| If Sleeping Beauty had fallen asleep on a memory foam
mattress topper, would she have been so keen to have been
woken by a kiss?! Sleep in fairy tales
Folk lore and fairy tales often revolve around the notion of
sleep – or lack of it – in influencing the behaviour of
characters. The night is a magical time, when dreams or
alternative realities take over our lives, and anything is
possible. Think about the Princess and the Pea – perhaps she
would have been condemned as a commoner if she’d bought a
memory foam mattress topper, the twelve dancing princesses
might have preferred to stay home if they could get a decent
night’s sleep, or the elves who made shoes all night long
while the shoemaker slumbered might not have been quite so
generous with their time!
Updating the fairy tale
Some authors, including ‘feminist’ writers Angela Carter and
Jeanette Winterson have updated the fairy tale to hand some
of the power back to the heroine, who traditionally has to
wait to be woken by a prince before she can get on with her
life. This style was also adopted by the makers of popular
film Skrek – they took the idea of the talking mirror (from
Snow White) and the sleeping princess waiting to be rescued
from her prison tower (Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel) and gave
it a modern spin. Princess Fiona buys into the idea of being
rescued but she hasn’t been asleep on her memory foam
mattress topper, she’s been getting ready to rule the
Kingdom.
The scary tale
The fairy tale was part of an oral tradition; tales were
told rather than written down, and handed down from
generation to generation. Because of this, the history of
their development is necessarily obscure. Illiterate
peoples, in particular, may have long told tales without
there being any records of them. As parents we tell fairy
tales to our children as we settle them down to sleep on
their memory foam mattress toppers, but do we stop to think
that we could be giving them nightmares – think about the
Little Mermaid who had her tongue cut out, or Hansel and
Gretel who narrowly avoided the fate of other children who
were burned alive and eaten – fairy tales are often very
dark and it’s a modern twist that they all lived happily
ever after.
Believing in magic
One of the best parts about childhood is believing in magic.
It’s ironic that we teach our children to tell the truth,
then lull them to sleep on their memory foam mattress
toppers with stories of dragons, giants and genies. But
fairy tales fire our imagination and teach us about life in
a way that we can understand as children then carry with us
through adulthood.
To order your Prima Comfort memory foam mattress toppers and
pillows today
call 01664 485013 or click the button below.
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