The Young Slave
Encyclopedia
The Young Slave is an Italian literary fairy tale
Fairy tale
A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...

 written by Giambattista Basile
Giambattista Basile
Giambattista Basile was an Italian poet, courtier, and fairy tale collector.- Biography :Born to a Neapolitan middle-class family, Basile was, during his career, a courtier and soldier to various Italian princes, including the doge of Venice. According to Benedetto Croce he was born in 1575, while...

 in his 1634 work, the Pentamerone
Pentamerone
The Pentamerone is a seventeenth-century fairy tale collection by Italian poet and courtier Giambattista Basile.-Background:...

.

It is Aarne-Thompson type 410, Sleeping Beauty
Sleeping Beauty
Sleeping Beauty by Charles Perrault or Little Briar Rose by the Brothers Grimm is a classic fairytale involving a beautiful princess, enchantment, and a handsome prince...

; other variants include The Glass Coffin
The Glass Coffin
The Glass Coffin is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, tale number 163. Andrew Lang included it in The Green Fairy Book as The Crystal Coffin.It is Aarne-Thompson type 410, Sleeping Beauty. Another variant is The Young Slave....

and Sun, Moon, and Talia
Sun, Moon, and Talia
Sun, Moon, and Talia is an Italian literary fairy tale written by Giambattista Basile in his 1634 work, the Pentamerone...

.

Synopsis

Girls competed to jump over a rose bush; at last Cilia, the baron's sister, did so, but she knocked off a rose petal. To pretend she had cleared it entirely, she swallowed the petal and became pregnant. She bore a daughter, named her Lisa, and gave her to fairies
Fairy
A fairy is a type of mythical being or legendary creature, a form of spirit, often described as metaphysical, supernatural or preternatural.Fairies resemble various beings of other mythologies, though even folklore that uses the term...

 to raise. The fairies gave her gifts, but one twisted her ankle and cursed Lisa to die when she was seven, because her mother, combing her hair, forgot the comb in her hair. This happened, and the lamenting mother put her in seven crystal coffins and put them in a room. Her health failed. Before she died, she gave her brother the key to the room and make him promise not to open it.

He obeyed, but he married, and one day while he hunted, his wife opened the door. Jealous of the girl's beauty, she pulled her out by her hair, which knocked out the comb and brought her back to life. The woman beat her and made her a slave, telling her husband that her aunt had sent her a slave and warned her that stern measures were necessary with this perverse slave.

The baron went to the fair and asked everyone for what they wanted. Lisa asked for a doll, a knife, and some pumice-stone, and cursed him not be able to cross a river to return if he did not. He forgot them, but the river swelled, reminding him. Lisa took them to the kitchen and told her story to the doll, and then threatened to sharpen the knife on the stone and kill herself if the doll did not answer. The doll did.

After several days of this, the baron heard this and eavesdropped. When the girl began to whet the knife, he broke into the kitchen and took it from her. Then he put Lisa in the care of a relative, where she regained her health and beauty. The baron brought her to his own home, dismissed his wife back to her relatives, and in due course married off his niece.

See also

  • The Sleeping Prince
    The Sleeping Prince (fairy tale)
    The Sleeping Prince is a Greek fairy tale collected by Georgios A. Megas in Folktales of Greece.It is Aarne-Thompson 425G: False Bride takes the heroine's place as she tries to stay awake; recognition when heroine tells her story...

  • The Maiden with the Rose on her Forehead
    The Maiden with the Rose on her Forehead
    The Maiden with the Rose on her Forehead is a Portuguese fairy tale collected byConsiglieri Pedroso in Portuguese Folk-Tales.-Synopsis:A prince had a garden, which he allowed no one to tend but himself. One day, he had to go to war; his sister promised to look after it. She remained in the garden...

  • The Bay-Tree Maiden
    The Bay-Tree Maiden
    -Synopsis:Once, a prince began to cry six weeks before he was due to be born. Nothing his mother did placated him until she promised him that he could marry Sanda-Lucsandra, a fair maiden who lived past nine lands and nine seas. When he grew up, however, he demanded that his parents marry him to...

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