Hello and welcome to Fairy Tale Friday. Are you
sitting comfortably? Good. Then I’ll begin.
This week we begin to look at versions of the classic fairy tale of Snow White or rather the precursor tales. The most famous version with all the elements such as the Magic Mirror, the poisoned apple, the sleeping
enchantment, the glass coffin, and the characters of the beautiful
mistreated maiden, the evil mother or stepmother, the Huntsman,
a handsome prince, and Seven Dwarves appears in literary form in
1812. But there were two literary versions which appear before the Grimm’s version and clearly had some influence on the Brother’s Grimm.
The first one was published in 1632 by Italian author Giambattista
Basile in his Lo Cunto De Li Cunti (The Story of Stories). This
story contains elements of Snow White (a jealous mother-figure, a sleep like
death, buried in a crystal casket), Sleeping Beauty (blessed by good fairies,
cursed to die by a bad fairy, the death made by being pricked by a sharp object),
Bluebeard (a forbidden room with something hidden inside that is never to be
opened, a woman’s curiosity making her open it despite it being forbidden),
Cinderella (being treated as a slave and forced to wear rags and cinders by a
maternal figure) and features a version of a “stone of patience” which appears
in many Middle Eastern versions of Snow White (as we will see later.)
It is a very interesting tale that begins with a miraculous
pregnancy from jumping over a rose bush and eating a rose petal. Yes, that is
really how this illegitimate pregnancy is explained. The child born from a rose
petal is so beautiful and already a “woman-child” at birth. It is her beauty
which continues to get her into trouble. While her mother loves her, she has
her raised by the fairies to hide the birth of the illegitimate child (for who
would believe the rosebush theory?) until the child dies in accordance with the
disgruntled fairy’s curse (at the age of seven her mother will be combing her
hair and the comb will lodge in the child’s head and kill her.) The mother also
dies and leaves her dead daughter in a glass casket in a room and tells her
brother on her deathbed to never go in there. His wife however cannot help herself
because “curiosity is the dower of womanhood.” She sees the beautiful body of a
dead child in a glass coffin and immediately assumes her husband is hiding a
dead child because he is a secret Muslim like Barack Obama. No, I don’t get that
either. She beats the dead child and the comb that killed her is dislodged and
she awakens. Now she is a beautiful live child which is even more infuriating,
so she makes her ugly by cutting off her hair and blacking her eyes and scratching
her face like she has been in a cat fight. The child suffers from the jealousy of
her aunt but is eventually saved by her uncle after he overhears her tells hers
troubles to a doll. Thankfully, the evil auntie is punished, and the beautiful
young woman is married to someone she loves.
This was summarised by Basile himself at the start of
the story saying:
Lisa is born from a rose-leaf, and dieth
through a fairy's curse; her mother layeth her in a chamber and biddeth her
brother not to open the door. But his wife being very jealous, wishing to see
what is shut therein, openeth the door, and findeth Lisa well and alive, and
attiring her in slave raiments, treateth her with cruelty. Lisa being at last
recognised by her uncle, he sendeth his wife home to her relations, and giveth
his niece in marriage.
In days of yore, and in times long gone
before, there lived a baron of Serva-Scura, and he had a young sister, a damsel
of uncommon beauty, who often fared to the gardens in company of other young
damsels of her age. One day of the days they went as usual and beheld a
rose-tree which had a beautiful fully opened rose upon it, and they agreed to
wager that whosoever should jump clear above the tree without damaging the rose
would win so much. Then the damsels began to jump one after the other, but none
could clear the tree; till it coming to Cilia's turn (thus was the baron's
sister hight), she took a little longer distance, and ran quickly, and jumped,
and cleared the tree without touching the rose, and only a single leaf fell to
the ground. She quickly picked it up and swallowed it before any of the others
perceived aught, and thus won the wager.
Three days had hardly passed, when she
felt that she was with child, and finding that such was the case she nearly
died with grief, well wotting that she had done naught to bring such a
catastrophe upon her, and she could not suppose in any way how this had occurred.
Therefore she ran to the house of some fairies, her friends, and relating to
them her case, they told her that there was no doubt but that she was with
child of the leaf she had swallowed.
Cilia hearing this hid her state as long
as it was possible, but the time came at length for her delivery, and she gave
birth secretly to a beauteous woman-child, her face like a moon in her
fourteenth night, and she named her Lisa, and sent her to the fairies to be
brought up. Now each of the fairies gave to the child a charm; but the last of
them, wanting to run and see her, in so doing twisted the foot, and for the
anguish of pain she felt cursed her, saying that when she should reach her
seventh year, her mother in combing her hair would forget the comb sticking in
the hair on her head, and this would cause her to die. And years went by till
the time came, and the mishap took place, and the wretched mother was in
despair at this great misfortune, and after weeping and wailing, ordered seven
crystal chests one within the other, and had her child put within them, and
then the chest was laid in a distant chamber in the palace; and she kept the
key in her pocket.
But daily after this her health failed,
her cark and care bringing her to the last step of her life; and when she felt
her end drawing near, she sent for her brother, and said to him, "O my
brother, I feel death slowly and surely come upon me, therefore I leave to thee
all my belongings. Be thou the only lord and master; only must thou take a
solemn oath that thou wilt never open the furtherest chamber in this palace, of
which I consign to thee the key, which thou wilt keep within thy desk."
Her brother, who loved her dearly, gave
her the required promise, and she bade him farewell and died.
After a year had passed the baron took to
himself a wife, and being one day invited to a hunt by some of his friends, he
gave the palace in charge to his wife, begging her not to open the forbidden
chamber, whose key was in his desk. But no sooner had he left the palace than
dire suspicion entered in her mind, and turned by jealousy, and fired by
curiosity (the first dower of womankind), she took the key, and opened the
door, and beheld the seven crystal chests, through which she could perceive a
beauteous child, lying as it were in a deep sleep. And she had grown as any
other child of her age would, and the chests had lengthened with her.
The jealous woman, sighting this charming
creature, cried, "Bravo my priest; key in waistband, and ram within; this
is the reason why I was so earnestly begged not to open this door, so that I
should not behold Mohammed, whom he worshippeth within these chests."
Thus saying, she pulled her out by the
hair of her head; and whilst so doing the comb which her mother had left on her
head fell off, and she came again to life, and cried out, "O mother mine,
O mother mine."
Answered the baroness, "I'll give
thee mamma and papa;" and embittered as a slave, and an-angered as a bitch
keeping watch on her young, and with poison full as an asp, she at once cut off
the damsel's hair, and gave her a good drubbing, and arrayed her in rags. Every
day she beat her on her head, and gave her black eyes, and scratched her face
and made her mouth to bleed just as if she had eaten raw pigeons.
But when her husband came back and saw
this child so badly treated, he asked the reason of such cruelty; and she
answered that she was a slave-girl sent her by her aunt, so wicked and perverse
that it was necessary to beat her so as to keep her in order.
After a time the baron had occasion to go
to a country fair, and he, being a very noble and kind-hearted lord, asked of
all his household people from the highest to the lowest not leaving out even
the cats, what thing they would like him to bring for them, and one bade him buy
one thing, and another another, till at the last he came to the young
slave-girl.
But his wife did not act as a Christian
should, and said, "Put this slave in the dozen, and let us do all things
within the rule, as we all should like to make water in the same pot; leave her
alone and let us not fill her with presumption."
But the lord, being by nature kind, would
ask the young slave what she should like him to bring her, and she replied,
"I should like to have a doll, a knife, and some pumice stone; and if thou
shouldst forget it, mayst thou be unable to pass the river which will be in thy
way."
And the baron fared forth, and bought all
the gifts he had promised to bring, but he forgot that which his niece had bade
him bring; and when the lord on his way home came to the river, the river threw
up stones, and carried away the trees from the mountain to the shore, and thus
cast the basis of fear, and uplifted the wall of wonderment, so that it was
impossible for the lord to pass that way; and he at last remembered the curse
of the young slave, and turning back, bought her the three things, and then
returned home, and gave to each the gifts he had brought. And he gave to Lisa
also what pertained to her.
As soon as she had her gifts in her
possession, she retired in the kitchen, and putting the doll before her, she
began to weep, and wail, and lament, telling that inanimate piece of wood the
story of her travails, speaking as she would have done to a living being; and
perceiving that the doll answered not, she took up the knife and sharpening it
on the pumice stone, said, "If thou wilt not answer me, I shall kill
myself, and thus will end the feast;" and the doll swelled up as a
bagpipe, and at last answered, "Yes, I did hear thee, I am not deaf."
Now this went on for several days, till
one day the baron, who had one of his portraits hung up near the kitchen, heard
all this weeping and talking of the young slave-girl, and wanting to see to
whom she spake, he put his eye to the keyhole, and beheld Lisa with the doll before
her, to whom she related how her mother had jumped over the rose-tree, how she
had swallowed the leaf, how herself had been born, how the fairies had each
given her a charm, how the youngest fairy had cursed her, how the comb had been
left on her head by her mother, how she had been put within seven crystal
chests and shut up in a distant chamber, how her mother had died, and how she
had left the key to her brother.
Then she spoke of his going a-hunting, and the
wife's jealousy, how she disobeyed her husband's behest and entered within the
chamber, and how she had cut her hair, and how she treated her like a slave and
beat her cruelly, and she wept and lamented saying, "Answer me, O my doll;
if not, I shall kill myself with this knife;" and sharpening it on the
pumice stone, she was going to slay herself, when the baron kicked down the
door, and snatched the knife out of her hands, and bade her relate to him the
story.
When she had ended, he embraced her as his
own niece, and led her out of his palace to the house of a relative, where he
commanded that she should be well entreated so that she should become cheerful
in mind and healthy of body, as owing to the ill treatment she had endured she
had lost all strength and healthful hue. And Lisa, receiving kindly treatment,
in a few months became as beautiful as a goddess, and her uncle sent for her to
come to his palace, and gave a great banquet in her honour, and presented her
to his guests as his niece, and bade Lisa relate to them the story of her past troubles.
Hearing the cruelty with which she had
been entreated by his wife, all the guests wept. And he bade his wife return to
her family, as for her jealousy and unseemly behaviour she was not worthy to be
his mate; and after a time gave to his niece a handsome and worthy husband whom
she loved; which touched the level that:
When a man least goods of any kind
expecteth,
The heavens will pour upon him every grace.
That’s all for this week. Stay tuned next week for the
second precursor tale to Snow White.
