P. L. Travers in Fantasy Land

The volksmärchen (traditional fairy tales), unlike the kunstmärchen (literary fairy tales), exist in a constant state of flux. As they pass from culture to culture, from storyteller to storyteller, they are reshaped retaining, however, the basic mythic truth. There is no definitive version of any tale; it has many authors and many versions. Perhaps the most durable story in this tradition is "The Sleeping Beauty" with its archetypical image of dormant sexuality. Elements of the popular version date from the fourteenth century in the lengthy romance Perceforest. In the "Histoire de Troylus et de Zelladine," the princess Zelladine under the curse of a slighted goddess falls into a deep sleep while spinning and is found by Prince Troylus. This recording is only the germ of the folk tale. The earliest collected version of the complete story is the Neapolitan "Sole, Luna e Talia" ("Sun, Moon and Talia") in Giambattista Basile's Lo Cunto de li Cuenti ("The Tale of Tales," popularly called Pentamerone, 1634-1636). In this version the princess, under a spell induced by a splinter in her finger, is ravished by a young king, a fate similar to one endured by Zelladine at the hands of Troylus. When the princess awakes, she has become a mother. Her illegitimate children are discovered by the king's wife who orders them made into a meal for her husband. Talia, too, is condemned to death. Through the kindness of the cook, the children are saved. Talia is recognized by her lover, and the jealous queen is burned at the stake. The classic retelling of this tale is "La Belle au bois dormant" ("The Beauty in the Sleeping Wood) included by Charles Perrault in Histoires ou contes du temps passé ("Stories or tales of past time," 1697). Perrault did not merely collect old stories; he was a man of letters who argued the superiority of the moderns over the ancients, and like the other authors of fairy tales at the French court, he believed in refining and elevating the old nurse's stories. His fairy tales, dedicated to the young niece of Louis XIV, are free of Basile's earthy humor; Perrault changed the theme of the earlier sleeping princess from that of rape and infidelity to one of patient virginity. Perrault's heroine, blessed by the fairies with beauty, wit and grace, must sleep for a hundred years, like Brynhild, until the proper prince be found. Perrault retained the rest of Talia's tale, though he discreetly introduced a priest who legitimized the two children, and he transformed the jealous wife into an ogress mother-in-law. In the next collected version, "Dornroschen" ("Briar Rose"), of the Grimms' Kinderund Haus-märchen ("Children and Household Tales," 1812-1822) Perrault omitted this episode entirely and concluded the tale with the marriage of the prince and princess. The story has since gone through many transformations, primarily in the popular theater, but the power of those versions by Perrault and that perceptive longforgotten storyteller known to the Grimm brothers has not diminished. The only significant addition to the tale has been the tender conceit of the prince awakening his beloved with a kiss.

Now P. L. Travers, the celebrated creator of Mary Poppins, has published her version of the popular story. About the Sleeping Beauty is a deceptive title. The book is not an analytical study; it is an anthology, containing the new story with an afterword that acts as a defense for presuming to improve on the folk tale and a selection of five stories using the "sleeping beauty" image. No explanation is given for the choice of these particular translations. Why was Margaret Hunt's "Dornroschen" preferred to Edgar Taylor's? Why was Geoffrey Berenton's "LaBelle au bois dormant" chosen rather than Roger Samber's? And why was Perrault's moral in verse dropped from the story? Although the inclusion of these tales (which Ms. Travers feels are over...