Little Red Riding Hood: the real story

Of all the folk tales that the Middle Ages has bequeathed to us, and even further back, that of Little Red Riding Hood is that it has suffered the most severe mutilations from commentators, compilers and, of course, the icy and abstruse Walt Disney.

The story, until the scene where the wolf is dressed in the clothes of the grandmother, is more or less the same as the medieval children knew. The differences are given from this point. But first let's review a bit of history.

The first compiler to rescue the story of Little Red Riding Hood was Charles Perrault, who included it in his anthology of popular stories in 1697. Contrary to what happens with other traditional stories, such as Sleeping Beauty or Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood was not a story very widespread in Europe. Moreover, it was known in a fairly closed area, ranging from the north of the Alps to the Loire region. In 1812 the Brothers Grimm rewrote history, especially the end, and that is the version that is known today; a version, incidentally, very different from the real Red Riding Hood.

It is not surprising that the Brothers Grimm have modified the original story, the strange thing is that they have been based on a dark work by Ludwig Tieck called Life and Death of the Little Red Riding Hood (Leben und Tod des kleinen Rotkäppchen); tragedy that includes the presence of the woodcutter, absent in the popular story.

Perhaps not to scare away the fearful parents of the early nineteenth century, the Brothers Grimm eliminated all the erotic elements of the story and planted a happy ending, in addition to sweeping everything that does not support the purity and innocence of Little Red Riding Hood. The summary: the end of the story in the version of Jabob and Wilhelm Grimm are saved absolutely all, except the wolf, of course; whose guts are opened by the skillful woodcutter, returning the grandmother to her daily routine.

Let's go to an analysis of the story.

According to Aarne-Thompson's classification of folktales, Little Red Riding Hood enters the category 333, that is, stories that present a supernatural opponent. It is important that we erase from our minds the idea that folktales served as a warning to children about the dangers of the forest, for that a good reprimand was enough. Folk tales have another function, much more important for the people than the peoples have understood. As we see it today, the protagonist of Little Red Riding Hood is, clearly, Little Red Riding Hood, but this is not the case. The mistake, if you can call it that, is Disney's insistence on achieving children's empathy with history. Essentially, Little Red Riding Hood is an important character, a trigger through which the real tragedy happens, but by no means is it the only one. There are even very old versions in which it is mentioned in passing, like that traditional Italian tale called La finta nona, that is, La Falsa Abuela, in which case the young Little Red Riding Hood is an almost decorative element.

The true story of Little Red Riding Hood holds two central elements:

1) The taboo of cannibalism.

2) The embers of the old Nordic religion.

Little Red Riding Hood, Rotkäppchen, Little Red Cap, Le Petit Chaperon Rouge, Little Red Riding Hood, are variables of this trigger. If we had access to some extravagant time machine, and we could witness the storyline of Little Red Riding Hood first-hand, we would hear a completely different story from the one we know. There, the wolf would swallow the old woman, as she does today, but leave on the table a juicy banquet made with the flesh and blood of the grandmother, which the innocent Little Red Riding Hood devours voraciously, perhaps intuiting its illicit origin. Then, dressed in the clothes of the occide, and after a dialogue with many variants, the wolf would pass to taste the trembling flesh of Little Red Riding Hood; moment in which a hunter, who hears the heartrending cries of the young woman, enters the room, kills the wolf and opens the stomach with a knife, returning the young woman to the world of the living.

Now, this death and rebirth of Little Red Riding Hood speaks to us about something very old in the human race: the rite of initiation.

Little Red Riding Hood in the forest, in the house and in the stomach of the wolf, are symbols of the three phases of initiation into adulthood; by which a girl leaves her home-mother, community, civilization-runs through a wilderness-the forest-faces the most sinister of the human heart-cannibalism, anthropophagy-and defeats the worst of the enemies in the womb of the wolf - death.

But in addition to pointing out these archetypal topics, Little Red Riding Hood also symbolizes the awakening of sexuality. Their red clothing testifies to the beginnings of sexual maturity, and the wolf, anthropomorphized to soften the devastating effects of this transit, is perhaps a symbol of wild sex, of primitive sexuality, while the hunter, on the other hand, represents sex within civilization, that is, within a functional marriage to society; whose ultimate goal is to procreate, and not the idle release of the instincts.

These psychological and anthropological interpretations are rigorously true, but behind Little Red Riding Hood lies a perhaps more transcendental motive, and one that exceeds regional considerations on sex and adulthood. If we were to ride on that imaginary time machine, and retrocediésemos further, leaving behind the Middle Ages, we would see that the story of Little Red Riding Hood retains elements of Norse religion, hidden but clearly recognizable by the scholar-and lover of mythology Nordic.

The transition in the belly of an animal is a classic motif. We see it even in the biblical story of Jonah and the whale. The belly is, as we have said, an area of ​​transition, but doubly symbolic, since we all come from a womb and there we will go - the grave, belly of the world. Being swallowed by an animal is a return to intrauterine life, perfect and idealized life, but with a new, allegorical sense, perhaps, for which this new belly nourishes a completely different awakening. Life in the wild womb proposes a latent state, by which the individual will emerge changed. It will no longer be the same, like Little Red Riding Hood, which emerges from the belly of the wolf turned into a woman.

In the Norse narrative of Þrymskviða we see that the giant Þrym steals the hammer of Thor, called Mjolnir, for whose rescue he asks for the hand of the goddess Freyja (whose name is preserved in the word Friday Friday, or Freyja's day). Thor, scandalized, weaves a stratagem: he dresses in Freyja's bridal costume and tricks the giant. The dialogue between Thor and Þryms is textually identical to that of Little Red Riding Hood with the wolf, which throws a diffuse light on the true genital identity of the girl.

Going further back, crossing the dark tides of time, we could say that the story of Little Red Riding Hood also preserves elements of the solar myth. The grandmother represents the sunset, the dying light of twilight devoured by the darkness of the night -the wolf-, and the young woman symbolizes the light of dawn, which emerges from the wolf's belly like the sun that tears the veils of the night. Mythologically speaking, the wolf would be nothing less than Skoll, that huge wolf of the Norse tradition, whose destiny is to devour the sun in the battle of Ragnarok, or Fenrir, that wolf with iron jaws that falls in the apocalypse under the implacable hammer of Thor.

It is curious how mythology is diluted in popular tradition, lost and reborn under a new conception. A gigantic wolf turns into a petty lycanthrope, the God of the Hammer, quick for anger and friendship, becomes a poacher in the forests of France, and the new world, regenerated, free from the harassment of demons and ice giants, it mutates in the delicate and ambiguous forms of a girl, who, like the reddish light of dawn, adorns her head with the color of the rising sky.

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Art Classical Poetry II

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Art Classical Poetry I

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"The Swan Lake" 500 Words Story III

Prince Siegfried arrives at his 21st birthday celebration on the palace courtyards to find all of the royal families and townspeople dancing and celebrating, while the young girls are anxiously seeking his attention. During the exquisite celebration, his mother gives him crossbow and informs him that because he is of age now, his marriage will be arranged quickly. Hit with the sudden realization of his future responsibilities, he takes his crossbow and makes up to the woods with his hunting buddies.

Getting ahead of the group, Prince Siegfried finds himself a peaceful spot by an enchanted lake where swans gently float across its surface. While Siegfried watches, I spotted the most beautiful swan with a crown on its head. His buddies soon catch up, but he orders them to leave so he can be by himself. As dusk falls, the swan with the crown turns into the most beautiful young woman he has ever seen. Her name is Odette, the Swan Queen. She informs the young prince that an evil sorcerer, Von Rothbart, who so happened to be disguised as Prince Siegfried's mentor, has turned her and the other girls into swans and that the lake was formed by the tears of their parents' weeping. She tells him that the only way the spell could be broken is if a man, pure in heart, pledges his love to her. The Prince, about to confess his love for her, is quickly interrupted by the evil sorcerer. He takes Odette from Prince Siegfried's embrace and commands all of the swan maidens to dance on the lake and its shore so that the prince can not chase them. Prince Siegfried is left alone on the shore of Swan Lake.

The next day at the formal celebration in the Royal Hall, Prince Siegfried is presented with many prospective princesses. Although the princesses are worthy of his attention, I can not stop thinking about Odette. His mother commands him to choose a bride, but he can not. For the mean time, I have met his mother's request by at least dancing with them. While the prince is dancing, trumpets announce the arrival of Von Rothbart. He brings his daughter, Odile, on whom I have cast spell to appear as Odette. The prince is captivated by her beauty as he dances with the imposter. Unbeknownst to Prince Siegfried, the true Odette is watching him from a window. The prince soon confesses his love to Odile, thinking that she is Odette. To Odette's horror, she flees into the night. Prince Siegfried sees the real Odette fleeing from the window and realizes his mistake. Upon his realization, Von Rothbart reveals to the prince the true appearance of his daughter Odile. Prince Siegfried quickly leaves the party and chases after Odette.

Odette has fled back to the lake and joined the rest of the girls in sadness. Prince Siegfried finds them gathered at the shore consoling each other. I have explained to Odette the trickery of Von Rothbart and she grants him her forgiveness. It is not long before when Von Rothbart and Odile appear in their evil, un-human, somewhat bird like forms. Von Rothbart tells the prince that he must stick to his word and marry his daughter. A fight quickly follows. Prince Siegfried tells Von Rothbart that he would rather be with Odette than to Marry Odile. He then takes Odette's hand and together they jump into the lake. The spell is broken and the remaining swans turn back into humans. They quickly drive Von Rothbart and Odile into the water where they, too, drown. The girls watch the spirits of Prince Siegfried and Odette ascend into the heavens above Swan Lake.

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Cathars - The Pure

Around the year 1,150 some strange bearded missionaries appeared on the roads of the Languedoc, in the South of France ... They used to travel in pairs, dressed in black or navy blue, with a rope girdle.

They preached to the humble in the squares and markets, in the villages and in the cities without avoiding the mansions of nobles or merchants.

They spread a message of love, tolerance and freedom and confessed Christians but rejected the church in Rome.

The Cathar doctrine was much more attractive than the Catholic one who constantly threatened the hell for the most insignificant faults. They were more optimistic and tolerant of human weaknesses ... although they also had certain views of reality that could certainly be criticized. The Cathars (katharoi = "pure") were declared heretics ... they were clear about it.

Pope Innocent III negotiated unsuccessfully with them and consequently organized a crusade of twenty thousand horsemen and forty thousand men who concentrated on Lyon. On July 22 of the year 1,209 they decided to put an end to the components of that group that were in Beziers.

They were assailed by a question that they asked the pope's delegate:

How will we know how to differentiate Catholics from heretics among the population? - "Kill them all, God will already recognize their own..."

The massacres continued in many other places until the year 1243. At that time the Cathars took refuge in the strongholds of the region.

Among them the one of MONTSÉGUR became famous, in the department of Ariège (France). A small castle built on the steep Tabo mountain, at an altitude of 1272 meters. An impregnable position, surrounded by precipices.

In March of 1243 the seneschal of Carcassonne, Huges de Arcis, received the order to end with "the head of the dragon". Some ten thousand men besieged Montségur ... in the end he surrendered. Under the conditions of surrender, the members of the heresy were required to abjure their error in a public act.

215 Catharos refused to do so and were burned in the plain that extends at the foot of the mountain. The place where the great pyre rose is known since then as Campo de los Quemados.

The castle of Montségur has become for half a century the symbol of the resistance, passion and death of the faithful Cathars. Today, it constitutes a point of reference for European esoteric thinking and every year, a crowd of people interested in these issues make a pilgrimage to it.

On the day of the Spring Solstice, the first rays of the sun penetrate through a loophole and leave through the opposite side, crossing the castle. Chance or causality? We have already served the mystery ...

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The Kingdom of Shambhala

In Tibetan Buddhist tradition, Shambhala (or Shambala) is a mystical kingdom hidden somewhere beyond the snow peaks of the Himalayas. It is mentioned in various ancient texts including the Kalachakra and the ancient texts of the Zhang Zhung culture which pre-dated Tibetan Buddhism in western Tibet. The Bon scriptures speak of a closely-related land called Olmolungring.

Shambhala in the Buddhist Kalachakra Teachings

Buddha prophesized that all who received the Kalachakra empowerment would take rebirth in its mandala of consciousness. 

The Kingdom of Shambhala takes a central place in the Kalachakra teachings. Shambhala (Tib. bde ’byung) is a Sanskrit term meaning place of peace/tranquility/happiness. Shakyamuni Buddha is said to have taught the Kalachakra tantra on request of King Suchandra, also the teachings are said to be preserved there. Shambhala is said to be a society where all the inhabitants are enlightened, centered around a capital city called Kalapa. War and injustice are said to be unknown there, and it is said to be peopled by beautiful women and men dwelling in magnificent abodes. 

Shambhala is ruled over by the Kulika or Kalki (Tib. Ridgen) King, a benevolent monarch who upholds the integrity of the Kalachakra tantra. Religious scholars believe that this figure developed out of the myth of the Hindu conqueror Kalki, a similar personage. The Kalachakra prophesizes that when the world declines into war and greed, and all is lost, the twenty fifty Kalika king will emerge from Shambhala with a huge army to vanquish the corrupt world rulers and usher in a worldwide Golden Age. Some scholars put this date at 2424 AD. 

As with many concepts in Vajrayana Buddhism, the idea of Shambhala is said to have an ’outer,’ ’inner,’ and ’secret’ meaning. The outer meaning understands Shambhala to exist as a physical place, although only individuals with the appropriate karma can reach it and experience it as such. There are various ideas about where this society is located, but it is often placed in central Asia, north of Tibet. The inner and secret meanings refer to more subtle understandings of what Shambhala represents, and are generally passed on orally. 

Western Fascination with Shambhala 

During the nineteenth century, Theosophical Society founder H.P. Blavatsky alluded to the Shambhala myth, giving it currency for Western occult enthusiasts. Later esoteric writers further emphasized and elaborated on the concept of a hidden land inhabited by a hidden mystic brotherhood whose members labor for the good of humanity.

The myths of Shambhala were part of the inspiration for the tale of Shangri-La told in the popular book Lost Horizon, and thus some people even refer to Shambhala improperly as if it were a Shangri-La. Shambhala’s location and nature remains a subject of much dispute, and several traditions have arisen as to where it is, or will be, including those that emphasize it as a non-physical realm that one can approach only through the mind.

Ancient Zhang Zhung texts identify Shambhala with the Sutlej Valley in Himachal Pradesh. Mongolians identify Shambala with certain valleys of southern Siberia. Beginning in the 1960s, various occult writers have sought to explain the evil of Nazism by suggesting Adolf Hitler tapped into the malevolent forces of Shambhala when he sent Ahnenerbe researchers to Tibet to measure Tibetan skulls as part of his master race justifications. Also known that Josef Stalin organized an expedition to find Shambala. 

Western Esoteric Traditions 

Madame Blavatsky, who claimed to be in contact with a Great White Lodge of Himalayan Adepts, mentions Shambhala in several places without giving it especially great emphasis. (The Mahatmas, we are told, are also active around Shigatse and Luxor.) Blavatsky’s Shambhala, like the headquarters of the Great White Lodge, is a physical location on our earth, albeit one which can only be penetrated by a worthy aspirant.

Later esoteric writers like Alice Bailey (the Arcane School) and the Roerichs (Agni Yoga) do emphasize Shambhala. Bailey transformed it into a kind of extradimensional or spiritual reality. The Roerichs see its existence as both spiritual and physical. 

Related "hidden land" speculations surrounding the underground kingdom of Agartha led some early twentieth-century occultists to view Shambhala as a source of rather negative manipulation by an evil (or amoral) conspiracy. Nevertheless, the predominant theme is one of light and hope, as evidenced by James Redfield’s and Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s respective books by that name. 

In Neo-Nazi mysticism, Shambhala is sometimes supposed to be the place to which Adolf Hitler fled after the fall of the Third Reich. Hitler was known to have an interest in the myth of Shambhala and in "eastern mysticism" generally, from which he appropriated the swastika. 

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The Truth about Samson's "Incredible Strength"

We all know the story of Samson and his force, supposedly a guy who was very very powerful in a natural way.

And they also say that his Force took his out of his long hair, and that if it were cut the guy would lose all his strength, all his power.

We know that having long hair does not give you powers like those of Sansón, so here is something very strange.

Being a story with a "mythical" tone, everyone thinks "ahh is a fable of tanntas that there are" or else they will say "maybe it has existed but that sure force was supernatural or some kind of unknown magic" But not...

To start, you have to talk about the semen, the human sperm. It is known that, when a person does not go to bed or have sex for a while, his energy rises greatly.

When we spend time without ejaculation, "something" in us makes us more energetic, more active, with a power, a strange force, an excitement, an impressive sexual energy, and how we are trained to be anxious and are surrounded by provocative women with their clothes, on TV, on the internet, everywhere, the first thing we do is: more.turbar or have sex.

What leads to ejaculation.

When ejaculation we feel dull, tired, exhausted, "something" is gone, "something" that we do not know what is we went out, and although we have the ability to return to have another relationship / masturbation, the power is not the same , a large amount of energy was lost.

So, if the retention of energy gives us energy, and if we lose consciousness, we feel tired and lose energy, it means that the esper.ma has that "something" that we did not know what it was.

It is the Sperm that has that Power, that Energy, that Force.

When we waste the semen, we lose a lot of nutrients that it brings to the body. We lose a lot of very useful cells for our brain, mainly. Also, among other things, it weakens our hair a lot, and also to our spiritual state because when we ejaculate we feel depressed and with a lost look for several moments.

It is Totally Lie, an infernal aberration that they say that to retain the semen "you explode the testicles"; it is an aberration to wisdom, a total fallacy, never could explode any internal organ to retain the semen, on the contrary, the body and brain, mainly, will thank.

Samson had long hair, but this was not the one that gave him his strength, it was his retention of the sperm without spilling it.

And what happened? it was Delilah one night, "she cut his hair" and Sanson lost his strength.

What a coincidence !! And aside, we have to eat that verse? Who grabbed him asleep and stayed? Over night he went to visit him? Boys, Delilah went to seduce and have sex with Samson.

This, by letting himself be seduced, shed his Power, and his strength was gone, his power weakened, his hair weakened.

From there "dalila cut his hair," he did not cut his hair, seduced him, he fell into the trap, fell into the temptation of the ejaculatory orgasm and lost, therefore, all his strength that he kept in his sperm, that I never spilled.

That is, Delilah had Samson "cut" his own hair, but not just cut it, but weaken it.

But of course, this knowledge will never put them in front of the public because it is a Sacred Wisdom.

Semen is a Creative Energy, Sexual Energy is the Greatest Power that Man has, and that must TRANSMIT it with his wife.

hence "do not let me fall into temptation and free us from evil", and from there come so many other things that seem meaningless, but that make a lot of sense and everything fits perfectly.

That's why the government constantly bombards us with pornography, masturbation and sex, I mean: pouring out the Sacred Power to keep us small like a crumb of bread.

It is my duty to let you know this knowledge so that you can improve your physical, mental and spiritual life.

As dalila seduced Sanson, this is how today's society is totally seductive (women) and easily seducible (men), so true love is lost, so the value of friendship is lost (How many friends have betrayed each other ), for this reason the important sexual energy that we have inside our body is lost.

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Aiwass, the angel of Aleister Crowley

Yes H.P. Lovecraft dreamed of his dark amorous gods, Aleister Crowley saw them personally. Such is the case of Aiwass, an angel who, according to Crowley, dictated to him the controversial Book of the Law (Liber Al vel Legis) on April 8, 9 and 10, 1904.

Aleister Crowley mentions that first he heard a scary voice that said, in impeccable English:

Behold! it is revealed by Aiwass the minister of Hoor-paar-kraat

He then determined that the name corresponded to the Egyptian Har-par-khered, or, in its Greek version, to Harpocrates, who in the extravagant conception of Aleister Crowley would be none other than Horus, the central deity of his cosmogony.

Aiwass introduced himself as a supernatural voice that floated over Aleister Crowley's desk in Cairo, Egypt. Then he moved to his left shoulder and began to dictate from a corner of the room. Its modulation was confused, indeterminate, changing, as the occultist briefly stated in his personal diary:

(of deep timbre, musical and expressive, its tones solemn, voluptuous, tender, fierce or aught else as suited to the moods of the message, Not bass, perhaps a rich tenor or baritone).

Then he composed a drawing of Aiwass quite finished, where it is revealed composed of a fine material, translucent, high; of delicate features. Whenever asked to detail Aiwass's face, Aleister Crowley said that his face was that of a savage king (Savage King), whatever he understood as king or savage.

But Aiwass has nothing to do with the notion of "angel" that any of us could elaborate. The angel of Aleister Crowley is different to all, even to the fallen angels. Overcome by the emotion of believing himself "contacted" by a superior intelligence, Crowley hailed:

The existence of religion presupposes the certainty of some disembodied intelligence, call it God or anything else. And this is exactly what no religion has been able to demonstrate scientifically ... The immense superiority of this particular intelligence, Aiwass, to any other with which humanity has been in conscious communication is revealed not only by the character of the book itself , but by the fact of its absolute understanding of the evidence necessary to demonstrate its own existence and the conditions that govern it.

Later, Aleister Crowley surmises that Aiwass, perhaps, is just a minuscule manifestation of a heavenly power, and identifies him with his own guardian angel or guardian angel.

The interesting thing is that any explanation that falls on Aiwass, be it a vulgar guardian angel, a spirit, or Crowley's own unconscious, his appearance is truly amazing. One of his biographers, Israel Regardie, estimates that it does not matter if Aiwass is an angel or Crowley's unconscious. Both possibilities are, in every rule, supernatural.

Other scholars, such as Sarah Vale or Joshua Gunn, estimate that Aiwass's narrative style is too similar to Aleister Crowley's to be a foreign entity. The most probable and, I repeat, equally amazing, is that Aiwass is Crowley's subjective idealization of his own personality. This often happens at a minuscule level, almost spurious, where we imagine ourselves full of virtues and amazing intellectual qualities. The curious thing is that idealization here takes on a physical form, a voice, a name, and a doctrine.

Moreover, the cabalistic coincidences of the name Aiwass reveal a strong unconscious component in their materializations. For example, typographer Samuel A. Jacobs, who did not know Aleister Crowley personally, wrote him a letter mentioning that his own name, in Hebrew, was written: Shmuel Bar AIWAZ bie Yackou. Intrigued, Crowley asked him how he would write "Aiwass" in Hebrew, to which Jacobs replied polemically: "OIVZ". When doing numbers, Crowley, perplexed, surely jumped from his chair when estimating that this formula equals the number 93, a figure that coincides with the central number of Thelema, the doctrine dictated by Aiwass himself.

The voice and the silhouette of Aiwass were diluted like a dream that we did not finish waking up. Aleister Crowley, who was in fact a remarkable poet, chose the path of analysis and esoteric rationalism to explain the enigmatic mechanisms of his own psyche, perhaps connected with "sensitivities" of a higher order. Other men, perhaps more sensible, connected their terrifying visions with the noblest vehicle we possess to express that which has no positive expression: art. Such is the case of the extravagant visions of William Blake or the gelatinous phantasmagoria of H.P. Lovecraft.

It is worth clarifying that the medium does not modify the end. In other words, it does not matter if we poetize about our visions or candidly consign them as concrete facts, in the end, the stellar winds and gigantic forms that emerge and collapse behind the worlds end up annihilating anyone who dares to observe them directly.

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Sleeping Beauty: The true story

Sleeping Beauty is one of those popular stories we all know... or maybe not.

First let's draw a summary of the story, and then go into details:

A Queen gives birth to a girl. The King announces a great party. Seven fairies are summoned to be godmothers of the girl. In gratitude for the honor (and for the gifts of the king) the fairies give the girl seven gifts.

1. Be the most beautiful of all women.
2. Have the kindness of an angel.
3. The grace of the gazelles.
4. Dance with perfection.
5. Sing like birds.
6. Play all the instruments with mastery.
7. A great intelligence.

Suddenly, an evil fairy enters the room. Furious at not being invited to the party, she curses the girl saying:

-The day of your fifteenth birthday you will pierce yourself with a needle and you will die!

One of the good fairies says:

-The girl will not die, she will sleep a hundred years and a prince will wake her up.

Spend time. When the girl turns fifteen she finds an old woman sewing in a castle room; is the evil fairy who by this stratagem makes the young woman prick her finger with a needle, and sleeps. The King, despondent, sends to call the good fairy, who says:

- So that your pain is not immense; and so that the princess is not alone, they will all sleep, and they will not wake up until their long sleep ends.

Everyone sleeps a huge nap. A magical forest covers the castle. A hundred years pass and a prince goes through the place. Your horse refuses to move forward. As if by magic, see the castle and enter. Find the princess and, excited by her beauty, kisses her gently and the young girl awakens, as well as the rest of the sleepers. The next day the festivities begin with the marriage between the princess and her savior.

Now the true story of Sleeping Beauty:

Before being a fairy tale, Sleeping Beauty was a medieval folktale, heir to an even darker and grander past. In 1697, Charles Perrault published it as: The Sleeping Beauty of the Forest (Belle au Bois Dormant). Years later, after deep folklore investigations, the Grimm brothers republished the story, this time in Germany, under the title: Sleeping Beauty (Dornröschen).

These are the versions that circulate normally, and on which the imaginary of the story was built -including Disney and its inexhaustible capacity to annihilate traditional monuments-. They are similar in almost everything, except in the number of fairies. The Brothers Grimm smoothed the story to give it the charm of simplicity, Perrault, however, uses the story to rant against women and give free rein to their machismo. For example, he insists that the prince makes fun of the princess' old clothes, and includes intelligence as one of the gifts offered by the fairies, as if this could only exist supernaturally in the woman. Then he feeds on the prince's mother, a kind of insatiable ogre who tries to devour the children of the young couple. Grimm, much more subtle, eliminate the gift of intelligence, and clarify on several occasions that the princess already had it.

The truth is that, despite the efforts of the brothers Grimm not to be sexist, the medieval version of Sleeping Beauty tells us about a rather stupid princess. Read out of a mythological context, the curse of the fairy is only understandable in terms of profound misogyny. Let us suppose that someone sends us a similar curse, that is to say, that in a little while we will fall into a dream of a century after piercing us with a needle. The most reasonable thing is that we stay away from such textile tools, but this does not happen in the story. Even the king, wise and prudent man, is scandalized by the prophecy, which he considers perfectly achievable. It is worth noting that in the middle ages, and much more here, the woman was intimately related to the preparation and maintenance of the clothes, so there was always a needle at hand for them. In this sense, the fear of the king is doubly unusual, because he knows that his daughter, as a woman, is obliged to do the textile tasks, but it never occurs to her to abandon them, a fact that would leave her safe from the curse.

Soon we will see that all these anecdotes have survived for the simple fact that they have a strong mythological roots. They are not there in vain, nor is their usefulness merely narrative; They are there because they are the only link to the true story of Sleeping Beauty.

Let's travel from the bedrooms of romantic and Victorian girls, and, why not, the young girls of our time, and fly to the remote past of Western Europe. Let's go through the middle ages, which we imagine covered by a dark cloud (and equally bright), we pass over the Beowulf, English monument to the ancient mythology of that country, lost forever, let's leave behind the first Merovingian and all the kings of the continent ; let's go back, far in time, long before Galileo climbs to the tree; let us immerse ourselves in an archaic darkness, when the Lords of Valhalla were still feared and worshiped by the Indo-European tribes; Then yes, there we will find the reason that a seemingly imbecile tale survives in our era; illuminating the hidden essence of Sleeping Beauty.

Our link to that dark age is the Volsunga Saga (Völsungasaga), written in Iceland in the thirteenth century on stories that predate the Roman boom, and that go back, perhaps, to 800 BC, when the so-called Völkerwanderung occurred (migration of villages); a time of changes and exiles, where entire civilizations migrated throughout Europe. Among other notable stories, the Volsunga Saga tells the story of Sigurd (Sigurðr) and Brunilda (Brynhildr), whose foundations are even before migrations, in a time as old as 1000 a.C.

Brunhilda was a Valkyrie, that is, a demigoddess who gathered the dead heroes on the battlefield, escorting them to the wide halls of Valhalla. She is, by all accounts, the woman in the wild, honorable and terrible at the same time. Its ambiguous silhouette will star in Nordic epics like Nibelungenlied, and it would inspire Richard Wagner in his capital work: The Ring of the Nibelungs (Der Ring des Nibelungen). The Volsunga Saga tells that Odin, the great Norse god, orders Brunilda to decide on the fate of a battle between two kings, Agnar and Hjalmgunnar. She decides for Agnar, and Odin, enraged by not having bent down to her favorite, Hjalmgunnar, the condemnation to an eternal dream, that is, to let go of her goddess status and live in the thick world of the senses. In other words, Odin condemns Brunilda to live like a mortal woman, and imprisons her on Mount Hindarfjall, hidden in the Alps. To do this he nails it to the hard floor of a cave using fire needles.

Sigurd, a gentleman of noble lineage, discovers the entrance to a dark cavern in that mountain, and describes it as a castle of rock surrounded by a thick forest. There he finds Brunhilda, seized by a dream so deep that, at first, our hero considers her dead; although he knows that he is not. His king, Gunnar, has told him the tragedy of Brunhilda, and has sent him on a suicide mission, get the hand of this fallen Valkyrie. For this, Sigurd disguises himself with Gunnar's clothes, since Brunilda will only marry anyone who can defeat her in single combat. The young man wakes her with a kiss on the cheek, a detail that some point out as metaphorical, holding that this kiss was, in reality, a brush with the edge of his sword; and they intertwine in a fierce battle.

Sigurd wins. Brunhilda meekly surrenders to her destination, but before returning they must spend the night in the cave, as a strong storm hits the flanks of Hindarfjall. They lie together, but Sigurd places his sword between them, so their bodies do not touch. He remains faithful to his promise to the king; but Brunhilda, dazzled by the strength of the young man, tries to caress him and cuts a finger with the sword, whose manufacture was so perfect that its tip was as tiny and sharp as the tip of a pin.

Recognizing these mythological shreds is not simple, nor is it particularly necessary to enjoy a good story; but its weight is what decides the immortality of a popular story. Perhaps we do not know why, nor how or when, but all the stories that still entertain our children have an amazing past, something that enters through the ears but flourishes in the unconscious, which branches out in the vast psychological inheritance of the peoples, oblivious to the vicissitudes of the cinema and the changes, immobile, like the dream of some princesses, fixed, like the sharp gaze of the princes who wander through forests already forgotten.

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