boy who sucks the piece of flax out of her finger so she can finally wake up.

Zellandine is not so strong as Brunhilde, but we have two powerful goddesses and a weak knight who can't control himself. While we can look at Zellandine as a victim, we still can't deny the power of women.

In next weeks he visits her a lot and later she gives a birth to two kids.

Talia awakens when her baby boy sucks a splinter of flax out of her finger, but the main problem is his wife who finds about kings mistress and illegitimate children. She orders to send them to court and tries to serve them to their own father. But Talia who gets into trouble as well is smart enough to get the king's attention soon enough and the jealous wife is punished.

All in all, we have one king, incapable to protect his kid (Talia), another king, who puts his mistress and children into danger (by talking in sleep) and two powerful ladies who use men around them to get what they want.

The wife of Bath is one of the most famous stories from Canterbury Tales. It starts with a knight who took advantage of a young maiden. He could face the death penalty for that, but Queen Guinevere gave him a chance to save his life. She sends him on a quest. He must find out what women seek most of all. He has a year to return with an answer and just before the time runs out he meets an old lady who helps him, but her help has its price.

Charles Perrault wrote a Sleeping Beauty in the Wood as one of his fairy tales which are now considered as a definition of the literary genre. It has a well-known plot with fairies giving the little princess all kinds of gifts until the evil fairy cursed her to die when she pricks herself with a spindle. This curse can be only changed in a very long sleep which will last until Mr. Right finds her.

In Perrault's version, the story doesn't end with a marriage. It actually becomes only more interesting. We find the prince is a son of a man-eating ogress who later tries to eat his wife and both kids. She eventually dies, but we still note how powerful are women and how weak are men.

We have a king incapable to protect his only child, a prince who has a lot of trouble protecting his wife and kids, and a cook, who is forced to cook the princess and children looks the most resourceful of all. On the other hand have fairies who play with a destiny of mortals, a powerful ogress and even a princess needs to find a trick or two to inform her husband about the cruel intentions of her mother-in-law.

source: https://childrensandhouseholdtales.wordpress.com/2018/07/23/the-sleeping-beauty-picture-book-by-george-w-brenneman/

The Sleeping Beauty by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm is definitely the most known written version. It ends with a kiss, so the whole second part is erased. If we try to focus only on the main characters we can find an incompetent king, dozens of unsuccessful suitors and at the end a prince who just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

The princess is even less interesting than him, but we still have at least three powerful women in the story: two fairies fighting each other and a spinner.

While the date of first publishing may go way to 9th century making it the eldest known version of The Sleeping Beauty, Western world became familiar with this tale only from (wrongly inserted ) the collection of 1001 Arabian Nights in 19th Century.

This fairy tale from The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night (translation of Contes Arabes Modernes by Guillaume Spitta-Bey) focus on the relation between the girl (named Sittukhan) who was not a princess yet from very rich family and the prince who would like to be with her but it seems he doesn't be with her in public. So she puts him in a test. In the end, she believes he is good enough to become her husband.

Again, we have several powerful women (Sittukhan, her mother, flax mistress, a wise old lady who helps sultan's son, his entrepreneurial mother) on one and weak prince, several doctors incapable to find a diagnose for his disease on the other side.

Disney version is undoubtedly the most popular variation of Sleeping Beauty ever. It can be accused of some stereotypes, yet we can't deny the power of several female characters in it. Yes, the kiss was non-consensual, but life is not always 100% politically correct, right?

Again, we are dealing with several powerful women who are fighting each other and trying to improve their position in society. They are stereotypical, but far from being only pawns on the board of life.

It really doesn't matter if we are talking about Academy Award Winning Pedro Almodovar's Talk to Her or artistic Jane Campion's Sleeping Beauty or Vadim Glowna's, it is always about male fantasies, their wish for power over (sleeping) women, but the real power is in majority cases at women. They set the rules, they control the game and they stay in charge even in their sleep.

We have thousands of versions and interpretations of The Sleeping Beauty, yet nothing really changed in the last fifteen centuries.