2. Comparing texts (reading)

Students love fairy tales; in this activity they are asked to remember their favorite one, and then they are asked to read this extract, in order to make them guess which fairy tale is:

"The Queen had a daughter. There was a very fine christening; and the Princess had for her godmothers all the fairies they could find in the whole kingdom (there were seven of them), so that every one of them might confer a gift upon her, as was the custom of fairies in those days. By this means the Princess had all the perfections imaginable."

(THE SLEEPING BEAUTY)

Do you think this version is suitables for children? Has this story any good lesson?

Now it's time to read the original one, by the Grimm Brothers...



‘THE SLEEPING BEAUTY IN THE WOODS’, GRIMM BROTHERS.

"Wise men warned the great King that his daughter Talia was in 

grave danger- there was a poison in the palace’s flax. A ban was put 

on flax but as expected, Talia still ran across a splinter while spinning 

flax on the flax-spinning wheel. In great despair, the king placed her 

sleeping (or dead) body on a velvet clothe and left her in the forest.

Some time later, a rich nobleman was hunting in the woods when 

he ran across the abandoned body of Sleeping Beauty. Far from 

planting a kiss, the nobleman instead raped her sleeping body, from 

which resulted a pregnancy. Nine months later, Sleeping Beauty gave 

birth to two children (and named them Sun and Moon) and the forest 

fairies took care of them while Sleeping Beauty continued her slumber. 

Whilst placing the babes to Sleeping Beauty’s breasts, one of the 

children accidentally mistook her thumb for a nipple and sucked out 

the poison splinter. Talia awoke her deep sleep.

Months later, the nobleman decided to return to the woods to 

have more sex with Sleeping Beauty’s body when to his surprise, he 

found her awake. The nobleman confessed that he raped her and they 

again had sex in the barn. The nobleman then returned home to his 

wife.

The nobleman’s wife found out about the sexual encounter and 

ordered the children be kidnapped and cooked alive. The cook 

prepared the fiendish disk and served it to the rich nobleman at his 

dinner. As the nobleman finished his meal, the wife boldly announced 

“you are eating what is your own!”. Alas, as it turns out, the cook had a 

soft heart and instead of killing and cooking the children, he 

substituted a goat instead. Talia and the children and her rapist new 

love interest lived happily ever after."

Do you find any differences with the Disney version and the original one? Write them down and share with your partners.

Is this version suitable for children? Discuss.