Persinette
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About this ebook
A hundred years before Rapunzel, there was Persinette. Before the Old Witch ever locked Rapunzel in a tower, a Fairy set out to change Persinette's destiny.
Read the French fairy tale that inspired the Grimm Brothers' "Rapunzel," learn about the authoress Mlle de La Force, and discover answers to questions such as why Persinette's father traded her for a fistful of parsley and how she survived for years alone in her wilderness.
Includes translations of the French tale "Persinette" by Mlle de La Force (1698), the Italian tale "Petrosinella" by Giambattista Basile (1634), and the German tale "Rapunzel" by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm (1812-57), along with background information on each of the tales and their authors.
Laura Christensen
Laura Christensen is a French-to-English translator of all things fae, fairy, and fantasy. Check out her website and read more French folktales and fairy tales at www.littletranslator.com
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Persinette - Laura Christensen
Persinette
By Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force
Translated by Laura Christensen
and other maiden-in-a-tower fairy tales
Copyright Notice
Translation of Persinette
by Mlle de La Force © 2014 by Laura Christensen
1st Edition: October 2014
All supplementary materials © 2014 by Laura Christensen. This excludes the English translations of Petrosinella
by Giambattista Basile and Rapunzel
by the Brothers Grimm, which are in the public domain.
Cover image: Rapunzel / von Otto Spekter 1857
Cover design © 2014 by Niki Smith
E-book editing and design by Kristy G. Stewart of Looseleaf Editorial & Production, LLC
All rights reserved. This e-book may not be copied, reproduced, or distributed, in whole or in part, in any manner except by prior written permission by the author and translator. If you wish to share this e-book with others, please buy them a copy or refer them to their preferred e-book retailer. If money is an issue, consider requesting that your library carry this and other e-book titles, wait for a sale, or visit the website to submit for a review copy.
www.littletranslator.com
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION: Three Maidens in Three Towers
PART 1: PERSINETTE
•Persinette
by Mlle de La Force, 1698, translated by Laura Christensen
•Some Notes on the Authoress, Mlle de La Force
•Translator’s Note
PART 2: PETROSINELLA and RAPUNZEL
•Introduction to Petrosinella
by Giambattista Basile, 1634–36
•Petrosinella,
translated by John Edward Taylor, 1847
•Introduction to Rapunzel
by the Brothers Grimm, 1812–57
•Rapunzel,
anonymous translation, 1853
PART 3: LITTLE TRANSLATOR
•Acknowledgements
•About the Translator
Introduction: Three Maidens in Three Towers
Three mothers, pregnant and craving a harmless plant under dangerous circumstances. Three daughters given in exchange for the herb who grow into beauties with unnaturally long hair. Three dangerous women to lock them up high in a tower. Three princes to give them a taste of the outside world. Three escapes. Three happy endings.
Growing up reading various versions of Rapunzel,
I had many unanswered questions. The one that bothered me the most was why, if this unnamed mother and father loved each other and their unborn child so much, did they exchange her so easily for a fistful of this mysterious rapunzel
plant? In my mind, Rapunzel’s parents’ devotion to their little family set them apart from Hansel and Gretel’s heartless step-mother and push-over father. Second to this concern was another question: What happened to the witch in the end? And did the prince’s parents accept Rapunzel and her two children with open arms, seeing as she was not of royal blood? Not to mention the question of how Rapunzel survived in the desert and gave birth to her twins on her own. How did the prince, blind and alone, survive and find them in the end?
You can tell I was one of those children who annoyed her poor mother by asking too many why?
and what if?
questions. But after many years of keeping my eyes open, I’ve found the answers to a few of these questions.
Holly Tucker, a professor of French Studies and Biomedical Ethics and Society at Vanderbilt University addressed my first set of questions in her book Pregnant Fictions: Childbirth and the Fairy Tale in Early Modern France. Why did the husband do what his pregnant wife asked? Why was he so afraid of what might happen if he did not, and why did he give away his unborn daughter so easily?
At the time this fairy tale was written, miscarriages and still births occurred far more often than they do today. Less was known about the child in utero, so common practices required protecting the mother and her unborn child with extreme caution. Pregnant women were expected to remain still and quiet, not just physically but emotionally as well. Anger, agitation, fear, any form of upset could harm the unborn child, (100, 101).
Unfulfilled cravings during pregnancy were also considered a danger to the mother and child. Holly Tucker says,
Extreme by nature, pregnancy cravings were especially dangerous for the fetus. Family and friends were frequently warned to avoid mentioning anything that the mother might crave because if these cravings were left unfulfilled birthmarks—or worse, miscarriage—might result. (103)
To a certain degree, these dangerous cravings during pregnancy reversed the normal power dynamic between the sexes. In a society in which the males dominated and the females served, men were nonetheless expected, during pregnancy, to provide for the nutritional needs and desires of women, no matter how fanciful they were. In her Relation du voyage d’Espagne (1691), Marie-Catherine D’Aulnoy’s narrator indicates that in Spain when pregnant women wish to see the king, they need only to signal