Hey everybody, welcome back. This is Food for
Thought, Thoughts If It Were You, and I'm your
host, Neogentrics. Now, it's been a while since
I've been here with you guys, and I haven't been
able to make a podcast in a while, but I am back
with some good news. Other than me getting ready
for school in the fall and being able to move
forward with my career, even though it took me
two and a half months to get everything back
in order, I'm back, and I'm ready to get started
and make more podcasts like I have before. So,
to get started, as always, this is Food for Thought,
and the whole premise of my channel is education.
So, I'm going to educate you on some really cool
stuff, so please look forward to the upcoming
podcast this week. There will be one almost every
day, if I can help it. Our first topic for today,
we have 25 things within the same topic that
I'm going to cover today, and I would love to
get into them and cover all of the stuff this
week. Now, before we worry about that... let's
go ahead and take a short break and we'll begin
with the first of the many things I'm going to
cover this week. And we're going to cover the
dark true story behind many, many different,
uh, fairy tale stories that we all used to love
stories that we thought we knew the whole story
of, and that the happy ending that Disney has
given us, or the one that we are most familiar
with. is a lie. What better way to uncover these
lies than in podcasts? And again, like I mentioned
before, to everyone who listens, if you don't
like the name of the topic, which I do put in
the name of my podcast, or you don't like the
premise of my podcast at all, feel free to skip
this episode and move on to another one that
you actually want to hear, or send in your requests
via my Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, or here
on Anchor. And... I'll be happy to look them
over, and I'll be glad to make an episode based
off of whatever suggestions you give. Now, on
with the show. We're going to take a quick, short
20 -minute break, I guess. Well, I will, anyway.
And we'll be right back. And we'll begin with
the dark original truth behind Sleeping Beauty.
All right, everybody, and we're back. Now, like
I said, we're going to get started with the original
origin, or rather the dark origin, of Sleeping
Beauty. Okay? Now, before we begin, fairy tales
can be pretty dark. And like the Brothers Grimm,
you know, the story that they wrote, a father
who chops off his daughter's hand to make a deal
with the devil is a prime example. I'm not going
to cover that one. I don't think I should, but
I will definitely give it a shot, okay? The point
I'm trying to make is this. The original Sleeping
Beauty, it's in a league of its own, okay? In
Sleeping Beauty's original story, the hero, aka
the person who saves her, is a king who meets
a beautiful sleeping princess and decides to
rape and impregnate her while she's sleeping.
Now, spoiler warning, this is going to get pretty
gruesome. So again, like if you can't handle
this, stop now. Okay. Anyway, the dark sleeping
beauty story is miles away from the classic 1959
Disney movie. And just like Disney's Beauty and
the Beast is completely different from the tragic
true story of the couple behind the tail as,
you know, as old as time in Jim, but Batista's
Basil's Sleeping Beauty story, originally called
Sun, Moon, and Talia in 1634, the Wicked Queen,
who became known as Maleficent, which is the
whole point of that movie, is actually the hero's
wife. Irony, huh? And hearing her side of the
story will kind of make you want to root for
her rather than the princess, or the prince for
that matter. Anyway, Disney... wasn't the first
to be deeply disturbed by the original Sleeping
Beauty story. At the end of the 16th century,
the Mother Goose Tales told Charles Perrault's
Sleeping Beauty story, which took out the creepy
sexual assault bit, including when Sleeping Beauty
was stripped naked in front of her assaulter's
wife. In retrospect, a lot of people preferred
the Mother Goose version. And having just said
that, it is pretty bad. Now, once you've read
the original Sleeping Beauty, you'll never be
able to look at the Disney version again. So
again, I've just said this, but I haven't even
gotten into the story yet. So, if you can't handle
this, stop right now. Alright? I'll take a short
break to give you a chance. And then we'll get
into the next piece. All right, well, you had
your chance to back out. And seeing how you have
it, we're just going to go ahead and get started
then. So, moving along with the story now. The
17th century version of Sleeping Beauty is very
dark. It is deeply disturbing. Let me say that
right now. Now, everyone knows the story of Sleeping
Beauty. It's a princess who is cursed to sleep
until her true love wakes her with a kiss. In
addition to the love story, there's also spindles,
fairies, briar patches, apparently an evil witch
who can turn into a dragon. Nice touch, Disney.
But the original version of Sleeping Beauty's
story is very different from the classic Disney
movie that everyone is very familiar with. The
original version of Sleeping Beauty was written
down by an Italian by the name of Gian Battista
Basile, who... published a book called The Tale
of Tales in 1634. Very, very popular book, by
the way. It contained 50 different stories, including
early versions of Rapunzel, Cinderella, Snow
White, and Sleeping Beauty, which we'll cover
all the others in another podcast. The last of
which is called The Sun, Moon, and Talia. Now,
Bazil's book, was used by Charlotte Peralt in
the late 17th century when he wrote Mother Goose
Tales, which is by the Brothers Grimm in the
19th century. But, Basil's version of Sleeping
Beauty is much, much darker than the Disney version.
Let me go ahead and say that right now. Okay?
In the Disney version of Sleeping Beauty, Aurora
and Prince Philip meet in the woods where they
sing Once Upon a Dream. and instantly fall in
love. But in the original story of Sleeping Beauty,
the princess is not swept off her feet. She's
raped in her sleep. I love how that rhymed. Anyway,
the two main characters don't actually meet until
Sleeping Beauty is already asleep. In Bantista's
version, a king finds an abandoned palace. He
sneaks through the window using a ladder and
searches every single room. At last, the king
finds Sleeping Beauty, nicknamed Talia, in Basil's
story, who is lying on a bed, deeply asleep.
And then the story takes a very, very disturbing
turn. How do I put this? A quote from the book
is this. Crying aloud, the king beheld her charms
and felt his blood course hotly through his veins.
He lifted her in his arms and carried her to
a bed where he gathered the first fruits of love.
AKA, he raped her. Apparently, sleeping women
were a huge turn on for the king. I'm not even
going to tell you how disturbed that sounds.
Anyway, as if the king raping a sleeping stranger
wasn't disturbing enough, after he has sex with
the sleeping beauty, the king goes home and for
a time thought no more about this incident. Apparently,
the king didn't think it was odd to find a sleeping
woman abandoned in a castle, and clearly he had
no reservations about ditching her after raping
her whatsoever. When the king gathered the first
fruits of love from sleeping beauty, he apparently
left something behind. Nine months later, Sleeping
Beauty gives birth to two children, a boy and
a girl, while she's still asleep. And before
you go any further, this is entirely possible.
It does happen. The author brushes past how exactly
it's even possible to sleep through a twin labor.
You're still in a mythical world here. I mean,
don't get me wrong. Women can't go into labor
in their sleep, but they'll wake up. So in this
story, it's entirely possible. Once the babies
are born, the two fairies appear to help care
for them. Basil's story is already way too dark
for Disney, and at this point it takes another
strange turn as the fairies try to help the newborns
breastfeed. Ugh. We're not done yet. Sleeping
Beauty wakes up when the fairies end an attempt
to place the twins on the sleeping woman's breasts
so they can nurse, more or less. accidentally
stick them on her fingers instead. The newborns
suck so much that the splinters of flax came
out. Once the flax, which had made Sleeping Beauty
fall into a coma, is removed, Sleeping Beauty
awoke as if from a long sleep. When Sleeping
Beauty wakes up to find two newborns mewling
at her side, she doesn't have a typical response,
which would probably involve screaming. Instead,
she just picks up the babies and starts breastfeeding
them herself. And Basil doesn't mention how long
the princess has been asleep, so there's that.
Although it had to be at least a year. But readers
have to wonder if the flax poisoning that put
Sleeping Beauty in a coma might have affected
her, you know, faculties, in a manner of speaking.
She sure doesn't react like a typical person
anyway. And it only gets worse once the king
comes back to claim his children. You know, put
bluntly anyway. So we're going to take a short
break here and then we'll keep going. All right.
All right. After that brief intermission, we're
back. Now, continuing where we left off. The
king, believe it or not, actually returns to
Sleeping Beauty later and finds that she's not
sleeping. And she falls in love with him. I'm
not kidding. Okay? Now, obviously the king hadn't
thought about Sleeping Beauty for a while. After
all, she had time to give sleep birth. I guess
that's what you would call that. to twins but
then the king remembers her and hoping for a
second date more or less with the sleeping woman
he returns to the palace he must have been pretty
surprised to find sleeping beauty awake and taking
care of you know his twins the original tale
claims that the king was overjoyed and he told
talia who he was and how he had seen her and
what had taken place again That long sleep must
have affected Sleeping Beauty because rather
than stabbing the king or demanding child support,
like they had it at that time anyway, Basil writes,
When she heard this, their friendship was knitted
with tighter bonds. The two begin a romantic
relationship. The king leaves out one small detail,
though. He's already married. Now, in the original
version, Maleficent is not an evil fairy. She's
a queen married to a cheating rapist. Wow, that
sounds dark. However, in the Disney Sleeping
Beauty version, Maleficent is a self -proclaimed
mistress of evil. She's the one who curses baby
Aurora with the threat of a spindle, and she's
the one who builds the spindle that ultimately
puts... Sleeping Beauty to sleep. It is because
of Maleficent that Aurora's parents send her
off to be raised with the fairies in the woods.
Maleficent transforms into a dragon to fight
Prince Philip when he tries to save Aurora's
life. Even in the Charles Peralt version of Sleeping
Beauty, popularized in the Mother Goose Tales,
again published in 1967, the evil woman is a
hybrid between an old fairy and an ogre, filled
with evil intentions. But the villain in Basile's
son, Moon Antalia, is actually the king's wife.
And a woman married to a cheating rapist, technically
speaking. Now, before you start going, oh, well,
that's just the way that Disney told it. And
she probably is still the same way in this story.
Wrong. Queen actually tries to cook the children
to feed to their father. As dark as that sounds,
in a way, it is her own way of justifying what
happened. Now, Maleficent might be innocent in
the original version of Sleeping Beauty, but
once she figures out her husband is cheating,
she turns vicious. This is where the Disney version
comes from. She threatens a secretary to reveal
the secret of the king's mistress, warning him.
If you hide the truth from me, you will never
be found again, dead or alive. He spills the
secret and the queen tricks Sleeping Beauty into
sending her children to the queen. The queen
orders her to, and I quote, cook and slaughter
the children and cook them up in several tasteful
dishes for her wretched husband. I'm not kidding.
That's literally what the text says, word for
word. The gentle -hearted cook could not possibly
kill the adorable twins, so he hides them and
cooks two lambs in their place. Then the queen
sits down with the king to watch him eat his
children. Whenever he compliments the food, she
says, Eat, eat, you're eating of your own. Yep.
Pretty dark, even though we both know that he
hasn't actually eaten them. Now, after cooking
the children, the queen tries to toss Sleeping
Beauty into a fire. The queen isn't actually
satisfied with simply feeding the children to
her cheating husband. She also kidnaps Sleeping
Beauty. The queen calls out Sleeping Beauty,
obviously unaware of the rape, by saying, You
are a fine piece of goods, you ill weed. I'm
sorry, you ill weed, who are enjoying my husband.
She goes on to call Sleeping Beauty the lump.
of filth the cruel bee that has caused her my
head to spin the queen plans to toss sleeping
beauty into a bonfire but sleeping beauty tries
to defend herself by saying it wasn't her fault
because and i quote the king her husband had
taken possession of her territory when she was
drowned in sleep but by this point the you know
the queen's already out for blood pretty bad
huh Man, that's a lot to cover. Anyway, Sleeping
Beauty figures out what's going on once she sees
the bonfire. She comes up with a plan to stall
for time. She asks the Queen if she can take
off her clothes before she's thrown into the
fire because her clothes are covered in gold
and pearls. The Queen says, You can take off
your clothes. I agree. Sleeping Beauty slowly
begins to remove her clothes one by one. Her
robe, her skirt, her bodice. I'm not going to
explain what that is. If you want to know, look
it up. And her shift. Each time she takes off
a garment, she screams loudly. The king bursts
into the room to figure out what's causing all
the screaming and finds his wife about to throw
his mistress into the bonfire. The queen then
tells the king that his children are dead and
he ate them. To which the king replies, you renegade...
Which, I'm gonna say that because it's actually
the other word. What evil deed is this? He orders
his men to throw the queen into the fire instead
of Sleeping Beauty, and after executing his wife,
the king learns that his children are actually
still alive. In retrospect, I feel bad for his
wife. Like, terribly. And it still continues
going. Let me take a short break here so I can
catch my breath. And we'll be right back. All
right, we're back. Let's go ahead and finish
up the rest of this story. Yeah. So the king
and Sleeping Beauty are reunited with their unharmed
children. The king then marries Sleeping Beauty,
forgetting his dead first wife. How sad. And
the family lives happily ever after. In a story
full of rape, cannibalism, and assault. One of
the most disturbing lines comes at the very end
when Basil includes a proverb that serves as
the moral of the story. It goes something like
this. Those who fortune favors finds good luck
even in their sleep. That's right. The moral
of the story, according to Basile, is that sometimes
sleep rape has a happy ending. No wonder Disney
had to completely change the story to make it
less creepy and disgusting. In the original version,
it's not just rape. It's also necrophilia, um,
as well. Let me go ahead and cover this real
quick. In the story of Sleeping Beauty... Most
authors go out of their way to make it clear
that Sleeping Beauty has fallen into an enchanted
sleep, and only the prince can awaken her. Charles
Perrault's version, for example, says that the
princess touched a spindle, and when it ran into
her finger, she fell down in a swoon. The Brothers
Grimm tell a similar story. When Sleeping Beauty
picks up the spindle and pricks herself, she
falls into a deep sleep. But in the original
version by Basile, does not say that Sleeping
Beauty fell asleep. He says that she died. In
Basile's version, it is a flax rather than a
spindle that curses Sleeping Beauty. As the princess
is stretching some flax, rather a splinter of
flax under her nail, and she fell dead upon the
ground. Even Sleeping Beauty's father assumes
she is dead, laying her out in the palace as
if it were basically a tomb. So when the king
sneaks into Sleeping Beauty's castle and has
sex with her, he probably thinks she's dead too.
Which only makes the entire story that much worse.
You know, in retrospect, it doesn't seem all
that bad, but when you think about each aspect
of it, it is terrible. The sad thing about me
telling you this is you'll never be able to look
at Sleeping Beauty the same way ever again. Like
I said, the original version of Sleeping Beauty
is deeply disturbing. The story celebrates a
king who rapes a sleeping woman and lies to his
wife, eventually throwing his wife into a fire
so he can marry his mistress. Now, the scene
in the Disney movie where Maleficent turns into
a dragon and tries to fight Prince Philip looks
a lot different in light of the original story.
Matter of fact, it actually looks a lot nicer
and not so grim. The real villain in the story
isn't actually the queen at all. Obviously, the
rapist necrophiliac who impregnates and abandons
a sleeping princess is the true villain. I mean,
it kind of makes you want to root for the dragon.
It's kind of sad, don't you think? You know?
But, again, like I said, that's one of many stories
that I plan to cover. So. Again, thank you for
listening. This is Food for Thought, Thoughts
If It Were You. I'm your host, Neogentrix. And
today we covered the dark story behind the original,
you know, nice fantasy version that we all know
of, Sleeping Beauty. Next time, in my next podcast,
look forward to, and I'm going to be pretty thrilled
to say this right now, please look forward to
the next dark story of Pinocchio. We're going
to cover the serious truth behind the original
story written behind that one in the next episode.
And as before, I'm your host, Neogentrix. I hope
you enjoy the rest of your day. If you have any
thoughts, concerns, or ideas for future podcasts,
please feel free to send me information, a link,
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day.