Wednesday, February 3, 2021

Reading Notes: Week 2 Anthology

 Beauty and the Basilisk

by Josef Baudis in The Key of Gold

Image result for basilisk images

(Image Source: Picryl)

Major Plot Points

  • Mother asks three daughters what gifts they would like from town
  • Oldest two ask for many and extravagant gifts
  • Youngest asks for nothing but three simple roses
  • Mother goes to town and buys all the gifts but forgets the roses
  • On return trip home through countryside she remembers 
  • She finds roses in the garden of a country estate
  • She is confronted by a fearsome basilisk who demands the mother's daughter as a price for the roses
  • Distraught, the mother returns home and tells her daughter the price for the roses
  • Surprisingly, the daughter agrees to go to the basilisk's home
  • Once there she is told that she must hold the basilisk in her lap for three nights or the beast will kill her
  • Confused she agrees to this 
  • On the third night the basilisk demands she take a nearby sword and cut the beasts head off
  • She refuses on account of her kind heart
  •  The basilisk issues a new round of threats which result in convincing the girl to kill the beast
  • Out of the decapitated beast's body slithers a snake which the girl also cuts the head off of
  • From this body comes a richly adorned prince who proceeds to ask the daughter for her hand in marriage as she had freed him form a curse
Themes
  • Wicked sisters
  • Pact with the beast
  • Ransomed daughter
  • Held hostage by the beast
  • Break the beast's curse

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