 In “Cupid and Psyche” and “East o’ the Sun and West o’ the Moon”, the heroine breaks a taboo, loses her husband, and has to travel the world and complete daunting tasks to find him - but she does eventually win him back.
In “Beauty and the Beast,” Beauty returns home to visit her family, but stays too long (forgetting the Beast's instructions and thus breaking a taboo). The Beast nearly dies due to her absence, but she returns just in time to swear her love. This revives him and breaks his curse. But there are a couple of versions that don’t end so happily. One is “The Ram,” a French literary tale by Madame D’Aulnoy (1697). This story resonates with many different fairy tales. Returning from war, a king greets his three daughters and asks about the color of their dresses. The first two say that the color represents their joy at his return, but the youngest, Merveilleuse, chose her dress because it looked the best on her; the king is displeased, calling her vain. Then he asks about their latest dreams. The first two dreamed he brought them gifts, but the youngest dreamed he held a basin for her to wash her hands. The king is furious at the idea he would become her servant (ATU 725, "The Dream" - like the Biblical story of Joseph). He decides to get rid of her (“Love Like Salt”, “King Lear”). He orders the captain of the guard to kill her and bring back her heart and tongue; instead, the captain warns her to flee and brings back the heart and tongue of her pet dog (“Snow White”). Bereft, Merveilleuse travels until she discovers a splendid kingdom inhabited by sheep, ruled over by a royal ram. The Ram explains that he is a human king, cursed after he refused to marry a wicked fairy (“Beauty and the Beast”). But the time limit of his curse will soon run out, so if Merveilleuse just hangs in there a little while, she’s guaranteed a handsome king husband. She also gets to ride in the Ram's pumpkin coach ("Cinderella"). Eventually they hear that Merveilleuse's sister is to be married; the Ram agrees that Merveilleuse should attend the wedding, but asks her to return afterwards. She attends the wedding in splendor, amazing the king and courtiers who don't recognize her, before returning home (shades of “Cinderella” again). Similarly, she attends her second sister's wedding. This time, the king catches her and offers her a basin of water to wash her hands; her dream has come true. Recognizing her, he repents of his wrongdoing and makes her the new queen. Meanwhile, the Ram begins to fear that Merveilleuse has left him. He runs to her father's palace, but the guards - knowing that he will take Merveilleuse away - refuse to let him in. When Merveilleuse finally steps outside, she finds him lying dead of a broken heart, and is stricken with grief and guilt. The end. (A depressing and very racist intro, in which the heroine’s slave girl and pets foolishly sacrifice themselves in an attempt to help her, sets up for the tale’s eventual tragic ending.) D'Aulnoy's story was fairly well-known and was translated into other languages for both children and adults. Some English translations go further and have Merveilleuse die at the end, too (possibly due to mistranslation - in D’Aulnoy’s version, we may assume Merveilleuse reigns on her own as queen). Others alter it to have a happy ending; Sabine Baring-Gould, for instance, introduces the plot point that the Ram must sit in a king’s throne and drink from a king's cup to break his curse, and the heroine (renamed Miranda) is able to gain this favor during her reconciliation with her father. This turns the story on its head, making the family reunion the solution to the problem rather than the issue that breaks the couple apart. There is also a Portuguese tale, “The Maiden and the Beast," which runs much more like the familiar "Beauty and the Beast." Rather than a rose, Daughter-No.-3 requests "a slice of roach off a green meadow". A roach is a fish, so she’s asking for an impossible thing, a fish from a grassy field. The Beast is only heard as a voice, never appearing in person. The biggest divergence is the ending. During her stay at the Beast’s castle, the girl returns home for three days for her oldest sister's wedding, then again for her next sister's wedding, and finally for the death of her father. She even takes rich gifts back with her, making the family wealthy. However, on the third visit, she is warned that her sisters will sabotage her. Sure enough, they sneakily let her oversleep and take her enchanted ring, causing her to forget everything. When she finally remembers, she rushes back to the enchanted palace and finds it deserted and dark. In the garden, she discovers a huge beast lying on the ground (the first time the Beast has appeared in person). He bitterly reproaches her for breaking his spell, and dies; the heartbroken girl dies a few days later, and the surviving sisters lose their money. It’s never mentioned what this Beast’s deal is, whether he’s a man under a curse or what. However, much like other versions of Beauty and the Beast, the context makes it clear that this is a fantasy version of an arranged marriage; the father knows full well that he is trading his daughter for the "slice of roach." The moral...? There's a prevailing theory that "Beauty and the Beast" is a moral lesson about accepting an arranged marriage and learning to see the good in an unfamiliar spouse. These tragic stories show what happens when the heroine accepts her new spouse but still fails to completely take on her new role as wife. She’s distracted by her family, who are unwilling to let her go. You could make a case that these stories are about the danger of female disobedience (and, for “The Ram”, something about the whims of fate). However, it doesn’t seem right to blame the heroines for disobedience. Merveilleuse and the maiden both fully intend to comply with the Beast character’s request. However, both are thwarted by their own innocent forgetfulness and by household members fighting to keep them home (the Maiden’s sisters interfering with her return, and Merveilleuse’s father locks the palace doors in order to keep her there, followed by the guards keeping the Ram out). It’s different from the older sisters’ jealous sabotage in “Cupid and Psyche” or “Beauty and the Beast.” In these tragic versions, the family members are, ultimately, acting out of misguided love - fearing the husband-monster-interloper, wanting to keep a beloved youngest child with them rather than let her become a married woman in a household of her own. Do you know any Beauty and the Beast stories that end tragically? Let me know in the comments! SOURCES
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Researching folktales and fairies, with a focus on common tale types. Archives
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