The Santa Claus Country

I am fascinated by Santa Claus. Many of my Christmas decorations are red clad men. They come in all shapes and sizes, as candles, made of wood, as cookie cutters or as ornaments for the Christmas tree. You can see part of my collection in this article. Why do I love Santa?

Santa Claus brings magic into our world. He is said to

• Have magic abilities
• Know the secrets of billions of people
• Fly with a sled
• Talk to animals
• Work with elves

We lied about Santa Claus

I confess: We lied to our children about Santa Claus bringing Christmas presents. We also told them that Nikolaus is filling their shoes on the 6^th of December. In Germany we celebrate Nikolaus day then.

When I told my kids that we parents were responsible for the gifts under the tree on Christmas Eve, I asked them if they would do the same with their kids. My daughter answered yes, she would. She did not mind at all. She very much enjoyed the picture of Santa sneaking into our house with presents. We did not traumatize our kids with these tales after all.

What Santa looks like

Santa Claus is depicted as a portly, jolly, white-bearded man, often with glasses, wearing a red coat with white fur collar and cuffs, white-fur-cuffed red trousers, red hat with white fur, and black leather belt and boots.

Even though his hair is white he is not elderly or frail but able to hoist tons of presents through the chimney and make the arduous journey round the world in a day.

Santa traditions are quite new

The modern character of Santa Claus, is based on traditions surrounding the historical Saint Nicholas (a fourth-century Greek bishop and gift-giver of Myra), the British figure of Father Christmas and the Dutch Sinterklaas.

Santa is a character originating in Western Christian culture who brings gifts to the homes of children on the night of Christmas Eve (24 December) or during the early morning hours of Christmas Day (25 December). Santa Claus is said to accomplish this with the aid of elves, who make the toys in his workshop at the North Pole. His flying reindeer are pulling a sleigh. The Santa figure only became famous about a hundred years ago.

Gifts stand for connection

Gifts are something that was added in Christian tradition. Presents symbolize thankfulness for the birth of Christ. They also resemble the gifts of the three kings from the Christmas story in the bible. Even though the story of Christ´s birth is not so important for many people any more we still associate with gifts connection.

Winter wonder land

Christmas season in the Northern Hemisphere is in winter. On a perfect Christmas day there is snow. My husband and me were in Australia once on Christmas. It was strange for us to celebrate Christmas in 30 degrees Celsius heat.

Santa does not exist in this dimension

Sadly Santa is not living somewhere on our earth. He does not even live in this dimension. This does not mean that we cannot connect with him. On the contrary: Today I invite you to visit with me

The Santa Country in the Fairy Tale Dimension

This country has a very strong tie to our dimension. We are as fascinated with it and its inhabitants as they are with us. This is the reason why there are so many spill overs: Energy that shuttles back and forth between our two dimensions. A lot of humans tap into the energy of the Santa country in the Fairy Tale Dimension. This is why there are millions of stories and pictures about Santa.

The Santa country is located in a mountainous region that could be somewhere in the Northern hemisphere of our planet. There are high mountains with jagged rocks, canyons and valleys. Beautiful waterfalls and many picturesque villages. There is always snow. In summertime lots of snow for playing is left in the mountains.

There are plenty of Santas

The Fairy Tale Dimension is about play and fun. This country is full of red and white clad Santas. Male or female is not important distinctions here. Both sexes are Santas. The country is in its own way an ideal LBQT headquarter.

To get into the country you have to get a full makeover

You cannot simply enter this country like you can others.

You need a makeover because there are strict requirements for girth, weight and hight – and of course for facial hair for the inhabitants. You can choose any skin colour save for the ones that clash with red. This is why you won´t find any pink, purple or orange Santas.

Upon entering you are issued a stack of red and white uniforms, belts, boots and burlap sacks. You won´t ever see a dirty or ripped Santa costume. People just leave their dirty uniforms at central places for the elves to magically wash and return them.

Yes: Appearance is everything.

You can have a lot of fun in Santa Claus country

You can take part in beauty pageants

There are sack-competitions:

• Who throws his sack furthest
• Who runs fastest with hundred kilograms on his back
• Who climbs highest

Sledding contests

with and without animals towing them are very popular. The Santas are crazy about their sleds. They use reindeer, cows, and all kinds of magic creatures to tow them. The fastest sleds are the ones that have dragons towing them. Dragons are individualistic creatures who don´t work well in groups. More often then not Santas are eaten by their tow-companions.

If you don´t want to play rough games with a bunch of Santas I have another tip for you. Art is a very important and much appreciated in the Santa Claus country:

• People love to play and listen to live music
• Storytelling is as important as writing stories
• Paintings and sculptures are loved

Sleds are an art form in itself

As Santa you want a sled that is beautiful and fast. You choose nicely coloured wood and ask master craftsmen to manufacture it for you.

There is nothing holy about the Santas in the Fairy Tale Dimension. They are very active and vibrant. They exude positive emotions and love challenges. I love these people! That is why I have such a big collection of  Santas.

What about you? Are you into Santa? What do you think about the Fairy country of Santa Claus?

More articles about Christmas in this blog:

• The Yule Lads of Iceland
• Six tips for a relaxed Christmas

What is the Fairy Tale Dimension? You can find a great synopsis here.

Pictures: private (one pixabay)

©Inge Schumacher

The Zombie-Virus Fairy Tale

I had a very frightening dream a year ago. It was so vivid and that I still recall it easily. What gives me the creeps is that the dream is more science fact than science fiction.

To understand the story better I give you some background information about my husband and me.

We are a family with special talents

My husband and I both work with energy. He is fond of exploring unusual avenues. He experiments with something he calls Magitec for example. That is a new kind of magic energy that fits to our dimension.

I use energy work to heal and support people on their individual paths.

When we met I studied business and he was training to become a physician. We never thought that we would work closely together one day. This is what exploring life as a couple for over 30 years can do to you when you are lucky.

We talk to channelled entities

For over ten years we have been conversing with Elias, Ayla and Tompkin. They are channelled entities. Channels are popular at the moment because we need all the insights we can get to handle the changes we are facing.

The Shift in Consciousness  

Over hundred years ago this dimension decided to set into motion a Shift in Consciousness. This Shift has started in 2000 and will be completed by 2075. The aim of this shift is to remove the veils that separate us from the pure consciousness we are.

We are here because we need bodies to make experiences we cannot make as energy beings. The moment we arrive here as infants we forget where we are coming from.

Becoming more aware is the goal of the Shift

To get rid of the veils we have to be conscious of what we are and what we do. We have to really get to know ourselves.

Are you aware of the Shift that is happening?

• Do you have the feeling that a lot is changing?
• Do you see the growing uncertainties?
• Things seem to be happening much more sudden nowadays. Plans become obsolete fast.
• Do you see old institutions – like the US presidency – fail?
• Climate Change can be seen everywhere

Permafrost is thawing

Arctic permafrost has been thawing due to climate change for the past decades. Scientists are aware that unknown bacteria and viruses are lurking there. Our bodies do not have any immune response to them because they are new to us. Many unexplainable gastrointestinal and lung sicknesses could be caused by these yet undiscovered microorganisms.

The Zombie-Virus Fairy Tale

My dream started with Elias giving alarm in November 2019: A catastrophe in the permafrost region of our planet was imminent. A virus that has been frozen since the age of the dinosaurs (244 until 66 million years ago) was threatening to go viral. It would kill billions if it could not be stopped fast.

The Zombie-Virus kills higher brain functions

In my dream I saw disturbing pictures of aggressive people killing each other. The virus was spreading fast all over the globe. I felt helpless.

The virus changes us into aggressive animals

Only the cerebellum, the brain stem, the oldest part of our brain, remains functioning when this virus infects us. Its job is to keep us alive. We can eat, sleep, have sex and move, nothing more.

• We can only react automatically to instincts and emotions like hunger or anger
• We cannot think any more
• We cannot speak any longer

There are no more morals or empathy. We are reduced to a raging mass of wild animals killing one another when food is scarce. Which happens soon after the outbreak.

All higher life forms that evolved after the dinosaur age can be infected: Wild mammals, cattle and pets.

The Zombie-Virus did not kill the dinosaurs

The dinosaur predators only got a bit more violent when infected with the virus thus spreading the disease more effectively. They got immune eventually. This explains why the virus can be found everywhere in the permafrost.

The Zombie-Virus is spread by air and can survive in sweet water. This makes it very infectious. It would spread in six weeks round the planet destroying our civilisation fast. There would not be enough time to work on vaccinations.

How to save humanity?

Of course our greater consciousness could help, the one we forgot about in order to experience life here. But it has agreed not to interfere. I call this the Prime Directive.

The problem with the Prime Directive

This expression comes from the Star Trek Universe: Starfleet agreed with this non-interference directive to honour the natural development of civilisations.

Greater Consciousness had already stretched the Prime Directive to braking point when alerting us: It tried containing the virus in cold stasis.

Humans were unaware

Elias told my husband about the virus. Humans were not aware of the danger. And it would be much too late when they finally realized what was happening.

Why him? My husband was the only one who could find a solution to the virus problem because of the Magitec he was experimenting with. Would he be able to? We did not know. We were totally terrified.

A horrific Christmas

Only we knew about the Damocles Sword that hung over everybody. In my dream I saw my family sitting by the Christmas tree wondering whether this would be the last Christmas of civilisation.

It was hard for us to cope with normal life while my husband was figuring out what he could do.

Killing the Zombie-Virus was not the best option

Our first instinct was to destroy the virus. We thought about all kinds of avenues to do just that.

In discussions with Elias we learned that the energy of extinguishing life, even a dangerous virus, has detrimental consequences for all of consciousness: This destruction would hurt every being everywhere. Of course we did not want to cause that kind of pain.

Magitec did the trick

My husband needed an efficient instrument to affect the virus. His experiments with Magitec paid off.

First he refroze the permafrost and put a safety bubble around the thawing sites to give us more time.

Then he came up with the idea to inhibit the reproduction of the virus. Viruses are harmless when they are not able to reproduce. So even if a virus would find a mammal host it could do no harm.

Don´t ask me how he did it, because I can´t comprehend it. But he managed to save our civilisation just in time – without going on a killing spree.

Seeing the possibility of losing everything almost drove me crazy during the time it took to find a solution.

Civilisation would have had to start fresh

Had he not succeeded only people who were naturally immune, 40 millions, would have survived. Because of food shortages, disease and turmoil probably only 25 million humans of 8 billion would have survived the first year after the outbreak.

I got a new understanding of the value of life and interconnectedness

This experience made me understand that we humans still don´t hold life in high value. In the last decades we came a long way. But we do not treat our planet with the respect it deserves and we are suffering the consequences.

The apocalypse of the Zombie-Virus is a theme

In the last decades hundreds of movies were made about viruses that turn humans into senseless monsters. Perhaps this was my inspiration for this dream.

The Corona virus brings massive change

At the same time I dreamed this, the Corona virus started spreading. It was harmless compared to the Zombie-Virus. But it started a pandemic just like the Zombie-Virus could have.

The Corona virus caused the most changes we had in our world without any war. It forced all of us into new ways.

The Corona-Virus helps us to learn

• Self-structuring
• Self-directing
• Differences

A lot of my clients suffer from anxiety and the uncertainties the pandemic brings. As bad as it is, the changes caused by the virus give us the chance to learn a lot about ourselves. Hopefully it makes us more open for the changes we have to embrace to save our planet.

I hope we will never have to cope with a real Zombie apocalypse.

I hope I will never have another Nightmare like this!

Pictures: Pixabay

© Inge Schumacher

My Dream: Magic is Real

In the Fairy Tale Dimension magic is an integral part of life. It simply belongs there.

Normal people in the Fairy Tale Dimension use magic to help with everyday chores like housecleaning and cooking. Most of them use it to play and have no interest in becoming experts. Experts in using magic are magicians and sorcerers who are taught in magic schools.

I am a big fan of fantasy and science fiction. In this article I dream about what a fictional world where Magic is real looks like. I ask myself what would happen if magic would be introduced into our dimension. What would change?

Accompany me on my visit of an imagined future.

What would happen if one individual stumbling around in consciousness would bring magical energy back to this dimension? Since it would be new there would be nobody who knew how it works and we would all have to find out by trial and error. Something humans have always been very good at:

There are always explorers who are happy to take risks and chart unknown territory. Not me. I am happy to follow these explorers.

The Magic I call Magitec

The energy I dream about connects with our technology and science and gives it a new basis. This is why I call this new energy Magitec: It is a combination of Magic and technology.

What could Magitec be like?

This energy could be sentient in some way, similar to plants and animals. It would not be a thing. It could fit in our quantum field and could be connected to everything. That would make it much more complicated to explore than a new machine because when you put in an X the output would not necessarily always be a Y.

Who could use Magic?

Everybody could access it but we would need to develop new neurological pathways in our brains to master it. We would have to start trusting in something we cannot see yet.

To develop this trust is very important. Columbus trusted that he would reach land beyond the horizon otherwise he would never have convinced a king to back him and started to sail into the unknown.

Our senses need expanding

To master Magic we would need to widen the input of our senses considerably. Their input depends on our brain. And our brain is built on experience: Our senses can only perceive what our brain tells them to.

Example

If an alien spaceship would land in my front yard now I would not see it. My brain would block it since I am not used to spaceships in my daily life. I could not see it because my brain has never experienced anything like it. Even though I have read about spaceships in books and seen movies. It does not match my experiences and the experiences of the people around me.

We are all connected

As a species we share the same experiences. This makes it possible for us to agree on objects we can all see and name. We agree that we are living in the same surroundings as our neighbours. To slowly allow our senses to input information that is automatically blocked, like Magic, we would have to find ways to expand them.

This is why we would need a lot of determination engage Magitec at the beginning.

My dream Magic is not easy to master

The beginners, the first magicians, would have to implement a totally new system into our combined subjective reality. That takes time and effort. But the more people take part the easier it gets for the others.

Example

To create a path through the jungle from A to B the first explorers have to clear the way with machetes. That takes a lot of energy and time. The people following them can already move much faster. They widen the path and some day the first vehicle can use it. Then somebody creates a street and now everybody is able to get from A to B easily.

This means that there needs to be a core group of people who trust and engage Magitec. They pave the way for the others who follow them. The more people participate the easier it will get.

How could we train our brains?

We could take a light bulb in our hand and start experimenting. We try to light the bulb with the spell Lumosphere for example. It would probably take much longer than we expect to actually see it lighting up although it has been lighting up from the beginning of our experiment. Our brains just did not provide our senses with the appropriate input.

Spells and wands

I would like to keep this magic as easy as possible. I am no fan of wands. Why? The magic in the Harry Potter Dimension described by J. K. Rowlings needs wands and complicated spells. It feels impracticable and cumbersome to me to carry a wand around always.

What are Magic spells?

Spells act as focal points. They show others ways in which Magic works. When somebody finds out a way to use Magitec they condense their path into one word and others can follow in their footsteps easily.

These spells are collected in a book, a grimoire, or on a website.

As the numbers of spells increase we would probably need to get the spells checked by a group of experts doing a spell-performance-check.

Lumosphere is an example for a beginner´s spell: It creates a floating ball of light or lights a light bulb in your hand.

How dangerous is Magic?

Magic could cause considerable harm. Knowing humans, there might soon be spells that harm people. Then you might need a magic police force to keep a watchful eye on the development of Magic.

Different levels of Magic

You don´t want people running around creating havoc with magic. A solution to this problem could be a level system. Since the Magic energy would be sentient, different levels of Magic could be accessed depending on the level of consciousness each person has.

With consciousness I mean how aware a person is of himself, of what he is doing and why. Because the less you are at war with yourself the less you are inclined to create problems for yourself and others when using Magic.

Everybody starts at beginner level 1. You level up when you master the basics. Magitec would sense on its own when an individual is ready for the next level.

Not everybody would want to become an expert but for some Magic would be the answer to their dreams.

What would change with Magic?

I hope that altruistic people find out about magic first. I don´t want this power in the hands of big conglomerates or corrupt egotists. These guys would probably be too narrow minded to notice magic early anyway.

• Since Magitec works well with science and technology there would probably be a lot of new inventions.
• More efficient propulsion systems for rockets could enable the exploration of space
• We could invent cleaner means of transportation. I have always dreamed of antigravitational vehicles, for example.
• We could also use devices for storing big amounts of energy.
• Explorations of other dimensions and other realms of consciousness could be new fields of study.
• There could be big changes in medicine: We could employ Magic for the regeneration of body tissue and coping with diseases.
• Computers and mobile phones could get smarter and support us more individually.
• It could get much harder to keep secrets from the public.

What would I personally do with Magic?

I would use it for healing purposes. It would be great if it could help my clients understand better what they are doing and why. Aiding us all to become more conscious and therefore more able to create the reality we want would be great.

Big dreams involving Magic

We could save the planet and help it to find a new equilibrium. We could…

• invent a new species that lives on the plastic we pollute the oceans with. Let´s call it Prill. It could fit in the food chain just like Krill that has problems adjusting to climate change. It would be edible for sea creatures.
• invent a giant ventilation system – like the jet stream – that transports dirt, radioactive waste and other toxic elements from the air right out into space where they disintegrate.
• use existing air conditioning systems to purify the air.
• invent anaerobic bacteria that feed on the toxic waste we have dumped in the ground everywhere and render it harmless.
• find out new ways to help the rainforests regrow.
• support scientists in coping with the hazards originating from the thawing of the permafrost. Many germs and bacteria have stayed frozen there for centuries and are now released into the atmosphere: 2016 there was an Anthrax outbreak in Siberia.

There are so many possibilities that my head is spinning.

How did you like my dream of a world where Magic is real?

Magic could be a great step forward. It could save the human race from extinction.

It could be the beginning of a new space age and many new inventions. It could change everything: our society and the way we live.

Magitec could help to empower us and show that we are truly creating our reality. We would be less susceptible to governments and media who like to tell us what to think and to believe.

Would you want to live in a world where Magic exists?

What would you want to use Magitec for?

Pitures: Pixabay and Private

© Inge Schumacher

 

 

 

 

 

Senses and Perception

Regular readers of the Fairy Tale Dimension blog are used to exploring a dimension that is not ours, but is just as real. Just by entertaining the idea that this dimension could exist we widen our awareness. Today I go one step further and invite you to accompany me into the world of perception and the role our senses play in our changing reality.

Displacing stuff

You have probably searched in vain for keys or a document. Sometimes it takes a long time to find them or they reappear at unexpected places. In my household this happens a lot.

Here are some examples:

One pair of kitchen scissors has disappeared twice in 6 years: One time for 2 years and one time for half a year only to be rediscovered somewhere strange.

On a holiday a few years back our hairbrush vanished from my backpack. We searched everywhere and concluded that it was lost. We continued the trip and in the evening my daughter found it in the same backpack we had emptied before. This is when I started to think that there was more to these displacements.

I was not amused when my driver´s licence went missing and I applied for a replacement document. A few months later the old one reappeared at an unlikely place.

An octogenarian friend of mine displaced one shoe a few weeks ago and had help searching only to find it at an obvious place days later. This was the first time something like this had happened to her.

I tried to explain that this could happen more often in the future and that it does not mean that she was developing dementia.

She said that she understood my words but did not get the concept. It was too strange for her. I guess you have to experience this more often. How about you? Have you had experiences with things mysteriously disappearing and reappearing? Please share in the comments!

 

Where does our stuff go?

I don´t know. It definitely is not here in any more. If I search with other people, to get a more objective picture, and still cannot find it, it definitely is not part of our reality any more. Perhaps we have finally found an explanation for the heaps of solitary socks in our drawers?

The most efficient way to handle these occurrences is to keep calm, order your stuff back and then forget about it. Frantic searching won´t help. Most things will reappear sooner or later.

What is happening?

We are showing ourselves that our reality is not fixed and that we are able to manipulate it in more ways than we think possible. I know that I am not always aware of what I am doing energetically and then these displacements happen more often.

Reality and perception

We are firmly rooted in our reality and that is a good thing. We have basic agreements with each other on what our world looks like. The house we live in and the streets we walk every day stay the same because of these agreements.

Our brain is used to tune out things it deems irrelevant. Thus we thankfully have a permanent filter that makes us more efficient because we can concentrate better on the matters at hand.

Sometimes this filter has holes. People who suffer from dementia lose their firm roots in our collective reality and let go of our general agreements. This is why they see things that don´t belong here. A friend of my mother-in-law who has Alzheimer´s told me that she does not share the strange things that she sees any more because people think that she is crazy.

For example she suddenly sees a pig running across the street. This pig is very real for her. We don´t see it because it does not belong in our reality. It could be part of an alternative reality or another dimension.

This has interesting consequences: If aliens would land in my backyard right now I would probably not see them because my brain would tune them out!

The Invisible Gorilla

In their book The Invisible Gorilla Christopher Shabris and Daniel Simmons have investigated our perception. You can test how much you tune out automatically on their website.

This helps me to understand why each person in a group of people has a different account of a situation the whole group was in. It shows that perception is always depending on the individual.

Our world is changing

Perhaps you have heard that a shift in consciousness is occurring at the moment. All of us agreed on some level that we want to become more aware. This causes a thinning of the veils between alternative realities and dimensions and it gets easier for us to perceive things that don´t belong here. So when you see something strange that you cannot easily explain, just play with the idea that it could be a spill over from somewhere else and you are not getting crazy. Here are some examples from my life:

Hearing an animal that is not there

My daughter was hearing a purring at night without our two cats being anywhere near her room. The other day my husband heard it, too which helped my daughter a lot who was thinking that she might have been hallucinating. They both heard something that is not manifest in this reality. Perhaps she will meet this cat later in her life and recognise its purring.

Elves from the fairy tale dimension

Last year when we visited Iceland one of my daughters managed to lose two earphones on two consecutive days. She swore that she put them safely in her backpack.

Turns out that I am not the only one in my family who has a close connection to elves.  My daughter has another focus of consciousness as a princess in one of the elf fairy tale countries. When we were in West-Iceland, the area where I also met my first elves, somebody recognised her. Two elves accompanied her for the rest of the journey. Since these creatures love to play with strings, marbles and shiny stuff they took the two sets of earphones back to their dimension. At home a few weeks later we found one pair of them in her room. The other never reappeared.

Ever since this trip elves have inhabited her room, which has mutated into a giant playground for them. Stuff they can play with is lying around everywhere.

We found out that they love dripping water when we discovered a wet spot on her floor. The elves had moved a loose panel on our roof so that water could enter through the ceiling when it rained.

We told them that water would destroy our house and that we preferred our home unharmed and fixed the panel. So far no more water has been diverted into her room.

We can´t see our live-in elves. Sometimes we hear them rummaging or make out some movement in our peripheral vision. Five years ago we probably would not have been able to be aware of any of this.

You can read more about elves in Iceland in this blog article.

Animal´s perceptions

Animals don´t distinguish between manifest and not manifest energies like we do. If you see your pet reacting to something that you cannot see, this means that there is something:

The other day our cat suddenly hissed at something invisible beside my daughter on the sofa. I switched to my energy detection mode and could make out a little shape beside her, probably one of her elves. The cat probably wanted to protect her.

How to adjust to these interesting times

I have shared here some of my experiences that show that we disappear stuff regularly and that our perception is changing.  Our senses seem to be letting through more information and thus we are able to perceive more than we used to. This can be both unnerving and exciting. My family is pretty open for these occurrences. We stopped to explain them away and laugh about them now.

To stay sane when experiencing something unusual  we need a firm stand in our reality. We have to be aware and know ourselves as well as possible to stay grounded. Only then we are able to identify safely that something does not belong here without scaring ourselves. Thus we can widen our awareness and get used to the thinning of the veils between different realities.

A great opportunity to learn this is to make a game out of it. We do this in my facebook group The Fairy Tale Dimension  where we share our fairy tale moments and possible bleed-throughs from the fairy tale dimension.

Humour is a very efficient way to cope with these changes. It is a good thing that I don´t take myself and my senses too seriously any more.

Link

How our world is changing – without the metaphysical focus of this article – is very well explained in this interview of Charles Eisenstein: a you-tube video about Living the Change.

Pictures: private

© Inge Schumacher

 

Behind the Scenes of Sleeping Beauty

I was surprised to find out that the fairy tale I grew up with does have another chapter that was totally new to me.

The earliest known versions of Sleeping Beauty are found in the 14^th century in the long Arthurian book Perceforest. I grew up with the Grimm´s version which is based on Perrault 1628-1703 and is the most popular today.

(Charles Perrault was one oft he first Europeans to put together popular fairy tales and he inspired many for example the Grimm brothers who lived in the middle of the 19^th century. )

The story of Sleeping Beauty I am familiar with

At the christening of a king and queen’s long-wished-for child, seven good fairies are invited to be godmothers to the infant Princess. The fairies attend the banquet at the palace. Each fairy is presented with a golden plate and drinking cups adorned with jewels. Soon after, an old fairy enters the palace and is seated with a plate of fine china and a crystal drinking glass. This old fairy was overlooked because she has been within a tower for many years and everyone had believed her to be deceased. Six of the other seven fairies offer their gifts of beauty, wit, grace, dance, song, and goodness to the infant princess. The old fairy is very angry about having been forgotten, and as her gift, enchants the infant Princess so that she will one day prick her finger on a spindle of a spinning wheel and die. The seventh fairy, who hasn’t yet given her gift, attempts to reverse the evil fairy’s curse. However, she can only do so partially. Instead of dying, the Princess will fall into a deep sleep for 100 years and be awakened by a kiss from a king’s son.

The King orders every spindle and spinning wheel in the kingdom to be destroyed, to try to save his daughter from the terrible curse. Fifteen or sixteen years pass and one day, when the king and queen are away, the Princess wanders through the palace rooms and comes upon an old woman, spinning with her spindle. The princess, who has never seen anyone spin before, asks the old woman if she can try the spinning wheel. The curse is fulfilled as the princess pricks her finger on the spindle and instantly falls into a deep sleep. The king has the Princess carried to the finest room in the palace and placed upon a bed of gold and silver embroidered fabric. The king and queen kiss their daughter goodbye and depart, proclaiming the entrance to be forbidden. The good fairy who altered the evil prophecy is summoned. Having great powers of foresight, the fairy sees that the Princess will awaken to distress when she finds herself alone, so the fairy puts everyone in the castle to sleep. The fairy also summons a forest of trees, brambles and thorns that spring up around the castle, shielding it from the outside world.

A hundred years pass and a Prince finds the hidden castle during a hunting expedition. An old man recounts the story: Within the castle lies a beautiful Princess who is doomed to sleep for a hundred years until a king’s son comes and awakens her. The prince then braves the brambles and thorns and enters the castle. He passes the sleeping castle folk and reaches the chamber where the Princess lies asleep on the bed. Struck by the radiant beauty before him, he falls on his knees before her. The enchantment comes to an end by a kiss and the princess awakens and converses with the prince for a long time. Meanwhile, the rest of the castle awakens and go about their business. The Prince and Princess are married by the chaplain.

Disney and all other popular narratives end with this scene.

The part of Sleeping Beauty that was new to me

After the secret wedding the Princess bears two children, Aurore (Dawn) and Jour (Day), unbeknown to his mother, who is of an ogre lineage. When the time comes for the Prince to ascend the throne, he brings his wife and children.

The Ogress Queen Mother sends the young Queen and the children to a house secluded in the woods and directs her cook to prepare the boy for dinner. The kind-hearted cook substitutes a lamb for the boy, which satisfies the Queen Mother. She then demands the girl and the cook this time substitutes a young goat, which also satisfies the Queen Mother. When the Ogress demands that he serve up the young Queen, the latter offers to slit her throat so that she may join the children that she imagines are dead. While the Queen Mother is satisfied with a hind in place of the young Queen, there is a tearful secret reunion of the Queen and her children. However, the Queen Mother soon discovers the cook’s trick and she prepares a tub in the courtyard filled with vipers and other noxious creatures. The King returns and the Ogress, her true nature having been exposed, throws herself into the tub and is fully consumed. The King, young Queen, and children then live happily ever after.

(from Wikipedia)

There are many modern adaptions of the Grimm story: movies, ballets and operas:

• The Sleeping Beauty (1890), a ballet by Tchaikovsky.
• Dornröschen (1902), an opera by Engelbert Humperdinck.

 

Here are two contemporary examples:

1. The animated movies featuring Shrek by Dreamworks are very funny: They play with appearances of the protagonists of this Sleeping Beauty story. An ogre rescues Princess Fiona who turns out to be an ogre herself.

2. The book Reckless The Petrified Flesh

is the first of a three-piece-series called Mirrorworld by Cornelia Funke. She is a multiple award-winning German illustrator and storyteller, who writes fantasy.
Ever since Jacob Reckless was a child, he has been escaping to a hidden world through a mirror that is a portal in his father’s abandoned study.

In these books Funke mixes up all kinds of fairy tales. People go on quests and discover treasure. What intrigued me was that the protagonist discovered a Sleeping Beauty who had died sleeping in her castle. Nobody had managed to save her in time. She had lain in her perpetual sleep for hundreds of years while hundreds of potential saviours were killed. Perhaps the good fairy´s magic was sloppy?

 

Behind the Scenes information on Sleeping Beauty

Discovering the last part of Sleeping Beauty I now understand why this fairy tale is popular in the Fairy Tale Dimension. The sleeping part is boring because it only offers little adventure. The fairies can bring some variety with all kinds of wishes: flying, dancing, magic. The really interesting play starts with the evil mother-in-law trying to eat her son´s family.

Death is not final in the Fairy Tale Dimension

To end your stay in the Fairy Tale Dimension you have to engage the Grim Reaper to escort you out. Inside of the dimension you can die as many times as you want only to reappear in an instant.

This explains why you will find people getting cooked in pots all the time reappearing instantly. You can picture this like wild hot tub parties. Giants even host big cooking events in swimming pool-sized pots.

In the Fairy Tale Dimension you can also jump a hundred times off a steep cliff and be smashed to bits and just stand up the next moment all healthy and restored ready for another round.

There is no pain

I have been cooked myself plenty of times while visiting the Fairy Tale Dimension with friends in dreams and we laughed our heads off while in the pots. We did not feel any pain. In our reality being cooked is cruel. In their reality it is not. This is why fairy tales often seem so cruel to us.

Flexibility

This makes people in the Fairy Tale Dimension very flexible. Something that we can profit from when we visit. There are not many rules scientific or otherwise and the use of magic enables even a bigger variety of outcomes of any fairy tale.

In Sleeping Beauty sometimes the evil stepmother gets to eat her prey and sometimes she is cooked herself.

The part of the evil stepmothers is a very popular character.

Wolves from Little Red Riding Hood like to play it as well as other animals, monsters, humans or trees.

Sleeping beauty is not always an innocent naïve creature.

I especially enjoy the Ninja version of Sleeping Beauty. She is a martial arts expert and enjoys fighting very much. The prince has to be her equal in battle to be accepted as a partner. Imagine the princess being woken up and doing Taekwondo moves! She can definitely take care of herself. This makes her a great adversary for her mother in law, too.

The children

Can play a very important role in the story and many young ones like to take part in the play rescuing their parents or plotting with their evil grandmother. There is an endless possibility of outcomes.

Were you aware of the evil mother-in-law ending of Sleeping Beauty and how do you like this end?

 

Links

Surla lune fairy tale blog has a very comprehensive list of books, which feature Sleeping Beauty. So many people tap into this fairy tale, it is amazing.

Images by Gypsy Thornton from Onceuponablog Sleeping Beauty Pinterest Board

 

Pictures: Open source by Wikipedia

© Inge Schumacher