A Long Sleep Among the Pillows

About this drawing

A sleeping beauty with roses points to the version of this tale from the Brothers Grimm, who called it Little Briar Rose. But this story is far older than their 1812 collection, and its earlier forms take some eye-opening turns.

One of the first full tellings came from Giambattista Basile in seventeenth-century Naples, and it is definitely not bedtime reading. Charles Perrault gave France a much more polished version in 1697. His has the christening, the offended fairy, and the kind fairy who softens the curse from death to a hundred years of sleep. It also keeps going after the wedding, when the prince's mother turns out to be an ogress. Most modern retellings quietly leave that part out.

The Grimms supplied the image we remember. In their tale, a thorny hedge grows around the castle and turns into blooming roses when the hundred years are up. That hedge gave the princess her name and tied her to the flower for good.

Tchaikovsky turned the story into one of ballet's biggest productions in 1890, and American companies still stage it often. Why has it lasted? Part of the appeal is simple. Almost everybody has wished they could sleep through something hard and wake up when it is over. A hundred years is a bit much, but the idea is easy to understand.

• fairy tales
• princesses
• roses
• sleep