The moral of every fairytale is that good conquers all, and in these fairytales, the same thing happens when the young princess lives a happy life with her prince and two kids, while the evil queen pays for her actions.
Except for the happy ending many other events that a poor servant encountered are described in the fairytale. He fought to prevent the evil queen from eating his family, and his wife helped. The evil queen wanted to get rid of him, but then the young prince arrived, and the evil queen finished her life by throwing herself into a barrel filled with frogs and poisonous snakes that ate her.
Justice caught up to the evil queen in the worst possible way. The animals ate her in the same way she wanted to eat the daughter-in-law. Even though her son grieved for her, he knew it was the only way he could live in peace.
Genre: fairytale
Time: once upon a time
Place: kingdom, country house
Book Summary
Once upon a time a king and a queen lived, but they couldn’t have children. They were so sad it can’t be put in words. They visited doctors and tried everything to conceive a child. But, a miracle happened, and they’ve had a baby girl.
On the day of her baptizing a big ceremony was being held and she had seven fairy godmothers. The daughter received seven gifts to accomplish all of the perfection there is in the world.
On the castle, everything was set for the event. The cutlery was made out of gold, and it was decorated with jewels. While the fairies were getting set, an uninvited guest showed up. It was a 50 years old fairy who lived in a tower she never left, and everyone thought she was dead or enchanted.
The king ordered a place to be set for her, but she didn’t get the same cutlery as the other fairies. The king prepared seven boxes for each fairy, and he didn’t count her to come unexpectedly. She had a feeling everyone despised her.
The young fairy heard her mumble something and decided to hide behind the curtains during the baptizing to stop her from doing something wrong. When the baptizing started, she was the last one to fix any damage the old fairy could do.
The girl was gifted with beauty, a sharp mind, kindness, dancing skills, singing talent and music talent. The old fairy came and said she would sting herself on a spindle and die the same moment.
All of the guests were stunned and on the verge of tears. The youngest fairy appeared and told that she won’t die but that she will sleep for a hundred years and be woken up by a prince.
The king had the need to protect his daughter, so he had all the spindles removed from the kingdom.
The princess turned 16 when her parents went on a vacation. She was roaming around the castle until she came to the highest tower where she saw an old woman who had a spindle. She didn’t hear the king’s order to get rid of all the spindles.
The young princess was curious about the woman’s job, and she wanted to try it, but she stung herself on the spindle. The old woman got scared and started calling for help. People tried to revive the princess by spilling water on her, but they’ve accomplished nothing.
The king heard the noise and ran to the tower. He knew that day was coming and ordered the fairies to put her in the most beautiful part of the kingdom and lay her on a bed of silver and gold. She looked like an angel. They heard her weakly breathing and the king was convinced she'd wake up in a hundred years.
He gave a new order about not touching the princess while she’s sleeping. The fairy who saved her from a sure death lived far away, and the king sent a messenger to deliver her the sad news.
When she heard it, the fairy sat in a fire carriage that was dragged by dragons and came to the castle. She talked to the king, and they concluded that the princess would be frightened when she wakes up in an empty kingdom. To prevent that from happening, the fairy enchanted everyone in the castle, including the princess’s dog, so they all wake up at the same time the princess does.
They kissed their princess and demanded no one to approach the tower while she was sleeping. After some time thorns started surrounding the tower so no one could get close to her. The people could only see a piece of the tower.
A hundred years had passed when a son of a king went hunting. He was surprised by all the thorns and thought he saw the top of a tower. He asked about it, and everyone had a theory of their own about it. One of the hunters told him ghosts lived there and the other one told him that witches lived there. The other hunters thought a cannibal who ate small children lived there.
The prince didn’t know who to trust so he asked a peasant who told him a beautiful princess was in the tower and that a kiss will wake her up.
The prince decided to reach the beautiful princess and as soon as he started walking towards the tower, the thorns moved away from his path. Nobody could walk behind him because the thorns would block their way. He kept on walking.
He came to a patio and saw people on the ground. At first, he thought they were all dead, but then he noticed their blushed cheeks and came to a conclusion they were just sleeping from all the wine they had.
He kept on walking, climbed the stairs and saw guards sleeping. Everything seemed strange to him, but he didn’t want to give up. He came into the room and saw the beautiful princess. He kneeled in front of her bed, and the princess woke up because the curse was broken. She looked at the king and told him she had been expecting him. He was baffled, and they started talking.
As soon as the princess woke up, everyone woke up. They went on doing their jobs and made a delicious dinner. The prince helped her get out of bed and saw a beautiful dress she was wearing, and it reminded him of his grandmother’s dress, but he didn’t say anything because he didn’t want to offend her.
The diner was held in a big room filled with mirrors and a violin played non-stop. As soon as diner finished, they got married.
Night came, and in the morning the king went home to tell his father the reasons of his absence. He said he got lost in the forest and how he spent the night in someone’s house. The father believed him, but the mother didn’t. She was convinced he was in love.
Two years passed after the prince married the princess and they’ve had two children. His mother asked him if he was in love, but he never said a thing because he knew his mother was of cannibal origins and people claimed she had a tendency to eat people.
Two more years passed and the king died, so the prince had to take up his responsibilities. He told everyone about his marriage and held a ceremony for the arrival of his wife and children.
After some time the young king started the war with the emperor. He had to go to a battle, and he told his mother that he’s leaving his wife and kids in charge. He was gone for the whole summer.
After he left the queen decided to send the princess with her two kids to their country house. After a few days, she joined them and ordered the servants to make dinner out of her granddaughter. She had to satisfy her cannibalistic needs, and the servants were petrified.
He had to listen to her, and he went to the little girls’ room. She ran towards him and asked him for candy. He had mercy on her and decided to kill a lamb for dinner. He also made some sauce, so the queen didn’t even notice she wasn’t eating her granddaughter.
He hid the girl at his wife’s so he could save her from the queen. But after a few weeks, the queen wanted to eat her grandson. The servant pulled the same stunt as before.
The queen also wanted to eat the princess, so she gave the order to make her with the same sauce. The servant realized he wasn’t capable of finding an animal to replace the princess, so he told the truth. He went to her room with a sword and the princess was ready to die since her kids were already dead. He told her that they were safe. He prepared another dinner and saved the princess.
The evil queen was satisfied with the dinner, and she thought of telling her son how her family was torn apart by wolves.
One night the evil queen was roaming the kingdom when she heard a child crying. It was her grandson who was being bad, so he was apologizing to his mother. The evil queen ordered her servants to bring her the princess and the kids so she could throw them into a barrel filled with frogs and snakes. Fortunately, the prince arrived and saw what was happening. The queen was so scared that she threw herself into the barrel and the animals ate her.
The prince was sad about everything because after all, she was his mother, but he found comfort in his family.
Characters: princess, prince, queen, kids, servants
Characters Analysis
Princess - a young and a beautiful girl that was helped by the good fairies so that the evil fairy wouldn’t enchant her. She slept for hundred years, and she was woken up by her prince and they had two babies. Her life was perfect until her price went into war because her mother-in-law tried to eat her and her kids then. Her prince saved her in time.
Prince - he fell in love with the beautiful princess as soon as he saw her. He married her but was afraid to share the news with her mother because she was a cannibal. One time he went into war and almost lost his family because his mother wanted to eat them. Fortunately, he arrived in time to save them.
Evil Queen - she was from a family of cannibals and wanted to eat her son’s family. She was so evil that she couldn’t wait for her son to get away so she could feast on his family. She didn’t accomplish her goals and took her life in the end.
Charles Perrault Biography
Charles Perrault (1628. - 1703.) was born in Paris to a wealthy family as the seventh child. His father was very strict and imposed a particular kind of education upon him, so he decided to study law. When he finished school, he got a job in the public service.
Many consider him to be the founder of the most popular genre between children, and those are the fairytales. He took his inspiration out of folks tales. Some of them were carried mouth to mouth, and the Grimm brothers told some of them. The fairytales that Charles made famous: Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Bluebeard, and Puss in Boots.
This famous writer from France published another interesting book and it is Tales of Mother Goose. It consisted out of 8 fairytales.
Charles published this work under the name of his son. His fairytales were so popular that they were screen and TV adapted. The first fairytale The Sleeping Beauty was published in 1969.
Charles was considered to be one of the most influential people in the 17th century and a fighter for the younger generations. A conflict was going on back then between the old who believed that people should stick to the traditional way of writing and the young who were fighting for a new, fresh way of writing.
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