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(Lil' Thread.)
I enjoy obscure fairy tales. They're weird (some of them will have you squinting at the page,) they're offbeat and they reveal much about society's thoughts on interpersonal relationships. But there's one that's always frustrated me: "Riquet With The Tuft."
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I enjoy obscure fairy tales. They're weird (some of them will have you squinting at the page,) they're offbeat and they reveal much about society's thoughts on interpersonal relationships. But there's one that's always frustrated me: "Riquet With The Tuft."
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"Riquet" was first published by THE Charles Perrault, of "Cinderella" and "Bluebeard" fame, in his collection of fairy tales from 1697. I'm including a later translation below (yay public domain!) so that you can read it for yourself.
https://archive.org/details/talesofpassedtim00perrrich/page/n13/mode/2up
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https://archive.org/details/talesofpassedtim00perrrich/page/n13/mode/2up
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(And as a disclaimer, this isn't intended to shade Perrault or his work, which I enjoy.)
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I won't give away all of the details, but here is the crux: A queen gives birth to two daughters, one who is quite beautiful but not the brightest lamp in the castle; the other, who looks...ahem, but is extremely intelligent. Guess which one the parents are concerned about?
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The girls grow up, and people are drawn to the gorgeous one because of her looks, but then their attention turns away from her once they realize that she's dull and bereft of deeper thought; they then focus on her sister, who can more than hold her own.
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This makes the dull princess, who's more complex than people give her credit for, upset, and she runs into the titular Prince Riquet, who is VERY odd-looking; the text describes him as grotesque. He, of course, has been in love with her since seeing a painting of her.
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Now, Riquet has the power to give "wit," which is used interchangeably with intelligence, to anyone whom he chooses. The princess argues that she'd rather be like her sister than beautiful and ditzy. Riquet argues that beauty is extremely important.
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He then tells the princess that because she is so heart-stoppingly beautiful, he'll give her the intelligence that she desires, but she has to commit to an engagement. Old girl agrees, and that's where the confusion comes in.
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I'm not going to give away the ending, although I will say that it isn't depressingly unhappy. And the perspectives/treatment of women in fairy tales is a whole other series of discussions themselves. (And yes, I know about historical context, etc.)
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And there is an interesting commentary on the subtleties of manipulation, and how others make decisions based off of the knowledge they have at certain points of life versus others. But that's also a discussion for another time.
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What gets me about "Riquet" is that, even in his state, he is still obsessed with beauty, and the princess' representation of it. Her sister is never mentioned again after the beginning; it's assumed that she'll be alright and won't have any major worries.
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Why not try hand with the intelligent sister? They'd likely understand and bond with each other more over their similar lots in life. He'd rather give intelligence to someone beautiful, who might renege on the "deal," than to go with someone like himself.
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Or why not endow the intelligent-but-homely sister with more wit? Does the other sister's beauty automatically make her worthy of more attention and such? Unfortunately, one still sees people with variations of the same mindset. And it's pitiful when you think about it.
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Anyway, those are my thoughts, which are given to overthinking, as is my fashion. And this lil' thread turned out to be a bit bigger than I thought. Whoops! See you later, everyone.
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