Cough, splutter, ouch.
I had to come home early from work today. Poorly sick. 
So I spent the afternoon curled up on the sofa watching Nureyev’s staging of The Sleeping Beauty by the Paris Opera Ballet. Now we all know the story don’t we, especially us fibre-craft people. King and Queen fail to invite evil fairy to baby’s christening, so evil fairy casts a spell, dooming said baby to pricking her finger on a spindle at her sixteenth birthday party. This will make her die. “Oh no it won’t,” says the Lilac Fairy, “she and everyone else will sleep for 100 years until a handsome prince comes and wakes her up.”
And so it is seen as a comment on dormant sexuality, blah, blah, blah.
Now hang on a minute. What is the king’s response? He bans all spindles from the kingdom. (And apparently all spinning wheels too.) How can this work? Can a country survive for 16 years without being able to produce yarn? What will they wear? Doesn’t every method of fabric production require the use of yarn (unless they are all going to go back to wearing animal skins – and this court is surely much too grand for that!)?
Nope, totally impractical.
So let’s have a look at what Nureyev does shall we?
The Christening is over, sharp pointy objects have been banned, the princess’s 16th birthday approaches. The evil fairy Carabosse appears again, and starts handing out… hang on a minute, what’s that she’s handing out?
Have a closer look:
(apologies for bad photos-from-the-telly)
Those aren’t spindles! That’s knitting that is! (And you can’t see it here, but the dancer on the right is just clutching it, the dancer in the middle waves her pointy sticks around unconvincingly, but I rather think that the dancer on the left was actually knitting – go her!)
Apart from that little detail, it all goes to plan.
Carabosse appears to ruin the sixteenth birthday party, hands over a bunch of flowers containing a knitting needle, the princess falls into a deep sleep, eventually the handsome prince finds her and wakes her up, and they get married and live happily ever after.
I can’t say I approve of the demonising of knitting like this, but I do have to say that at least they could still produce woven fabric…
two comments:
And that brings me very neatly to a question on knitting for my knitting guru. (Well, you are now
) Do you have any suggestions for a pattern for mitts, for me, perhaps with a fingerless glove with a foldy-over-mitt bit and a-cosy-but-not fluffy yarn? I have Raynauds and someone suggested that these would be an excellent option for my stupid fingers, although the skiing mitts I have are pretty okay. It’s only November though…
Louise () (link) - 05 November '08 - 19:19
Hope you feel better soon! And I think you need to write a scathing expose of the inherent problems with the Sleeping Beauty Myth.Chris () (link) - 05 November '08 - 21:09
