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Happy End?

In fairy tales the princess had
No choice at all who shared her bed.

Snowwhite woke from deadly sleep,
Betrothed, engaged and in too deep.

The girl of Rumpelstiltzken's miller
Married her almost would be killer.

And Sleeping Beauty never knew
The guy who cut her roses through.

Blind dating sucks? I hear your curse!
Blind marriage sounds even worse

What an interesting and amusing take on "happily ever after."

I wonder how charming Cinderella's prince really was, much less how caring, selfless, etc.?

And let's not even mention Belle.

Many of the fairy tales don't hold up very well to close scrutiny by a modern eye, do they? And yet they still captivate.

Joy,
Lynn

The way I understood the tale of Beauty and the Beast, Belle at least knew the Beast.

I love fairy tales. As a kid, I never thought too much about the love aspect. But as I read the stories to my kids today, I can only wonder what the life of women had been like in those days.

I mean, Rapunzel was pregnant with twins, when the witch banished her from the tower.

I own an old fairy tale book from 1920(?). There is some pretty hard stuff in there.

Rapunzel was pregnant?! With twins? The witch banished her *from* the tower?

I don't remember much of that fairy tale, but the tidbits I do remember is that for some reason I can't recall, Rapunzel had been forced to live inside a tall tower, and she let down her hair so a prince could climb it and rescue her.

Belle did know the Beast, but (as I recall the tale) only because he kept her captive by threatening to kill her family if she left. Not what I would exactly call ideal husband material there, no matter how nicely he treated her otherwise nor how handsome he looked once the spell wore off.

Were there ever actually any positive, healthy examples of courting and/or marriage in the old tales?

Actually, if you look for the fairytales before the brothers Grimm wrote them down, you’ll often find a completely different story. The ones I have seen were very different to the stories we know.

Actually, I can think of one story that would have the couple being friends before lovers.

Snow white and Rose red

I don't know if that story is commonly known in English speaking countries. Of course Rose Red is married off to the prince's brother (whom she never met before)


And here is a link to Rapunzel - complete with the twins - that part gets censored frequently because of the common "no sex before marriage" policy.
And Rapunzel would also be a good example for courting (assuming the Prince hadn't forced her to sleep with him. ) But since he keeps searching for her for years even though he's blind, one can assume he was a decent guy. And she cried happy tears when she saw him again, so that, too, would point to a healthy relationship.

And here we are again - one night of having trouble with falling asleep and we have an interesting discussion going.

Most of the old European fairy tales were pretty dark by our standards. In one published version, Cinderella's wicked stepmother was enclosed in a casket with iron spikes on the inside and dragged through the streets of the village until she bled to death.

None of this would fly with mid-20th century parents - never mind failing to pass standards of the Hayes office (movie censors) - so Walt Disney and company tidied up the stories for our children's tender sensibilities. After all, this was the company of Mickey Mouse and friends.

There are indeed many versions of the different tales.

I hadn't heard about Snow White and Rose Red until I was in high school, and then it was a much abridged version.

By the way, a movie I highly recommend to anyone who likes fairy tales and musical theatre is Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods. The previous link provides is an audio playlist. You can also see the opening number for the Broadway production here. Without getting too spoilery, I don't want to say much about it lest I spoil it. All I say is that it shows off well Sondheim's brilliance with lyrics.

Joy,
Lynn

I agree, Into the Woods is lots of fun!