Rosanella

Hey all!  I hope you had a lovely weekend.  Today I'm taking a look at another fairy tale without a dead mom (or a wicked stepmother).  Shall we begin?

Rosanella is a French fairy tale, and was collected in Andrew Lang's The Yellow Fairy Book. Much like The Little Green Frog (another fairy tale with a good, living mother), it features meddlesome fairies. In the story, two fairies had a bet going about which one could outperform the other. One, Surcantine, chose a young prince and made him fickle, unable to settle on any one maiden. The other, Paridamie, chose a princess so beautiful that all who saw her would fall in love with her. The competition began.

The princess' name was Rosanella, named so for the rose birthmark upon her neck. Her mother loved her dearly. One night the queen had a nightmare that the baby had been kidnapped. She and the maids rushed to the nursery, where the found Rosanella missing. The queen wept and was inconsolable, as was the king. In an effort to cheer up his wife, he sent her into the countryside. There she met twelve identical peasant girls, each carrying a basket. Within each basket was a baby girl with the same birthmark as Rosanella.

The queen adopted the girls as her own and took them back to the castle. Though she named them each, their names were soon forgotten; instead, the girls were called by their dispositions as they grew older. One was Beautiful, another Sweet, another Joy, and on it went. Many princes arrived to woo the princesses as they grew older, but none succeeded. Then Prince Mirliflor, he of the fickle heart, arrived.

Mirliflor fell in love with not one of the princesses, but with all twelve. He stayed at the castle for a very long time, unwilling to be parted from the girls. Then disaster struck. A swarm of enormous bees arrived and carried the twelve princesses away.

The queen was heartbroken by her loss, but so was Mirliflor. He locked himself away and sulked in his room for days.

Only when a joyful outcry erupted outside did he emerge. To the surprise of everyone, the princess Rosanella had returned! The fairy Paridamie had brought her back to the queen. Though she was overjoyed, the queen asked about her other twelve daughters. Her question was answered when Mirliflor approached Rosanella. He saw within her each of the attributes he had loved so well in the other girls. The fairy then revealed that she had split Rosanella into twelve, and that the princesses had been the queen's original daughter the whole time.

And so it was that Paridamie won the bet, for Surcantine was forced to admit that she had been bested. Mirliflor and Rosanella were married, much to the joy of her mother.

I'm quite impressed by the queen.  Not only was she a wonderful, loving mother to Rosanella - she was willing to put aside her heartbreak to raise and love twelve girls after her daughter went missing!

I'll be back later this week with a special announcement post...because Friday, Sleeping Love releases!

I'll see you then!