![]() ![]() Before paternity or DNA tests, and in an age when kings – fathers of princesses, in other words – found it as easy to get themselves killed in battle as to sire a daughter, it was probably a tricky business trying to ascertain your bride-to-be’s credentials in the blue-blood department. One explanation is that the story is about the importance of a prince making a good marriage, to a woman of royal blood who came from good ‘stock’. ![]() ![]() But what, then, might the true meaning of the tale be? A story that goes back to India almost a thousand years ago (and that’s only the earliest one we know about: many fairy tales have the ring of oral culture about them, and oral literature is notoriously good at getting itself lost down the centuries) surely has more importance than warnings about maintaining a tidy valance or laughter about how the royals are a bunch of pernickety wusses farther removed from the sufferings of ordinary people than a Martian holidaying on Pluto. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |