Sleeping Beauty is a classic fairy tale about a prince, princess, an evil witch and how good always triumphs over evil. A fairy tale was first published by Charles Perrault called "La Belle au bois dormant". His version of the Brothers Grimm fairy tales was published under the title "Dornröschen".
Sleeping Beauty is a story about a girl who was stabbed with the spindle and befell the old curse from the evil fairy. She fell asleep for one hundred years, and it could be saved only by the brave prince. Although the story of the evil witch sounds cruel, fairy tales will always be popular in the daily lives of our children. They awaken the imagination, thought-provoking and learn about good and evil intentions of people.
Fairy tales encourage children to express their feelings and to understand how in life they should fight against evil monsters, or in this case a stepmother. In older age they will certainly found themselves in a difficult situation, they will remember some fairy tales and know how to respond. Fairy tales can also be modified, sometimes embellished, but the important thing is to contain the original lesson.
Genre: fairytale
Time: once upon a time
Place: castle
Book Summary
Once upon a time a king and a queen lived and they wanted a child, but they could never have one. The situation started changing the day the queen met a frog that promised her that she would give birth to a girl in a year.
The royal couple got a daughter, and they were so happy that they decided to throw a big party. They invited the fairies that lived in their kingdom to the christening. The custom was that each fairy wishes something beautiful for the child.
Except for the mentioned fairies, everybody had forgotten an old one. Full of anger and hatred she went to the castle. The servants set up a table but they’ve only put 12 plates, and there were 13 fairies. The good fairies said their wishes and then the old one showed up.
She said a horrible curse and threatened that the girl would stab herself at the age of 15 on a spindle and die.
Everyone was left speechless. Then a good fairy said her spell. She could not undo the curse, but she could ease it. She wished that the girl instead of dying falls asleep and that after 100 years of sleep a prince will come and wake her up from the eternal sleep, and that only true love's kiss could rescue the girl.
Despite the fact that The sleeping beauty was not supposed to die the king got so scared that he order the kingdom to burn all of the spindles. When the princess turned 15, she was left alone for a while and started to investigate the castle.
Wandering through the castle, she ran into an old woman who was working with a spindle. She was curious and wanted to try it herself, and that’s how the curse came to life. The sleeping beauty fell asleep for 100 years.
The whole kingdom fell asleep with the princess. Everything stopped, and even the flies were frozen in time. The castle got surrounded by weeds, and the story of the sleeping princess began to spread around.
Brave princes came to wake her up, but they did not succeed in it because of the thick vegetation around the castle that took a few lives. After 100 years a brave young man came to the city and wanted to visit the castle everyone was talking about. His presence had a different effect on the vegetation that started moving and blossoming.
When he entered the castle, he saw servant sleeping and walking through the castle he finally found the princess. One look was enough for him to fall in love and his kiss woke her up. With the princess, the whole kingdom woke up, and the life started from where it stopped. The prince and princess lived happily ever after.
Characters Analysis
Characters: The sleeping beauty, king and queen, prince, fairies
Sleeping Beauty - a beautiful young girl who is, like the other children of that age, very curious. In the end, it is saved by kindness and sincere love.
Prince - a young man, pure of heart and great courage. He managed to reach the castle and fall in love with a beautiful girl.
Good fairies - good women who want only the good and try to help as much as they can. They help to save the sleeping beauty.
Evil fairy - the bad witch who wants everyone to feel how angry she was. Other people's happiness is not important to her, and she only wants to take revenge.
Brothers Grimm Biography
Thanks to the Grimm brothers many children enjoyed reading the stories of brave heroes that always win over evil. The Grimm brothers are well-known German authors that, with a little help from the national stories, made fairytales that were enjoyed by the older and the younger.
The older brother Jacob was born in 1785 and died in 1863. The younger brother Wilhelm was born in 1786 and died in 1859. Both of them were linguists and philosophers. Jacob published German grammar and together with his brother he published a German dictionary.
Both of them studied law in Marburg and during that period both of them criticized King Ernest August I. and because of that, they could not end their school because they were banned. Because of the inability of studying law both of them started writing fairy tales which made them famous.
They were collecting them and writing them together while Wilhelm gave them a final touch. Their fairy tales are known as stories full of wisdom and cheerfulness.
In the beginning, their collection contained 86 stories and through repeated publishing, the number grew to 200. Some of their most famous works are "The Sleeping Beauty", "Cinderella", "Snow White", "Rapunzel", "The Fisherman and His Wife", "Hansel and Gretel"…
Book reports from Brothers Grimm
- Hansel and Gretel
- Rapunzel
- Snow White
- The Brave Little Tailor
- The Fisherman and His Wife
- The Frog Prince
- The Golden Goose
- The Sleeping Beauty
- The Twelve Dancing Princesses
- The Wolf and the Seven Young Goats
- Town Musicians of Bremen
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