KidLit Forum

In Sun, Moon, and Talia, we have one earlier version of The Sleeping Beauty.

‘There was once a great Lord’ who had a daughter, Talia, and who was cautioned by wise men and seers that a great peril will fall upon her ‘from a piece of stalk in some flax’. He prohibited any flax or hemp or similar things in his kingdom. However, after Talia grew up, she saw a lady one day who was spinning. She wanted to do the same as the old woman, but unfortunately, ‘a piece of stalk in the flax’ got under her finger-nail and ‘she fell dead upon the ground’. Her father placed her ‘upon a velvet seat under a canopy of brocade’ and left the palace, as he thought there was nothing left to do. One day, a king went for a chase and his falcon escaped. It flew in through the window of the palace. He followed the bird and found the princess sleeping. After admiring her beauty, he returned to the palace. However, two twins were born – a boy and a girl. The girl bit Talia’s finger and the ‘splinter of flax came out’.
After a while, the king went again to the palace where he found her awake, together with the two little children – Sun and Moon. He promised he would come back and take them to his palace. Meanwhile, his stepmother became suspicious and ordered the secretary to go and bring the children to the palace in order to cook them. The cook felt pity for the children, and decided to give the twins to his wife who could hide them. However, the cook killed and dressed two little kids instead and served them to the king. Then, the Queen sent the secretary to bring Talia to the palace. When she saw her, the Queen, ‘with a face of a Nero, and full of poison as a viper’ commanded that Talia should be thrown into the fire that had been lighted in the courtyard. Before this happened, the king appeared, realised what was happening and ordered his people to throw his stepmother and the secretary in the fire, instead. He wanted to punish his cook too, as the King thought he had cooked his children, but the cook's wife brought the boy and the girl before him. Eventually, Talia became the King’s wife and they lived together with their children.

What do you think about cannibalism in this fairy tale? (this does not appear only in Sun, Moon, and Talia)


I believe it could refer to how parents used to threaten their children – that is, if they don’t behave properly, some creature or witch will come, take them and eat them. (). This is not the only fairy tale that contains this theme, but it is one that preserves the grotesque in it. At first, these elements of the grotesque might have been added in such stories for the desire of adults to hear something uncommon, odd. But later, when fairy tales became stories for children, these elements meant imposing fear. I also see ‘the threat of cannibalism among relatives’, as Vladimir Propp calls it, misunderstanding within a family. This is the case in ‘Sun, Moon, and Talia’. The stepmother hates her daughter-in-law and her grandchildren, and she decides that they must disappear. It is not the pure relationship between the son and the mother (where the maternal love exists and the mother – as she tries to protect her own child from any harm – intervenes and attempts to convince the child what is better for him/her), but there is the fight for obtaining power in the kingdom. The king knows that it is his lawful right to marry and become the future leader of the kingdom, but the stepmother tries to hold on to this power as long as possible. This is also a story that preserves the idea of confronting difficult situations in life. Bruno Bettelheim describes in the important role fairy tales have on our existence:

This is exactly the message that fairy tales get across the child in manifold form: that a struggle against severe difficulties in life is unavoidable, is an intrinsic part of human existence – but that if one does not shy away, but steadfastly meets unexpected and often unjust hardships, one masters all obstacles and at the end emerges victorious.

(…)
It is characteristic of fairy tales to state an existential dilemma briefly and pointedly. This permits the child to come to grips with the problem in its most essential form, where a more complex plot would confuse matters for him.

(…)
Contrary to what takes place in many modern children’s stories, in fairy tales evil is as omnipresent as virtue.

The cook tried to save the king’s children and, eventually, tried to save his life. The Queen would have had him killed if he hadn’t served what he had been ordered to do. I think that fairy tales also follow a pattern of sacrifice and convey the idea that sacrifice is needed in life. People must commit to sacrifice in order for the natural cycle of the world to follow the right path.