The Wicked fairy is the antagonist of Sleeping Beauty . In some adaptations, she is known as Carabosse. The most notable adaptation of the character is Maleficent , a Disney villain who appeared in various Disney media, beginning with the 1959 Walt Disney film Sleeping Beauty .
In Charles Perrault's Sleeping Beauty , published in 1697 in Histoires ou contes du temps passé , a king and queen celebrate their daughter's christening by inviting seven fairies and giving them each a golden case with a jewelled knife, fork and spoon. However, an eighth, older fairy is forgotten. When she shows up they hastily welcome her but do not have a golden case to give her. Infuriated, the old fairy curses the princess to die from wounding her hand on a spindle. Another fairy mitigates the curse so that the princess will only fall into a deep sleep and the king attempts to protect her by removing all spindles. When the princess is fifteen or sixteen, she meets a spinning woman, pricks her finger on the bodkin, and falls into a deep sleep. [1] [2]
In the Brothers Grimm version, Little Brier-Rose, the king intentionally does not invite the thirteenth fairy (or, depending on translation, a wise woman) because he doesn't have enough golden plates. She shows up at the christening anyway, angry at not being invited. She declares "Because you did not invite me, I tell you that in her fifteenth year, your daughter will prick herself with a spindle and fall over dead". [3]
Some renditions of Sleeping Beauty include a fairy godmother and others do not. There are no fairy godmothers in Sleeping Beauty 's predecessor Sun, Moon, and Talia from Giambattista Basile's Pentamerone (1634). [4] Talia's fate is prophesied by wise men, but her fate is not caused by magic. In the same collection, in The Young Slave , the heroine Lisa is raised by fairies. All of them give gifts to Lisa, but one twists her ankle and curses Lisa to "die" via a comb in her hair.
The French romance Perceforest , which dates to at least 1528 and probably earlier, features a segment similar to Sleeping Beauty. The aunt of the newborn Zellandine is given the task of setting a table with food for three goddesses: Venus, Lucina, and Themis. These goddesses oversee the birth and bless the child, much like the Fates of mythology. However, Themis's knife accidentally falls under the table. Not seeing it, and thinking she has been left out, Themis curses Zellandine to prick her finger with spinning flax and fall asleep forever. Venus softens the curse so that Zellandine's lover can wake her. [5]
The figure of an insulted fairy seems to have originated outside this story type. In the 13th-century French play Le Jeu de la Feuillée by Adam de la Halle, a table is set for three fairies named Morgue, Arsile and Maglore. Morgue and Arsile are pleased and bestow blessings of good fortune on the men who set the table, but Maglore is angry that her place is missing a knife and curses the men with bad fortune. [6] Katharine Briggs suggests that this is "the model for all subsequent fairies' visits." [7]
Similarly in the early 13th century, in the chanson de geste Les Prouesses et faitz du noble Huon de Bordeaux , the dwarf-sized elf-king Oberon explains to Huon that an angry fairy cursed him to that size at his christening after she felt she was not honoured as well as the other fairies there. [8]
Other wicked fairy godmothers appeared in unrelated tales. Several features in the stories of Madame d'Aulnoy, who invented the term fairy tale. These include The Hind in the Wood, [9] The Princess Mayblossom (where a wicked fairy named Carabosse curses an infant princess with unhappiness, due to an old grudge against the princess's father) and The Blue Bird (where the villain's fairy godmother is named Mazilla). In Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force's Fairer-Than-A-Fairy (1698), a cruel fairy queen is named Nabote. In the Chevalier de Mailly's Fairer-Than-A-Fairy, a malicious old fairy named Lagrée kidnaps the heroine.
Some folklorists have analyzed Sleeping Beauty as indicating the replacement of the lunar year (with its thirteen months, symbolically depicted by the full thirteen fairies) by the solar year (which has twelve, symbolically the invited fairies). This, however, founders on the issue that only in the Grimms' tale is the wicked fairy godmother or the thirteenth fairy; in Perrault's, she is the eighth fairy. [10]
The wicked fairy godmother is widely spoofed, parodied, and used in revisionist fairy tales. In Andrew Lang's Prince Prigio , the queen, who does not believe in fairies, does not invite them; the fairies come anyway and give good gifts, except for the last one, who says that he shall be "too clever"—and the problems with such a gift are only revealed later. In Patricia Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles , a princess lamented that she was not cursed at her christening because the fairy danced with her uncle and enjoyed herself instead of getting angry.
George MacDonald's fairy tale Little Daylight plays with the concept of the last fairy mitigating the curse: the swamp fairy adds more conditions claiming that she was interrupted before she was done, but the other fairies had wisely kept a second fairy in reserve, who is then able to change the curse. Another of MacDonald's stories, The Light Princess , features a similar character in the king's sister, Princess Makemnoit, who is not invited to his daughter's christening. Makemnoit arrives without an invitation and curses the princess for having no gravity. It is discovered that water makes the princess regain her gravity, so Makemnoit drains the water from the lake, making even the rain cease and babies cry no tears. Makemnoit eventually meets her fate when her house is undermined by the waters and falls in, drowning her.
"Sleeping Beauty", also titled in English as The Sleeping Beauty in the Woods, is a fairy tale about a princess cursed by an evil fairy to sleep for a hundred years before being awakened by a handsome prince. A good fairy, knowing the princess would be frightened if alone when she wakes, uses her wand to put every living person and animal in the palace and forest asleep, to awaken when the princess does.
Maleficent is a fictional character and the main antagonist who first appears in Walt Disney Productions' animated film, Sleeping Beauty (1959). Maleficent is the self-proclaimed "Mistress of All Evil" based on the evil fairy godmother character in Charles Perrault's fairy tale Sleeping Beauty, as well as the villainess who appears in the Brothers Grimm's retelling of the story, Little Briar Rose. Maleficent was originally animated by Marc Davis.
In fairy tales, a fairy godmother is a fairy with magical powers who acts as a mentor or parent to someone, in the role that an actual godparent was expected to play in many societies. In Perrault's "Cinderella", he concludes the tale with the moral that no personal advantages will suffice without proper connections.
Prince Charming is a fairy tale stock character who comes to the rescue of a damsel in distress and must engage in a quest to liberate her from an evil spell. This classification suits most heroes of a number of traditional folk tales, including "Snow White", "Sleeping Beauty", "Rapunzel" and "Cinderella", even if in the original story they were given another name, or no name at all.
Sleeping Beauty is a 1959 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by Buena Vista Film Distribution. Based on Charles Perrault's 1697 fairy tale, the production was supervised by Clyde Geronimi, and was directed by Wolfgang Reitherman, Eric Larson, and Les Clark. Featuring the voices of Mary Costa, Bill Shirley, Eleanor Audley, Verna Felton, Barbara Luddy, Barbara Jo Allen, Taylor Holmes, and Bill Thompson, the film follows Princess Aurora, who was cursed by the evil fairy Maleficent to die from pricking her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel. She is saved by three good fairies, who alter Aurora's curse so that she falls into a deep sleep and will be awakened by true love's kiss.
The Sleeping Beauty is a ballet in a prologue and three acts to music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, his Opus 66, completed in 1889. It is the second of his three ballets and, at 160 minutes, his second-longest work in any genre. The original scenario was by Ivan Vsevolozhsky after Perrault's La belle au bois dormant, or The Beauty Sleeping in the Forest; the first choreographer was Marius Petipa. The premiere took place at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg on January 15, 1890, and from that year forward The Sleeping Beauty has remained one of the most famous ballets of all time.
Spindle's End is a retelling of Sleeping Beauty by author Robin McKinley, published in 2000.
The Light Princess is a Scottish fairy tale by George MacDonald. It was published in 1864 as a story within the larger story Adela Cathcart. Drawing on inspiration from "Sleeping Beauty", it tells the story of a princess afflicted by a constant weightlessness, unable to get her feet on the ground, both literally and metaphorically, until she finds a love that brings her down to earth.
The Princess Mayblossom is a French literary fairy tale written by Madame d'Aulnoy in 1697. Andrew Lang included it in The Red Fairy Book.
The White Doe or The Doe in the Woods is a French literary fairy tale written by Madame d'Aulnoy. Andrew Lang included it in The Orange Fairy Book.
Aurora, also known as Sleeping Beauty or Briar Rose, is a fictional character who appears in Walt Disney Productions' animated film Sleeping Beauty (1959). Originally voiced by singer Mary Costa, Aurora is the only child of King Stefan and Queen Leah. An evil fairy named Maleficent seeks revenge for not being invited to Aurora's christening and curses the newborn princess, foretelling that she will prick her finger on a spinning wheel's spindle and die before sunset on her sixteenth birthday. Merryweather, one of the three good fairies, weakened the curse so Aurora would only sleep. Determined to prevent this, three good fairies raise Aurora as a peasant in order to protect her, patiently awaiting her sixteenth birthday—the day the spell can only be broken by a kiss from her true love, Prince Phillip.
Le Serpentin Vert is a French fairy tale written by Marie Catherine d'Aulnoy, popular in its day and representative of European folklore, that was published in her book New Tales, or Fairies in Fashion, in 1698. The serpent is representative of a European dragon. His description is: "he has green wings, a many-coloured body, ivory jaws, fiery eyes, and long, bristling hair."
Sleeping Beauty is a 1987 American/Israeli fantasy film, part of the 1980 film series Cannon Movie Tales. It is directed by David Irving and stars Tahnee Welch, Morgan Fairchild, Nicholas Clay and Sylvia Miles. It is a contemporary version of the classic tale of Sleeping Beauty of the Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault. Like the other Cannon Movie Tales, the film was filmed entirely in Israel.
Maleficent is a 2014 American fantasy film starring Angelina Jolie as the title character in a live-action retelling of her villainous role in Walt Disney's 1959 animated film Sleeping Beauty, itself an adaptation of Charles Perrault's 1697 fairy tale. The film is directed by Robert Stromberg from a screenplay by Linda Woolverton. It also stars Sharlto Copley, Elle Fanning, Sam Riley, Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple, and Lesley Manville in supporting roles.
Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather are the three good fairies in Walt Disney's 1959 film Sleeping Beauty. They are characterized as Princess Aurora's fairy godmothers and guardians, who appear at baby Aurora's christening to present their gifts to her. The three were voiced by Verna Felton, Barbara Jo Allen, and Barbara Luddy, respectively.
Sleeping Beauty is a Disney media franchise that began in 1959 with the theatrical release of the animated film Sleeping Beauty, based on the homonymous fairy tale.
The Witch is a 1906 French short silent film by Georges Méliès. The film is named for a witch, Carabosse, who tells a poor troubadour that he is destined to rescue a damsel in distress, but demands a high price for a magic charm to help the troubadour in his quest. When the troubadour cheats the witch to obtain the magic charm, she sets out in pursuit of him, and puts various obstacles in his way before finally being vanquished by forces of good.
Fractured Fables is a series of fantasy novellas written by Alix E. Harrow. The series currently comprises two novellas: A Spindle Splintered (2021) and A Mirror Mended (2022). The series explores fairy tales from a modernist and feminist perspective. Both novellas have received critical acclaim.
Thornhedge is a 2023 novella by Ursula Vernon, writing under the pen name T. Kingfisher. The novella is a reimagining of the story of Sleeping Beauty. It won the 2024 Hugo Award for Best Novella and 2024 Locus Award for Best Novella.
| Theatre |
|
|---|---|
| Variants | |
| Retellings | |
| Films |
|
| Music |
|
| Characters | |
| Related | |
