Navigating An Ancient Faith Podcast
Welcome to a podcast that bridges the past and present in a transformative exploration of the Bible and faith. At Navigating An Ancient Faith, we delve into the original context of Scripture, mirroring the perspective of its first listeners. Our travels have taken us to Biblical lands, such as Israel, Greece, Turkey, and Egypt. Through insights from these travels, as well as engaging discussions around philosophy and mythology, we traverse the journey toward our own spiritual transformation. Join us on this journey from ancient faith to modern devotion.
Navigating An Ancient Faith Podcast
Fairy Tales Overthought: Sleeping Beauty
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We originally released this episode on our YouTube channel, but are making it available on our podcast during our break. 🎙️In this episode, we step into the darker, original version of Sleeping Beauty. 👸Together, we uncover how the King and Queen’s attempt to protect their daughter from a curse leads instead to a kingdom frozen in stasis—safe, but barren and lifeless. 🧊 We explore the symbolic weight of numbers, the danger of exclusion, and what this story reveals about overprotection, both in personal life and in society at large. Sleeping Beauty is more than a bedtime story. It’s a meditation on growth, change, and the cost of refusing what is new. ✨
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Sleeping Beauty
David: [00:00:00] Hey everyone. We're taking a short break during the month of July, but we didn't wanna leave you without something to listen to. Last fall, we recorded two episodes exploring classic fairy tales exclusively for our YouTube channel. Those videos included illustrations, graphics, and visual elements that help bring the stories to life.
For the next couple of weeks, we're releasing audio-only versions here on the podcast for those of you who haven't made your way over to our YouTube channel. Or if you follow us on a video platform like Spotify, you'll get the full video. Of course, you'll miss out on some of the visuals with just the audio, but the stories and the great conversation still stand on their own.
We hope you enjoy these two fairy tale episodes, and we'll be back with new content soon
J.R.: Welcome to Navigating an Ancient Faith, where we look at old stories with a flashlight and a mirror. Today is Sleeping Beauty, not the sanitized lullaby, but the older tale where a splinter of flax halts life, a frog rises from [00:01:00] below with a promise, and a forgotten 13th guest brings the reckoning nobody wanted.
David: Yeah. Maybe a little bit of an introduction is in order This is the first time we're doing, uh, this type of thing on our YouTube channel. Yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah, so we are Navigating Ancient Faith. We have a podcast. The audio versions are actually available on our YouTube channel. But we did a series last year on ancient stories where we examined the, what the mythic and the symbolic meaning of these fairy tales.
Right. And you and I had such a great time studying them- Yeah, it
J.R.: was fantastic ...
David: that we decided we have to do more of this. But we didn't wanna interrupt our normal podcast schedule, so we decided to take this idea to our YouTube channel. Right. And so this is our first foray into being able to see our mugs, and we're gonna try and talk about this as we go.
And we don't have the benefit of a lot of [00:02:00] editing, heavy editing. Yeah, we do have some- If we do, we're gonna see how
J.R.: this goes ... we'll just have to see how it goes.
David: Yeah, that's
J.R.: right. Yeah, that's right. Well, there's, it's also some of the fairy tales that we did on the podcast, it was just, we talked afterwards, it's like, man, I wish we had a screen to kinda put some of these ideas, put it onto the page where- Yeah
to visualize some of the concepts that we're talking about. And so today we're gonna talk about Sleeping Beauty, and there's just a lot of things that could really be conceptually communicated clearer if we could put it on the screen for you.
David: Yeah, that's right. On an audio podcast, there were some ideas about where we lay out what symbolism means in certain instances, and you end up having to describe it.
So we're hoping to be able to throw some of those ideas on a screen for you who are watching this. And yeah, it's a new idea. We'll give it a try and see how it goes. All right.
J.R.: Right. See what happens. Okay, Sleeping Beauty. Where are we gonna start this?
David: So let's do just a little bit of a background. I've heard some other podcasts, they go a lot into the [00:03:00] background and the story type and things like that.
I think we can skip over a lot of that.
J.R.: Yeah, it's value. You can Google that. Uh, there, there's some kind of value to the background.
David: Yeah. So let's start out by saying we're going to talk about the Grimm's Brothers version of the fairy tale.
J.R.: Right. '
David: Cause there's a lot of versions. You were talking about older versions that you w- Oh, yeah
you had read that-
J.R.: Yeah, six- ... are
David: kinda weird.
J.R.: Yeah. Sixth century type stuff. I mean, it g- just goes way back. And we'll kinda bring that in a little bit to tie in some of the concepts, but specifically we'll talk about the Grimm Brothers version. Yeah. Which is, is its own interesting way of telling it, different than the Disney that we're familiar with probably.
David: Yes, that's right.
J.R.: But, but pretty similar.
David: Yeah, yeah. So yeah, there's a couple points then, that tales of a princess who fall asleep can be traced back to the 1300s. So this goes-
J.R.: Okay ...
David: way back, this tale of a, of a sleeping princess.
J.R.: Right.
David: Right? And so that kinda goes that. Of course, the Grimm [00:04:00] brothers I think are what?
The 1800s-
J.R.: Right ...
David: I wanna say. Yeah. About the 18- yeah, in fact, 1812 is the date that sticks in mind when they actually released their book.
J.R.: I think that's right.
David: And so- You know, these go back a long way. But yeah, so there's the French version of a princess who falls asleep. So all these things go into this tale that we have for us today, and then we course have had the Disney version.
Yeah. Yeah. Which sometimes is far different from the Grimm version, and it can be jarring to go, "Oh my gosh, I don't remember this in the Disney movie." Right. What am I reading right now, right? Yeah.
J.R.: Well, we talked about this with Red Riding Hood. We talked about it in some of the other fairy tales. You're like, "Whoa, I don't remember this part," the s- y- you know, 'cause we get the sanitized versions as kids.
But these are ancient tales, and they've been told for centuries. And so there's, there's a seed of truth behind these stories that they've been distilled down. All the, all the nonsense has been stripped away, and you really have kind of [00:05:00] a pure story that once you understand what it's about, then all of the elements start to kinda fall into place.
David: Yeah.
J.R.: And, and you're not so jarred by Prince- I'm kissing the-
David: Kissing the prince ... kissing the sleeping
J.R.: princess or-
David: Have we encountered one of these really bizarre parts of a story?
J.R.: Yeah.
David: But once we talk it out and try to figure out the symbolism and the meaning, all of a sudden both of us end up going, "Yeah, this actually makes perfect sense for this to be written- Right
the way it was."
J.R.: Yeah, it couldn't be any other way.
David: Yeah, yeah.
J.R.: Right.
David: That's right. One more interesting note that I did write down when I was doing a little bit of background research, Disney's animated classic was released in 1959. Doesn't seem that old, but-
J.R.: No, it doesn't, but
David: But it actually bombed at the bos- box office.
J.R.: Really? Wow. So, I mean, was there any explanation why?
David: No, I, it w- it just didn't do that well. Uh, it was one of their first forays into that, and kind of it didn't grip people. But it, of course, has since then become one of the [00:06:00] classic Disney-
J.R.: Right ...
David: movies.
J.R.: Well, Snow White was the first, I think.
David: Okay.
J.R.: Uh, the first major motion picture, animated picture by Disney.
David: Yeah.
J.R.: And I think Sleeping Beauty was the next. I mean, i- 1959, it's gotta be Sleeping Beauty. I, there may be one in there, but so maybe they thought it was a little bit too similar to Snow White maybe. I don't know.
David: Yeah. Yeah, maybe so I,
J.R.: I, yeah, I'm not
David: sure Or maybe this was a new genre they were just springing on people, and people weren't- Yeah
you know, it's not like Disney in its heyday where everything they put out was the norm. Gold.
J.R.: Yeah.
David: Yeah.
J.R.: They should have followed up with Bambi.
David: The merchandising, yeah.
J.R.: And Fox and the Hound. Yeah. If they'd followed up with Fox and the Hound, you know, we would've been ready for Sleek- Sleeping Beauty when they came out with it.
David: Yeah, that's right. All right, so here's what we're gonna do. This was a format that we used on our audio versions of these fairy tale podcasts. So we're going to let you, as the viewer, listen to it, right? So you are familiar with it, so you hear what we're talking about. [00:07:00] And then we're gonna come back after you listen to it, and we're going to start just picking apart the meaning of it.
J.R.: Yeah, break it down.
David: Yeah.
J.R.: And as you're listening to it, there's two things. First of all, if there's an odd feature, man, pay attention to that. There's meaning to it.
David: Yes.
J.R.: And so if there's something odd that you're like, "Why would they do that?" Or, "What's the, w- what's the significance of that?" Pay attention.
Put a pin in that. Pay attention to it. We'll come to those. All those things matter. And also, just kind of don't get hung up on the, on the literal understanding of it, you know?
David: Yes.
J.R.: Don't get so hung up by, well, you know, that's not appropriate, or that's not the way that, you know, a sleeping princess should be treated.
Because what the, the... They represent something else, and when you understand what they represent, it makes perfect sense, and you can kinda drop all the apprehensive nonsense about, "This isn't what we should be teaching our kids" type thing, right?
David: Right. We're giving away the ending, but the big debate on some of the more [00:08:00] modern podcasts we had heard is, is it appropriate for the prince to kiss the princess when she was asleep?
And spoiler alert, we think that's a bunch of nonsense.
J.R.: Oh, yeah. No. Uh-huh.
David: Yeah. So-
J.R.: Well, we can start by saying some of the older versions, the prince actually took advantage of her more so than kissing her. You know, and a baby's born. Right. Or twins are born.
David: Right.
J.R.: And again, that's like one of those jarring things, you're like, "Whoa, that's not a...
That, that's an awful story." But again, the, the older stories don't go into detail, doesn't say this is what happened. But it, it, it... That's obviously what happened. And again, if you understand the elements and the concept behind it, then you can kind of ignore the fact that that's an inappropriate move, and, and you're like, "Oh, okay, the deeper idea makes sense."
Yeah. And so... But right. Yeah. So we'll just kinda leave it at that.
David: Yeah. We don't wanna get ahead of ourselves. Keep those things in mind, though, and we're gonna let you listen to the story of Sleeping Beauty.[00:09:00]
Reader: Sleeping Beauty. Little Briar Rose In times past, there lived a king and queen, who said to each other every day of their lives, "Would that we had a child!" And yet they had none. But it happened once that when the queen was bathing, there came a frog out of the water, and he squatted on the ground and said to her, "Thy wish shall be fulfilled.
Before a year has gone by, thou shall bring a daughter into the world." And as the frog foretold, so it happened, and the queen bore a daughter so beautiful that the king could not contain himself for joy, and he ordained a great feast. Not only did he bid it to his relations, friends, and acquaintances, but also the wise women, that they might be kind and favorable to the child.
There were 13 [00:10:00] of them in his kingdom, but as he had only provided 12 golden plates for them to eat from, one of them had to be left out. However, the feast was celebrated with all splendor, and as it drew to an end, the wise women stood forward to present to the child their wonderful gifts. One bestowed virtue, one beauty, a third riches, and so on, whatever there is in the world to wish for.
And when 11 of them had said their say, in came the uninvited 13th, burning to revenge herself, and without greeting or respect, she cried with a loud voice, "In the 15th year of her age, the princess shall prick herself with a spindle and shall fall down dead." And without speaking one more word, she turned away and left the hall.[00:11:00]
Everyone was terrified at her saying. When the 12th came forward, for she had not yet bestowed her gift, and though she could not do away with the evil prophecy, yet she could soften it, so she said, "The princess shall not die, but fall into a deep sleep for 100 years." Now the king, being desirous of saving his child from even this misfortune, gave commandment that all the spindles in his kingdom should be burnt up.
The maiden grew up, adorned with all the gifts of the wise women, and she was so lovely, modest, sweet, and kind, and clever, that no one who saw her could help loving her. It happened one day, she being already 15 years old, that the king and queen rode abroad, and the maiden was left behind alone in the castle.
She wandered [00:12:00] about into all the nooks and corners. And into all the chambers and parlors as the fancy took her, till at last she came to an old tower. She climbed the narrow, winding stair, which led to a little door with a rusty key sticking out of the lock. She turned the key, and the door opened, and there in the little room sat an old woman with a spindle, diligently spinning her flax.
"Good day, Mother," said the princess. "What are you doing?" "I'm spinning," answered the old woman, nodding her head. "What thing is it that that twists round so briskly?" asked the maiden. And taking the spindle into her hand, she began to spin, but no sooner had she touched it than the evil prophecy was fulfilled, and she pricked her finger with it.
In that very moment, she fell back upon the bed that stood there [00:13:00] and lay in a deep sleep. And this sleep fell upon the whole castle. The king and queen, who had returned and were in the great hall, fell fast asleep, and with them, the whole court. The horses in their stalls, the dogs in the yard, the pigeons on the roof, the flies on the wall, the very fire that flickered on the hearth became still and slept like the rest, and the meat on the spit ceased roasting, and the cook, who was going to pull the scullion's hair for some mistake he had made, let him go and went to sleep.
And the wind ceased, and not a leaf fell from the trees about the castle. Then round about that place, there grew a hedge of thorns thicker every year, until at last the whole castle was hidden from view, and nothing of it could be seen [00:14:00] but the vane on the roof. And a rumor went abroad in all that country of the beautiful sleeping Rosamond, for so was the princess called.
And from time to time, many king's sons came and tried to force their way through the hedge, but it was impossible for them to do so, for the thorns held fast together like strong hands, and the young men were caught by them, and not being able to get free, there died a lamentable death. Many a long year afterwards, there came a king's son into that country, and heard an old man tell how there should be a castle standing behind the hedge of thorns, and that there a beautiful enchanted princess named Rosamond had slept for a hundred years, and with her the king and queen and the whole court.
The old man had been told by his grandfather that many king's sons had sought to [00:15:00] pass the thorn hedge, but had all been caught and pierced by the thorns and had died a miserable death. Then said the young man, "Nevertheless, I do not fear to try. I shall win through and see the lovely Rosamond." The good old man tried to dissuade him, but he would not listen to his words, for now the hundred years were at an end, and the day had come when Rosamond should be awakened.
When the princess drew near the hedge of thorns, it was changed into a hedge of beautiful large flowers, which parted and bent aside to let him pass, and then closed behind him in a thick hedge. When he reached the castle yard, he saw the horses and brindled hunting dogs lying asleep, and on the roof, the pigeons were sitting with their heads under their wings.
And when he came indoors, the flies on the wall were asleep. The cook in the [00:16:00] kitchen had had his hand uplifted to strike the scullion, and the kitchen maid had a black fowl on her lap ready to pluck. Then he mounted higher and saw in the hall the whole court lying asleep, and above them on their throne slept the king and the queen.
And still he went farther, and all was so quiet that he could hear his own breathing. And at last he came to the tower, and he went up the winding stair and opened the door of the little room where Rosamond lay. And when he saw her looking so lovely in her sleep, he could not turn away his eyes, and presently he stooped and kissed her.
And she awaked and opened her eyes and looked very kindly on him. And she rose, and they went forth together, and the king and the queen and the whole court waked up and gazed on each other with bright eyes of wonderment. [00:17:00] And the horses in the yard got up and shook themselves. The hounds sprang up and wagged their tails.
The pigeons on the roof drew their heads from under their wings, looked around, and flew into the field. The flies on the wall crept up a little farther. The kitchen fire leapt up and blazed and cooked the meat. The joint on the spit began to roast. The cook gave the scullion such a box on the ear that he roared out, and the maid went on plucking the fowl.
Then the wedding of Prince and Rosamond was held with all splendor, and they lived very happily together until their lives end.
David: Yeah, so you may have caught that It referred to it as Little Briar Rose, but then in the story it calls her Rosamond.
J.R.: Right.
David: So the first question is, okay, what's the de- what is her name, right?
J.R.: Right. It's just- Is
David: it Little Briar Rose or Rosamond? Yeah. So Little Briar Rose is, I believe, the [00:18:00] German name.
J.R.: Okay.
David: And that's really actually important.
J.R.: Right.
David: Little Briar Rose actually from the very beginning gives you a clue as to the identity of the princess.
J.R.: Yeah. Well, and you've got this contrast.
You've got this rose in the midst of the briars.
David: Yeah. Something- So you got, yeah ... beautiful in the midst of something, what? Dangerous, right? Right.
J.R.: Right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So that, that... Yeah, you're right. That's a hint right off the bat.
David: Yeah. So and then I think the English version ends up becoming Rosamond.
Now, it's not a one-to-one translation, but it... Rosamond is more kind of the English version a couple of hundred years later from the German version of Little Briar Rose.
J.R.: Okay.
David: And so it b- just becomes Rosamond. But actually the meaning is still there.
J.R.: Okay.
David: The, the core of rose, right? Right. And then mond, in German I think it's protection.
So it basically- Oh, yeah ... means like a rose- Sure ... that is protected.
J.R.: Ro- a protected rose. Yeah. That's right. Okay. Yeah.
David: Which very much [00:19:00] the identity- Yes ... of Sleeping Beauty here. Yeah. So we can refer to her, I guess, as Rosamond or something like that. But that's, yeah, that's why we see these different names.
And one more thing we should say before we jump in and start talking about the meaning of this is there are layers of meaning to these stories.
J.R.: Right.
David: And if you haven't been exposed to this, you may have a tendency to listen to us and go, "Man, what are these guys talking about? Where did they get this stuff?"
But in any fairy tale, there are these at least three layers of meaning. There's multiple layers. Right. But you have the story itself, which is usually what we tell kids, right? Right. W- it's about a princess who falls asleep and a prince comes and prin- and wakes her up- Right ... and they live happily ever after.
So that's, you might say that's the literal meaning of the story. Yeah. But the real meaning is these layers underneath. And so it really is what is this story trying to teach us? Might be thinking of the second layer.
J.R.: Yeah.
David: Right? What is the actual moral lesson behind this story? Why was it told? Why was it preserved?
Why [00:20:00] was it passed down?
J.R.: Right. And it's more than just because it's a good bedtime story that my kids love.
David: Yes. Right.
J.R.: Yeah.
David: Yeah. It,
J.R.: it's, it's communicating reality about the world.
David: Yeah.
J.R.: Okay.
David: Yeah. And so then there's a third layer that we're gonna talk about, which is- Kings and queens and kingdoms and princes and princess, they are never just talking about individuals.
We talked about how if you just read these stories, you can get the impression that how many kings were there- Right ... during this time? Because everyone seemed to be a king.
J.R.: Right.
David: But when you understand this underlying layer of meaning is that kings and queens represent what a culture-
J.R.: Yeah ...
David: right?
J.R.: Yeah.
David: And so these are not only morality tales about how to raise a princess or how to, how to guide your daughter to womanhood-
J.R.: Right ...
David: how you, however you might say that. But it's also about how a culture navigates Outside ideas
J.R.: Yes
David: [00:21:00] versus stagnation.
J.R.: Right.
David: Right? And so there's always this layer of meaning of how
J.R.: does this apply to a culture?
Yeah. King and queen equal a, a kingdom, right? Right. A country. Right. A culture. Yes. And, and not just how does it relate to that culture, it's, it's, it's again, how do we accept new ideas as an individual or as a culture or as broader society? Yeah. Uh, it, it's, it's this pattern that works its way up. We were talking about the idea of fractals.
It's a repeating pattern that can get bigger and bigger with that same pattern, and so it works. You know, we'll, we'll talk here in a minute about being the overprotective parent and trying to shield your precious daughter from the terrible world. You know, and you can look at this story that way and you'd be right, but you can also look at it as what, what happens, it's a fractal idea, what happens when new ideas come into our society?
Do we reject it? Do we say, "No, we don't wanna change"? You know, and, and we get into [00:22:00] the conservative and the liberal and left, right- Yeah ... you know, we'll play into all that stuff. And, and that's how a really well-crafted story works, is it works at multiple layers, and it's very scalable from the individual, what does this mean to me, up to broader society, what does this mean for our, my country or the world, even?
David: Yeah. At the very basic level, just it's a good story to read to your kid at bedtime.
J.R.: Right. Yeah, the end of that- Maybe not the
David: Grimm versions.
J.R.: Right. Yeah. Yeah. Stick with the, stick with, uh- Yeah ... Aurora. That's her name. Yeah, Aurora. Oh, okay. Stick with Aurora and the Disney version. Okay.
David: All right. Should we jump in?
J.R.: Yeah, let's go.
David: Okay. So we're just gonna talk about these in chunks. You've already heard the story. We've already read the story, but we're gonna talk about this in chunks. But we always talk about how the fairy tale a lot of times gives you the origin story, and it, it's not a lot of detail, but it's enough to paint a picture of, okay, this is the scenario [00:23:00] that's happening right now.
J.R.: Yeah.
David: And in this story then, we start out with this idea that a king and queen want a child, and they can't have one.
J.R.: Right.
David: And they're distraught about it.
J.R.: Right.
David: And so that's the first thing we're gonna talk about. But then as it happens, and this is a very strange part, but it's a very important part.
So it says, in fact, let me read this real quick So it says, "One day when the queen was bathing, there came a frog out of the water, and he sat on the ground and said to her, 'Your wish will be fulfilled. Before a year has gone by, you will bring a daughter into this world.'" Yeah. Okay, now let's be honest, that's really weird.
J.R.: Yeah, it's a little bit too much information. It's a little bit, uh- Yeah, it's, it's kind of a strange thing. It's like if, if I were writing the story, why can't I just say she was walking in the backyard and saw a frog, or something like that?
David: Yeah, yeah.
J.R.: But we were talking about this. Again, [00:24:00] all the details matter.
Every aspect of this story matters if you understand what it's trying to communicate. So let's start off with the king and the queen, who are barren, right?
David: Yes, yeah.
J.R.: They cannot, they lack fertility.
David: Yes.
J.R.: They can't give birth to the new generation.
David: Yeah, so you're starting to get into those layers, right?
Right. And we're not just talking about a king and queen. Right. We're talking about the kingdom that they lead and the culture at large.
J.R.: Right.
David: And so yeah, there's those clues up front that it's not just a king and queen who can't have a kid. Yeah. It's the kingdom itself is barren.
J.R.: Yes. Right? Yeah. The, yes, the kingdom itself is stagnant.
David: Yeah.
J.R.: Right. Okay. Now you come to this weird spot about the queen is bathing, and it says up out of the water comes a frog. And again, we kind of toyed around with this idea as like, well, I mean, there seems like there's a weird sexual element to it. First of all, let's, let's talk about [00:25:00] the frog. The frog represents, and this is in most fairy tales, it represents transformation.
You've got a tadpole that grows to a frog. It represents what? The connection to two worlds.
David: Right, so the water and the land. Right. The frog can exist on either.
J.R.: Right. And so it's something that comes up from beneath-
David: Mm-hmm ...
J.R.: and gives rise, has potential in the kingdom. And so it's sort of like a seed. It comes up, it springs forth, it, it produces a tree.
So it's, it's coming up from below, and it, and it, and it offers the possibility of transformation.
David: Okay, so how does that play into the classic fairy tale trope of a princess kisses a frog who turns into a prince?
J.R.: Right. Yeah. Yeah. So we, yes. In the classic fairy tales, what you have is the, the frog is potential.
David: Mm-hmm.
J.R.: When the princess recognizes the frog as potential, she kisses it and it turns into the ideal. It's realized potential [00:26:00] now.
David: So it's, it goes back to a little bit to that idea of transformation. Here's the potential of something, and the princess is, uh, actually going to, what, draw out the transformation- Right, right
inherent in there.
J.R.: Yeah. Yes. It's the embodiment of transformation.
David: So it's kind of the same thing. Yeah. That a frog represents transformation, but the princess kissing the frog also represents- The princess, what, seeing the potential-
J.R.: Yeah ...
David: seeing beyond the green, slimy surface-
J.R.: Right ...
David: and drawing out the potential-
J.R.: Yes,
David: yes
of the prince. Okay. Right, yeah. So it all ties together.
J.R.: Yeah, so you've got the tadpole going to the frog going- Yeah ... to the prince. Yeah, okay. So now you see this upward progression. Yeah. Coming from below, going up. Okay, so in this case, the, I think that, I think the listeners understood what the frog represented when it comes to a princess.
And so- Yeah ... in this case, I think it's interesting that the queen doesn't kiss the frog, right? It's almost like, uh, looking back, in fairy tale 101 you would look back and [00:27:00] say, "Well, what do you do with a frog? Well, you kiss it to turn it into the prince." Well, she doesn't do that. It's almost like maybe she doesn't know how to interact with that potential.
It's something like that.
David: Yeah, so what, on the surface, what seems a little bit weird, like you said, maybe even a bit sexual, it's like she doesn't kiss the frog, and it's like, well, okay, what does happen here? You know? Right. And we, we'll keep this PG. But, but it actually makes sense because the frog represents transformation from outside.
And remember what we said at the very beginning. This is a barren kingdom. Yes. Right? Mm-hmm. And so you can't, this is a case where you can't almost literalize what you're reading. Right. Because it is weird- Yeah ... but you have to understand, if the kingdom itself is barren, then the frog is what? He's bringing potential and he's bringing transformation to the queen.
J.R.: Right. Right.
David: Now, I don't know how [00:28:00] far we need to run with this. You and I had this whole conversation about frogs- Right ... this afternoon.
J.R.: Yeah.
David: I don't know how far we gotta get into it, but I, I think that starts to make sense of the frog. Would you add anything
J.R.: to this idea of the frog? Well, okay, so there's another aspect of the frog that I wanna kinda draw out.
It's a little bit different. You talked about the origin story. This is the beginning of the story. This is where- Yeah ... the, this is where we get the backstory to Sleeping Beauty. And so- It turns out, and this will make sense later, but we looked at the frog story as almost like, you know, you would tell a two or three-year-old, you know, "Where do babies come from?"
You would say something like, "Well, the stork." Yeah. "The stork delivered him." And, you know, you sort of have this childlike fairy tale type story to give an explanation of where your little brother or sister came from.
David: Yeah.
J.R.: And so I looked at this idea of the frog in the bathtub as sort of like that. It's like, "Mommy, where did I come from?"
It's like, "Well, [00:29:00] one day I was taking a bath and a frog came up and told me you were gonna be born."
David: Yeah.
J.R.: Yeah. And so, and remember, this is important because we're talking about overprotecting your child. And again, there are age-appropriate responses. That's a- an appropriate response for a three, four, five-year-old, but that's not an appropriate response for a 15, 16, 17-year-old.
David: Yeah. If you're still telling your 15-year-old that babies come from storks delivered-
J.R.: Yeah ...
David: you're going to have problems on your
J.R.: hands. Yeah, that's a problem. Yeah, that's right. Right. It's like you're, you're, you're infantiling them. Yeah.
Infantest- Is it infantiling? Yeah,
David: I think so.
J.R.: Yeah, yeah. You're intentionally- No ... keeping, keeping them at, uh, infants-
David: Yeah ...
J.R.: you know, in order to satisfy your own protective need, and you're not letting them grow up to be functional adults.
David: Right. So that actually makes sense as an origin story of maybe that's what she told Sleeping Beauty all the time about where do babies come from.
J.R.: Yeah.
David: [00:30:00] You know, well, a frog, or how would, how did I get here? Well, a frog came and- Right ... told me that you were gonna be here.
J.R.: Right.
David: Which is fine, again, for a two-year-old, but when she's 15-
J.R.: Right ...
David: right, and we're gonna see this play out.
J.R.: Yeah.
David: Like, that you, what you've created is a naive 15-year-old who's not prepared for the world.
J.R.: Yes, exactly. Yeah. And so that makes sense. And so the frog kind of has a dual meaning. Obviously transformation, but also sort of that, uh, where do babies come from silly story that, you know- Yeah ... a frog visited me in my bath. Yeah. So that's kind of the way we take that. Yeah. And I think that's an interesting take on
David: what, what all the frog represents.
So even that, a, a little detail like, okay, a frog showed up, well- I mean, we could talk at length about the frog. The frog maybe needs his own episode. But anyway- ... we'll move on.
J.R.: Right.
David: So we're talking about Sleeping Beauty. Okay, so let's move on. So sure enough then, uh, a child is born. Right. And it's Rosamond.
J.R.: Mm-hmm.
David: Right? And so the king and queen are [00:31:00] so elated that they throw a big feast. Sure. And there's one little detail in here that it said there were 13 wise women in the kingdom. Mm-hmm. But the king only had 12 golden plates for them to eat, so one of them had to be left out. Now, that's a really important detail.
J.R.: Yeah, that's one of those things where initially you're thinking, "Why wouldn't a king have 13 plates?"
David: Why would you not just go borrow-
J.R.: Yeah ... another plate? Let- let's run, run next door to the next kingdom. Okay. "Do you have an extra plate," right? Yeah, but no, that's a, that's a, a important detail. And to us, we talk about this all the time, numbers matter, right?
David: Yeah.
J.R.: And so 12, obviously the listener to us, it pops right in our head. Well, we got 12 months of the year. We've got the 12- Yeah ... disciples. We've got the 12 signs of the zodiac. 12 is a very common number in really just everyday life, but certainly mythology.
David: Yeah, and it would represent the [00:32:00] what? The completion of something or a full cycle of something.
J.R.: Right.
David: Right? Yeah. So 12 represents that. We talked about the 12 tribes of, of Israel.
J.R.: Right.
David: That's the complete kingdom of Israel.
J.R.: Mm-hmm.
David: Things like that. But then 13 automatically creates-
J.R.: Right ...
David: an odd man out. Well, just right off
J.R.: the bat, 13 is a- It's
David: a- ...
J.R.: superstitious number ...
David: it's an odd number, right? Yeah,
J.R.: I don't...
Well, you know, you- there- It- ... hotels don't
David: have
J.R.: 13th floors.
David: Is it a prime number? I don't even know what that means, but- Yes, I think it is ... it strikes me as- Sure. Sure ... a prime number. Yes. So it's a... Yeah, so it's this odd number. Like you said, a lot of superstitions around the number 13.
J.R.: Right.
David: And the fact that it's one more than 12 tells you that it's the full cycle except what?
Something is left over. And then the question becomes, okay, what do we do with this thing that is left over? Right. Right? Because it doesn't fit.
J.R.: Right.
David: And it, we talked about, at length about how we just think this way. We think in terms of 12, of even numbers. If you're gonna have- people [00:33:00] over, especially if you're married, it's like it's gonna be us and, you know, two more couples, so it's six.
Right. It's not seven. Right. Seven creates an odd man out.
J.R.: Yeah.
David: It's where that term, I think you said the fifth wheel.
J.R.: Yeah. Yeah. Right? I feel like a third wheel. I feel like a fifth wheel. And- Yeah ... it's like, yeah, everybody's got their date, and here I am tagging along like- Right ... you know, the lame loser I am.
Yeah, so it's, it, it, so we inherently understand the oddball, odd man out type of phenomenon. So then the question is, is like, well, okay, why, how come, how come it wasn't five wise women? How come it wasn't seven wise women? Yeah. You know? And, and so this is another aspect of it that I think there's something about the number 12 that, that represents completeness, and then the 13th is where we draw the line.
And so again, there are 13 wise women. Let's say, let's say they, they invited five of those 13 wise women. Well, the rest of them are gonna be like, "Well, thanks for inviting us, but whatever." Yeah. You know? It's like- [00:34:00] Not a big deal. Yeah. Maybe, maybe they, you know, limited space. But when you invite all 12, that's, that's a pretty good party, right?
If you have 12 family members, or if you have 13 family members and you invite all 12 except for the one
David: They might feel left out.
J.R.: They, right.
David: They just might feel left out.
J.R.: Right. And if it was just a couple of them, then you, then the answer is, "Well, you know, we just kinda haven't seen these people for a while, and so we just kinda wanted something a little bit more intimate."
But yeah, there's something to the completeness of 12 and the intentional leaving out of the 13th.
David: And it's interesting because it's a, actually a pattern you see in, in the Bible. We have a biblical background, so we're gonna bring in the Bible a lot. It's something you see in the Bible, it's something you see in mythology, that you think how many Greek gods are there?
There's-
J.R.: Right,
David: 12 ...
J.R.: 12. Mm-hmm.
David: Actually, there's 13.
J.R.: Oh,
David: okay. Because Dionysus or Hestia are, depending on what version of the Greek gods you're watching- Right ... they're [00:35:00] counted, and the other isn't.
J.R.: Huh.
David: But when you count them all up, there's 13. Let's go to the 12 disciples. How many disciples were there?
J.R.: 12. Well, I've got a feeling where
David: I could be.
Trick question.
J.R.: Yeah.
David: Right?
J.R.: All right. I'm seeing the pattern.
David: There were 13.
J.R.: Okay.
David: Because Judas- Right ... betrays Jesus, hangs himself, and then they select Matthias- Matthias ... to take his place. So there were 13.
J.R.: Okay. Yeah. That's
David: right. Right? And I think there's one over ... Oh, the 12 labors of Hercules. It's kinda- It's like what color was the brown dog?
I feel like I'm asking the same thing. Yeah. But it's the 12 labors of Hercules. How many labors were there?
J.R.: Right.
David: It's the same thing. When you count them up, he had to do one over, one didn't count, so there are actually 13. Yeah. So this pattern is actually built into a lot of ancient stories, that we think of 12 as completion, but there's always something left over- Right
that begs the question, what do we do with this? Yes.
J.R.: Right? Yeah.
David: And that's what's happening here.
J.R.: Okay. Yeah. And so we're gonna talk about the [00:36:00] fringes. So you would say the 13th kind of represents the fringe. It's not part of the enti- the actual tapestry, but it is connected to the tapestry, and so it's- Yeah, yeah
sort of that extra. Right. Yeah. You know. Okay, so, and we'll get into this here in a little bit, but the 13th represents com- the, a complete 12, but you have to include that, that fringe. You have to include that extra.
David: Yeah.
J.R.: Um, and so-
David: Yeah ...
J.R.: right. And, and they didn't include her, and it doesn't go well. And
David: it doesn't go well.
So- The 13th is left out. And it's interesting, we'll get into this too, because we were raising the question of, well, did they leave the 13th out because she's a bad person, right? Right. So it says there's 13 wise women. It's like, well, why did they leave her out? And the- if you want to get into it, it's like, okay, was she a bad person to begin with?
J.R.: Right.
David: W- by thinking kind of a Disney version, you know, the evil
J.R.: one. Yeah, bring in the Disney. You've got, you've got Maleficent.
David: Yeah. Right. Or [00:37:00] was she just the one left out, and then she actually is, what, hurt by it or offended, and turns around and wants to kind of take some kind of revenge, right? Exact some kind of revenge.
You're going to exclude me, now you're going to pay.
J.R.: Right. Yeah.
David: Right?
J.R.: That's right.
David: And so that's what happens. So the kings throws the feast, and the feast is going along, every- everyone's fine. And it said the 12 women who were there, they all came forward to present the child with wonderful gifts, right?
Virtue, beauty, riches, and so on. Yeah. Okay? So let's stop right there and say, so what's happening there with all of these gifts from the wise women?
J.R.: Right. They're creating the ideal.
David: Yeah, they're... She is the special child. Rosamond is the special child.
J.R.: Yep.
David: And so this is a way to say they're idealizing.
This is the perfect child. Like, this is ev- what, like what every parent thinks, right? [00:38:00] This is the perfect- Right ... little angel. Right. And there's a little bit of an aspect of it
J.R.: takes a village. We're all gonna, we're all gonna put our, bestow our gifts on this child, and we're going to create the perfect child.
And again, you know, here's the layered meaning. I'm not talking necessarily about a literal perfect child in, in that sense.
David: Yeah.
J.R.: But we're all gonna put our gifts and we're going to create a perfect ideal or a perfect idea or a perfect culture, and it's, it's, it's the attempt- Yeah ... to create something, what?
It's not really utopia, but yes, it's
David: sort of like that. It is a little bit of a utopia, yeah.
J.R.: Yeah, uh, it's a utopian idea. We're gonna create the ideal, and, uh, remember, this is a barren land, right? This is, this is a- Yes, that's
David: important.
J.R.: Yeah ... there's, it, yeah, it's, they're still barren, right? They still have not actually brought forth life in the normal way.
They had to get it from the frog, and so- Right. So, so she's here, but now we're gonna put all of our g- [00:39:00] our gifts and bestow our gifts and create this utopia.
David: Yes, yeah. Okay. And you could al- even say that the problem with the utopia is they actually don't consider the 13th- Right ... that they left out.
J.R.: Right.
David: Which always comes back to bite a utopia.
J.R.: Right.
David: Right?
J.R.: Man, I, I want to talk about the village in Night Shyamalan's
David: The Village. That's another, that's another episode.
J.R.: But hey, if you know, you know, right? Yeah. You know, that's what they tried to do. They tried to create a utopia, and it ended up coming apart- Yeah
because they didn't take into account the 13th.
David: The 13th. We'll just leave it there.
J.R.: Yeah. Okay.
David: Yeah. Okay. So each one of them are coming forward one by one. They're bestowing these gifts because, like you said, this is the special child. We're going to create this ideal child almost, like the fate of the kingdom where it's, rests on this child almost.
Right. And then it said the 11th one comes, and before the 12th one can, uh, step in, the 13th shows up and pronounces a [00:40:00] curse. It gets her revenge. In fact, I, it, it said, "In the 15th year of her age, the princess will prick herself with a spindle, and she shall fall down dead."
J.R.: Okay.
David: That's a little bit of a damper on the party.
That's right. Right? So now it's also important to notice the order, because the 11th one goes and then the 13th interrupts. Right, interrupts. That's important. Yeah.
J.R.: Yeah.
David: Interrupts. Right. So then the 12th one is left, and apparently she just disappears. She didn't wanna stay for the rest of the party.
J.R.: Right.
Yeah. So- Yeah, gives her gift- Yeah ...
David: being the curse ... this is her gift- Right ... the curse. Right. And
J.R.: yeah, I'm out. Okay.
David: And then the 12th comes in, and it, she comes forward and says, "I can't reverse" basically what, what the 13th, the party crasher said.
J.R.: Yeah.
David: But then she says, "But I can soften it." So she said, "The princess will not die, but fall into a deep sleep for 100 years."
J.R.: Okay.
David: And so that was the gift of the 12th.
J.R.: Okay.
David: So the order, [00:41:00] again, the order matters.
J.R.: Right. '
David: Cause important, it's, in Greek mythology, it's interesting, a god cannot override the decree of another god. So you have something similar going on here.
J.R.: Yeah. '
David: Cause you can't... You, you might say, why didn't she just play the Uno reverse and say, "No, that doesn't count.
We're not gonna do that."
J.R.: Yeah. Yeah, take backs.
David: That's not the way fairy tales work.
J.R.: No, uh-uh. Well, it's, it's also interesting, we were talking about this, that, that it's also not the way the m- the Greek gods work. Yeah. 'Cause you would think, well, they're all-powerful. Surely you can undo what one god does. And if you're talking about merely, uh, heavenly, all-powerful angel-type creatures, well, maybe that's the case, but we're talking about the Greek myths which represent reality, and so you can't change reality.
If life gives you one reality, it's not like you can say, "Oh, well, you know, let me swap this out for another reality." That's not how, that's not how reality works, right?
David: That's, yeah,
J.R.: exactly. And so these are representations of what happens in [00:42:00] life, what happens in reality. And so it's, it, it's more, you know, it's another layer to the fact that, well, why didn't you just undo what that one did?
And s- and again, you know, it's like, well, because this is how reality plays itself out, and you can't just simply bury your head in the sand and say- Yeah ... "No, that never happened." A-
David: a- and we, we've said before that it's a pattern of reality. Right. So why didn't you just undo it? Well, because that's not a pattern of reality.
Yeah. That's not how the actual world works.
J.R.: Right.
David: So it doesn't work here either.
J.R.: Yeah.
David: So she does soften the curse. Right. So she's not gonna die, but she's gonna fall asleep- Okay ... for 100 years.
J.R.: Now when- Which is, which is a pretty, that doesn't soften it much for me. 100 years? 100 years. It's like, you know-
David: She, yeah
I'm dead. The daughter's not gonna die.
J.R.: Yeah. You're never gonna be- So she's gonna be
David: asleep for 100 years ... for
J.R.: 100 years, right.
David: So don't worry.
J.R.: Yeah, yeah. It's all good. Yeah, sleep easy. Yeah. And
David: so, so this is another interesting thing is- We're talking about the barrenness of the kingdom. [00:43:00] Mm-hmm. And the daughter represents the what?
The future, the hope. Right. And the curse even softened now says she's going to be asleep for 100 years. What does that do to the kingdom?
J.R.: Well, we're about to find out.
David: Yeah, that's right. Yeah, right. That's right.
J.R.: Yeah.
David: Okay. One more thing I wanna point out is that it also hearkens back to the whole idea of there was a wedding in Greek mythology and someone wasn't invited, and it happened to be a goddess called Eris.
J.R.: Okay.
David: Now, Eris is the Greek word for strife, so it's no wonder why you didn't invite strife.
J.R.: Yeah.
David: I was thinking about it. It's like- Why it's not on the
J.R.: short
David: list ... at your wedding, it, you know, it's like, "Hey, why didn't you invite your buddy Chaos?" It's like, say that again out loud, right? Yeah. You
J.R.: have no idea what happens when he gets a few in him.
David: Yeah, that's
J.R.: true.
David: So but, you know, this is the story where she rolls the golden apple in the wedding and says, "This is for the f- this is for the most beautiful goddess." [00:44:00]
J.R.: Okay.
David: Right?
J.R.: Right.
David: This is the start of the Trojan War.
J.R.: Oh, okay. Yeah.
David: Okay. So this is the same thing though. Eris wasn't invited to this wedding, but she shows up anyway and her gift is the golden apple, but the golden apple is inscribed to the most beautiful.
Well, of course, Aphrodite, I think Hera, and I think it's Paris, they're like, "Okay, you choose." Lesson, do not ever get between three women who are arguing over who's the most beautiful,
J.R.: right? Y- yeah. Just, yeah, respectfully bow out of that conversation.
David: So, and you kinda know the rest of the story, but it, it's, it hearkens back to that, right?
It's something very similar. Yeah. The excluded goddess or the excluded wise woman is spurned, and now she's going to sow chaos- Right ... into the occasion.
J.R.: Okay. Right. So you have the 12 wise women.
David: Mm-hmm.
J.R.: What do they represent, and then what does the [00:45:00] 13th ... Do you think, what does the 13th represent? Not the number, but, but why would- Yeah, yeah
you have invited all the wise women to your daughter's, like, coming out party or birthday party? Because she only
David: had 12 plates. No, no. I thought I was clear in the
J.R.: story. No, no. It's more than that, right? Why do we exclude some ideas- And we embrace others
David: Yeah. Okay. So this is getting into the idea of what the 13th really represents.
J.R.: Right.
David: Why... Yeah. A- and so we have a tendency to... Okay, so how do we say this? You might have a tendency to say we have our notion of a, of a comfortable ideal- Right ... but that necessarily excludes things.
J.R.: Right.
David: And then the choice becomes what do we do with the excluded part? Right. Do we incorporate it somehow?
Do we interact with it? Right. Do we just not invite it? And we kinda know how that goes.
J.R.: [00:46:00] Right.
David: Right?
J.R.: Yeah. Do I ignore it? Right.
David: But we're- if we're talking about a, a larger societal level, uh, I mean, let's talk about this kingdom. Like, what did the 13th represent? Probably something like a new idea that might have infused- Maybe some regeneration into the kingdom
J.R.: Right
David: But it was dismissed out of hand.
It wasn't the norm. We don't have room for you, right?
J.R.: Right, right. And so you can think, you know, th- there's a sexual component to this, a sexual coming-of-age component to this we'll get into here in a little bit. Yeah. But also, but let's take something like the taboo, the taboos in our society that surround things like sex or drugs, alcohol, things like that.
Things that we like, eh, we don't really talk about these things, and certainly not to children. But how do we, how do you incorporate this idea? We talked about pornography. This is interesting. We talked about pornography in the sense that our father [00:47:00] could basically tell us, "Hey, don't look at that stuff."
If somebody brings you a magazine or says, "Hey, check what I found out under my dad's," you know, in my dad's- Yeah ... nightstand or whatever,
David: you know, "
J.R.: Hey, man, push that away. Be better than that. Don't look at that stuff." Well, that might've worked 30 years ago, 40 years ago, 50 years ago, but if you're naive enough to think that you can raise a 12, 13-year-old boy without him, without another kid shine, you know, put his phone- Everyone
David: has phone.
J.R.: Right.
David: Everyone has the internet at hand, right?
J.R.: Put a phone in his face and say, "Hey, take, take a look at what I got. Look at these pictures." It's naive to think that you can tell a kid this day and t- time, "Hey, don't look at that stuff. Turn away. Walk away," right?
David: Mm-hmm.
J.R.: It's like, how do you prepare him for that?
That's what we're talking about. It's this, it's this 13th fringe thing that is a reality in our, in our- Mm-hmm ... in our society, and it's like, how do we prepare our kids for the interaction with that, you know? So on one hand- Yeah ... you're [00:48:00] not gonna shove it, you know, "Hey, take a look at this," you know. "I, I might as b- well be the one to show you."
You're not, that's not the proper response. Yeah. But the proper response is also, "No phones until you're married," or, um- Yeah ... you know what I mean? Yeah. "I'm not letting you go to school and talk to anybody who has a phone," or, you know. You can't exclude those things, and so instead you have to prepare them the proper way.
And so this is that layer that we start to become apparent in this story where this is what the fringe, these are the taboos of society. These are the things that are out there that nobody wants to talk about, but if you're gonna raise an adjusted, a well-adjusted adult, you better prepare them for the real world.
David: And the other thing to say is that, that the fringe- It's not always bad, right? Yeah. In fact, that's kind of where we br- we come back to this idea of we don't know if the 13th wise woman was ne- necessarily the evil witch.
J.R.: Yeah. Right. Well, she's
David: not in the story. It could've just been... Yeah. Right. It doesn't give any indication-
J.R.: Right[00:49:00]
David: until she's actually spurned, and then she pronounces a curse on Rosamund. Yeah. But the 13th can be something maybe negative, like pornography, but can also just be something, a new idea that you don't know how to incorporate. Yeah. So it just kind of is out there, but you have to figure out what you're gonna do with it.
J.R.: Right.
David: Do I integrate this?
J.R.: Right.
David: Or do I push it away?
J.R.: Yeah.
David: And yeah, we can think of a lot of examples where that's the case in our life. The king, though, makes the wrong choice.
J.R.: Right. Yeah.
David: Should we get into that part?
J.R.: Yeah, let's, yeah, let's jump on- Okay ... and we'll, we'll continue with these ideas.
David: Okay.
Yeah, we'll play this out as it goes along. So how does the king respond to this, then? The king, he desires to save this child from this misfortune, right? Sure. Because, uh, you're gonna prick your finger on a spindle when you're 15, and you're gonna die.
J.R.: Yeah.
David: And then it's softened to fall asleep for 100 years.
Right.
J.R.: So the-
David: He has
J.R.: a pretty extreme response to this.
David: [00:50:00] Right. So his response is he gave the commandment that all the spindles in his kingdom should be burned.
J.R.: Yeah, that's not overkill Problem
David: solved.
J.R.: Right. It's just that way. Right. Yeah. And it's, and this is interesting, you know, and, and this is not part of our modern society understanding the spinning wheel, but let's talk about the spinning wheel- Yeah
what that represents.
David: Lot of symbolism there.
J.R.: And why the destroying of all the spinning wheels is easier said than done, and even if you could pull that off, you've actually ground your entire commerce and society to a complete halt. But that goes back to this is a barren kingdom, right? Well- It's an unproductive kingdom.
Right. Yeah, it's already unproductive, so here's, here's another layer of barrenness, right?
David: Because his solution is to say, "I'm going to even make it more unproductive-
J.R.: Yeah ...
David: and I'm going to burn all of the spinning wheels."
J.R.: Yeah, that's interesting. He doubles down. He doesn't- Yeah ... see the writing on the wall and say, "I need [00:51:00] to adjust to the new paradigm.
I'm gonna double down, and I'm gonna get rid of all... I'm gonna cut off my nose to spite my face. I'm gonna get rid of all the spinning wheels in the entire kingdom." Which a spinning wheel, obviously in ancient times, that's, that's, it spins flax into a thread- Yeah ... a workable thread. So you have these disparate fibers, and it weaves and spins them into a functional thread.
And so it's also worth saying, in some of the other versions of Sleeping Beauty, she wasn't pricked by a spinning wheel needle. She was pricked by a splinter of flax. And so it was the actual fiber that they used to create-
David: Yeah ...
J.R.: thread, right? So there's something, I don't know, there's something very fundamental about this is a fundamental necessary item for our society to make clothes, to make bags- Mm-hmm
and things like that, right? It's, it's a necessary integral part of society, [00:52:00] and that's what's gonna get her. And so we'll come back to that. But, but yeah, to go back to the burning of the spinning wheels, it's like we're gonna completely wipe out the, the seamstresses, the people who make fabric, the people who make clothes for our societies in order to protect my daughter.
David: Yeah. Now you might say, well, how does that protect the daughter really? I mean, the obvious is that he got rid of all those spinning wheels, but there's a lot of symbolism in what a spinning wheel represents. Sure. And you can go back all throughout, uh, there's a lot of the Greek myths even. In fact, we talked about how in The Odyssey, Penelope, who's one of the heroes of the story, what is she doing?
She's weaving at her loom.
J.R.: Right.
David: And that's not a menial task. That's actually her proper role in running the household. Right. So it's almost like the proper role of a woman in ancient times was very much linked with this idea of weaving at the loom or spinning. Right. The [00:53:00] spinning wheel.
J.R.: Yeah.
David: Now that may sound a little bit sexist today, but again-
J.R.: Yeah, you gotta put that stuff aside- Yeah, yes
because, because it's the culture- Don't get hung up on that, yeah ... yeah, it's the culture of the time, and the man's job was to provide for the family by working in the fields, raising cattle, all this stuff. J- farm work we could call it. Yeah. And actually putting food on the table. And the woman's job was to do the, the household provisions and put clothes on the kids, and to, you know, make the home, make the house a functional home.
Yeah. And so that's sort of, that's just sort of the reality of where it's pulling from these stories, right? The spinning wheel also represents proper womanhood, right?
David: Yeah. Yeah. That's, and yeah, that's kind of the long way around of saying this is what the spinning wheel represents. It's kind of the, a model of womanhood.
J.R.: Yeah.
David: So that's important because what the king then is actually doing when he's destroying the spinning wheels is he's actually destroying [00:54:00] Rosamund's model of what a healthy adult woman looks like. Yes. Yes. And that's, that's very intentional in this story.
J.R.: Right, yeah. He's, he's completely destroying the ideal-
David: He's-
J.R.: she is to look at ...
David: he's trying to keep
J.R.: her a child. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So he's keeping her an infant, and again, that's that, that's the, that's the layer of the overprotective parent. But the cultural layer is when we destroy our own society to protect our cherished idea, right? It's like I'm not willing to give up this idea- Yeah, yeah
and I will burn down at least an aspect of society to protect it, and that's what's going on. That's the dual meaning here.
David: Yeah. Yeah. All right, we'll get back to the spinning because what happens next is life goes on. The king says, "Fix the problem," and then we get to the idea that one weekend the king and the queen rode abroad.
Mm-hmm. And they left [00:55:00] Rosamund, who happens to be 15 years old now, right?
J.R.: Don't go out of town and leave your 15-year-old alone.
David: That's always a bad idea.
J.R.: That's, that's it. It just gives me the shivers up my backbone
David: there.
J.R.: Thinking, uh-oh, this is not good.
David: But he's confident that he's fixed this problem.
J.R.: Right, yeah.
David: So he leaves her alone in the castle.
J.R.: Yeah.
David: And she happens to be 15 years old. Mm-hmm. So what happens is Rosamund goes to the castle. She finds all the nooks and corners, and she goes to an old tower- Where there's this locked door and a rusty key. It's kind of like, it's kinda like the liquor cabinet that says, "Do not open," you know?
Right. With this key. Yeah. And I'm gonna go away for the weekend. Where do you think the kid is gonna go? Y-
J.R.: yeah, exactly. Yeah.
David: They're gonna hit the liquor cabinet. Sure,
J.R.: sure.
David: Well, it's just- You're probably not even out of the driveway, and they're already in the liquor cabinet.
J.R.: Yeah. But it's just, it's the image of the skeletons in the closet, you know?
Yeah. When, if you look around deep enough, you're gonna find stuff that shouldn't be found, [00:56:00] so to speak, right? Yeah. And so that's what she's doing. She's exploring the castle, which again, this is her exploring her world, right? Her culture.
David: That you could argue she's never been really allowed to explore.
J.R.: Yeah, yeah.
David: Because of this overprotective parents.
J.R.: Right.
David: Right?
J.R.: So she's learning to navigate all the in- intricacies of the kingdom right there, at least the castle that's in front of her.
David: Mm-hmm.
J.R.: Okay, right.
David: Okay. So she opens the door, and there before her is an old woman. Spoiler alert, it's the 13th wise woman.
J.R.: Uh-oh.
David: It's the old woman with a spindle, diligently spinning her flax. Now, I love this phrase, 'cause she says, "Good day, mother," she says to the older woman, said the princess. And she goes, "What are you doing?" And she says, "I am spinning," answered the woman. Right. Now, that exchange right there, there's a lot there.
J.R.: Yeah. Yeah. '
David: Cause she says, "What are you doing?" Right. She doesn't recognize what's going on, right? Because her [00:57:00] father has destroyed all of the spinning wheels. Right.
J.R.: Right.
David: So when she actually sees an older woman, you might say modeling some version of what a woman-
J.R.: A proper womanhood ... a
David: proper womanhood, yeah- Right
well, does, she, she doesn't know what it is.
J.R.: Yeah.
David: And that's why she says, "What are you doing?"
J.R.: Right. Yeah, she doesn't, she, she's curious about it, right?
David: Yeah.
J.R.: Because it's something she's never seen. And so again, let's go to the cultural layer of ideas. It's like, uh, you can't, you can try to hide your children from- Whatever, alcohol, sex, you name it, right?
Yeah. But it's gonna come to a point where they're going to ha- they're gonna be introduced to it, and are they gonna be prepared to handle it in the proper way, or are they going to fumble through it like she's about to do? Yeah. She's about to fumble with this crazy dangerous spinning wheel, and obviously she- we're gonna prick [00:58:00] our finger here.
David: Yeah.
J.R.: Yeah.
David: Yeah. It's one thing to note is that the old woman spinning is also a common theme, in fact, in the Greek mythology, the Fates. Yeah. There's three Fates, right? Yes. Yeah. And they're spinners.
J.R.: Yeah, they're spinners. That's right.
David: And, and what that represents is they control the fate, and it's the passage of time, so that's the other aspect of, of spinning.
J.R.: Yeah.
David: And you see the same thing in Norse mythology. Right. There's a spinner at the bottom of the tree. I'm not gonna remember, I'm not gonna know how to pronounce the tree's name. Yggdrasil? Yeah. I probably butchered, but okay. But anyway, there's, yeah, there's the Norns spinning at the bottom of this tree in- Right
Norse mythology.
J.R.: Yeah.
David: So you have this idea of a spinner is someone who controls time, who controls fate, who controls destiny.
J.R.: Yeah.
David: So I think you can see that in this 13th excluded wise woman as she's sitting there spinning. So it's not only kind of this repossession, representation of [00:59:00] womanhood, but it's also she's controlling time right now.
Yeah. She's setting the fate of Rosamund-
J.R.: Right ...
David: in this moment.
J.R.: Right. Well, I mean, listen, it's the reality of a woman coming of age at 15. This is where we're at, and so yeah, this, this thread of time, this fate, you, you can't run from it.
David: Right.
J.R.: You can, you can try to keep your kids locked up, but you can't run from fate, and here we are.
You can... The parents are out of town. She's- She's 15 years old. Yeah. Right.
David: You can try to keep your child a child as long as you want. I guarantee you they will hit puberty one day.
J.R.: Right. That's the- Yeah ...
David: like, you- that's the spinner, right?
J.R.: Right.
David: You can't change that.
J.R.: Yeah. Yeah.
David: And the question is, have you prepared them for adulthood-
J.R.: Right
David: Or are you trying to keep them a child, which only means they are ill-prepared for what they are about to encounter?
J.R.: Yes, exactly. Right.
David: All right. So you already gave it away. She says, "Would you like to [01:00:00] try a hand at the spinning wheel?" And what does she do?
J.R.: Right.
David: She pricks her finger.
J.R.: Yeah.
David: Right?
J.R.: But more importantly, she sort of fumbles with something she's not familiar with.
David: Yes. Yeah.
J.R.: And now I don't know about, you know, kind of ancient times.
I don't know if the ancient listeners would be thinking, "Well, come on, man, what 15-year-old girl doesn't know how to work a spinning wheel?" You know, I was on a spinning y- wheel at age six or something like that. You know, I don't know if that kind of resonated with the listener at the time, but there is something, there is kind of a component of this part of the story where she doesn't know what she's doing.
The old lady says, "Yeah, try your hand at this." And of course she Pricks her finger on the, on the needle
David: Yeah, yeah. Okay. And so she immediately fell asleep. She immediately fell asleep on the bed and laid there, and that's it, 100 years of sleep. Right. Now, one other thing that's kind of interesting, we don't have to get into too much detail, but the pricking of the finger is often accompanied by blood, [01:01:00] right?
J.R.: Sure.
David: So she's 15, and suddenly there's a flow of blood. Yeah. That means something.
J.R.: Sure.
David: Yeah. Oh, right, yeah. So she's, she's definitely now becoming a woman. Right.
J.R.: Exactly.
David: Let's, let's say that. And that imagery is definitely in here. Right. It's in other fairy tales as well.
J.R.: Right. Yeah, no, no doubt.
David: Yeah. Okay, so this is really interesting.
She falls asleep. We know that the curse is now in effect. She's gonna be asleep for 100 years. But then it said, "And this sleep fell upon the whole castle." Now, the story goes through all, all- almost this humorous list of, uh, the horses in their stalls fell asleep, the dogs in the yard, the pigeons in the roof.
Yeah. So it goes to great detail-
J.R.: Yeah ...
David: of saying not only she fell asleep, and, and then it said around that same time the king and queen return, and they fall asleep. Right. But every, all life around the castle- Yeah ... falls asleep.
J.R.: Yeah, which is interesting, 'cause I don't think that's the case in the Disney version.
David: No, I don't think so.
J.R.: I could be, I- Yeah ... I mean, it was [01:02:00] pretty much just, just Sleeping Beauty. But this is interesting because it's like, well, what does that mean when the whole kingdom falls asleep, even the flies, even the horses?
David: Yeah. Why did the whole kingdom fall asleep?
J.R.: Right, yeah. And again, when you're on this cultural layer of adopting new ideas, adopting a new paradigm, if you insist on being a separatist, separating yourself from broader society- Yeah
separating yourself from the realities of the world, your kingdom is going to go into stasis. Your s- kingdom is going to, it's already unproductive.
David: It's already barren, yes.
J.R.: It's already barren. Yeah. And now it's completely asleep. And so there's no movement, there's no functioning, uh, there's no life in this kingdom.
Now, they're not dead, but there's absolutely no life- Yeah ... in this kingdom. It's completely stopped.
David: We talked about the example of if you wanted to protect your kids from all the dangers of the outside world, the internet, you could say, "Okay, in our house [01:03:00] there's gonna be no cable, there's gonna be no TV."
Right. "There's no, gonna be no internet." Right. "Uh, my kids are just gonna read books in the evening, and I'm gonna protect from all this."
J.R.: Right.
David: What would the result of all that be? Your house would become- A capsule frozen in time
J.R.: Yeah, a time capsule
David: Right? Sure. Yeah. The house would fall asleep.
J.R.: Yeah.
David: That's literally what's happening here in this, in this story.
J.R.: Yeah. And we've talked about this, you know, in, in your per- private conversations with, you know, should we homeschool the kids? Should we kinda... You know, it's this, it's this tension as a parent that says, "I wanna protect my kids. I don't wanna send them out into the dangerous world. I don't wanna send them out where they're gonna get bullied by somebody at school."
But the, uh, the alternative is, "I'm gonna bring them in close, we're gonna homeschool them." And, you know, listen, there's, there's social interaction that's necessary to become a func- functional member of adult in society. And, you know, if you, if you kind of withhold that from kids, you [01:04:00] know, there's these, I don't know, there's this kind of- maladjusted.
They're a little bit socially awkward. Uh, and, and listen, they don't have to know all the lyrics to Taylor Swift songs- Yeah, yeah ... or things like that. But at the same time, you know, you talk to a kid that doesn't know who Taylor Swift is and has never heard of her, you're like, "Man," You're the weird
David: kid all of a sudden.
"You've been under a
J.R.: rock." Yeah. Yeah. You know, like, been buried under a rock? Come on, man. Yeah. And that's, that's kind of the picture that they're painting here.
David: Yeah, so we have the picture of an overprotective father and mother-
J.R.: Mm-hmm ...
David: who has not equipped their daughter for becoming a woman, right? Right.
And so as a result, she falls asleep, but the whole kingdom falls asleep. The whole thing is frozen in time. Right. And there's one more interesting tidbit here. It says, "Then round about that place," the castle, "there grew a hedge of thorns, thicker every year." So this, these thorns get thicker every year, "until at last the whole castle was hidden from view."
Yeah. Now, that's interesting.
J.R.: Yeah. [01:05:00] That's kinda neat, isn't it?
David: Yeah.
J.R.: Right. So the thorns, they come up from the ground. They, they are from beneath. They're obviously, you know, her name is Briar Rose or Little Briar Rose. Yeah,
David: so
J.R.: there's the- Little Rose, whatever ...
David: reference to the thorns.
J.R.: Yes. So here's the rose amongst the thorns.
Mm-hmm. That's, that's this image. And yeah, it completely covers the castle to where it's invisible, basically. It- you can't see it from the outside world.
David: Yeah.
J.R.: So this is cool, 'cause you and I were talking about the Amish, and, you know, Amish are willingly separatists. They say, "We don't wanna be part of society.
We don't want all this-" Mm-hmm ... "technology." And it's kind of, it's, it's, first of all, exactly what you said. They're kind of a time capsule. It's a neat place. We went up to Pennsylvania. Frozen in time, yeah. Yeah. Went up to Pennsylvania a couple years ago, and it was really cool, you know? Yeah. I mean, go to Amish country, you know?
But in any case, it's intentionally separatist. But we were also talking about how people and ideas and even cultures, they become separatist without meaning to. You, you know, they don't-
David: Mm-hmm ...
J.R.: that wasn't the intention. It was [01:06:00] like, "We're gonna separate ourselves from this, from this bad thing over here. We wanna keep this out."
And what the result is is that you separate yourself from the broader society, separate from yourself from the world, and you become invisible by the rest, you know, of- Mm-hmm ... by the rest of the world, the rest of society.
David: Hey, thanks for checking out our new fairy tale series. If this kind
J.R.: of deep dive story hits home for you guys, swing by our website, Navigating an Ancient Faith, or jump over to our podcast.
We've got whole episodes breaking down other fairy tales like Red Riding Hood, and we keep exploring how the ancient ways of thinking shed light on our modern ideas and our cultural moments. And hey, if you're enjoying this, hit like and subscribe. It really helps more people find the episode. Thanks again.
Now let's jump back into the story. Okay, so anyway, we were talking about the Amish.
David: Yeah, so the Amish do have an interesting way ... We were hiking yesterday. The Amish, and we were talking about this, the Amish do have an interesting way of what incorporating this [01:07:00] idea of the 13th. Right. Or incor- incorporating the outside world into a, what looks like a closed society, and it's this idea of Rumspringa.
J.R.: Right.
David: Right. And it's an interesting idea because what they do is when kids come of age, I'm not sure whether it's 16 or 18, but when they come of age, they actually encourage their kids to go out into the world- Yeah ... right out of this community and experience it. Yeah. And there's a little bit of a party aspect to it.
It's like, "Hey, go sow your wild oats."
J.R.: Yeah.
David: Right?
J.R.: Yeah. And I don't know that they encourage them to drink and party, but they basically say, "Leave the community, go out to the broader world- Yeah ... and experience it, and then come back and make your decision. Do you want to be- Right ... a part of our community in a, on a more permanent level, or do you wanna leave and join the 13th, right?
David: Yeah. And so that's right. So what they a- what they're actually doing in this symbolic pattern is they're telling their kids to [01:08:00] incorporate the 13th.
J.R.: Right.
David: Right? It's a way to do that so the 13th isn't looming out there as this, what? As this temptation that's- Yeah ... that's off limits, that's constantly inviting some kid to say, "Come on, you've never tried this.
You've never tried this." Right. They've actually said, "Go try it, and then voluntarily come back to the, to the community."
J.R.: Right.
David: And so it's this interesting way of a closed community, but a way to incorporate the 13th
J.R.: wise woman- Right ...
David: so to speak.
J.R.: It's not a locked door in their culture. Yeah, you know, o- once you make the decision, obviously you're kind of abiding to live by the community rules.
But in, in other words, yeah, it's not this big secret of, "No, you don't wanna go out there," and it's, it's a bad place in the world. They actually acknowledge, there it is. Experience it-
David: Yeah ...
J.R.: and then come back.
David: So to go back to some of our previous examples, it is a way to say if you're homeschooling your kid, right?
Or you're, you want to protect your kid from some of the dangers [01:09:00] of current culture-
J.R.: Yeah ...
David: there is a way to incorporate And expose them in a good, positive way-
J.R.: Yeah ...
David: to say, "Here's what's out there. Here's what you're going to encounter."
J.R.: Right. "
David: But you need to understand what's good and what's bad. Here's some things we don't allow, but I don't want you to be so naive that you don't know what's out there so you're taken aback when you actually experience it."
J.R.: Right. And when you get older and slightly exposed to it, then you're gonna be curious about it and approach it in an unhealthy way.
David: Yeah,
J.R.: yeah. Yeah, so it, it is. It's that image of they've invited the 13th to the table. It's not part of their permanent community- Yeah ... but the outside, the fringe of their community is allowed in to sort of be experienced and acknowledged.
Not, again, not ... And that's what the 13th represents is it's not to be made the center of the community. It's not to be made, brought up as the ideal, but it does have to be acknowledged. [01:10:00]
David: Yeah, that's right.
J.R.: And so that's what the- that's a process of what they're doing with Rumspringa.
David: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
J.R.: Yeah.
David: Okay, so the castle is asleep, right? The entire kingdom is asleep. The, this hedge of thorns has grown around it. Right. And that's kind of where we need to pick up the story. So the next part of it says, "A rumor went around in all the country that a beautiful sleeping Rosamond was in this castle." And then it says, "Many king's sons came and tried to force their way through the hedge."
Now- That's interesting because as time passes, rumor ha- has it that there's this sleeping beauty in a castle. Mm-hmm. And all of these single young men-
J.R.: Yeah ...
David: right? Right. They, and it says they're princes of other kingdoms, so there's that idea of other ideas, right? Right. Other cultures- Outside ideas ... other societies.
J.R.: Yes.
David: They're trying to come, and the, the, I think the point of this is they're trying to force their way through. You can kind of guess what some of their motivations might be. Right. In [01:11:00] fact, we talked about, we don't spend a lot of time on this, but older stories actually have this idea, very older stories have this idea that while the princess is asleep, she's basically taken advantage of.
J.R.: Right.
David: Which is gross back then, and it's gross in our society. Yeah. But yet w- it's still there in these really, really old versions- Right ... of the story. So this is kind of a cleaned-up way, but what do you think's going on?
J.R.: Well, again, it's that dual layer meaning. So if you wanna look at it like, "I'm protecting your kids," then you could see it as, "Yeah, I want, I wanna keep the, the bad guys away from my daughter.
I only want the best to come in." Yeah. And you can look at it that way, but again, if you look at it as new ideas, you can see that idea of the outside idea trying to force its way into your society or your culture or your- Yeah ... family. Yeah. And having its way with you, right? Yeah. And so that's, that's where that image where you don't wanna get hung up on [01:12:00] th- that's inappropriate.
It's like think of it, uh, think about it as outside ideas trying to force their way, trying to have their way with your community. What happens when the outside idea tries to force its way in? We're gonna block it, right? Yeah. We're gonna a- absolutely stop it. Okay, so there's this neat idea. Biologically in our brain, what makes us human is our prefrontal cortex.
Basically what separates us from the apes and other animals is we have this advanced, developed prefrontal cortex, and that's where our, uh, our deep thinking, our, our nuanced way of looking at things, our- creativity, that's where that all comes from. It's, it's, it's, works itself in the prefrontal cortex.
And deeper in the brain is a part of the brain called the amygdala, and it is, from what I understand, it is a literal biological light switch in the amygdala that activates the fight or flight. So you've heard of fight, [01:13:00] flight, or freeze, right? Yeah. And so when we, when we perceive a threat, the amygdala immediately kicks on, and it shuts off all blood flow, all information processing to the prefrontal cortex, and you literally turn into something like an animal.
Because, you know, you hear a rustling in the woods. We went walking in the woods yesterday. If you hear a large rustle- And
David: you do. You hear sounds.
J.R.: Yeah. You hear sounds, yeah. But if it's, it's a heavy enough sound- ... it's not a matter, you don't... We don't have time to sit there and think, "Well, is this another person?
Is it..." The assumption is, "That's a bear. We gotta go." Yeah. We'll, we'll think about it and discuss how stupid we looked running from a squirrel. We'll disc- we'll think about that later. But for the time being-
David: We will not talk about this again- Right ... when we both ran from the squirrel.
J.R.: Yeah, exactly. But in the moment, it's almost like you're unable to process anything.
You're either gonna freeze or you're gonna run or- Yeah ... so that's biologically what's going on in our minds when that happens. And so now you go back to this [01:14:00] idea of somebody forcing an idea on you, and this happens, you know, whether it's politics. You know how y- you kind of get in that mode, you're like, "Man, what is the left thinking about this?"
Or, "What are these conservatives thinking about that?" Mm-hmm. And so we kind of get on a hot topic, and if you're in a debate with somebody that has opposing views, if they don't communicate carefully, and they kind of come in hot and they're like, "You don't know what you... You know, what, why are you so stupid thinking that way?"
What happens literally is that amygdala activates and shuts off information to the prefrontal cortex, and you're not gonna have a productive conversation. And you've experienced this with your wife or with your kids or with your friends, that when the conversation gets heated, gets a little passionate, gets a little emotional, we're not thinking clearly, and that's when we do things like we start attacking the other person and we make fun of the other or mock them.
And again, that's not a productive way to have a conversation. The best thing to do is to step away, let your [01:15:00] brain reset- Yeah ... and then come back and have that conversation.
David: Yeah. So you're saying new ideas tend to, when they're kind of forced on us, our immediate reaction is to fight back.
J.R.: Right.
David: Right?
Yeah. Or scurry away like a rabbit.
J.R.: Yeah, absolutely.
David: Yeah.
J.R.: And that's the thorns. That's the defensive structure.
David: Another way you could think about this then is, it's interesting because if we talk about this idea of the 13th being the fringe, new ideas, new ways of doing things, that we immediately push back, the idea is that if you don't figure out a way to incorporate the 13th- Mm-hmm
to the banquet- Right ... or at least invite them, right? Mm-hmm. Talked about that, then- Eventually some of them will try to force their way through the protective hedge. 'Cause you've gotta deal with it now or later. Right. Something like that, right? Right. Yeah. So you can see maybe these princes forcing their way through the hedges as failing to incorporate the fringe to begin with.
J.R.: Right.
David: Or something along those lines, right?
J.R.: Right. Yeah. Yeah. '
David: Cause you're completely shut off a- [01:16:00] and the outside world is going to try to force their way in one way or another.
J.R.: Right.
David: And you're gonna have to deal with it.
J.R.: Yeah. Yeah, we don't live on a desert island. We're part of broader culture. Even if you wanna separate- Yeah
from it in a certain way, you're gonna have to interact in some way. That's what makes us a community. That's what makes us human. Yeah. And so you have to know how to allow outside ideas in in a healthy way. You have to incorporate the 13th. And then to pivot to the idea side of it, if you're actually trying to convince somebody else of your ideas, you can't force it.
You ha- There's nuance- Yeah ... to conversation, right? Yeah. And you and I aren't gonna agree on everything, and if all I do is call you stupid for not seeing things my way, well, I'm not convincing anything. I'm just trying to win an argument as opposed to expose you to new ideas that I want to be exposed to as well.
David: Yeah. So, and I don't think I mentioned yet that the result of all this is that these 99, it actually says there were 99 other princes somewhere. These 99 who try to force their way in, they're [01:17:00] actually snagged on the thorns, and it's actually this gruesome image that they all died a lamentable death. So they're all tangled in the thorns a- and there's just corpses and bodies- Yeah
right in this protective- A sea
J.R.: of bodies tangled up in these huge thorns.
David: Yeah, that's right. So then it says many a long y- year afterwards, so we're ... The hundred years are going by. Another king's son came into that country, and he had heard rumors of this lovely Rosamond asleep in this castle.
Reader: Mm-hmm.
David: And he says, "I'm going to try to win the lovely Rosamond."
And the old man who tells him the story basically says, "Look, you don't wanna do this. There's all kinds of dead bodies there, right? You're not gonna do it." And he says, "Nevertheless, I do not fear to try. I shall win through and see the lovely Rosamond." Now, when he approaches the castle ... So he can't be dissuaded.
When he approaches the castle then, something interesting happens. When the prince drew near, [01:18:00] the hedge of thorns was changed into a hedge of beautiful large flowers, and then it says it literally parted aside and let him pass. Now, again, we've listened to other podcasts where people are thinking, "Okay, so this is the hundredth prince.
Was he just the right guy at the right time?" Uh, did, was it anything that he actually did? And we've heard some people say, "Well, no, he just happened to be the lucky 100," right?
J.R.: Yeah.
David: But no, that- that's not what's going on here, right? So what is happening that this hedge of thorns that has protected the princess- Mm-hmm
and killed 99 others suddenly parts for this prince?
J.R.: Yeah, this is confirmation for me that seeing this story as a way to bring in outside ideas, this is the part of the story that says, "Yeah, we're on the right track with this." Yeah. You know, because again, you can kind of, if, if you wanna insist on saying it's the overprotective parent, you can kinda try to [01:19:00] translate this into, well, eventually the right guy comes along, and so the parents are gonna let their defenses down and let the guy in.
David: Yeah, there's part of that in there.
J.R.: Yeah, there, there's an aspect of that. Yeah. And that's fine. But, you know, in the story, they're still asleep, and it just doesn't, it doesn't, it's not a satisfying thread completely through. Yeah. But if you look at it as the idea of outside ideas, if the right idea approaches virtuously, right, in a, in a wise way, again, my outs- my outside idea comes to you in a virtuous way, in a, in a genuine, hey, let's have a conversation way, the thorns seem to open up, right?
The defense mechanism come down. I'm not attacking you as a person anymore. It's just, hey, have you thought about it from this other point of view? And yeah, the hedges come down, and that is a pretty good confirmation that this story, at least one aspect, one layer of this story, is about outside ideas coming in.
David: And I think we talked about it yesterday when we were out hiking, that there's, there's almost a whole backstory to this prince [01:20:00] that is implied in the story that isn't actually explicitly laid out, but it's there, right? Yeah. So the question remains then, what is different about this prince? And we can almost see the fact that the hedges part and let him in as confirmation that he has walked a virtuous path, right?
Right. His aim is honorable-
J.R.: Right ...
David: as opposed to the other ones.
J.R.: Yeah.
David: And so there's a whole backstory then. I think you could even contrast the way Rosamond was raised, overprotective, tried to keep her almost childlike- Mm-hmm ... and infantile.
J.R.: Yeah.
David: Right? As opposed to the way he's been raised, which is... Look, he traveled from another country, so, uh, he was raised not to fear the outside world.
His parents didn't raise him overprotective to try to keep him an infant- Yeah ... in some ways, right? Well, I
J.R.: never- Or a child ... thought about that, the fact that he's traveling from another country.
David: Yeah, that's right.
J.R.: Never, I never thought about that detail.
David: So he's out exploring the world.
J.R.: Right.
David: He's done it in an honorable [01:21:00] way.
His aim is true.
J.R.: Mm-hmm.
David: And so there's this whole backstory then, I think, of why the hedges part when he approaches. And if you wanna keep it, you've talked about the level of the culture- Mm-hmm ... and ideas. If you wanna keep it at the level of the right guy coming along, I think this is the guy who- Recognizes that these are over- overprotective parents.
J.R.: Mm-hmm.
David: But he really likes the girl.
J.R.: Yeah.
David: And he's willing to be patient and win the trust of the parents, right? Right. He, you know, "You're not taking my daughter out." "Okay, well, can I at least-" talk with her on the phone.
J.R.: Right.
David: Do kids do that anymore? I
J.R.: don't know.
David: I don't think so. Can
J.R.: I at least text her?
David: Yeah. Can w-
J.R.: No, she doesn't have a phone, trust
David: me Can, can I take her out and you be the chaperone, as weird as that may be? Yeah. It's... But it's... You know what I'm saying. Like- Yeah ... he's willing to bring the defenses down of the parent.
J.R.: Yeah
David: And he's willing to be in it the long run so that eventually the parents will say, "No, I think this is a decent, honorable guy.
Yeah." Yeah. "You can take my daughter out."
J.R.: Yeah. It's sort of the read the room [01:22:00] concept.
David: Yeah.
J.R.: He's adjusting his approach to the people that he's trying to y- you know, the, the heart that he's trying to win, right? Yeah. And he knows that if he's gonna win the par- heart of Rosamond, he has to win the heart of her parents as well.
David: Yeah.
J.R.: And so, yeah, he's adjusting his approach. So on that level, it does, it makes perfect sense. And what the story doesn't really spell out for you is how do you become the type of person that virtuously follows the path, you know? It doesn't really say why the thorns opened up. It may be that's- But it's there
maybe it's-
David: Yeah, I think it's so interesting. And you see this, by the way, and I'll, then I'll- Yeah ... probably finish. You see this other wa- in other fairy tales where a character enters, and if you're paying attention, there's a whole backstory. Right. And it's there.
J.R.: Mm-hmm.
David: Right? It's there if you'll just explore it a little bit.
Right. So, yeah, pick it up. Well, it's,
J.R.: it's the frog and the queen at the beginning of the story. Yeah. If you know your other fairy tales- Yeah ... then that's implicit in, in just that image.
David: Yeah.
J.R.: Okay. So yeah, how do you be the type of virtuous person that the [01:23:00] thorns of life open up for you? Yeah. And, and so- Yeah
yeah, it kind of brought up this conversation we had yesterday of, you know, I, I don't know, I talk to younger guys, uh, that, you know, out of college, that they're like, "Man, I don't know what to do. I, I don't know what my career should be." And it's funny because you, you know, the only advice you can give them is have an aim.
Not a goal, but have an aim, have a direction, aim up, and virtuously walk the path that's in front of you and see what opens up. And, and this part of the fairy tale really kind of plays into that idea.
David: Yeah. And we talked about almost using we found ourselves almost using the thorns as an image of how you approach life.
Well, walk the path. See what thorns part for you, right? I- if there's an invitation to walk through, then walk through it. And we even talked about this idea of, you know, if you wanna use a bit of more of a Christian metaphor, it's the cliche, it's like, well, when God [01:24:00] closes a door, he opens a window, right?
Yeah. So what paths are God, is God opening up for you?
J.R.: Yeah, yeah.
David: A- and be the kind of person who is paying attention enough. That's the, uh, that's the other key.
J.R.: Yeah.
David: Be the kind of person who's paying attention enough to say, "There's an opportunity lying here before me."
J.R.: Yeah.
David: The thorns have parted I need to walk through it.
J.R.: Right.
David: And I need to explore where this goes.
J.R.: Yeah. And do that virtuously. And that's a, that's a broad term- Yeah ... but it's like I'm looking for a career, I'm looking for something meaningful to do as a job, and the answer is, "Well, are you looking virtuously?" In other words, are... Well, is every Friday night you're hanging out with your buddies drinking, playing video games?
Well, that's not a virtuous search.
David: Yeah. You know? I can't meet any women, and you're doing that. It's like, well, try not hanging out with your buddies every Friday night- Right ... playing poker-
J.R.: Yeah ...
David: and video games.
J.R.: Yeah. Be intentional in your personal time and kind of tr- walk that walk, and try to make that aim straight.
[01:25:00] And don't be distracted by the nonsense of life, you know. It doesn't matter what you're doing. If you're washing dishes at a fast-food restaurant, um, you know, just tell yourself, look at it and say, "Am I... I'm gonna give it a month, and I'm gonna wash these dishes as best I can. I'm really gonna give it," and see what happens.
And, you know, the truth is I guarantee you, if you do, if you do your job, your menial task with effort and virtue, if you do that for a month, I promise you your boss is gonna notice- Yeah ... and say, "Man, hey, you know, you've, you've never been late. Uh, you're really doing the... Have you thought about moving on to a cook, or have you thought about doing this other kind of elevated task?
Have you thought about taking on more responsibility?" And that's the briars opening up, you know.
David: Mm-hmm.
J.R.: Nobody's gonna come to you... A CEO isn't gonna come to you and say, "Hey, I'm looking for a vice president. Would you like to be it?" You know, you work your way up to that, and you do that by virtuously tackling the [01:26:00] responsibility that you have right in front of you, and then watch how other people notice.
David: It's also a counter to the message that our society sends sometime, which is, "If you want something, just go out and get it," right? And if you wanna put it in this story, it's like, yeah, put your... If you want Rosamund, put your head down, and you just run headlong through the thorns. Right. Well, we see how that worked out for them.
Right. But we talked about Sal. That can be a dangerous message sometimes to say- Yeah ... "You can do anything you wanna do. Just go get it." Right. And it's like, no, you're forcing your way through the thorns, and it's gonna be a painful experience.
J.R.: Yeah.
David: It's much better to step back and practice virtue, be a good person, have the right aim, and see what opens up for you.
And yes, at some point, yeah, you may need some determination. You, you know, fight for what you want. Yeah. But at the same time, don't be the prince that runs through the hedges- Because you don't have the sense enough to step back and [01:27:00] say, "Yeah, this isn't gonna happen."
J.R.: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Because that advice of you can do anything is, first of all, is just patently nonsense.
Not everybody can be president. Not everybody can play in the NFL. It's just, it's just kind of ridiculous. Mm-hmm. But when you tell somebody that and they really buy into that concept of you just have to try hard enough, what happens if you don't make the high school team? What happens if your high school performance doesn't take you to college, and if that doesn't take you to...
Then you tell yourself... Then, then that's where you get to the self-loathing. You get these neuroses that kind of emerge in your, in your spirit because you're telling yourself, "Well, I must not have tried hard enough. I must not have been determined enough." And again, it's just not helpful informa- it's fun information- Yeah
when a Hollywood actor or actress says, "Hey, man, you just got... Don't give up. Don't let people tell you no." And again, that's kind of, it's the obvious thing that they say, but man, how many people are [01:28:00] living in tents in LA waiting for their curtain call, and they, they've been doing it for four or five years?
Yeah. You know, the better advice is, "Man, go for your dreams. Fight for 'em, but also know when to move on. Know when to pivot." Yeah,
David: yeah.
J.R.: Yeah, know when to read the path in front of you, and know when the briars are just too thick and to move on to another, uh, another path.
David: I read a book a long time ago, little book And it was titled something like Why You Can't Be Anything You Wanna Be.
But it was just a book about, look, understand how God created you, right? Yeah. Understand your strengths and go with them.
J.R.: Yeah.
David: Like, like don't just say, "I wanna be a singer, and so I'm gonna go to American Idol." We all- we've all seen how that turns out. Yeah, you're gonna be in the outtake video. The people who can't sing.
But anyway, yeah, I think you can read all that into this idea of the hedge of thorns that stops the 99, and here's what's different about prince number 100, that the thorns part. Yeah, so let's move on. So the thorns part, [01:29:00] and now he's in this kingdom, now he's in this castle, and it's funny in an almost humorous way because everything's still frozen in time.
J.R.: Right.
David: So he walks past the flies on the wall. He walks past the kitchen cook whose hand is uplifted, uplifted to strike the scullion, whatever that is. An assistant, right? The kitchen maid. So he goes higher and higher because his aim is Rosamond. Yep. And we already know that it's a virtuous aim. Yep. It's a correct aim.
And so he walks past all this, and he finally finds the door where Rosamond is asleep.
J.R.: Right.
David: And it says, "And when he saw her, he looked lovingly in her sleep. He could not turn away his eyes, and he presently stopped, and he kisses her. And when she awaked, she opened her eyes and looked very kindly upon him."
So this is the feelgood part. He wakes the princess with a kiss. Right. Now, first of all, we could talk about this idea of [01:30:00] the kiss and how our society thinks that this is a controversial thing
Reader: Wake a lady by putting your lips on her face without asking
David: I, I thought it was the only way to break the spell
Reader: Next time try words first
J.R.: Yeah. W- who, who kisses a sleeping, sleeping woman? But- You- Again, it's, it, it is. It's, this is a metaphor, and so let's not get hung up on that. You might as well get hung up on the talking frog.
You know, wait, frogs don't talk.
David: That's right.
J.R.: This is a, this is a stupid story. It's like, well, okay, let's move past that. Yeah You know, we're gonna suspend disbelief, suspend judgment for just a little bit to see if you can get to the deeper meaning of the story, and this is one of those s- places.
David: Yeah. So we're not gonna get hung up on that.
You and I both listened to other podcasts that basically said, "Well, this doesn't play well in our cur- current culture," and ... All right, so our message is get over it. But the kiss represents something, I think.
J.R.: Yeah. We,
David: we need- And we need to get back to
J.R.: it Y- right. That's what- Get back to kissing? Get back to understanding the kiss.
David: Understanding the kiss. That's a better way. What does [01:31:00] the
J.R.: kiss represent, then?
David: Well, so the kiss, think about your first kiss with your wife, right? You-
J.R.: I'm glad you put that in there.
David: Yeah. Caveat.
J.R.: Not your first kiss, period.
David: Right. The one not with your wife. Don't think about that one too long. S- but think about, you, uh, uh
Okay, so everyone remembers their first kiss.
J.R.: Oh, yeah, sure.
David: Right? And it was kind of this magical moment. But I think the idea of the first kiss It involves risk, right? Oh, yeah. Especially if you're first dating or, you know, you really like this person, and you have in your mind, "Gosh, should I kiss her at the end of the night?"
Yeah. Like, it, it's almost a terrifying thing.
J.R.: Absolutely. I was terrified, yeah.
David: Yeah.
J.R.: I, I ... Yeah, you don't know whether it's gonna be reciprocal. You don't know whether the person's gonna pull away. You know, you get the, "Hey, listen, we're friends, right?" It's like, "Oh, God,
David: you don't- Yeah, the dreaded, "Let's just be friends."
Right.
J.R.: Yeah. Listen, man, that's in the back of every guy's mind, the first, uh, the first kiss. So yeah, capturing that idea. [01:32:00] What he was doing is, again, he's ignoring all this kinda crazy frozen stuff around him, right? It doesn't seem to even pay attention to him. Yeah, yeah. That's right. He's aiming up. I think that's interesting.
Mm-hmm. He c- he continues to climb the castle. Yeah, he
David: literally climbs up.
J.R.: Yeah.
David: So his aim is up.
J.R.: His aim, his focus is upward. He finds the product of his heart's desire, and he takes a risk.
David: He takes a risk, yes.
J.R.: And consummates it. A kis- a kiss is consummation. That's why we kiss at weddings. You may kiss the bride, right?
It's, uh-
David: Yeah, in, in most relationships then, the kiss marks the beginning of a new chapter of that relationship.
J.R.: Right. Sure. Yeah.
David: Yeah.
J.R.: And so he takes the risk, and he opens the new chapter, and when she opens her eyes, she doesn't, you know, pull back and say, "Oh my gosh, what are you doing?" You know? Yeah. "I was
Right? Yeah, she opens her wi- And what was the word that she was ...
David: Well, she awakened, and then it says, "And opened her eyes," which that's another image that's-
J.R.: Oh yeah, we'll get to that. Yeah. Definitely.
David: Yeah.
J.R.: But yeah, she, she's [01:33:00] happy that he took the risk- Yeah ... because that's what opened her eyes.
David: Yes, that's what opened her eyes, and I like that phrase, she opened her eyes, because it already says she's awake, so it in kind of implies that her eyes are open.
But she opened her eyes is, I think, getting at this idea of for the first time she sees a world that she hasn't seen before. Yeah. Now, you could say it's the same castle, but all of a sudden, she's been asleep.
J.R.: Mm-hmm.
David: Now there's this new person in front of her. And the outside world's been blocked off. A- and I think this idea of she opened her eyes is such a profound statement because it's literally she can see a different world now that's available to her.
J.R.: Yeah. So you have this platonic idea of you're s- you're in the world of the shadow- Yeah ... and now you see the world- Yeah ... as it is, right? And so this can apply to, again, this can apply on the personal level of when you fall in love with somebody, you see the world different. You put on the rose-colored glasses, and now you're just [01:34:00] sort of floating through your day, and all your friends are like, "Dude, you're in love, aren't you?"
Yeah. You know, right? You know, they pick up on it. Or, again, to the layer of ideas, where a new idea comes in, and the light bulb goes off, and you're like, "Man, I'm s- now seeing the world a new way. Something is different because of this new concept that- Yeah ... I've adopted or that our culture has adopted."
David: Yeah. And the last thing I'll say about the kiss being the risk is, again, as confirmation of this, man, you can look at TikTok videos, YouTube videos. There's an endemic in our society almost of younger people going, "I don't know how to meet other people."
J.R.: Yeah.
David: Right? So at the same time, we want this idea of, of consent, and everything has to be laid out in almost a legal contract, right?
J.R.: Right.
David: Uh, but on the flip side of that, it's like, "I don't know how to meet people. I don't know how to initiate..." I mean, there's v- all kinds of TikTok videos about, "I don't know what to do anymore. I'm sitting at a bar, and none of these guys will approach me." And the [01:35:00] answer is, well, because they're scared to.
J.R.: Yeah.
David: Right? They don't wanna get- Yeah ... sued or slapped or- Right ... anything like that. Well, they don't know the
J.R.: rules.
David: And I- And so yeah, they don't know the rules.
J.R.: Yeah. And I think it's interesting that our generation is the first generation to probably look at this part of the story and be offended by it.
I don't think our- Not our
David: generation though ...
J.R.: well, okay,
David: yeah. The next one. The
J.R.: younger generation, right? I'm
David: cool with this part.
J.R.: Right. Our modern culture looks at this- Yeah ... part of the aspect of the story and says, "Wait," you know, and they get hung up on it.
David: Yeah.
J.R.: And I think that's telling, that previous generations and previous cultures- I, I don't know this for sure, but I'm almo- I'm pretty certain that they didn't look at this and say, "What?"
You know, "Why, what's he kissing a sleeping girl for?" But it goes to the point of people are terrified 'cause they don't know the rules, and because there's so much information out there and so much noise. As a young kid, I mean, you don't know the rules of, uh, love and dating and things like that- Mm-hmm
anyway, but throw on top of it this kind of extra [01:36:00] unnecessary baggage and weight of y- you have to have the exact right consent or y- you know, you're doing something filthy and your mind is in the gutter. You know, you're told all these things, and so what do you do? It goes back to that amygdala thing.
You freeze. You know, it shuts off- Mm ... the thinking part of your brain and says, "Hey, let's take a risk, man. I think this girl likes me. I think..." You know, it shuts all that stuff down and you just kinda freeze and say, "I'm not gonna do anything." And then f- you go to sleep and five years go by and you're 35, and it's like, "Man, how come I haven't met anybody?"
Yeah, yeah. Well, you've been asleep, you know? And, and it's like you've been frozen by what the rules the culture imposes on you. And so I think it's kinda interesting that there's a modern spin on this fairy tale of kind of where we're at culturally.
David: And I think you see that in movies. You know, there's no more of that first kiss, right?
J.R.: Yeah.
David: A- and it's... So when you understand what it represents, I think it's something we need to [01:37:00] bring back, and yeah, we're not gonna apologize for this part of the fairy tale, right?
J.R.: Right.
David: So anyway, he kisses her. She opens her eyes, and then it's interesting because all of a sudden everything in the kingdom begins moving again, right?
The flies start buzzing. It says the horses picked up in the yard. They're eating their hay. The kitchen cook goes ahead and boxes the scallion on the ears. Whatever
J.R.: that means.
David: Well, yeah, whatever that is. And what's interesting is the king and queen also wake up. Yeah. So the enti- so again, it's this emphasis that the entire kingdom wakes up.
Now, I, I don't know what you think about that, but it, it is interesting this image that when he kisses her, not only she wakes up, but the entire kingdom suddenly wakes up.
J.R.: Yeah. Well, this is another confirmation that we're talking about a deeper idea. Of outside ideas and outside concepts being allowed into the culture.
It's a way of bringing it in. [01:38:00] That if you shut yourself off and you don't allow any outside ideas, you stagnate. You're barren, right? Yeah. Everything freezes. You're a time capsule. We've talked about all these ideas. And when you do allow it in the proper way and it, it kind of makes its way in, I think it's interesting there's kind of this universal awakening, right?
All the way from the- Yeah ... smallest fly- Yeah. ... to the king and queen all awake at the same time. And we kinda talked about that. What do you think about, what do you think about this kind of universal awakening type of moment that this fairy tale describes?
David: Yeah, let's go back to the very beginning that we said this was a barren kingdom.
J.R.: Right.
David: Right? This has stagnated.
J.R.: Yeah, no productivity.
David: In, in some ways the sleep is just an extension of what we learned from the very beginning, that this was a kingdom that had no life in it, it was barren, everything was stagnating. It had been too closed off, and when you're too closed off, you become isolated and you don't grow [01:39:00] anymore.
J.R.: Yeah.
David: So this kiss, I think, represents new life at every single level, right? It's not just Rosamond, it's not just the king and queen, it's everything from the kitchen- Yeah ... cook boxing the scallion on the ears to the flies buzzing around. Everything has new life. There's a renewal because a new idea has come in and it's been incorporated, and so it's not a completely closed off system anymore.
So now life is flowing through it again.
J.R.: Yeah. I
David: think it's something like that.
J.R.: Yeah. Okay, so w- every once in a while a phenomenon hits society, whether it be a new product, whether it be AI or the internet, and everybody wakes up to this new reality. And I, uh, we c- Yeah ... I, I call it the Nirvana moment, right?
Because Kurt Cobain and Nirvana came on the scene- That's right ... in the middle of this kind of MTV generation of glam metal and hair bands and exploding pyrotechnics, [01:40:00] and these dudes just get up on stage in their grunge, their hair is kind of long and stringy, and the plaid flannel shirts and the ripped jeans and the work boots, and they just get up there and play the guitar.
And it was, it wa- it was more than just, "Hey, here's a new genre of music," or, "This is something, wow, you know, this is something different. I like this sound." It was an awakening of everybody looking at the previously popular music of heavy metal and just saying, "What, what kind of clowns were we? What were we entertaining?"
The silly teased hair up to here guys, tough guys with glitter makeup and l- and lipstick, and it was just, it was just the most absurd time, you know, that you look back. It was this universal awakening- Yeah ... in the music field. And we commented that- I'm pretty sure there was not one new hair metal band that came on the scene after Nirvana was introduced.
David: I think that's right. And you know, it's one of those moments, uh, I [01:41:00] remember the first time I heard Smells Like Teen Spirit. I really do.
J.R.: Yeah. Yeah, me too.
David: And I was lis- I was driving in my car and I heard this and I thought, "Oh, my goodness. What is this?"
J.R.: Yeah. Wow.
David: And it's that moment, I think you're right, where all of a sudden that comes out and- wakes the culture up.
I have this image of bands like Whitesnake and Poison suddenly- ... who previously-
J.R.: Yeah ...
David: you know, oh man, they were cool, and, uh, they were the, you know, they were the desire of all the women, and suddenly they just look like idiots.
J.R.: Yeah. Right.
David: And it's all of a sudden it's like, "Uh, what are we doing?" You know?
Yeah. Maybe I should wipe... And we even talked about this idea of some of those hair bands actually cleaned their look up in an effort to stay relevant-
J.R.: Oh,
David: yeah ... in the music scene. They actually... And they kinda looked weird, you know, without their makeup, their hair's cut, you know, they're not wearing all the- Right
the spandex pants and-
J.R.: Okay, so this is funny- ... because Kiss, which is known for their theatrical makeup, you can, you could actually argue that [01:42:00] they were the innovators of that whole genre, right? They were the first ones. Yeah. You know, Starman and whatever the, you know. Yeah. Uh, it's funny 'cause I remember at that time Kiss kind of repackaged themselves and retoured with no makeup, and it was kind of a big deal.
It's like, oh, wow, Kiss with no makeup.
David: It was jarring to see
J.R.: too. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. '
David: Cause that one guy's kinda ugly.
J.R.: Right. Yeah, that- I
David: won't say who. I'll let you decide. Yeah,
J.R.: yeah, we'll leave it there, right. But it's... So it brings in this idea of the innovator and the imitator, and so you could argue that Kiss were the innovative...
Nobody ever seen anything like this. They were wild, right? They were in the, in the time of, I, I know it, I know they're past The Beatles, but it's sort of like this clean-cut, uh, '70s type of, '60s, '70s type of rock and roll, and then here comes Kiss, and they are, boom, out there, flamboyant, in your face, the pyrotechnics.
So they were the innovators of this, and it's funny to see that, you know, [01:43:00] the Whitesnakes and the Warrant and the Poison and the Mötley Crüe- Yeah ... they were kind of imitators of the original innovators.
David: Yeah, yeah.
J.R.: And once we'd had too much of that, it took a Nirvana to come along and say, "You know, what are you guys doing?"
David: Enough. Really? This
J.R.: is ridiculous. Yeah, this is enough. End. Let's end this, right? And it did. It completely ended. That's it. And you see this in other aspects of new products or even political ideas.
David: Well, I was gonna say, new ideas that wake a culture up, and let's be honest, they can be positive and negative.
Something like 9/11 woke a culture up.
J.R.: Yeah.
David: Everyone stopped and said, "What are we doing?" Right. And at least for a moment-
J.R.: For two weeks we were
David: friends ... new life came into the culture, and we said, "Together let's figure out how we gotta respond to this," right? Right. So it can be positive or negative, but yeah, that's what this kiss means, and that's what the castle and the kingdom waking up represents.
It's this moment where society and culture starts to look around and says, "What have we been doing?" [01:44:00] Yeah.
J.R.: Yeah.
David: We've gotta do something different- Yeah ... or we're going to die.
J.R.: Yeah, it's the- We're gonna just- ... consummation and the acceptance of a new paradigm.
David: And that's captured in this idea, because the story ends with the typical Although I say typical, but when you read all the Grimm's Fairy Tales, very few actually end like this.
But, "Then a wedding of the prince and Rosamond was held with all the splendor, and they lived happily ever after together."
J.R.: Yeah. There we go.
David: That's the end of the story.
J.R.: End of story.
David: But I think what's interesting in that whole idea we just talked about is captured in this idea of a wedding. Right. Right?
And a wedding in a fairy tale means something.
J.R.: Sure.
David: It means something very specific. It's symbolizes the coming together of two different kingdoms and a new A new kingdom emerging, right? Right Or a new variation of a kingdom emerging.
J.R.: Right. A new paradigm moving forward.
David: It's not just a happy marriage, right?
J.R.: Right.
David: It's [01:45:00] actually two kingdoms saying, "We're going to build something new." And oftentimes on the, what, on the structure of something that was dying. And in this case too- Yeah ... we started off with the barren kingdom-
J.R.: Right ...
David: and now we have new life- Yeah ... breathed into it.
J.R.: Yes. Happily ever after is a lot more than they never fought, and it was just a great marriage- Right.
Yeah ... all the way into their 80s and 90s, right? It, it is happily ever after is a way of saying this new way of thinking was productive in moving the kingdom forward. New growth has come from this barren landscape. Yeah. And now we have something productive, and forever after we benefited from this moment in time, this consummation of a new idea.
David: Yeah, yeah. All right, so anything else you wanna say or do you wanna just wrap up?
J.R.: Yeah, I also think it's, and we can do this in a second, I also think it's a good thing to kind of talk about the left-right paradigm. You know, let's take this story and let's take this idea when it comes [01:46:00] to political persuasion of the left and the right and how those actually play and benefit each other- Yeah
and, and how it kinda plays itself- Yeah. Yeah ... out in this, in this fairy tale.
David: Yeah, so you can think of the right in general terms as the traditionalist, the one who says, "Let's... We, we have what we have. Let's protect it," right? No new ideas- Right ... at an extreme. And the left, or we can say liberals, tend to come in and say, "No, we need new ideas," right?
"No, we need the outside ideas."
J.R.: Right.
David: All the good ideas are out there sometimes.
J.R.: Right. That's why they're called progressives.
David: That's why they're... Yeah. We need to progress- They want to move
J.R.: forward
David: with something different It's literally we wanna progress beyond what we have right now.
J.R.: Right.
David: And so you have this, this necessary tension-
J.R.: Mm-hmm
David: between left and right-
J.R.: Yeah ...
David: because the right tends to stagnate and the left at the extreme tends to wanna just tear down everything that is so we can build something new, and that's not helpful either.
J.R.: Right.
David: So there's a good interplay that says we [01:47:00] need the tradition but we always need to keep it fresh, white, right?
We need the wedding.
J.R.: Yes, yes.
David: Right. To keep creating something new. Yes. And that's a healthy tension but it can get out of balance.
J.R.: Right. So according to the story, the unhealthy right- Falls asleep and there's no growth and it's barren.
David: Yes.
J.R.: The unhealthy left for- tries to force new ideas
David: Pronounces the curse, right?
J.R.: Pronounces the curse, yes, and then tries to force new ideas- Yeah ... in an unhealthy way, and the ideas get caught up in the thorns. Yeah. And it's so funny because, man, take any hot button issue and you can see how this interplay works successfully and unsuccessfully. You, you know, you- Mm-hmm ... see ideas get caught in the thorns because, because again, it was tried to, tried to be forced on us.
And, uh, or at least forced on the, on the part of the culture that says, "No, we wanna be traditional. We want to keep these th- you know, we wanna keep this thing intact." And again, the unhealthy progressive says, "Not only here's the new [01:48:00] ideas, but ignore all the past. Let's burn down, burn down the tradition because all it's doing is holding us back."
You know, and these are caricatures, obviously. This is obviously- Sure ... a layered nuance thing. But, uh, yeah, in an unhealthy way, that's what the left can do if it gets out of hand, and what the right can do when it gets out of hand is just absolutely dig their heels in and say, "No change." You put up the briars and the tyrant rules and says, "Absolutely no change.
No outside influence coming in." You see this in thing, place like North Korea, you know, the tyrannical regimes, right? That is absolute we're not gonna change. We don't want, want the outside world to go, come in, and yeah, you end up with North Korea.
David: Yeah. Yeah, so it's interesting, too, and you know I've done this with other, the other fairy tales, but when you start to see this, then you can actually understand what's happening in some of the political clashes.
J.R.: Yeah. And you can actually... It's helpful to know how that- interplay [01:49:00] works out because if I'm on the right and I wanna convince you on the left of something, there's a way to go about doing that, and same thing for you to me, right? We don't force our ideas. You, you know, you respect- Yeah ... and so, but knowing where the other person's coming from.
So if you're on the left and you want progress of something new, you don't try to bash somebody's head over with it. You respect that, look, I know that you want to keep a traditionalist culture, but here is the, a healthy way that we can keep your tradition and integrate the new. That's the proper approach if you actually- Yeah
wanna have a conversation, a political conversation- Yeah ... with the opposite side. That's, that's the approach for that.
David: Yeah. So all these layers are in there. So I guess to put a bow on this one, so we have the literal meaning of the fairy tale. Now, we've kind of gone through the fairy tale. Right. If you wanna think of, okay, what's the little bit deeper, the moral ethical layer you might say, there is this idea of you have to prepare your children for the outside world.
[01:50:00] Yes. You don't wanna be the parent that overprotects, that keeps this teenager a child-
J.R.: Yeah ...
David: and then falls asleep because they don't know how to handle the outside world.
J.R.: Yeah.
David: So there's a proper way to do that, right? There's a proper way to prepare your son or your daughter- Right ... for the prince or princess from another country-
J.R.: Right
David: to come in- Yeah ... and properly integrate, right?
J.R.: And, and, and there's a proper way to virtuously walk the path. Sure, yeah. To have a goal and to recognize when the thorns are opened up and when they're closed. You know, that's- Yeah ... that's kind of a personal level application of this.
David: And then when you even go to the cultural level, you can talk about here's how to integrate new ideas, right?
Beware of who you're excluding maybe 'cause there's always the, that, that 13th wise woman-
J.R.: Right ...
David: that you excluded, and if you don't somehow incorporate that or acknowledge it, she's gonna come back.
J.R.: Right. You do so at your own peril.
David: Yeah. A- and so there's that layer as well. I don't know, it's fascinating to go through these fairy tales.
[01:51:00] This is the first one we've done in this format, but it's fascinating to go through it You might have a tendency to say, "Is all that really in there?" And the answer is yes
J.R.: 100% yes
David: It is
J.R.: Yeah. And when you read it with that lens, you know, I encourage the listener to go back and read it, take their time- Mm-hmm
and really pay attention to every word and every sentence, because again, you know, we can't cover everything o- on this podcast or else we'd be here for seven, eight hours. But, you know, get your own take on what this means through the lens that we've kind of tried to lay out for you, and read it again and see what you can pull from it, because I can promise you on a personal level, 'cause we all have our own experiences and our own way of looking at things, a brilliant, well-crafted story that's lasted for generations and generations has this implicit seed that you can pull out from it on an individual level.
So go back and read it and see what you can pull from it.
David: Yeah, and the last thing I would say is that when you read a bunch of these fairy tales, you'll understand that the [01:52:00] prince and the princess generally mean the same thing in every fairy tale. A royal wedding generally means the same thing in every fairy tale.
J.R.: Right.
David: We talked about the frog, right? So once you start to understand some of these images... And look, there's no... In a fairy tale, what's fun too is there's no one right way that this gets interpreted. Now, there are wrong ways.
J.R.: Right. Correct.
David: But once you understand what certain things mean in all the fairy tales, then you start to read a fairy tale and you just immediately go, "Yeah, this is what this is talking about."
Yeah. "I understand what this means. I understand what it means that they had to cross the forest to get to the next kingdom, right? That means something." Right. So yeah, we hope you enjoyed this. A quick reminder, we do have audio versions on our podcast of six of these fairy tales already. We're gonna do more on video.
J.R.: Yeah, we were kinda talking about that. But- There's, there's a lot of them out there Yeah And I'd love your suggestions on a fairy tale to tackle. If you wanna put that in the comments, that'd be great.
David: Yeah, that's right. So if you wanna hear more of these, let us [01:53:00] know which ones you wanna hear. We might do it.
But subscribe to the YouTube channel. Go subscribe to our podcast too. We talk about a bunch of different other things on the podcast. And yeah, we will talk to you next fairy tale.
J.R.: There we go. We'll see you
