In Sleeping Beauty's Bed

by Mitzi Szereto

  Indeed, it surged aggressively forth from beneath the pale paunch of his belly, its stout base surrounded by a dense cluster of leaves that shaded the equally pale flesh of his thighs. The turnip would become so heavy that this devoted tiller of the soil eventually found it difficult to walk, let alone hoe his plantings or climb a ladder or perform any of the normal tasks of daily life. Each time he sat down for a meal, it bumped the underside of the table, upsetting the weathered rectangle of pine along with everything that had been placed upon it. It got so that the farmer had to slide his chair so far back that he could barely reach his plate. Soon the wearing of trousers became an impossibility. He would be forced to either cut away the buttoned flaps at the front or go about trouserless, the latter option proving most distressing whenever a chill wind blew.

  Perhaps the poor brother should not have eaten so many turnip seeds. For what other reason could there have been for this curious phenomenon? The root that sprang out from his overburdened groin eventually grew to be so enormous and cumbersome that, to simply move about on his land, the farmer had to place it atop a cart, which would then be drawn by two strong oxen. Even a trip into the village necessitated a harnessing of the beasts, a fact that probably explained his ever-increasing reluctance to undertake the short journey. The aggrieved fellow did not enjoy being a public spectacle and enduring the titters of tot and parent alike. Yet as the days passed and the size of his leafy burden increased, he began to wonder whether such a seeming misfortune could possibly be turned into an advantage. Although the farmer could likely sell the vegetable at market for a tidy sum, the prospect of making a gift of it to the King held more appeal, for His Majesty’s fondness for turnips was well known. Why, there could be no telling the rewards he might reap from so reverential a gesture!

  So it was that early one morning the turnip farmer harnessed up the pair of exhausted oxen. After carefully situating his weighty impediment inside the wooden confines of the wobbly cart, they set creakily off for the palace. Doubtful as to whether he would even be granted an audience with the King—for indeed, he was only a humble man of the soil—he traveled with greater haste than might have been advisable under the circumstances, overturning the cart and its clumsy cargo several times along the way, to say nothing of causing considerable anxiety to the two oxen. To the farmer’s surprise and delight, the King agreed to receive him immediately, having been informed by his courtiers of the unusual nature of the call. Because the cart and its grunting beasts could not be allowed inside the palace, two of the brawniest courtiers were dispatched to assist the caller with his encumbrance.

  “Many wondrous things have these eyes of ours borne witness to, but never such a monster as this!” squealed the King when the farmer and his turnip were presented to him. “How did this miracle come to pass?”

  The farmer bowed his head reverently, not daring to meet the monarch’s astonished eyes—which gleamed with a brightness rather in excess of the occasion. “It is as much a miracle to His Majesty as it is to me,” he said deferentially in response.

  With a nod, the King indicated for his nervous subject to carry on and the farmer took a deep breath in readiness to put forth his offer. “Unlike my elder brother, I am a poor soldier who has naught but a tiny plot of land upon which to make my meager living. Therefore I would be most honored if His Majesty would accept this turnip as a token of my humble obeisance.”

  “Indeed,” replied the King, his moist, beef-colored lips quirking up in one corner. “Might we be allowed to touch it?”

  “By all means!” effused the farmer, both flattered and embarrassed at the same time. “It is His Majesty’s to do with as he wishes.”

  The King reached forward a be-ringed hand and traced with his fingertips the purple-tinged waxiness of the turnip’s surface, shuddering violently as he did so. Beads of moisture had broken out upon his brow, and he mopped them irritably away with the monogrammed kerchief he kept tucked beneath the cuff of his doublet. “This is truly a most lusty specimen,” he croaked, clearly overcome by a powerful emotion. The farmer flushed with pride and glanced modestly away toward the royal courtiers, all of whom stood silently by wearing knowing smirks upon their normally impassive faces. Suddenly the King grabbed hold of the proffered turnip, his great hands dwarfed by its massive bulk. He began to squeeze it all along its length, as if testing for quality. “We shall be most pleased to accept this fine gift as a token of your loyalty.”

  “His Majesty honors me,” wept the grateful pauper, his breath inexplicably quickening at the touch of the King’s fingers. At that moment he would have bent to kiss the monarch’s feet in appreciation had not the impediment surging out from beneath his belly prevented him from doing so.

  Arising from his throne, the King tapped the kneeling man’s head with his staff. “Thou shalt be impoverished no more.” And with that, he ordered his courtiers to arrange for his turnip-bearing subject to be moved into the palace posthaste.

  The lowly farmer was given the fine suite of rooms adjoining the King’s private apartments, since His Majesty had as yet no queen to inhabit them. As if such luxuries were not reward enough, he also had bestowed upon him large sums of gold as well as the most fertile of green pastures to do with as he pleased. However, the farmer no longer had any need for the tilling of soil or the sowing of seeds. Instead he sat back and watched as his fortune grew and grew in startling conjunction with the growth of the turnip attached to his body, until he discovered that he could no longer leave the sumptuous confines of his quarters. Many a time did he respectfully propose to the King that the turnip be removed, for, upon his initial offering of it, this had been the farmer’s intent. He even used a gold coin to bribe one of the servants to bring him a knife from the palace kitchens so that he might get an advance start on what was certain to be an arduous task. Surely His Majesty should have preferred to have the great root at his full disposal, particularly since his interest in it seemed to center more on the corporeal than the culinary.

  Indeed, the King’s unnatural fixation with the turnip had begun to prove most embarrassing to the simple farmer, who was not at all accustomed to being in the intimate company of such important personages, to say nothing of being party to such curious pastimes as those His Majesty had devised. For whether morning, noon, or evening, the portly monarch insisted upon saddling his doughy posterior atop the turnip, where he commenced to canter up and down, accelerating his movements to a wild gallop, his shouts of “Go, horsy, go!” reverberating all through the palace and broadening the smirks of the royal courtiers. The poor farmer’s scrawny thighs would nearly be pummeled flat beneath the weight of the King, so forcefully and with such enthusiasm did the gleeful sovereign hurl himself down upon his turnip-bearing subject. It would not be until the King had trumpeted his last “Ye-hah!” that he finally leapt off, only to amble unsteadily away from the florid-faced former soldier without so much as even a cursory nod of thanks.

  The farmer’s sudden and undesired position as court stallion further served to convince him that the moment had long since passed for him to remove the cumbersome growth from his body, for what had originally been intended as a gift had now become a curse. Yet no matter how tactfully he put forth the helpful suggestion that the turnip be harvested, His Majesty refused to hear of it. In fact, he went quite red in the face at the mere mention of any type of excision being performed, until the farmer, who dared not risk further offense, was forced to drop the matter.

  News of the poor farmer who had been taken in by the King traveled far and wide, and the prosperous soldier eventually came to hear of his brother’s good fortune, which by this time greatly outrivaled his own. He wondered how the gift of a simple root could stimulate such royal generosity. Why, if his pauper of a brother had been able to gain so much with so little, imagine what a wiser and wealthier man like he himself could do! Therefore he, too, set off for the palace, bringing along with him the shiniest of gold pieces and the swiftest and blackest of st
eeds with which to impress His Majesty, for he had heard that the mighty monarch had become quite the equestrian.

  Although the King accepted these gifts with typical good grace, he replied that he had no item of great value or rarity to offer his generous subject in return. “Nothing?” choked the brother, certain he was being made an ass of.

  Now this set His Majesty to thinking. “Hmm…perhaps there might be one small thing.” The courtiers were then instructed to show the caller into an adjacent room.

  As he waited for his reward, the soldier realized that he occupied the King’s bedchamber. Never had he expected to receive such an honor. Indeed, his riches were trifling compared to the stately opulence he saw all around him. Oriental carpets of varying shapes and shades crisscrossed one another upon the gleaming wood of the floor, each more intricately woven than the next. Tapestries of extraordinary richness and beauty hung from the silk-upholstered walls, relaying tales of bloody battles fought by previous realms. A damask-covered settee fashioned from maple and inlaid with mother-of-pearl had been advantageously situated before a hearth within whose marble borders a fire popped and crackled with merriment, suffusing the soldier with a comforting warmth. Yet most spectacular of all was the place where His Majesty rested his head each night. For directly beneath a soberly executed painting of the mighty King himself was a large four-poster bed, its elaborately carved teakwood encrusted throughout with opals that reflected iridescent rainbows against a coverlet of red velvet.

  And there upon this plush red counterpane lay the soldier’s brother, naked and bleary-eyed with exhaustion, the enormous growth below his belly weighing him to one side. The heavy damask draperies at the window had been drawn back to welcome in the fine spring morning, and streaks of incoming sunlight cast the turnip in stark relief, showing the enormity of its size and the greasy yellow slickness coating its waxen flesh. A porcelain bowl of lard had been conveniently placed upon the bedside table; it was nearly empty.

  Upon seeing the familiar face of his brother, the farmer tried to raise his hand up from the bed in greeting, but even this small effort was too taxing. The opportunistic soldier fled the palace in horror, leaving behind his gold and his horse—and leaving behind, his brother who, upon the death of the King some years hence, would find himself possessing more wealth and commanding more courtiers than he could possibly have use for. Nevertheless, no amount of wealth could free him from the burden he was forced to carry day after day, until at last he was allowed to experience the blissful release of death.

  THE SLEEPING BEAUTY

  “The Sleeping Beauty” can be found in various incarnations worldwide, making it almost as popular as “Cinderella.” Although the names most linked to the story of the sleeping princess are Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm, the tale can be traced to medieval days, with its most essential elements possibly reaching back in history to tribal societies.

  Like “Rapunzel,” “The Sleeping Beauty” is considered a puberty tale, with the young princess also finding herself confined at the age of puberty—a confinement that in primitive cultures would often be imposed on a young girl at the onset of menstruation. Yet instead of having an awareness of her surroundings like her golden-haired counterpart in the tower did, the princess in “The Sleeping Beauty” undergoes a long sleep cast on her by mystical means—an element that may offer further proof of the tale’s primeval origins, for the practice of sleep magic filled the folktales of tribal societies.

  Undoubtedly the most major and, indeed, erotic fore-bear to “The Sleeping Beauty” can be found in Basile’s “Sun, Moon, and Talia.” Rather than the proper prince of later versions, an adulterous king comes upon the sleeping and virginal Talia. Unable to resist her, “…he felt his blood course hotly through his veins in contemplation of so many charms; and he lifted her in his arms, and carried her to a bed, whereon he gathered the first fruits of love….” Having been in a state of sleep, Talia knows nothing of what has transpired. This unawareness of the sex act likely stems from the influence of Christianity, prompting Basile to bestow on the sleeping female an immaculate conception of sorts, for Talia’s ravishment results in the birth of twins whom she calls Sun and Moon. She finally awakens when one of her infants mistakenly suckles her finger, drawing out the fiber from the spindle on which she had pricked her finger. Returning for another pleasurable dalliance, the king comes upon Talia with their children. When his wife (an ogre) discovers the reason for his absences, she plots to gain possession of the twins so that she can have them cooked and inadvertently fed to her philandering husband.

  However, long before Basile put ink onto paper, “The Sleeping Beauty” existed in the story of “Brynhild” from the Volsunga Saga. According to this Old Norse myth, Brynhild falls into an enchanted sleep after being pricked by a thorn, thus preserving her youth and beauty for the man brave enough to make his way through the flames surrounding the castle in which she lies asleep. Despite these parallels to “The Sleeping Beauty” structure, one can locate an even more obvious precursor to Basile in “Histoire de Troylus et de Zellandine” from the fourteenth-century French prose novel Perceforest. Here a prince takes unbridled sexual advantage of the sleeping princess Zellandine, on whom a curse has been laid and levied out by means of a distaff of flax. Having satisfied his desires, the prince abandons her, whereupon Zellandine later awakens to find herself with child.

  Indeed, these copious references to the spinning of flax may have far greater significance to “The Sleeping Beauty” and its historical counterparts than its popular use as a vehicle for the levying of curses. In primitive societies, spinning was considered a sacred female initiation act. It became common practice in some countries for women to expose themselves to the flax and ask it to grow as high as their genitals, for in so doing, the flax would supposedly grow better. Hence spinning came to represent the essence of female life, with all its fertility and sexual implications. It may be that the princess’s inadequacy at spinning was meant to signify her lack of sexual development—a deficiency that would be long gone by the time of her awakening.

  As the French literary tale came into vogue, Charles Perrault would put forth his own version of the princess’s story in “La Belle au Bois Dormant” (The sleeping beauty in the wood). Only this time the protagonist appears somewhat more animated than her predecessors, for “the princess awakened and looked at him [the prince] with fonder eyes than is really proper at first meeting….” Like her folktale ancestors, she, too, gives birth to two children, albeit with far more cognizance of how this phenomenon came about. Of course Perrault would have been all too aware of the inappropriateness of telling a story at the court of Versailles about a married king who sexually ravishes a sleeping maiden, only to leave her pregnant and alone. Instead he continues his story in Basile-like form, in which, on learning of her son’s marriage, the prince’s mother (an ogre) seeks out her grandchildren to eat them and afterward make a meal of her daughter-in-law.

  No doubt the best-known and best-loved version of “The Sleeping Beauty” tale has to be “Dornröschen” (Brier Rose) by the Brothers Grimm. It is here that the princess finds herself charmingly awakened by the famous kiss. Absent of the cannibalistic characters from earlier versions, the brothers departed from their predecessors in other ways as well, excising the sexual content in the story. Yet let it not be said that “Dornröschen” has been rendered barren of the erotic, for the beauty of the princess so stirs the prince that he is inspired to kiss her—a kiss that up until the Grimms had not made an appearance. Perhaps this kiss might be representative of a young woman’s sexual awakening, just as I have chosen to make it in my version in a conspicuously more complex form.

  IN A CASTLE FRINGED BY A MEANDERING river of blue, there resided a King and Queen who spent their days with only the members of their court for company. It would be an arrangement that was not a result of their own choosing, for the couple yearned more than anything to have a child to brighten their empty eyes
and fill the interminable hours of the passing years. Yet with each change of the season, no such child was forthcoming, and a cloud of sadness settled permanently over the castle and its occupants.

  Word of the royal couple’s barren status quickly spread, and an endless succession of wily opportunists came forth to offer their aid. There were those who hailed the reproductive properties of snake oil and others who swore by onion suppositories. Indeed, the poor Queen was nearly at her wit’s end—as was her husband, who did not much care for the odor of onions wafting from his wife’s womanly parts.

  On one unusually warm winter’s morn, the Queen went down to bathe in the river that burbled past the castle. Afterward, while she sat drying herself in the sun, a frog of the brightest and most iridescent green hopped up onto the stony bank beside her. Her initial impulse was to shoo the slimy little creature away lest it be of a mind to wipe its muddy feet upon her queenly flesh. Moreover, its raucous croaking had begun to annoy her, as did the stink of spirits on its amphibious breath. But what transpired next would stay the Queen’s hand as the nonsensical sounds emanating from the frog’s ballooning throat abruptly took on the form of words. “Despair no longer, my good Queen,” croaked the web-footed interloper. “Before the year is through, a daughter shall spring forth from thine imperial loins.”

  “Pray, tell me what I must do to make this so!” the Queen implored, ready to embark upon any means necessary to increase her fertility. Although repeatedly chastised by her husband for being gullible, she found that it made perfect sense that if the frog possessed the ability of speech, it was just as probable it possessed other preternatural abilities as well.