Sleeping Beauty

What the frog said did happen, and the queen gave birth to a girl who was so beautiful that the king could not contain himself for joy, and he ordered a great celebration. He invited not only his relatives, friends, and acquaintances, but also the wise women, so that they would be kindly disposed toward the child. There were thirteen of them in this kingdom, but because he had only twelve golden plates from which they were to eat, one

of them had to remain at home. The feast was celebrated with great splendor, and at its conclusion, the wise women presented the child with their magic gifts. The one gave her virtue, the second one beauty, the third one wealth, and so on with everything that one could wish for on earth. The eleventh one had just pronounced her blessing

when the thirteenth one suddenly walked in. She wanted to avenge herself for not having been invited, and without greeting anyone or even looking at them, she cried out with a loud voice, in the princess's fifteenth year, she shall prick herself with a spindle and fall over dead. And without saying another word, she turned around and left the hall.

Every One was horrified, and the twelfth wise Woman, who had not yet offered her wish, stepped forward because she was unable to undo the wicked wish, but only to soften it. She said, it shall not be her death. The princess will only fall into a hundred year deep asleep. The king, wanting to rescue his dear child, issued an order that all the spindles in the entire kingdom should

be burned. The wise Woman's gifts were all fulfilled on the girl, for she was so beautiful, well behaved, friendly and intelligent that anyone who saw her had to love her now. It happened that on the day when she turned fifteen years of age, the King and Queen were not at home, and the girl was all alone in the castle. She walked around from one place to the next, looking into rooms and chambers as her heart desired. Finally she came to an old tower. She climbed up the narrow,

winding stairs and arrived at a small door. In the lock, there was a rusty key, and when she turned it, the door sprang open. There in a small room sat an old woman with a spindle, busily spinning her flax. Good day, old woman, said the princess. What are you doing there? I am spinning, said the old woman, nodding her head. What is that thing that is so merrily bouncing about, asked the girl, taking hold of the spindle,

for she too wanted to spin. She no sooner had touched the spindle when the magic curse was fulfilled, as she pricked herself in the finger the inn that she felt the prick, she fell onto a bed that was standing there, and she lay there in a deep sleep, And this sleep spread throughout the entire castle. The King and Queen, who had just returned home walked into the hall and began falling asleep, and all of their attendants

as well. The horses fell asleep in their stalls, the dogs in the courtyard, the pigeons on the roof, the flies on the wall, and even the fire on the hearth flickered and stopped moving and fell asleep. The roast stopped sizzling. The cook, who was about to pull the kitchen boy's hair for having done something wrong, let him loose and fell asleep. The wind stopped blowing, and outside the castle not a leaf was stirring. In the trees.

Round about the castle, A thorn hedge began to grow, and every year it became higher, until it finally surrounded and covered the entire castle. Finally, nothing at all could be seen of it, not even the flag on the roof. A legend circulated throughout the land about the beautiful, sleeping little briar rose, for so the princess was called. Legends also told that from time to time princes came, wanting

to force their way through the hedge into the castle. However, they did not succeed, for the thorns held firmly together as though they had hands, and the young men became stuck in them, could not free themselves, and died miserably. Many long, long years later, once again a prince came to the country. He heard an old man telling about

the Thorn Hedge. It was said that there was a castle behind it, in which a beautiful princess named Little Briar Rose had been asleep for a hundred years, and with her the King and Queen and all their royal attendants were sleeping. He also knew from his grandfather that many princes had come and tried to penetrate the Thorn Hedge, but they had become stuck in it and died a sorrowful death. Then the young men said, I am not afraid. I will go there and see the beautiful Little Briar Rose.

However much the good old man tried to dissuade him, the prince would not listen to his words. The hundred years had just passed, and the day had come when

Little Briar Rose was to awaken. When the prince approached the Thorn Hedge, it was nothing but large, beautiful flowers that separated by themselves, allowing him to pass without harm, but then behind him closed back into a hedge in the courtyard, he saw the horses and spotted hunting dogs lying there asleep, and on the roof the pigeons perched with their little heads tucked under their wings. When he

walked inside, the flies were asleep on the wall. The cook in the kitchen was holding up his hand as if he wanted to grabbed the boy, and the maid was sitting in front of the black chicken that was supposed to be plucked. He walked further and saw all the attendants lying asleep in the hall, and above them, near the throne, the King and the Queen were lying. He walked on still further, and it was so quiet

that he could hear his own breath. Finally, he came to the tower and opened the door to the room where Little Briar Rose was sleeping. There she lay, and she was so beautiful that he could not take his eyes off her. He bent over and gave her a kiss. When he touched her with the kiss, little Briar Rose opened her eyes, awoke and looked at him kindly. They went downstairs together, and the King awoke, and the Queen and all the royal attendants, and they looked at one

another in amazement. The horses in the courtyard stood up and shook themselves. The hunting dogs jumped and ragged their tails. The pigeons on the roof pulled their heads out from beneath their wings, looked around, and flew into the field. The flies on the walls crept around again. The fire in the kitchen rose up, broke into flames, and cooked the food. The roast began to sizzle once again. The cook boxed the boy's ears, causing him to cry, and

the maid finished plucking the chicken. And then the Prince's marriage to little Briar Rose was celebrated with great splendor, and they lived happily until they died.

A king wants a son more than anything. The gods grant the king's wish, but the seven hath or fates, predict the prince will die suddenly by a crocodile, serpent, or dog. The king builds a royal house in the middle of the mountains to protect his son from his fate. There, the prince grows big and strong. One day, he climbs to the roof and sees a man with a dog. When the prince learns what the animal is, he begs his father for one. Despite the curse, the king acquiesces

and gives the young prince a boar hunting puppy. As the prince becomes a young man, he gets tired of being locked up and petitions his father to travel. The king relents and sends his son out with weapons and his dog. The prince travels north until he comes upon another kingdom. The chief fair has a beautiful daughter who he keeps in a seven hundred foot tower with seventy windows. Her beauty is famed across the land. The chief promised whoever can climb the tower and reach her can have

her hand in marriage. The young prince asks to join the other suitors in the climb, and they agree. As he climbs, he and the maiden lock eyes, and when he reaches the top, she embraces and kisses him. When the chief discovers who reached the top of the tower, he's angry that it was the Egyptian prince, for the prince had told others of how he had left his

kingdom because he was fleeing from his stepmother. I'm unsure if the prince is lying or if this was another reason he wanted to leave his kingdom, because the story doesn't say either way. The chief doesn't want his daughter to marry an Egyptian fugitive. Two times the king tells the prince to leave, and two times the chief's daughter protests. The third time, the chief calls for the prince to meet him. The prince is wary, but the chief receives him with open arms and tells the prince he will

love him as if he were his own son. The prince and chief's daughter Mary. The Egyptian prince then tells the chief and his new wife about his fate, that he will die from a serpent, crocodile, or dog. The wife wants to kill the prince's dog because she's afraid the animal will hurt her new husband, but the prince would not have it. Later, the prince and his bride returned to the prince's home in the mountains. But while the prince has been away, a giant has taken residence

and his royal house. The giant won't let the prince venture out after dark because a crocodile emerges from the river each night. Two months go by, and the prince holds a great feast. Later that same night, after he has gone to bed, his wife sees a serpent rise up to sting the prince. The princess orders a servant to fill a bowl with milk and honeyed wine for the snake to drink from. Once the snake is drunk,

the princess draws her dagger and slays the serpent. Many days later, the prince and his dog take a walk that leads him far from home. The dog catches an animal in flight. The prince chases after them until they reach a river bank. Now, the dog ends up beside the crocodile, but the giant also happens to be there.

The giant bewitches the crocodile so the reptile can't harm the prince, but the crocodile promises that if he and the prince meet again, the prophecy will come true and the prince will meet his doom, and this is where the story ends. No one knows what happens next, and no one ever will, because the end of the tail

was destroyed. The unknown author of the story wrote this tale on a piece of papyrus, which was later stolen by the British when they excavated the tomb of King Into and put it on view at the British Museum under the name Harris five hundred. The sheet contains love poems and another story. Egyptologists have trace a tale back to the Eighteenth Dynasty, which is from fifteen fifty BC to twelve ninety two BC, but part of the scroll was burned off, so the ending of the Doomed Prince

remains one of the greatest mysteries in folklore. This story represents the deep ties the Egyptians had and believing that a person's fate begins at their birth. In fact, one's fate was integral to how they interacted with the world around them, and The Doomed Prince might not seem like a sleeping beauty tale at first glance, but the central theme of agency and escaping one's fate aligned with the

sleeping beauty lineage. It also includes the idea of isolating one's child, although in the prince's case it's for protection, not a curse or punishment. Another story that could be an early sleeping beauty tale comes from Norse mythology. It's from the thirteenth century Icelandic saga called the Saga of the volsungs Valkyrie. Princess Brunhild is tasked to decide the

winner and a war between two kings. She chooses Ognar and kills the other king, but Odin, the ruler of Asgard and father of Thor and Loki, wanted the other king to win. In his anger, Odin strikes Princess Brunhild with a sleeping thorn and puts her in a castle surrounded by fire. However, the princess has the power to modify her punishment and makes it so that only Sigurd can ride through the fire and awaken her with a kiss. When he comes to her, she wakes, and the two

spend three nights together and fall in love. Brunhild's story is a long saga with adventure and betrayal, but this is where we leave her. The slumber in her castle is where her connection to Sleeping Beauty ends. So how did this tale start from a doomed prince and a valkyrie to become the third Disney Princess. Well, the next

story takes our princess down her darkest path yet. Sometime between thirteen hundred and thirteen forty four, an anonymous author wrote a tale called the Story of Troilus and the Beautiful Zelandine. It was written in French and a region of Europe called the Low Countries, which are Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. The story appeared in a multi volume collection called Perciferist. It's in book three where Prince Troylis finds the sleeping Princess Celidine and what happens after he

finds her is horrific. When Zeladeine was a baby, she was cursed by the goddess Themis, who presided over her her birth with two other goddesses. themUS was angered that she wasn't given as nice a knife as the other two, so Themis cast her curse. She said, when Zeladein touched a piece of flax, it would stab her finger and put her into a sleep from which she could not be awakened, but Venus, one of the other two goddesses at the birth, decided to use her powers to save Zeladeine.

There are different interpretations of the next part, but what happens to Zeladeine remains the same. Venus sends Zeladein's love Troilis to save her. He rides a bird to Zeladin's room in the tower. Once there, he finds her asleep naked. Although Troilis is nervous and knows better than to touch a maiden while she sleeps, he reminds himself of the healing power of kisses. He asks the dormant Zeladein if

he can kiss her. With no answer, he proceeds. When she does not wake, he is beside himself, but then the goddess Venus pushes him to have sex with the sleeping Zeladein. At first, Troilis hesitates, but then is overcome with desire. The text says he takes Celandine's quote write to the name of maiden. Afterward, he jumps back on the bird and flies away. Nine months later, Zeladeine gives birth to a son. She wakes up when the baby sucks the splinter out of her thumb. Zeladein and Troilis

are then reunited. Zeladein struggles with guilt but ultimately loves Troilis. I couldn't believe this was a sleeping beauty story. It's so far removed from the Walt Disney film I grew up on. I didn't really care for the Walt Disney film, but still I was horrified to learn Zeladein had been raped, and angry, angry that she wasn't protected, and disgusted that it was another woman who encourage this to happen to her,

regardless of the fact that she's a goddess. Unfortunately, throughout the centuries, sexual assault is common and sleeping beauty tales. It's also typical to have mythic god's encouraging bad behavior among humans or doing it themselves, like in Leda and the Swan, where the Greek god Zeus disguises himself as a swan and rapes and impregnates the human Lina. We don't know who the writer is of Zeladein's story, but

it's apparent they knew rape is wrong. That is made clear from what Troylis says about understanding consent and him feeling bad. There is also part in the story where Zeladein makes a sound while he's raping her and he pulls back ready to act all innocent. This tale stays true to the central themes in many sleeping beauty stories, a lack of agency or inability to escape your fate. In this version, Zeladeine has no say in what happens

to her. As for Toilis, this story presents Venus driving him to override his judgment or to indulge in his lust. It could be interpreted that none of us have agency over our lives, which would make sense considering how strongly people followed religion back in those days. Because a lack of human agency in the face of the supernatural tracks with the Catholic belief systems that govern every part of

life in the Middle Ages. Then in sixteen thirty four, Italian author John Patiste Bazille published Sun, Moon and Talia. His story is similar to Zeladine's, but he treats the rape trope in a less compassionate way. A great lord asks some wise men and astrologers to predict the future of his daughter Talia. They say she will be endangered by the splinter from a piece of flax. The plant used to make linen. The lord then forbade all flax from entering his house. Years later, when the girl is grown,

she sees a woman spinning and is curious. Talia asks the woman to come to her and begins playing with a distaff or spindle and the flax yarn winds around while spinning, but Talia gets a splinter under her nail and immediately falls down dead. The terrified old woman runs away. The lord is so distraught he has his daughter placed upon a bed in one of their country homes and then closes the doors forever. After a time, a king is hunting in the woods when one of his falcons

flies off. He sees the bird fly through a window of a shuttered house, and he uses a ladder to climb through the same window. He doesn't find anyone in the house until he happens upon Talia's body in the parlor. He is so struck by her beauty that he carries her to a bed where he quote gathered the first fruits of love. Then he leaves and thinks nothing of it. Nine months later, Talia gives birth to twins. Fairies try to help the babies find her nipples, but when they can't,

the two babies begin to suck at her fingers. The splinter of the flax comes out, and Talia wakes as if from a long sleep. Upon waking to her two children, Talia finds them dearer to her than her own life.

of Talia, Sun and Moon. The king has a wife who now suspects something isn't right and becomes jealous. She threatens a king's secretary into telling her what's going on. When he does, the queen orders a secretary to go to Talia and ask for Sun and Moon to accompany him back to the kingdom because the king wishes to see them. With great joy. Talia does as she's told. The queen then commands a cook to kill the kids and serve them to the king, but the cook is

tenderhearted and cannot. Instead, he serves two lambs. The Queen's rage isn't satisfied, and she bids a secretary to bring Talia to her under the guise of the king wanting to see her. When Talia arrives, the queen blames her for her husband's misdeeds and has a large fire built in the courtyard for Talia to be thrown into. Before being tossed in the flames, Talia asks if she can at least remove her robes, and the greedy queen says yes,

eyeing the golden pearls from Talia's magnificent gown. As Talia removes each piece, she lets out a scream. Talia lets out the loudest will as she takes off the last piece of clothing. The king arrives as she is about to be tossed into the fires. The king, learning of his queen's misdeeds, tosses her and the secretary into the fire. The cook is spared and rewarded for saving the children. The king marries Talia and the family of four enjoy

their life to the last of their days. The moral Basillie wrote at the end of the story says, those whom fortune favors find good luck even in their sleep. I had such a hard time with this story. It's the first time I found myself crying because what happened to these women is absolutely heartbreaking. But then you add this moral, and what the fuck? This moral is downright andsane. Not only is Basilli's version almost worse because a king

thinks he did nothing wrong, but neither does Talia. If anything, the moral at the end of this tale feels like it's saying Talia should be thankful a king chose to rape her. There is such a different perspective of rape between Basilei and the unknown author. Zeladein's story was about a goddess trying to save her from a curse, although saving someone through the act of rape is just about as messed up as you can get. But as I said previously, there are elements in the story that shows

the characters new rape was wrong. But in Talia's story there is no remorse or anything to elude to rape being considered wrong. Instead, it's used as a way for the king to get his happily. Ever, after all of it is mind boggling, and not in a good way. French author Charles Perrot's story builds off of Bazilli's story, but thank goodness, not in the way you think. In The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, seven resident fairies of a kingdom are invited to celebrate the birth of a princess.

As the bank would start. Another older fairy arrives. No one had invited her because they all thought she was dead or bewitched. The king tries to have a place set for her, but only seven settings had been made. The fairy thinks they slighted her on purpose, so as

her gift, she curses the princess. She says the girl will prick her finger on a spinning wheel and die, But a younger fairy who hid behind a tapestry comes forward changes the curse so that the girl will sleep for one hundred years, at which time a prince will awaken her. When the girl reaches fifteen or sixteen, she is exploring the castle and climbs to the top of a tower, where she comes upon a woman spinning. The young princess pricks her finger on the wheel and falls

into a deep sleep. The seven fairies then put everyone else to sleep except the king and queen, although the story doesn't say why the two were the exception. Within fifteen minutes, a dense forest of brambles and thorns encompasses the castle and hides a sleeping princess and slumbering citizens from prying eyes. One hundred years pass and another king and queen sit on the throne and a different castle. Of course, the prince is hunting when he sees a

tower in the distance. He's heard many rumors about the tower, including one that tells of an ogre capturing children and dragging them into the forest to eat, But when he hears the story of a sleeping princess waiting to be awakened by a prince, he instantly heads that way. Intrigued when he arrives, the thorns and brambles part before him. He makes his way to the top of the tower and sees the beautiful princess. He falls to his knees beside her, and at that moment their curses lifted and

she wakes up. In Pirout's story, the prince does not kiss the princess to break the curse, is it you, dear prince, She says, you have been long in coming. As she slept, the fairies had blessed the princess with pleasant dreams so she would be prepared to meet the prince. The prince, on the other hand, is shy and awkward and not ready for this, but her words are pleasing to him, and the two fall in love. They talk for hours. Meanwhile, the other people in the castle wake up,

and they are hungry. Finally, the two lovers are interrupted and called to dinner. After supper, they marry. When the prince returns to his home the next day, he lies and tells his parents he got lost. His mother doesn't believe him. The prince hides his marriage for the next two years, but his mother notices that he slips away two to three nights a week and is sure he's meeting a lover. During this time, the prince and princess have two kids. The first is a daughter named Dawn.

The second is a boy named Day. The queen keeps trying to get the prince to spill his secret, but he won't. He is scared of his mother, who comes from a line of ogres and has a hard time controlling herself around children. But after two years, the king dies and the prince takes the throne. He then announces his marriage and brings forth his wife and two children. Not long after, the country goes to war and the

new king has to leave for the summer. He entrusts his wife and kids to his mother, the Queen Regent. The queen sends a family to the country to help stifle her cravings, but the next time she visits them, she tells the steward to cook dawn for supper. When it's time to kill the girl, the steward cannot. Instead, the steward's wife hides dawn and he serves lamb to the queen. Eight days later, the queen once again summons a steward. This time she tells him she will eat

day for supper. Again, the steward serves lamb while his wife hides a boy. Then the queen approaches the steward a third time, asking for the princess to be served in the same sauls her children are served in. The steward means to kill the princess, thinking he has no way out, but in the end he cannot. His wife hides her too, and the steward finds another animal to serve the queen la The queen overhears the two children

and the princess. When she learns she has been tricked, she orders a vat to be filled with as many creatures as possible, vipers and toads, and snakes and serpents of every kind. The princess and her two kids are brought out with their hands tied behind their backs. As they are about to be tossed into the vat, the king rides up. He's arrived earlier than expected. At such a turn of events, the queen tosses herself into the vat.

The king is at first upset that he loses his mother, but in the end he finds peace with his wife and beautiful kids. As with Little Red riding Hood, Perrot adds a moral to the end of this story. Too many a girl has waited long for a husband brave or strong. But I'm sure I never met any sort of woman yet who could wait a hundred years, free from fretting, free from fears. Now, our story seems to show that a century or so later, early matters not true love comes by fairy lot. Some old folk will

even say it grows better by delay. Yet this good advice, I fear helps us neither there nor hear. Though philosophers may prate how much wiser tis to wait, maids will be a sighing still young blood must when young blood will. Despite the many adventures throughout the story, Pero's moral was simple.

He advocated to take time falling in love A complete one to eighty from bazile A, I will say, for the time period Perou lived in and wrote his versions of Little Red, Riding Hood and Sleeping Beauty, he was kinder to women than most in an era that wasn't even remotely woman forward. There's discussion on if he was a feminist. Even though he was kinder toward women, his version of feminism was held through the male gaze, which is that women were meant to uphold moral character regardless

of what happened to them. But other than the doomed prince, Perot's tale is the only one not to involve a kiss or rape, or any unconsenting touch to Wig the sleeping Maiden. However, the princess still doesn't have agency, and she still relies on the prince to save her. Once the story made its way to the Brothers Grim, though

the kiss was back. The brothers Grim heard this story through the hausen Fluch sisters, who we learned about in the Little Red riding Hood episode, and the brothers almost rejected adding Sleeping Beauty or Briar Rose as she was called in their version of the tale to their collection. They knew the story was by Perrot and therefore it wasn't German enough, But it was Brunehild's story in the Norse Mythology Saga that convinced the brothers it was authentically German.

Notice how Brunehild and the Egyptian prince had agency in their tales. They might have been cursed, but both took action to change their fates. Not so Frizelendine and Talia, who are fully stripped of all agency. It did not matter what they did, they could not escape their fate. Even though Pirot's story is the kindest to Maidan's, Sleeping Beauty continue to be a passive character through both his and the Grim stories. So the big question now is

has that changed today? On January twenty ninth, nineteen fifty nine, Walt Disney released its third animated Princess film Sleeping Beauty. It was largely based on Perrot's version of the tale, but unlike Cinderella and snow White, we barely see or hear from the Princess Aurora, only eighteen lines and a little less than eighteen minutes of screen time, and of course,

the prince kisses her without consent. To top that off, Aurora doesn't say a word after she has awakened, and again she's powerless over of fate already decided for her. Contemporary versions have also focused on other characters in the story, like we've seen with Rumpel, Stilskin and the Wolf, storytellers focused on the villain and Sleeping Beauty. In twenty fourteen, Disney released the feature length film Molificent, starring Angelina Jolie.

Doctor Claudia Schwabe is a professor of German studies at Utah State University. She says, even though the movie puts the evil fairy in context, it revives similar themes to the medieval tales, including sexual assault.

she even turn evil in the first place. But what's interesting to me is that in this version with Angelina Jolie, she has these big wings, bat like wings, and we have a scene where his name is Stephahn, like she's in love with him and he is allegedly in love with her, but then he decides to cut off her wings, which is metaphoric for rape.

these sessions. The madam refuses, citing the possibility that clients would be worried about blackmail, but Lucy secretly installs one anyway. Spoiler alert. During the final scene, Lucy's very first client returns. This time he drinks the tea with her, but in a much larger dose. The next morning, the madam comes in to find the man dead, but when she tries to wake Lucy and finds her unresponsive, she panics and gives Lucy mouth to mouth. Lucy awakens to find the

naked dead man beside her and screams. The last shot is a still from the hidden camera of a sleeping Lucy and the dead man lying together in the same bed. It's not Truelove's kiss that breaks a curse, but mouth to mouth resuscitation that awakens Lucy to a nightmare. The film is unsettling at best, but it does raise critical questions about the nature of consent. The update does give Lucy agency to find a way to make a living, but at what cost, because at the end of the day,

she's still getting drugged. Sleeping Beauty is dark. In most versions of the tale, the storyteller removes the woman's ability to act in her own interest. She can't speak or move to avenge her father's sins. She can't protest as men do what they want with her. Then she's alive again and grateful to the men that saved her. But doctor Schwabe says that's not necessarily the only way to read it.

past twenty one. She's obsessed with a story Sleeping Beauty and compares herself to the princess. Here's a quote. I used to see Sleeping Beauty as my wildest, most aspirational fantasy, a dying girl who didn't die, a tragedy turned into a romance. But suddenly I saw her as my mere reflection, a girl with a shitty story, a girl whose choices were stolen from her. On Zinia's twenty first birthday, her best friend throws her a sleeping beauty party in an

abandoned tower in their town. Spindle included as a dare. Zinina touches a spindle, but when she does, she's transported back in time into a sleeping beauty tale. In this story, the princess's name is Primrose. Zinnia's arrival interrupts Primrose just as she's about to prick her finger on the spindle. She convinces Primrose that they can change her fate, so the two pack up to find the wicked Fairy and ask her to remove the curse. What they find is

not what they expected. The evil fairy is not evil at all. It's Zelandine, the woman who was raped by her lover. In this adaptation, Zelandine was taken in by the fairies after she woke and learned magic, and ever since she's been trying to help women like herself. Zelandine tells it too that the point of the curse is to save Primrose when she awakens, hopefully it will be during a time that Primrose would have more control over her life. Also in this version, Primrose is queer and

doesn't want to marry the prince. Zelandine tells them she can't remove the curse. Primrose and Zinia returned to the castle as night falls, and Primrose falls under the spell that leads her to the spindle. Zenia follows, hoping she can get back home to her time, but the two are intercepted by the King's guards and Zenia is thrown in jail. In another twist, Zinia falls asleep and travels through the other versions of Sleeping Beauty, calling for help.

Her call is answered by her best friend and two other women, one being Brunehild. The group successfully interrupts Primrose's marriage to the prince, but as the running away, it seems time has run out for Zenia and she passes out. But this is still a fairy tale. Zinia awakens in a hospital room. Her best friend is there. In surprise, so is Primrose. Turns out, Zinia's best friend is primroses

Nidas and shining Armor. And as for Zinnia's disease, it's still there, but all the blockage that had been building for twenty one years is gone. Zinia is still on borrow time, but it's a chance to do things differently. It's a story of hope, of righting wrongs, and a chance for Sleeping Beauty to take charge of her own destiny. It's the closest to a true happy ending I've run across. Sleeping Beauty reminds us how far we've come in terms

of women's agency. Minus the blatantly wrong rape troop. Women were meant to be passive and to rely on men for everything. They were also meant to be thankful, regardless if they were thinking those who hurt them. But we're starting to see modern Sleeping Beauty tales with the princess defying the role she's meant to play. She has agency, and she uses that agency to take fate into her own hands, with or without a prince, and the idea

of having control over one's fate. Well, that's something everybody can relate to. Next time, tall towers are made to be climbed with golden hair. The Deep Dark Woods is a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It was created, written, and hosted by me Miranda Hawkins. This episode was produced by mikel. June was senior producer Gabby Watts. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, Elsie Crowley, and Maya Howard. Stories were voiced by Julia Christgau. Theme song

was composed by Jesse Niswanger. This episode was sound designed and mixed by Chris Childs. If you enjoyed the show, please leave a review and you can follow along with the show on Instagram at School of Humans.