Where I Vent My Spleen

Briar Rose

The original text of Sleeping Beauty, altered and much expanded by Nigel Auchterlounie

A long time ago there were a King and Queen who said every day, "Ah, if only we had a child!" but never did. Then it happened that one day when the Queen was bathing, a frog that was not a frog crept out of the water on to the land, and said to her, "Your wish shall be fulfilled; before a year has gone by, you shall have a daughter.”

The Queen knew that this was magic, but was so happy to hear of her coming daughter that she put the knowledge that no good ever comes from magic to the back of her mind.

What the frog had said came true, and the Queen had a little girl who was so pretty that the King could not contain himself for joy, and ordered a great feast. He invited not only his kindred, friends and acquaintance, but also all the Wise Women of the land, save one, In order that they might be kind and well-disposed towards the child. There were thirteen of them in his kingdom, but, as thirteen is the bad number he invited only twelve.

The feast was held with all manner of splendour. Then when it came to an end the Wise Women bestowed their gifts upon the baby: one gave virtue, another beauty, a third strength, and so on with everything in the world that one can wish for.

For the Wise Women were also witches.

When eleven of them had made their promise, a terrible wind blew and the thirteenth witch appeared. She wished to avenge herself for the slight of not having been invited. Without greeting, or even looking at anyone, she cried aloud, "The King's daughter shall in her eighteenth year prick herself with a spindle, and fall down dead." And then she was gone.

All were shocked; but the twelfth, whose good wish still remained unspoken, came forward, and as she could not undo the evil sentence, but only soften it, she said, "It shall not be death, but a deep sleep, into which the princess shall fall."

The King, who would keep his dear child from all misfortune, gave orders that every spindle in the kingdom should be burnt. Meanwhile the gifts of the Wise Women were generously fulfilled on the young girl, so much so that everyone who saw her was bound to love her.

It happened that on the very day when she was eighteen years old, the King and Queen were not at home, and the maiden was left in the palace quite alone. So she went round into all sorts of places, looked into rooms and bed-chambers just as she liked, and at last came to an old tower. She climbed up the narrow winding-staircase, and reached a little door. A rusty key was in the lock, and when she turned it the door sprang open, and there in a little room sat an old woman with a spindle, busily spinning her flax.

"What are you doing there?” Asked the King's daughter

"I am spinning," said the old woman, and nodded her head.

"What sort of thing is that, that rattles round so merrily?" said the girl, and she took the spindle and wanted to spin too. But scarcely had she touched the spindle when the magic decree was fulfilled.

In the very moment she felt the prick, she fell down upon the bed that stood there. Death came for her, but was pushed back by the twelfth witch’s spell. So, as no good comes from magic, death took everyone else in the palace. The King and Queen who had just come home, fell dead as they sat upon their thrones, and the whole of the court with them. The horses too, died in the stable; the dogs in the yard; the pigeons upon the roof; the flies on the wall; even the fire that was flaming on the hearth died, the roast meat cooled, and the cook died too. The wind fell, and on the trees before the castle, not a leaf moved.

Then round about the castle there grew a great mess of thorns, which each hour became higher, and at last grew close up round the castle and all over it, so that there was nothing of it to be seen, not even the flag upon the roof. The thorns grew far and wide from horizon to horizon. Those that lived in the land would go to sleep with the thorns a field away, only to wake in the morning and find them at the window. Just to be near was no good. Cows milk turned bad in the udder. The pigs ate their young. And children became uncommonly cruel. Efforts to cut them down failed, as the branches bled a sticky tar, when cut, that stuck to any blade and made them useless. Amongst the thorns many saw strange creatures stalked.

The story of the beautiful sleeping "Briar-rose," for so the princess was named, went about the country, so that from time to time, the sons of kings came and tried to find a way through the thorns to the castle.

They found it impossible, for the thorns held fast together, as if they had hands, and the youths that were caught in them, could not get loose again, were pulled in and died a miserable death. Sometimes their cries could be heard for days. Sometimes it sounded as though something took them quicker.

After many long years, a King's son came to the country, and heard an old man talking about the princess in the thorns, asleep for a hundred years; the King and Queen and the whole court, asleep likewise. He had heard, too, from his grandfather that many sons of kings' had tried to get through the thorns, but became stuck fast, and had died pitiful deaths. Then the youth said, "I am not afraid, I will go to the beautiful Briar-rose and I shall wake her with a kiss and she shall be my wife." The good old man tried to dissuade him, but the son of the far off king did not listen to his words.

By this time the hundred years had just passed, and the magic had grown weak. When the King's son came near to the thorns there were flowers amidst them. The prince took his sword and chopped his way into the thorns, followed by his squire and horse.

As they neared the castle the magic grew stronger. Before long the horse was dead from the poisoned bite of a thing that was not unlike a wolf. Larger than any the Prince or his squire had seen. With blood red, oily fur and eyes that shone yellow. The thing seemed also to be fixed with a mocking grin. The Prince killed the thing with his sword. It seemed to the squire that the thing let its self be killed. As part of a joke he didn’t understand, as in death, the thing grinned still. On the fourth day the Prince was stung by a wasp the size of a crow. The prince’s eyes turned dark and flitted quickly in their sockets. He came to think there was a blackness growing within him, as the sting had brought madness with it. The Squire pleaded with the Prince but the Prince took no heed. He spoke of things that were not there and ate things that were not food. Scarcely an hour after the sting he opened his belly with his own sword “To let the blackness out.” The thing that came out was truly black and stank and howled as the Prince died, and dug its self into the earth.

The Prince’s young squire picked up the sword and wandered in the thorns for two more days. When his food was gone he thought that death would soon come for him. But by chance he came upon the castle. In the castle-yard he saw the horses and the spotted hounds lying dead, not asleep as the legend told. He entered the house, through the kitchen past the bones of the cook.

He went on further, and in the great hall he saw the whole of the court lying dead. Up on the thrones the bones of King and Queen sat. Holes where eyes once were, stared at the Squire and seemed to demand that he leave.

Then the Squire went on still further. All was so quiet that a breath could be heard. At last he came to the tower, and opened the door into the little room where Briar-rose was sleeping. There she lay, so beautiful he could not turn his eyes away. The squire knew nothing of magic save for the tales he was told as a small boy, in which a kiss often broke the spell. He stooped down to kiss her, but found that he could not. His mother had told him it was wrong to steal a kiss. The squire knew though that he would soon die if he didn’t break the spell. That before long something in the thorns would take him. So kissed her on the hand. As soon as he kissed her, Briar-rose opened her eyes and awoke, just as the Squire fell into a deep sleep. Briar-rose sat up, confused. For as she slept for a hundred years she also dreamt she had pricked her finger but didn't fall asleep. Dreamt that she had grown older, fell in love with a knight and married him. Then after many happy years she dreamt her father had died of old age, then some years later her mother the Queen. With that, she herself became Queen, ruling the land for a great many years, and that she and the Knight had many children, and those children had children.

Finally at the great age of one hundred and eighteen, and long after the death of her beloved husband the Knight, she went to sleep and awoke in the real world. Somehow eighteen again, and on the floor next to her, or so she believed, for he looked just like him, her beloved Knight, also somehow made young again.

Briar Rose was filled with confusion. Was this the past? A memory? A dream? Was this the after life? How could these things be?

Briar Rose tried to wake her one true love but he wouldn’t stir. Believing this to be magic of some sort she kissed him to break the spell and the Squire woke on the floor with Briar Rose lying next to him sleeping.

The Squire did not know what had happened. How he, or her, came to lying on the floor. Again he tried to wake the Princess. He kissed her hand and fell asleep.

The Princess woke again to find her beloved lying face down on her arm. If  she had been, reunited with her one true love in death, why could she not rouse him? Something was wrong. This wasn’t Heaven yet it didn’t feel like hell. She knew nothing of the curse that had been put upon her as a child. As the King and Queen had kept that from her.

Perhaps the thing to do was leave this strange place that was like but unlike the castle she knew so well?

The curse had kept her whole these hundred years. She was able to lift her Knight and using his sword to aid her she climbed down the stairs and left the castle.

Upon leaving the castle, however, she found it to be surrounded by a jungle of thorns. Not put off she carried on. Hoping to find a way out, but instead came upon a grinning thing that was not unlike a wolf. She dropped her beloved and faced the thing. It came at her mouth open, teeth flashing, but she had been bestowed with strength by the third witch, and speed by the fifth, and cunning by the ninth, so bested the creature with ease. She held out her beloved’s sword and the thing ran upon it and in death still it grinned. She looked up and found herself facing two more. She fought these too. They’d learned what a sword was from the death of the first. They dodged her lovers blade for a time before one didn’t dodge but seemed to wait for the blade. She stuck it in the thing, and as she did, the other bit the fingers from her left hand. Three more creatures appeared from within the thorns. She did her best, and fought them well with all her gifts. But knowing that she would kill it, one of the creatures leapt for her and as she stuck her sword through its belly it bit her throat. She fell next to her love and as the two that remained closed in, kissed her love one last time.

The Squire woke in the thorns, the wolf like things either side of him. The princess lay dead beside him, horribly blooded. He picked up the sword and had at the creatures with great fury for what they had done. Others came and he slew a great many, but still more came, they fought strangely often giving themselves up to give others an advantage. Eventually as only one creature remained the Squire too was mortally wounded. He fell to his knee, next to the Princess, to weak to lift the sword and saw that she was not dead but sleeping, and in her sleep her wounds were closing. Her fingers growing back. For it was the way of the curse to keep her unchanged.

The thing stalked closer. Before the Squire died he put the sword in the Princes’s hand and, wishing he could do more, kissed her.

Briar Rose woke to find herself blooded but unwounded, her fingers restored, her dead love next to her, facing one last creature.

She thought that perhaps she and her Knight would meet again in the next death, and considered letting the wolf take her, but as it leapt for her, her body killed it anyway.

She looked to her knight and cried. Through her tears she saw his wounds close and that he was not dead, but sleeping, as they both now shared the curse.

The Princess fought the winged Oberlact and bested it, but with much trouble. Despite its thrashing sting.

The Squire fought the many chattering Latterblat’s and nearly died, but won, and near death woke the Princess so that he may sleep and heal once more. Though the Latterblat’s chattered in his dream some more, and cut him still with their sharp tongues.

In the fight with the bear like thing that stood as tall as trees they died and slept and slept and died thrice over before the deed was done.

Then one day, while at a river, while trying to find a shallow crossing, the Squire met an old woman who laughed, cried and shouted at the Earth and sky just as much as she did the same to him. He woke the Princess and slept, hoping that she might understand the woman better.

Briar Rose woke and saw the old woman she’d met in the tower with a spindle.

The thirteenth witch. As no good comes from magic to anyone. The witch, who was very old at the time of Briar’s birth, much older than anyone has right to remain undying. She had become entangled in the curse and lived longer than any earthly mind could stand. She saw Briar, untroubled by the weight of years. un-aged and as beautiful as ever. Here in this tangled maze and went to kill her. More to end her own tortured self than any other thing. They struggled by the river side and as they fought Briar saw movement under the witches skin. Something had made a home of her. The witch fell in and was eaten by a monstrous pike, but still the curse was not undone, and so she didn’t die but remained alive in the belly of the pike. And the thing that had made a home of her snickered in her ear as it so often did. The witch howled and cried but only the pike heard, and the pike didn’t care as its belly was full.

Days more passed and as Briar and the Squire slept and fought and healed and fought again. It became clear to both that the thorns were moving. The path was changing. They were in an ever changing maze of thorns that wouldn’t let them leave.

Then, as Summer changed to Winter, Briar met a frog that was not a frog. This frog stood as a man and just as tall, and it told her that it had been his magic that had brought her into existence, inside her mothers belly. So that one day she could be his wife. He told her of the curse too that had so long delayed their glorious wedding day. And it was only then that Briar knew for sure that she was not dead or dreaming, but truly alive still. Briar didn’t want to be the wife of a frog so fought him, but could not win so woke her Knight, who fought him too as she slept. The Squire bested the frog. As he died Briar Rose woke and the thorns began to wither. And in the river. In the belly of the pike the thirteenth witch died.

The frogs spell had been twisted by the bad witch’s curse which had been twisted by the good witch’s wish. Magic over magic over magic.

Briar Rose woke and seeing her love, spoke his name.

“Peter.” She said, for that was the name of her knight in her dream and also the Squires name. She knew him from the dream, and knew him well. And loved him, and soon he loved her too.

A year later they were married in the castle without much splendour and a year after that they had their first child. The child she’d had in her hundred years dream. In time all her lost dream children and grandchildren were returned to her.

Because sometimes, just sometimes, some good comes from magic.

And they lived contented to the end of their days. Though often, in the Squire’s dreams, he heard the Latterblat’s chattering.

The End