.the princess portal.

I apologise most sincerely for the scant updates lately! Things have been very busy at the palace of late. We are preparing costumes and a dance for an event coming up in month and it is both time consuming and exhausting, I am looking forward to the results though!

This coming weekend I’m fortunate enough to be going on a little holiday with some lovely Lords and Ladies. We will be visiting Denmark, not the European country, but a small town on the southern coast. It is one of my favourite places, because of it’s great natural beauty, it is literally where the forest meets the ocean and our little cottage will be but a short walk from the beach! I will not have my computer there, so there will be no updates from the 31st of May to the 2nd of June, but I’m looking forward to sharing tales of our adventure when I return!

I hope you are all going well with your Princess Challenge for the month. I’ve missed a couple of days, but otherwise I’m pretty happy with my progress. I can’t wait to read them all! Please don’t forget to send them in when you’re done!

One of my very favourite fairy tales is Beauty and the Beast. The story has always appealed to me because it breaks out of the traditional roles in that Princess, for once, rescues the Prince. It is believed that one of roots of this tale come from the myth of Cupid and Pysche, and reading both there are definitely similar themes.

The first version of the modern ‘Beauty and the Beast’ was written by Madame Gabrielle de Villeneuve for her circle of friends in the French Salons of the mid 1700s. An adaption by Madame Le Prince de Beaumont was published 16 years later and is closer to how we know the tale today, though both are beautiful reads. You can find the Andrew Lang version, a combination of the above two here.

I think what I love about this story, is the mood of the tale and the setting itself. The splendid Palace with it’s invisible servants (which in some ways sounds like Versailles!) the curse under which the Prince is placed, and Beauty’s courage and self sacrifice. I think her struggle reflects a dilemma we often face, that sometimes the illusions of surface beauty are far more attractive than the beast, and seeing what’s underneath, the real inner beauty of a person takes great strength and compassion. I think Beauty is a great role model in this aspect.

Dear Beauty, try not to regret all you have left behind you, for you are destined to a better fate. Only do not let yourself be deceived by appearances.