Pricked by a Spindle | Symbolism in Sleeping Beauty
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- Опубликовано: 17 окт 2024
- This is the first of a series of videos I will release from my patron-only archive, analyzing symbolism in various fairy tales. We start with Sleeping Beauty and the meaning of being pricked by a spindle, how it might relate to a woman's cycle, sexuality, and broader patterns of change. I also give you a glimpse into how I tend to think about stories over a long time.
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Another interesting aspect to consider: The word “spinster” as a name for an older unmarried woman comes from the reality of many older women (older simply meaning past what was considered the common age range for marriage) scraping out a living from the ill-paid trade of spinning. So to be pricked or bitten (blood drawn) by the spindle is to be condemned to a life not just without love, but also of toil and deprivation. This additional meaning may be part of why the spindle replaced the flax as the primary symbol.
but she not old
@@Hbmd3E The point is that if not united to the prince, she'd spend of life time of toiling and getting pricked by that spindle, stuck in a fruitless cycle of bleeding and toil.
Interesting to think about in the context of the modern childless women with no husband.
@@Cyrus_II well put
St. Maria of Egypt before repentance that set her on path to sainthood was a prostitute driven "by an insatiable and an irrepressible passion". She mainly lived by begging, supplemented by... spinning flax.
This makes way more sense
The fairies you begin with were in my Slavic land called Sudičky (fate-givers) and have a counterpart in the greek Moirai. The sudička who wasn't invited wasn't evil in any naive manner, her role was to complement the fate woven by her sisters (what is important is that the Moirai are often depicted as together weaving the thread spun from a spindle - the thread of fate), to give her negative qualities and even determine where the thread ends, when she dies. The kingly parents thought they had authority over fate, that they could deny her entry and orchestrate their daughter's fate as perfect, ultimately although not explicitly making her immortal. She of course got inside the castle anyway, and was bitter at their arrogance, wherefore a fate that the young princess would die upon first drawing blood, which would for any ordinary child mean a very short life. However, the parents again cheated the fate and delayed the princesses death by cushioning her and the castle. By doing so it wasn't just the princess that died but with her the entire court, and the castle grew dense with rose bushes. (in the most popular version, the king banished anything with an edge or sharp point from the castle, and she pricks her finger on a thorn enchanted by the beauty of a wild rose she could have never seen before, that is also why we call her Růženka, from růže - rose. It is also remarkable that the essence of the curse remains intact, she does not live past childhood, and has to be resurrected, brought back from sleep by the prince correcting the fragility of the kingdom)
In dutch she is referred to as 'little thornrose'. Thanks for this insight!
this is interesting. In Hungarian she's Csipkerózsika which roughly translates to "Lacy Rosie" since she was knitting lace.
@Sniper08 that is a different tale, which shares many similar elements.
The tale being discussed in this video is the tale known in German as “Schneewittchen”.
@Sniper08 yeah idk they're really similar.
They both share:
- "Fairy" curse
- Young beautiful princess
- A long sleep
- A saving prince
[Edit]
actually I'm obtuse, this video is about Sleeping Beauty (Dornrösschen) entirely, and his intro about his new Snow White (Schneewittchen) book threw me off so I fumbled the whole bag here.
Thank you, now it makes a lot more sense.
Spinning Wheels, spinning threads or webs, and witches sturing cauldrons are symbols relating to destiny and fate up and down myth and folklore, usually in a negative light. The Wheel is also a symbol for the cycle of life. Wheels and circles are also feminine as a surrounding, enclosing thing. Much like a womb (and the world as it surrounds us from the edge of the horizon and the sky and ground) that surrounds the begining of life.
Aurora's blood being split on this wheel can relate to menstration directly but also mortality as blood is associated with death more broadly.
Her going into unconciousness is sign of her undeveloped conciousness as she has been living for 16 years in a forest away from the dangers of spinning wheels (dangers of life) and so is ill prepared to deal with it when life eventually came around.
It’s wonderful when after much thought the hidden meaning of a story turns out to confirm the ideas that we already chanced to have!
I don't think this is sarcasm? It goes to show the truth is innate to those sensitive to it.
Truth or confirmation bias/relevance realization? where you already have chosen the lens by which to see. To me, It's interesting how different Pageau and I see these stories symbolism...
Duck and orange sauce fit beautifully together
I think it's also a reference to The Fates from mythology, who determine the length of peoples lives by cutting a length of thread. Also, the idea that sleep is the brother of death in the same mythology. Those are references people might have understood at the time. And then yeah, blood is obviously associated with death. Puberty can also be seen as a death because you transform to a new person and the old person "dies". Crazy how multivalent simple "children's stories" are.
I see my life up to a point as a cycle where this pattern repeats itself over and over, and then I woke up. I can see the pattern clearly now and which part of the story I’m in. Time, with respect to this pattern in my life, has slowed tremendously while the larger outside pattern has telescoped to a rapidly approaching point in the near future. I’m not sure I’m making any sense, but I’m going to keep at it.
"WTH is this???" Haha yes! I am a mom of 3 and I'm still surprised to be a woman.
You've probably talked about this elsewhere, but "the distaff" means the women's side of things and all our household arts, crafts, & work. Given that every single woman spun and wove her own family's clothing, keeping spindles away from the princess must have been quite a task ... sort of like nowadays, not allowing a child to ever see a motor vehicle.
It's possible that the spindle refers to a drop spindle, which precedes spinning with a wheel, and is much less technologically complex, but also has a lower production rate. However, drop spindles are still used today. Spindle whorls are common archaeological finds; made from clay or stone, they are the round toroidal weight that acts as a flywheel on some styles of drop spindle. Some types of drop spindles also look rather obviously phallic. They can be pointy, on one or both ends. Modern versions often use a small hook to temporarily secure the yarn while drafting and spinning the next length, but some older versions even had a distinct "glans" at the upper end, below which the yarn was secured with a half hitch.
Edit: a drop spindle may be seen in use here:
ruclips.net/video/gDxsg1YW620/видео.html
Though I am far from expert, merely curious, I am suggesting that the wheel may be a later insertion (with its own symbolism - Yule and wheel are etymologically related, for instance, so definitely an association with time), layered over the earlier stratum of the story, but that the earliest versions of the story may have been referring to a drop spindle.
N.B. I am not a fiber arts guy, but I am interested in how things are made because I value well constructed goods - wool fisherman's sweaters, tough work pants, durable and warm socks, etc.
"Screw" has happy connotations and powerful linguistic harmonics in this regard..!
Thanks for the talk... that's was brilliant.
Love the mosaic intro!
Worth adding in that spinning and weaving were women's activities, which is why we get the words spinster for an unmarried woman and wife for a married woman. That suggests a further layer, since the spinner when she marries will process the thread to cloth, but the wicked fairy says that when she undertakes the process of spinning (the work of girlhood) she will die. And therefore never reach adulthood and become a wife
This makes the most sense. I don't see a connection with the menstrual cycle in this as Sleeping Beauty is 15 years old in the fairytale and past the age of the commencement of a menstrual cycle.
I have a phrase I love from the title of a Jesse Stewart book, the Thread that Runs so True, and it is how I see you gathering the bits to weave in where they belong to make the tapestry. There is a way it is done right so the picture is cohesive. I think of this also as the collective unconscious, or resonating chords to make harmony. It is awe inspiring and so beautiful when you turn over the weaving and see the picture. Remove one thread, pull it out, and you can see the flaws. They are obvious then. Thank you for sharing this.
Great video! Makes a lot of sense to me. May I suggest adding pictures from time to time to help the viewer get a proper sense of what you're saying :)
I’ve been trying to grasp the meaning of Wendy and Peter Pan exanging an acorn (his potential) and a THIMBLE ( for him to sow his shadow back)….you just added a layer cause the Thimble protects the finger from being injured😅what’s that all about! This happens after Peter does’nt know how to kiss Wendy! Those story are so linked!!!
I was thinking just this morning about how the things in the Bible that are most offensive tend to be the ones that you can learn the most from if you allow them to teach you. Probably because there's something there that isn't understood, whereas the more easily accepted things tend to be things you already know.
That shield... Marvelous!
There's a medieval version of Red Riding Hood by Egbert of Liège, called "De puella a lupellis servata", where the riding hood is a gift from her godfather in the day of her baptism. As she is baptized in Pentecost, the hood is red. She is protected from the wolves when she wears her baptismal hood. Are you going to dive into this tale?
One interesting presentation I've seen comes from an ongoing webcomic, where the girl's life gets spun by the wheel onto the spindle. I find that an interesting interpretation for why it's the spindle.
It was kind of a relief for you to acknowledge that you can't find a 1 to 1 analogy with distinct elements of the story with distinct meanings and concepts, but rather it's an intertwined web of reference, meaning, and analogy that coheres together... like a spindle?
As you once pointed out, the spindle or the logos like Christ, comes to bring unity, peace and gather people around like a shepherd, but also comes to bring a sword as he says elsewhere.
Yo. Jonathan. There was soviet folklore researcher by the name of Prop. He's book ios called "'morfologie of a folktale"' (or something like this). You are super close in understanding of the meaning of tales. Take a look at the book, it will help you to meditation this subject.
Wow, I just dreamed about that specific scene today.
You have to ask - what does the spindle do? It turns something natural like flax into something unnatural which is yarn. This is what our conscious mind allows us to do. So the spindle represents consciousness. When we were unconscious a girl married spiritually to a man before she had her first menstruation. This can be seen today when you see young girls falling in love with a boy-band. It is our natural system of spiritual marriage at work. It is a chemical bond in the brain attaching one person with another. Once we became aware of this we put an end to it for the pursuit of materialism because true love is the adversary of materialism. This is the moral of the story. That once we became aware we abandoned true love for the pursuit of materialism which will be our demise.
YES Jonathan!!!! :-) I already suspected something when I heard you mention "Venus" to Jordan Hall out of nowhere, but now I know you're on track! :-)
An exploration of the vector that flows between the One and Only 1
I always preferred Jordan Peterson's interpretation of the fairy tale, in which Aurora falling asleep after touching a spindle represents a naive sheltered girl getting hit and run over by the harshness of reality, and the Prince represents someone offering help in coping.
My best wishes for the Fairy Tales and the book deals.
I would love to hear Jonathan’s interpretation of the spindle that the Theotokos is holding, or is beside her in many icons of the Annunciation and Simeon’s prophecy in Luke 2:35
The Pageau cinematic universe
Thank you so much! This interpretation is way better inmy opinion, than the strait forward ones you normally hear....Do not forget that the spinning threat was also used to symbolise time. The thread of time f.e. the norns in mythology and in Wagner's Ring ...when the thread brakes, time stops..and when Sleeping beauty falls asleep the thread does not break but stops being created.....so she does not die but falls in to a deep sleep?
Distaff is referenced in Proverbs 31:19. Perhaps why Disney used it? Could not the spindle that is made of wood, have the imperfection of a splinter?
(I was thinking in terms of how there could have been a lack of care for the user of the spindle while it was being planed into what should be a smooth tool.)
What comes to my mind is: The Flax (unadulterated state, raw, natural, first form, the before) -The Prick (the point) - The Spindle (that which changes/alters something, the after) is, ‘The “point” before and after’, ‘The point the (flax) becomes the (thread). It’s like an equation type of structure.
She is the "Lily" in Matthew 6:28, even though her name is Briar Rose.
Why the name Briar Rose instead of just Rose ? Makes you think.
What had briars on it or thorns ? The thorny crown of Jesus.
Flowers in the bible symbolize the feminine aspect of God who has been hidden to protect her.
In Hebrew Susan can mean Lily or Rose.
Queen Esther dwelt in Susa. In Susan.
There are soooo many layers of hidden meaning.
This brings up many questions. Does anyone know when the next "q and a" will happen and where to go to submit questions?
Am I the only one who associate the thread twisting around the rod with the serpent twisting around the tree?
These comments are pure gold, if not, ecstatic.
The flax and the spindle can also represent the two kinds of men that she would end up being attracted to. the spindle being the put together goody two shoe kind of guy and the flax being the unkempt wild man. both causing her to bleed can mean that both of these kinds of men will lead to suffering. Then her childhood dies and her womanhood is awoken by the man who is the embodiment of both the principles.
Stories not making sense reminds me of Cindarella's glass slippers. I heard something about them being due to a translation error, but if this is the case, why was it never fixed?
Yes it is. It's an old French word that means a type of fur, but that sounds the same in French as the word for glass. I think the image of a glass slipper is so striking that it stuck. The symbolism of the glass slipper is much stronger. Something so hard and so fragile, so difficult to fit into. I suspect if the homonym was chosen on purpose. The Cinderella type of story is so old, there are so many versions that are worth exploring.
TIL. Glass is definitely a more striking symbol, not just because of how hard it would be to fit perfectly but how delicate and precious it is. Vair and verre reminds me of how my ex-husband thought there were a lot of gorilla fighters when he was a kid...
@@Joe-sg9ll Well on the other hand a glass slipper makes no sense in real life, even if it does work symbolically in the story. haha
@@Joe-sg9ll That's a metaphor, Cinderella's shoes are literally glass.
OOOH I GOT IT. But it's hidden DEEPER ...
The word Spindel. A spindel twists and turns .. in a productive way. But the etymology shows that this idea of "twisting" came to also mean "distort, contort, pervert, angry et al" in various languages. So what can be good .. if not handled carefully can manifest it's opposite. (JBP: Let the Chaos change you! It's either that, or it's a visiting in-law that NEVER leaves.)
Flax is related to "flay," which mean to strip bare .. to rend to tear to skin. To remove the outer covering. Does that sound familiar?
Ready for Distaff? The Distaff is a Snake. The Latin words for snake and distaff are close and both relate to a thing that winds around it's own axis. a snake very well could be referred to as a distaff-like animal.
#SymbolismHappens
1:10 video actually starts
I was spinning wool today and got pricked by a piece of "vegetable matter" (a thorn in my finger). Perhaps that is what the fable refers to?
@10:00
The contrast between the disney snowwhite and the other being where the finger is pricked seems to send a completely different message than the original. By pricking your finger before the flax is bound seems like manipulation of fate vs allowing the prick to be where the binding is. She should bind her blood oath to the binding vs staining the flax to attempt to manipulate the outcome of the woven material.
The prick is when fate is sealed. The difference in the timing would seem important.
If its a blood oath - and this story plays into sex. Then there is obvious repercussions for prematurely shedding the blood.😊
In the Pentamerone it's a splinter of flax.
The last line of the fairy tale-its moral-is as follows: "He who has luck may go to bed, And bliss will rain upon his head."
Very strange.
You should read and review
“A course in miracles “
That was useful, that was exactly what I was searching for. Not the interpretation where woman just waits for a prrfect prince all her life and sleepa in this way. I think evil fairy and the spin and sleeping of all the court and all the forest around are important.
But why fall asleep after touching the wheel and eating the apple that is supposed to give you knowledge of your insecurity? So is it only when you experience true love that you wake up from the sleep that is being a woman?
I did not have this experience of surprise when I went through puberty like some women do. From the age of six, I knew that I wanted to be a mother and I knew that puberty was required for that to happen so I embraced becoming a woman.
Was I insecure about my beauty? I was more insecure about who I was as a person. I didn’t really care about what others thought of how I looked.
Belle was more the archetype I wanted to be. Bookish, smart, courageous, loyal to family.
My mother was so obsessed with beauty and appearances that I wholly rejected that mindset. Plus, the 90s alternative movement was about rejecting traditional notions of beauty and sex. Being a tomboy was much more accepted. Being a natural beauty (less makeup) and the girl next door was considered desirable.
I didn’t want to be a sex symbol. I wanted to be appreciated by a man for who I was on the inside, not how I looked on the outside.
So the stories of Snow White & Sleeping Beauty never spoke to me. They never made any sense. Belle from Beauty and the Beast and Cinderella did.
The common theme I did experience was the controlling aging mother who tried to prevent me from becoming my own person whom I fully rebelled against.
Maybe the sleep is the young woman becoming lost in society’s obsession with her beauty. Whereas, true love is when you feel the most real and yourself bc you’re seen by the man that loves you.
Cinderella sort of goes into this because the glass slipper is so unique and so specific to Cinderella that the Prince finds her even though she was not who she really was when dressed up. He loves her for who she is. It didn’t matter that she was treated like a servant by her family. Who she was that was special was why her true love loved her.
I will also note that the kiss is actually quite a magical thing if he’s the one.
My first kiss with my husband was like the movies where the room spun around us and we both lost our breaths from the kiss. Like there was a magic spark between our souls that left our physical forms breathless. We both experienced it at the same time on the first kiss.
We still talk about that kiss 20 years later lol. We both wonder in awe about how crazy a feeling it was. The movies do a great job of showing what it can feel like. It’s truly unlike anything else one can experience in this world.
@@umiluv Wow!
" if its weird, its probably important" mike heisner
The story is about the introduction of time after the fall.
hacking through the bush. quite an analogy.
Interesting though that all the characters are essentially female- maybe it not about male unity but female generated heirarchy and boundary keeping
Oooh, if you try and exclude the evil fairy (the dark side of the female experience), you’ll be pricked by the dark side of the male experience…
So Turning Red but less obvious
Spinning will is also destiny, ladies spinning flux of fait archetypes. So, hurt by destiny, destiny curse.
Spindles
I would love to contribute to the knowledge of the spindle.
I am a spinner myself and am deeply interested in the archeological development of textiles.
All women of history spun, this goes back to the first woman and that is why one of the first stories we know of is that of making clothes.
We could not have left the garden, the equator, without textiles and women made the clothing while the men built and hunted. It is easier to spin wool and weave it while carrying for young children than it would be to build a shelter and nurse a baby.
Even as societies advanced, rich women spun. They would spin with more expensive materials (dyed wools, dyed silks, more ornate spindle tools).
The spindle is a symbol of womanhood in its most beautiful role of adorning, keeping warm and healthy the people of her family and also if she were skilled she would make money with her skills which would also be used for her family’s wealth.
When the parents take the spindles away from her, they take away her access to full womanhood, and social acceptance with her peers.
She is defunct!
As a spinner, I have always looked at her pricking her finger on the spindle because she has no proprioception of the use of her own hands!!
Just a clarification, some historical spindles were extremely sharp! Especially for spinning cotton and certain fibers. In fact the sharper the spindle the more fine the fibers can be spun and at times this could garner a lot of money. Coupled with her lack of womanly skill as she approaches a sharp spindle, she is ill prepared for the real world.
A woman who cannot provide and take part in the work of the family IS in a deep sleep. In history, women that did not participate in productivity of the farm and home, we often assume they are mentally retarded and cognitively impaired, much like a deep sleep. She is defunct before she ever pricks herself.
However, the Prince is working double hard to rectify the situation!! It’s really not a good relationship. I would have always loved to see Sleeping Beauty wake up, and learn to spin despite the fear of pricking and clothe her family. So that at least the Prince’s work was worthy!!
Also I could add that the fiber preparations tools were extremely sharp as well, combs and carder brushes, pickers to get the vegetative matter out of the fiber. I have bloodied my hands when first learning the tools of fiber preparation.
My knitting needles are so sharp, I could use in self defense.
💗
I always thought sewing machines had to do something with the fate the strings and twine and all that stuff
Why are some men called pricks?
Same reason they are called dicks.
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P r o m o s m
The spindle may have been a masturbatory implement for young ladies. Pricking oneself on a spindle would be a sign of approaching womanhood.
The freaking herself on the flax may be a metaphor for pubic hair, the flags being the pubic hair of course. And she would wind up with blood in her pubic hair because she started her cycles.
why not to collab with Jordan on these? its his bread and butter,. rememeber pinocchio ?
Good to see you're not getting lost in you own sauce like peterstein en vervaeke are
Now don't start to feel pride too ok? we need people that are and STAY aligned towards God
weaving fate. ez pz. she picks her finger on the wheel of fortune, wild nature, opportunity.