Fairy Tale Behind the Scenes #3

 

Fairy Tales Behind the Scenes #3

 

I debated whether to call this “Fairy Tales Behind the Scenes #3”or not, because the following story doesn’t deserve the title of fairy tale in my opinion.

I first heard it the other day in English class when we were reading a fairy tale for our unit in Traditional Literature. The teacher found this fairy tale on, I dunno, Google. One girl read it out loud while the rest followed along. And it was, quite literally, the most ridiculous fairy tale I have ever heard in my entire life, and that makes the least amount of sense out of all of them. You’ve probably never heard of it before, so I’ll summarize it for you. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you… The story of Princess Rose.

Not Sleeping Beauty. That’s BRIAR Rose. Get your fairy tale princesses straight.

So there’s this princess with red hair who loves roses so much that everyone calls her Princess Rose. Every evening, she goes on her balcony and a golden bird comes. They’d sing together all night, giving all the people in the kingdom sweet dreams.

Anyway, somewhere, there’s this witch (Because there always has to be a witch) who’s all “I don‎’t want people to have sweet dreams!”, so she casts a spell that turns Princess Rose’s hair black.

That evening, when Princess Rose and the golden bird sang, everyone in the kingdom had nightmares instead.

Because…  Her hair was black???

Now, I don’t like this, because,

   A. It is not fair that black hair is considered a curse. If we’re judging people on their hair, then how come Princess Rose isn’t all evil because her hair is red, and red is the color of anger and rage? This story is basically saying that black hair is bad and evil, just because the author said so, which is severely unfair to people who were born and not cursed with black hair. This is called racism people.

   B. Why does her hair affect her singing? I’m no health expert, but I’m pretty sure that having a bad hair day will not affect your vocal cords, unless you cry so much you lose your voice. I’m also pretty sure that the story doesn’t say anything about Princess Rose having magical hair. It’s just red.

Moving on…

So, Princess Rose is sad, because her hair is black, and if she sings, she gives everyone bad dreams, so she asks the golden bird what to do, because why shouldn’t a shiny pigeon know magical remedies?

Surprisingly, the golden bird does know a cure. He tells Princess Rose to dip her hair in rose water. So she does, and her hair goes back to normal. That night, they sing, and everyone has good dreams again.

Meanwhile, the witch doesn’t like that, so she casts the spell again, except this time, she destroys all the roses in the kingdom. I must say, I do admire the witch’s dedication. It must have taken forever to track down every single rose and destroy it, especially since they were the crown princess’s favorite flower. Anyway, Princess Rose’s hair turns black again, and once again, everyone in the kingdom has nightmares.

“Oh golden bird, what should I do?” Princess Rose asks the golden bird.

“Dip your hair in rose water.” Says the golden bird.

“But bird, there’s no roses left!” says Princess Rose.

“Dip your hair in rose water.” Says the bird helpfully, and he flies away.

Well Rose, what did you expect, taking advice from a bird?

Anyway, Princess Rose goes on her balcony and starts crying.

Now, waddaya know, a young, handsome prince was standing right under the balcony! Now, for God-only-knows-what reason, this random prince has a lock of Princess Rose’s hair, so for a reason unbeknownst me, he decides to let Princess Rose’s tears drip onto the hair, as if that will help matters.

But oh wait, it does help matters! For some reason, the lock of hair turns into a rose!

Again, I’m not sure how or why, because it never says her hair is magical.

So the prince gives the rose to Princess Rose, who, using the one rose, makes rose water, and bathes her hair, tuning it red again.

Now, the King, Princess Rose’s dad, asks the prince why he has a lock of his daughters hair. He was probably hiding a shotgun behind his back.

The prince explains that when they were children, he and Princess Rose were good friends, and they swapped locks of hair at a young age to prove their loyalty to each other. (That is legit what the story says.) And then Princess Rose is like,

“Oh yeah, I kept yours in a box right here, here it is!” and she shows her dad, and he’s like,

“Well you two should get married then!”

Now I mentioned that we were reading this aloud in class, right? So right about here, I yelled:

“GO ON A DATE!”

They did not go on a date. They just got married.

When the witch heard, she was so angry, she exploded into a million roses. What a lovely story to tell little children.

When we finished reading this, the girl who was reading the story out loud paused for half a second, and then said, and I quote: “That was disturbing.”

And I must say, I heartily agree. This story is just so wrong on so many levels. For example:

1#  Again, what’s with the prejudice against black haired people? Maybe the author had some personal vendetta against a person with black hair. I dunno. But that’s no reason to go around creating stereotypes!

2# The Prince and Princess Rose swapping locks of hair, at age, let’s just presume... Say… 12? I dunno, it just seems wrong to me. I won’t dwell on it but do what you will with this mental image.

3# They meet again for the first time since they were kids, and they immediately get married? What if they’ve changed since then? What if they have different interests now? In Frozen, isn’t the moral basically: You need to date! Get to know each other better! Find out the other persons real intentions before you decide to spend the rest of your life together! I mean, I don’t‎ know how love works, I’m only a naïve thirteen-year-old, but I’m pretty sure this isn’t it. Life isn’t a Disney Channel movie, and even in Disney Channel movies, they usually go on at least one date before getting all “NO! LOVE IS WHAT MATTERS; WE CAN SORT OUT OUR DIFFERENCES AND HAVE A GLORIOUS RELATIONSHIP! IT’S TRUE LOVE!”

Wow, that got off track there,

Anyway, the morals that this story is OBVIOUSLY trying to teach us is that:

A. Black hair=BAD.

B. Swap hair with your all your friends.

C.  Get married first, ask questions later.  

Top left: Princess Rose, crying over a bad hair day. 
Bottom right: The prince, letting her tears drip onto the lock of hair.