Le Prince Marcassin et la Belle et la Bête

Ca’ Foscari University, Venice - Adapting and Rewriting in the Age of the Enlightenment

"Le Prince Marcassin" and "La Belle et la Bête" : Straparola's influence on 18th French Fairy Tales and their adaptation in The Witcher.

Adèle Hoareau - VALE/ CRLC - Sorbonne Université

Introduction

Animal-Husband motif in tales

“Il Re Porco”/“The Pig King" (Italian Renaissance tale) Straparola, Le Piacevoli Notti, The Pleasant Nights (1550)

“Le Prince Marcassin” / “The Wild Boar” (French fairy tale) Mme d’Aulnoy’s Contes Nouveaux ou les fées à la mode (1698) + “Hans my Hedgehog” (German varitation )(Grimm, Kinder- und Hausmärchen, vol. 2, (1815)

“La Belle et la Bête” / “Beauty and the Beast” Mme de Villeneuve, La Jeune Américaine et les Contes Marins 1740 Mme de Beaumont, Le Magasin des Enfants, 1756.

"A Grain of Truth" Andrzej Sapkowski, The Last Wish + "A Grain of Truth" Lauren Schmidt Hissrich (creator Netflix series) season 2.1

"A Question of Price" Andrzej Sapkowski, The Last Wish + "Of Banquets, Bastards and Burials" Lauren Schmidt Hissrich (creator Netflix series) season 1.4

Index

01. "Fairy Godparents" & “sibling tales”: A story of filiation andadaptation in the 18th.

02. Beastly husbands & virtuous Ladies:Adapting the Animal as Bridegroom motif(s)

01

“Fairy Godparents” & "sibling tales”

A story of filiation and adaptation in the 18th.

01. “Fairy Godparents” & "sibling tales”

A) Straparola, The Pleasant Nights (1550-5)

"J'ai pris les idées de quelques-uns de ces contes dans un auteur ancien intitué les Facétieuses Nuits du Seigneur Straparole, imprimé pour la seizième fois en 1615"

• framed as Bocaccio’s Decameron (1349–52) or Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptameron(posthumously 1558).

Madame de Murat, Histoires sublimes et allégoriques, Avertissement, Bibliothèques des Génies et des Fées, vol. 3(cité par Nadine Jasmin dans son édition critique p 73)

• quoted as a source of Fairy tales by Mme de Murat

Ruth B. Bottigheimer: Fairy Godfather: Straparola, Venice, and the Fairy Tale Tradition

"The Pig King"

"Galeotto, King of Anglia, had a son born in the shape of a pig. This son marries three wives, and, in the end, having shed his swinish appearance, becomes a handsome young man and is afterwards known a King Pig"

Straparola, Gian Francesco. The Pleasant Nights. Edited by Donald Beecher, Translated by William George Waters, University of Toronto Press, 2012

Nivellen's first appearance in “A Grain of Truth.” The Witcher, directed by Stephen Surjik, Episode 1 season 2, Netflix, 2022.

01. “Fairy Godparents” & "sibling tales”

B) Mme d'Aulnoy's imprint on fairy tales

"Le Prince Marcassin"

• Mother of the literary fairy tale

• Her Salon was very famous (literary female circle)

• Wrote most of the tales of the FAIRY TALE GOLDEN AGE (last decade of 17th)

• "Happily ever after ending"

"The true sequel to Straparola, and the mediatory tale between his Nights and Mme de Beaumont's Beauty and the Beast is Madame Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy's "Le Prince Marcassin" from her Suite des Contes Nouveaux ou les fées à la mode" (1698)"

Donald Beecher, commentary on "The Pig King", Straparola, Gian Francesco. The Pleasant Nights. University of Toronto Press, 2012

Raymonde Robert & Nadine Jasmin

01. “Fairy Godparents” & "sibling tales”

C) 18th tale(s): the two mothers of "Beauty and the Beast" '

• “La Belle et la Bête”, Mme de Villeneuve,

La Jeune Américaine et les Contes Marins 1740

• “La Belle et la Bête” Mme de Beaumont,

Le Magasin des Enfants ou Dialogues d'une sage gouvernante avec ses élèves, 1756.

• Educational purpose
• Embeded in a succession of dialogues between Mme Bonne & her students.

Nivellen (The Beast) welcoming his guests in “A Grain of Truth.” The Witcher, directed by Stephen Surjik, Episode 1 season 2, Netflix, 2022.

Catriona Seth & Rotraud von Kulessa

02

Beastly husbands & virtuous Ladies

Adapting the Animal as Bridegroom motif(s)

02. Beastly husbands & virtuous Ladies

"I prithee, sir, to give to me, 
What never did belong to thee,
 Or ever will, what though thy span
Of life exceed the wont of man.
Dream not this treasure to attain,
Thy longing will be all in vain;
 But if you deem me such a prize, 
And pine for me with loving eyes, 
Give me this boon, my wish fulfil, 
For you can grant it if you will."

Isabella's enigma, Straparola, Gian Francesco. The Pleasant Nights.

Queen Calanthe and Pavetta at the betrothal banquet “Of Banquets, Bastards and Burials.” The Witcher, directed by Alex Garcia Lopez, Episode 4, Netflix, 2019.

02. Beastly husbands & virtuous Ladies

A) Fairy tale types and their “meaning”

• A fair tale type is an independent story characterized by one identifiable motif or more.

• The commonly used classification is the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index (ATU)

Lord Urcheon's curse in “Of Banquets, Bastards and Burials.” The Witcher, directed by Alex Garcia Lopez, 1.4 Netflix, 2019.

Uther, Hans-Jörg. The Types of International Folktales. 2004.

Hedgehog Hans

ATU 441

• One type, different beasts : Pigs and Boars in Roman languages / Hedgehogs in Salvic tales
• "Hans my Hegdegod" Grimm's Household Tales, KHM 108.

• MOTIFS :
• Shed his skin
• singing up whatever comes greeting the King 1st
• => "LAW OF SURPRISE" in The Witcher

02. Beastly husbands & virtuous Ladies

But let us not pretend we’ve never heard of such requests, of the Law of Surprise, as old as humanity itself. Of the price a man who saves another can demand, of the granting of a seemingly impossible wish. “You will give me the first time that comes to greet you” (…) Or : “You will give me what you find at home yet don’t expect”

Lord Coodcoodak about the Law of Surprise in Sapkowski, Andrzej. “A Question of Price.” The Last Wish (139)

Lord Urcheon and Pavetta's wedding by Calanthe “Of Banquets, Bastards and Burials.” The Witcher, directed by Alex Garcia Lopez, 1.4 Netflix, 2019.

ATU 425

The Beast Bridegroom

ATU 425 A

Beauty and the Beast

ATU 425 C

"Like no other tale in the corpus of magic tales, type 425 is a story of love in both its erotic and spiritual dimensions. It is the story of the sexual union of the epitome of divine male sexuality with the apotheosis of mortal female sexuality. The eroticism of the modern folktale is, of course, perceived as is the nature of folktales – not in stimulating scenes of passion, but by externalsigns and symbols.)"

Nivellen's first and last scenes in “A Grain of Truth.”

Ward, Donald. “‘Beauty and the Beast’: Fact and Fancy, Past and Present.” Midwestern Folklore, vol. 15, n°2, Special Issue: Type 425, "The Search for the Lost Husband ", 1989, p120

02. Beastly husbands & virtuous Ladies

B) Pigs, Boars, Hedgehogs and Beasts : adapting male bestiality

Depiction of the animal-husband

"The Wild Boar*"

"A Question of Price"

"The Pig King"

"When morning came, the pig prince got up, leaving the mattress all covered in manure, and ranged abroad to pasture" (277) "But when [the Queen] saw her [Meldina] lying in the bed all defiled with filthiness and rot yet looking pleased and contented, she thanked God for this favor - that her son had at last found a spouse to his liking.

"She suddenly saw an enormous wild boar about twenty paces from her. Her attendants left her and fled. (…) The wild boar, for it was he, recognized her a once, and he saw that she was nearly dead from fright the way she was trembling. (…)‘Have no fear, Marthesie, I love you too well to do you any harm’ (p73-74)

"Above the wide, semicircular breastplate two bulbous, black, button eyes looked out. Eyes set either side of a blunt, elongated muzzle covered in reddish bristles and full of sharp white fangs. Urcheon's head and neck bristled with a brush a short, grey, twitching prickles (144)

*translated in Zipes, Jack David. The Great Fairy Tale Tradition : From Straparola and Basile to the Brothers Grimm

02. Beastly husbands & virtuous Ladies

B) Pigs, Boars, Hedgehogs and Beasts : adapting male bestiality

The Skin shed / Metamorphosis

"The Wild Boar"

"A Question of Price"

"The Pig King"

"She felt something beneath her feet and discovered that it was a wild boar's skin. She picked it up and hid it and waited silently for the outcome of the affair. (…) She saw him so extraordinarily handsome and well made that she became the most delighted person in the world" (79)

"Being now certain of his wife's discretion and fidelity, straightway he shook off the foul and dirty pig's skin from his body and revealed himself to be a handsome and well-shaped young man, and all that night he remained closedly enfolded in the arms of his beloved wife"

"Urcheon's monstrous snout softened, blurred and was beginning to lose its contours. The spikes and bristles rippled and became black, shiny, wavy hair and a beard which bordered a pale, angular, masculine face, dominated by a prominent nose" (151)

The husband learns Consent

"The Wild Boar"

"A Question of Price"

"Since I have lived in this forest, I havelearned that nothing in the world demands more freedom than the heart. I see that all the animals are happy because they live without constraint. I did not know their maxims before. I know them now, and I fell that I would far rather die than enter into an enforced marriage. (74) "Beginning with your wedding night, you will discard that skin which is so hateful to you, but you will have to put it on again before daybreak and say nothing to your wife. Be careful to prevent her from knowing anything about it until the time of the great discovery arrives" (79)

- “I declare, Urcheon, that you have no right to the princess as yet. You will win her only when- -‘When what?’‘-When the princess herself agrees to leave with you. This is what the Law of Surprise states. It is the child’s, not the parent’s, consent which confirms the oath, which proves that the child was born under the shadow of destiny. (p143) “ ‘Pavetta! Calanthe repeated. ‘Answer. Do you choose to leave with this creature?’ Pavetta raised her head. ‘Yes.’” (145)

02. Beastly husbands & virtuous Ladies

C) Fair ladies": female tellers, listeners, characters

• To the "Fair ladies" of the Audience:

female audience addressed in Pleasant Nights "dear ladies"/ first word of “Il re porco”: "Fair ladies"

“Si des femmes se trouvent donc à l’origine des contes littéraires, elles en marquent également le fin, à la fois chronologiquement, mais aussi en tant que destinataires privilégiées”.

• Fairy tale tellers : the “Conteuses”

Called each other "Fées" => community + blur between fiction/Salons

Grande, Nathalie. Sexe, genre et contes de fées: conteuses du XVIIe siècle. Presses universitaires de Saint-Étienne, 2024. (p13)

• A Female genre?

=> women are given more space in fairy tales because it is considered as a lesser genre

Cirilla (Pavetta's daughter) and Vereena (Beauty/Stryga) “A Grain of Truth.” The Witcher, directed by Stephen Surjik, 1.2, Netflix, 2022.

Queen Calanthee's arrival at Pavetta's bethrotal; Pavetta destroying the throne room “Of Banquets, Bastards and Burials.” The Witcher, directed by Alex Garcia Lopez, 1.4 Netflix, 2019.

END

Summary & Conclusion

• Adaptation as part of the Fairy tale DNA
• Integration of Fairy Tales within Fantasy fiction gave another dimension to the tale => cultural framework
• Always been/will be a space for female voices

Work Cited:

• “A Grain of Truth.” The Witcher, directed by Stephen Surjik, Episode 1 season 2, Netflix, 2022.
• Aulnoy, Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville. Contes des fées suivis des Contes nouveaux ou Les fées à la mode. Edited by Nadine Jasmin, Honoré Champion éditeur, 2020.
• Bottigheimer, Ruth B. Fairy Godfather: Straparola, Venice, and the Fairy Tale Tradition. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013.

---. Magic Tales and Fairy Tale Magic: From Ancient Egypt to the Italian Renaissance. Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

• De Villeneuve, Gabrielle Suzanne. “La Belle et La Bête.” La Jeune Amériquaine et Les Contes Marins, la Compagnie, 1740.
• Grande, Nathalie. Sexe, genre et contes de fées: conteuses du XVIIe siècle. Presses universitaires de Saint-Étienne, 2024.

• Kulessa, Rotraud von, and Catriona Seth. Une éducatrice des Lumières, Marie Leprince de Beaumont. Classiques Garnier, 2018.
• Leprince de Beaumont, Jeanne-Marie. “La Belle et La Bête.” Magasin Des Enfants Ou Dialogues d’une Sage Gouvernante Avec Ses Élèves, 1756.
• “Of Banquets, Bastards and Burials.” The Witcher, directed by Alex Garcia Lopez, Episode 4, Netflix, 2019.
• Robert, Raymonde, et al. Le conte de fées littéraire en France: de la fin du XVIIe à la fin du XVIIIe siècle. 2e édition, 2002. H. Champion.
• Sapkowski, Andrzej. “A Grain of Truth.” The Last Wish, translated by Danusia Stok, Gollancz, 2020.

---. “A Question of Price.” The Last Wish, translated by Danusia Stok, Gollancz, 2020.

• Straparola, Gian Francesco. The Pleasant Nights. Edited by Donald Beecher, Translated by William George Waters, University of Toronto Press, 2012.
• Ward, Donald. “'Beauty and the Beast’: Fact and Fancy, Past and Present.” Midwestern Folklore, vol. 15, n°2, no. Special Issue : Type 425, "The Search for the Lost Husband ", 1989, pp. 119-25.
• Zipes, Jack David. The Great Fairy Tale Tradition : From Straparola and Basile to the Brothers Grimm : Texts, Criticism. New York : W.W. Norton, 2001.

---. The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales. Second edition, Oxford University Press, 2015.

Ca’ Foscari University, Venice - Adapting and Rewriting in the Age of the Enlightenment

Thank you!

Adèle Hoareau - VALE/ CRLC - Sorbonne Université

adele.hoareau@sorbonne-universite.fr

_belleandherbeasts