Briar Rose: Rethinking the hero and the 13th fairy

The hero is a central figure in our myths and stories.

The hero can often provide inspiration or comfort. These stories can help us find our courage or feel a bit more powerful.

The image of the hero is also a burden.

Hero narratives in the dominate culture have combined with modern myths of the individual and individualism to paint a picture of the solo actor, the person who battles against enemies or the odds alone.

The hero we imagine today, feeds the terrible loneliness of our time.

And yet there are alternatives, and these can even be found in stories that have been framed or reshaped as hero narratives. The fairy tale “Sleeping Beauty,” also known as “Briar Rose,” is one example.

Lots of storytellers and crafters of story, psychologists, and cultural commentators are engaged with our notion of the hero today, but the role of the hero in our stories and in our lives is something that each of us needs to consider.

How does the powerful influence of the hero image and heroic rhetoric affect you? How does it shape your expectations of yourself, of other people, and of life?

Transcript of Briar Rose: Rethinking the hero and the 13th fairy

Hello, and welcome to Myth Matters, storytelling and conversation about mythology and what myth can offer us today. I’m your host and personal mythologist Dr. Catherine Svehla. Wherever you may be in this wide, beautiful, crazy world of ours, you are part of this story circle. 

The hero is a central figure in our old myths and stories. The hero can often provide inspiration or comfort. These stories can help us find our courage or feel a bit more powerful. The image of the hero is also a burden. The striving is stressful and this can make us rigid, fearful of failure. It can feed hubris, the blind pride of me, myself, “I.” “I did it,” the accomplishment is mine alone, and there’s another problem, the way the hero we imagine today, feeds the terrible loneliness of our time. 

Hero narratives in the dominate culture have combined with modern myths of the individual and individualism to paint a picture of the solo actor, the person who accomplishes amazing feats single-handedly, who battles against enemies or the odds alone. And yet companions, helpers, and circumstances that can best be described as fate, are always part of the story, part of life. 

I have been part of many conversations over the years, about the search for alternatives to the hero narrative, and there is a great space opening up for new stories. At the same time, our collective fascination with the hero has fueled interpretations and revision to the stories that are already in our possession. Some have found or fashioned hero narratives from stories in which this is, well, at best questionable. Reapproaching myths and stories with awareness of the common predilection to turn them all into tales about the hero, is one step in deconstructing the hegemony of the image and understanding our need for it.

Lots of storytellers and crafters of story, psychologists, philosophers, and cultural commentators are engaged with this notion of the hero today. I count myself among them. At the same time, coming to terms with the role of the hero in our stories and in our lives is an important personal challenge. It’s something that each of us needs to consider. 

How does the powerful influence of the hero image and heroic rhetoric affect you? How does it shape your expectations of yourself, of other people, and of life? I encourage you reflect on this question as part of knowing and supporting yourself.

Today, I want to tell you a story that might aid your process. It’s one of the stories that has been refashioned very powerfully- by Disney- to convey our individualistic hero ideal. I’m talking about the fairy tale “Briar Rose,” collected by the Brothers Grimm. 

The more popular name for this story is “Sleeping Beauty.” A story you’ve probably heard before, yes? Or perhaps you’ve seen the famous Disney movie with the sweet princess Aurora, or the more recent film “Maleficient,” a version of the fairy tale as told from the perspective of the 13th fairy, the one who places the evil curse on an innocent princess. 

“Briar Rose,” AKA “Sleeping Beauty” has pressed deeply into the cultural imagination and yet how many of us are familiar with this older, pre-Disney version?

What might this story tell us about heroes and the middle path that so many of us are seeking to live, a path that balances our desire for personal fulfillment and the needs of our communities.

We can define a middle ground between the model of extreme individualism or the anonymity of absorption into the collective, my friend. These are not our only choices.

So, I invite you to relax and listen. Let your imagination roam and take you where you need to go right now. If a detail or moment in the story snags your attention or feels significant, make a note. This can open up the meaning that this story holds for you right now.

“Briar Rose” 

A long time ago, there lived a king and a queen who had everything but a child. Every day they looked at each other and said, “If only we had a child.” But for a long time, they had none. And then one day, when the Queen was in her bath, a frog crept out of the water onto the land and said to her, “Your wish shall be fulfilled. Before a year has passed, you shall bring a daughter into the world.

The frog’s words came true. The queen had a little girl who was so beautiful that the king could not contain himself for joy. He prepared a great feast to celebrate and invited his relatives, his friends, his acquaintances, and also the fairies, so that they might be favorably and kindly disposed towards his daughter. There were 13 fairies in the kingdom. But the king only had 12 golden plates for them to eat from, and so one of the fairies had to stay home. 

The day of the feast was beautiful, and sunny, and calm, and everything was just splendid. At the end of the meal, the fairies each came forward to present the baby with a magical gift. One gave her virtue, another gave her beauty, a third bestowed riches, and so on, and she was being gifted with everything in the world that she could possibly need or wish for. 

When the 11th fairy had offered her gift, things kind of fell apart. Because the 13th Fairy, the one who had not been invited, appeared. She didn’t greet anyone. She didn’t glance around at the company. She strode up to the front and called out in a loud voice, “The princess shall prick herself with a spindle in her 15th year and fall down dead.” Then she turned around on her heel and stormed out of the party. 

Everyone was terror-struck. No one knew what to do. Then, the 12th fairy who’d been invited to the party, who had not yet spoken her wish for the princess ,stepped forward. She couldn’t cancel the curse of one of her fellow fairies. But she could soften it a bit. So, she said “The princess won’t die, but rather fall into a very deep sleep that will last 100 years.” And that was the end of the celebration. 

Well, the king was very anxious to guard his daughter from this misfortune. He immediately sent a command out all around the kingdom, that all of the spindles should be burned. And for a while, things went along okay.

The princess grew up and all of the promises of the fairies came true. She was so beautiful, so modest, so kind, so clever that everyone who met her, loved her. Now, it happened that on the very day that she was 15, the day of that birthday, the king and the queen were away from home. The princess was left quite alone in the castle. She wandered about the place, looking for entertainment, peeking into the different rooms and halls as she pleased. She came to an old tower. Had she been to this old tower before she wondered? Hmm. 

She went up a narrow, winding staircase and at the top there was a little door. A little door and a rusty key was sticking in the lock. When she turned the key the door flew open, and there in a little room sat an old woman with a spindle, spinning her flax. “Well, good day, Granny,” said the princess. “What are you doing?”

“I’m spinning” said the old woman, and nodded her head towards her work. “What is the thing that whirls around so merrily?” asked the princess. And she took the spindle and tried to spin too. But she had scarcely touched it before she pricked her finger, and the curse was fulfilled. The instant she felt the prick, she fell onto the bed that was standing nearby.

And there she lay in a deep sleep, which spread over the whole castle. The king and queen came home and as soon as they stepped into their hall, they went to sleep and all of their courtiers along with them. The horses went to sleep in the stables, the dogs in the yard, the doves on the roof, the flies on the wall, everything went to sleep. Even the fire flickering on the hearth grew still. The wind dropped and on the trees in front of the castle, not a leaf stirred. 

But then, around the castle, a hedge of briar roses began to grow vigorously, quickly. Every year, it grew higher and higher and higher until at last, it surrounded the whole castle so completely that you couldn’t even see the place. You couldn’t even see the flags flying from the turrets. The legend developed in the land about a lovely sleeping Briar Rose ,as the king’s daughter was then called, behind that fearsome hedge. 

From time to time, princes came and tried to force their way through the hedge into the castle. But they found it impossible. The thorns acted as if they were hands to hold them fast, and one prince after the other got caught in the hedge, and unable to free himself, died a miserable death.

After many, many years, a prince came again into the country. He came across an old man on the road, who told him about a castle that stood behind the briar hedge and how there was supposedly a really beautiful maiden called Briar Rose fast asleep in this castle. “The princess has been asleep for the last 100 years,” the old man said, “as well as the King and Queen and all of the courtiers. My grandfather told me that there have been other princes who came and sought to slash their way through the briar hedge. And well, they were not successful. It was, it’s a pretty sad death.” 

The prince listened to the old man and then he said, “You know, I’m not afraid. I am determined to go and look upon this lovely maiden called Briar Rose.” The old man tried to discourage him. He mentioned all of those dead princes hanging up in the rose bushes once again, but this prince would not listen to his words, and he made his way to the castle and hedge. 

Now, however, the 100 years had just ended, and the day had come when Briar Rose was supposed to wake up again. So, when the prince approached the hedge, it was in blossom. It was covered with beautiful large flowers, and the flowers and the thorns just parted. They made way for him of their own accord and he passed through this hedge unharmed, into the courtyard, and then into the castle. He saw the horses and the dogs all fast asleep. He noticed the flies asleep on the walls and the king and the queen in their throne room fast asleep. The still fire on the hearth. 

He wandered around for some time, and then he too, came to the tower and went up those narrow stairs. He opened the door into the little room where Briar Rose was asleep. And there she lay, she looked so beautiful. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her. He bent down and gave her a kiss and as he touched her, Briar Rose opened her eyes and looked lovingly at him. She got up, and they went down the stairs together. 

Everything she passed, woke up. When they came down into the throne room, the king and the queen and all of the courtiers, they all woke up and looked at each other with astonished eyes. And then the horses in the stables, stood up and shook themselves and the dogs got up and waged their tails and the flies began to crawl around again, and the fire started crackling and blazing.

The whole place was once again, awake. And then, you know, because this is a fairy tale, what happened next. The wedding of the prince and  Briar Rose was celebrated with all splendor, and they all lived happily until they died. 

This is not the story of a brave prince, deciding to rescue a beautiful and passive princess, swashbuckling his way past all of the obstacles, and then giving her a rescuing kiss now is it? The first thing I want to note is timing. He succeeds because she is going to be asleep for 100 years and he happens to show up on that day, the day the 100 years has come to an end. This reminds me of a comment made by Ram Dass :“It’s only when caterpillarness is done that I become a butterfly. That again is part of the paradox. You can’t rip away caterpillarness. The whole trip occurs in an unfolding process over which we have no control.”

Now to the hero, that lack of control can be pretty scary. But to us, regular human beings, knowing that there is a process that unfolds. that carries and propels us, well, that can be pretty reassuring. The internal dictates of the process that the princess is undergoing are so powerful that nothing else can happen or move or change or grow until she does. They all fall asleep with her. But then at exactly the right time, everyone wakes up. 

And this prince who didn’t know anything about her, well, he clearly he had to do something. I mean, he had to leave home, right? If he had been sitting at home, he wouldn’t have met the old man and he wouldn’t have found out about the princess. On the other hand, he’s transformed as she is, because he happens to be in the right place at the right time. His destiny intersected hers. 

Now, in most versions of the story, the prince is battling the fairy, the 13th fairy who is frequently portrayed as the enemy. So, let’s think about her for a couple of minutes. What is a fairy? The word fairy is connected to the Latin fattah, the fates, that which is ordained. Destiny. When we’re in the realm of fairies, we’re talking about fate. And you might think of Norse mythology, and the Norns seated at the root of the World Tree, or the three Fates in Greek mythology, the three sisters who spin the thread of life, measure, and choose when to cut it. 

The fairies are connected to fate and this choice of curse– that she would prick her finger on a spindle– is part of that motif. Destiny is the thread of life, and spinning is the act of creating a continuous thread from tangled fibers. Spinning and weaving have a long history of mythological and archetypal connections. Weaving is an image for creation and the mystery of existence. And I think it’s kind of interesting that the word “text” and “textile” share a common root, which means to weave. 

So, here we’ve got this fairy, who is fate, something that’s communicated to us in a couple of ways. And it makes me wonder about the old woman, then. The old woman is a crone. Maybe she’s the “evil” fairy in disguise, and maybe not. But she can spin the thread of life. This is one of her jobs and the young princess can’t spin. Not yet. 

When we recognize the connection between fairies and fate, well, maybe you see that we really have to think about all of the fairies taken together. The 13th Fairy is the 13th fairy. She is one in a group. And she plays a particular role. Yes, she brings difficulty. She has been called evil. But isn’t it more accurate to call her a catalyst? She is the catalyst. Without that fairy, there would be no story. Without that fairy, there would be no reorganization and transformation of the elements, so to speak. In this story, she is the one that drops in and puts everything in motion. 

And yes, the catalyst is often difficulty and pain, isn’t it? It’s a fact of life that our transformations are propelled by, catalyzed by the difficulties, the hardships, the problems that appear. The wounds that are at the heart of our lives. But the curse takes place in the context of the gifts and the blessings. They belong together. The gifts and the curse on the princess are part of the thread that is spun, that is her destiny. 

One thing that I love about this story is the hedge of roses, so I’d like to say a few words about it. That hedge of roses creates a protective kind of cocoon around the princess in the castle, that reinforces the sense of incubation in her sleep. 

Roses have long been associated with love. One well known example being Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, and they are mystic symbol of the heart in the center of things. Roses have also been closely associated with the Virgin Mary, with her purity, and life sustaining compassion. The fact that the princess is cocooned with everyone else, in a hedge of roses, suggests something about the process that’s going on, I think. In alchemy, the process of psychic transformation is said to be sub rosa, that is, to take place under the rose, which means that it is interior work that happens in a contained silence. And this is a work of love, of heart opening, of recognizing not only that we are loved, but of our own capacity to love. 

Can we have this awakening and knowing without hardship, I wonder? I think our stories tell us that true awakening to the power of love, and to the necessity of compassion, comes when we are challenged. When we suffer and confront our own mortality. Death was after all, the curse and the gift that was brought by that 13th Fairy. 

Which leads me to one final thought. Our king in this story didn’t invite the 13th Fairy because he only had 12 golden plates. And I think, yes, we do not set a place at our table for death. And yet its appearance is natural. Natural and expected, and it will shape our lives no matter how hard we try to prevent that. Maybe this understanding can help us reshape our relationship to the hero into something useful and inspiring. 

In the last episode I mentioned From Adversary to Ally, transform your inner critic. This is a 9- week online workshop with me, from Sept 18th- Nov 16th.  Registration is now open. My inner critical voice put me in some pretty tight corners and grim spaces in the past. From Adversary to Ally blends my study of depth psychology, the work of Hal and Sidra Stone, and gestalt art therapy with my personal experience and experiments. 

My transformation began when I understood that “the self” is a community, not a solitary ego. I learned this from Jung and James Hillman, and their description of the natural process of psychological development. The polymorphous self offered me a lot of comfort and grounding, but then came the question: how do you take this truth of psychological life and move from the conceptual and abstract, to a practical lived approach? Well, that is the question that I have answered for myself and that I offer you in the workshop from adversary to ally. You’ll find more information and registration details on my website, www.mythicmojo.com

A big welcome to new subscribers: Susanne, Shaun, Michelle , and Kelli. Welcome!  If you’re new to Myth Matters, I invite you to head over to the Mythic Mojo website, where you can get on the email list, read a transcript of this episode, and find information about the other resources that I offer, like From Adversary to Ally.

You will also find a link to Myth Matters on Patreon. I am very grateful for the financial support of my patrons and supporters. Patrons receive some special benefits in addition to my appreciation. You’ll find all of those details if you click through the links. If you are finding something of value here in Myths Matters and can afford $5 or $10/month to sustain this podcast, and engage with me more deeply, I hope that you’ll join me on Patreon too.

Before I go, I want to share this poem by the brilliant Neil Gaiman, titled “Observing the Formalities.”

 “Observing the Formalities”

“As you know, I wasn’t invited to the Christening. Get over it, you repeat.
But it’s the little formalities that keep the world turning.
My twelve sisters each had an invitation, engraved, and delivered
By a footman. I thought perhaps my footman had got lost.

Few invitations reach me here. People no longer leave visiting cards.
And even when they did I would tell them I was not at home,
Deploring the unmannerliness of these more recent generations.
They eat with their mouths open. They interrupt.

Manners are all, and the formalities. When we lose those
We have lost everything. Without them, we might as well be dead.
Dull, useless things. The young should be taught a trade, should hew or spin,
Should know their place and stick to it. Be seen, not heard. Be hushed.

My youngest sister invariably is late, and interrupts. I am myself a stickler for punctuality.
I told her, no good will come of being late. I told her,
Back when we were still speaking, when she was still listening. She laughed.
It could be argued that I should not have turned up uninvited.

But people must be taught lessons. Without them, none of them will ever learn.
People are dreams and awkwardness and gawk. They prick their fingers
Bleed and snore and drool. Politeness is as quiet as a grave,
Unmoving, roses without thorns. Or white lilies. People have to learn.

Inevitably my sister turned up late. Punctuality is the politeness of princes,
That, and inviting all potential godmothers to a Christening.
They said they thought I was dead. Perhaps I am. I can no longer recall. 
Still and all, it was necessary to observe the formalities.

I would have made her future so tidy and polite. Eighteen is old enough. More than enough. 
After that life gets so messy. Loves and hearts are such untidy things. 
Christenings are raucous times and loud, and rancorous, 
As bad as weddings. Invitations go astray. We’d argue about precedence and gifts.

They would have invited me to the funeral. “

-Neil Gaiman

If we have a better understanding of our need for myth, and all that our old stories offer, we can live more satisfying lives. We can inhabit a better story and create a more beautiful, just and sustainable world. 

And that’s it for me, Catherine Svehla and Myth Matters. Thank you so much for listening. Take good care of yourself, and until next time, happy mythmaking and keep the mystery in your life alive.