The Three Roses, from The Key of Gold, by Josef Baudis (1922)
Synopsis:
A Czech variation on the well-known fairytale,
Beauty and the Beast. A woman, who is planning a trip to the market in another town, asks her three daughters what they would like her to bring them. Two of her daughters give her a long list of items, and the third simply asks for three roses. The woman goes to the market, and on her way back, realizes she's forgotten the roses for her youngest daughter, Mary. She stumbles upon a palace in the woods, where she sees some beautiful roses in the garden outside. After she's taken the roses, a basilisk appears and demands the woman's daughter in exchange for the roses she's stolen. Terrified for her life, the mother agrees, and returns to her home to tell her daughter what has happened. Mary agrees to go, and once she is there the basilisk tells her that she must nurse him on her lap every single day (um, yeah...we'll get to this, don't worry), and Mary, with no other option, agrees. She does this for a few days, until the basilisk comes to her and tells her that she must cut his head off. She protests, but the basilisk says that if she doesn't, he will "tear her to pieces." Mary agrees, then, and when she cuts off his head, a snake with a set of golden keys in its mouth comes out of the body, and she is told again to cut of the head. She does so again, and the snake turns into a "beautiful youth," who tells Mary that it is his castle she is in, and that they must marry, since she has saved him. They have a big happy wedding, and that's the end.
Analysis:
So, I have a lot of questions about this story. I found it really interesting, but also a little baffling, overall. Here are some of my questions and thoughts:
- Why is there this trope about two of the daughters being really greedy and insisting their parent (because in the version of Beauty and the Beast that we all know, it's the father who goes on a trip, but in this Czech version, it's the mother) bring them a ton of expensive presents, while there's the third daughter (Mary, in this version), who insists they only want flowers? Is it to emphasize her goodness and humility, and to equate goodness and humility with beauty?
- Maybe this is just me being judgmental, but it seems like the mother gave up pretty quickly. Obviously, the basilisk was going to kill the mother if she didn't offer up her daughter. If she had sacrificed herself, this would've been a pretty short story, and the ultimate message about internal beauty being more important than external would've been lost. So, I guess, in a way, the mother had to offer her daughter up, for the sake of the story.
- What exactly is a basilisk? I only know the word from the second Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. In that book, the basilisk is essentially just a big snake. I did a little Wikipedia search, and found the following definition: "In European legends, a basilisk (meaning "little king" in Greek) is a legendary reptile reputed to be a serpent king who can cause death with a single glance." That deadly ability of the basilisk's wasn't really addressed in the story, but it does make you wonder how Mary was so calm "nursing" a basilisk on her lap when it is apparently so fearsome.
- The Wikipedia article goes on to state that in literature, the basilisk is "not completely distinguished" from the cockatrice. So I went to the Wikipedia article for the cockatrice, and found a description that makes the final scene of the story make a little more sense. The cockatrice is described as a "two-legged dragon or serpent-like creature with a rooster's head." The origin of the cockatrice is in English legends, so it may very well be that this is the English version of the basilisk. Because if that is what the basilisk is, then the ending where Mary cuts of the basilisk's head and reveals a serpent makes more sense. At least, it allows me to better picture the whole story, with that definition of the creature.
- I don't want to go too much into this, but, why did the basilisk need Mary to nurse him?? That's as far as I'm going with that, that part of the story just baffled me a little.
Comments
Post a Comment