History Literature / TheSleeperAndTheSpindle

* AndTheAdventureContinues: At the end of the story the queen decides not to return to her country in order to be married, and she goes off with the dwarfs on a new journey.

* MundaneSolution: To get to the sleeping princess, the queen and the dwarfs have to get through a barrier of razor sharp thorns, which has already claimed the lives of several would-be rescuers. By this stage the briars are long dead even if they're still sharp, so the queen sets them alight with help from a tinder box.

* AdaptationalBadass: Snow White in her original story was TheIngenue and a naive teenager with no survival skills. It's unclear if in this story she was always like that but by the time she sets off to prevent an enchanted sleep, she arms herself with a chainmail and sword.

* AmbiguouslyHuman: Crosses over with this trope. Within story, side characters debate whether curse on Sleeping Beauty was cast by an enchantress, witch or fairy (itself sort of SelfReferentialHumor to adaptations of the story, which tend to go back and forth to the issue too). While the villain is referred as the witch several times, and ages and grows old, untypical for fairy folk in stories, she also calls normal humans mortals. Side characters make references to ‘’forest witches banished thousand years ago’’, the queen’s hallucination of her stepmother says how mortal kind rose against her and her sisters who used to rule the world, and villain references existence of surviving members of ‘’Sisterhood’’, [[spoiler: while the queen describes the villain and her stepmother's kind as creatures hungering for youth and beauty because they wasted their own long, long ago]], leaving it ambiguous whether we are dealing with Mage Species, or remnant members of TheMagocracy who achieved AgeWithoutYouth status.

* LiteralMinded: The dwarfs are of a practical and unromantic turn of mind, so when they're told that the cursed princess will need to be wakened by the traditional method (meaning TrueLovesKiss), they interpret it as "dump a bucket of water on her and shout 'Wakey wakey!'".

* AmbiguouslyHuman: Crosses over with this trope. Within story, side characters debate whether curse on Sleeping Beauty was cast by an enchantress, witch or fairy (itself sort of SelfReferentialHumor to adaptations of the story, which tend to go back and forth to the issue too). While the villain is referred as the witch several times, and ages and grows old, untypical for fairy folk in stories, she also calls normal humans mortals. Side characters make references to ‘’forest witches banished thousand years ago’’, the queen’s hallucination of her stepmother says how mortal kind rose against her and her sisters who used to rule the world, and villain references existence of surviving members of ‘’Sisterhood’’, leaving it ambiguous whether we are dealing with Mage Species, or remnant members of TheMagocracy who achieved AgeWithoutYouth status.

* MundaneSolution: To get to the sleeping princess, the queen and the dwarfs have to get through a barrier of razor sharp thorns, which has already claimed the lives of several would be rescuers. By this stage the briars are long dead even if they're still sharp, so the queen sets them alight with help from a tinder box.

* TheDogBitesBack: The old woman [[spoiler:is revealed to be the real princess, nearly ninety years old. Realizing who she is, the queen gives her the spindle and tells her she knows what to do. The old woman, freed from the previous {{Geas}}, stabs the witch in the heart]].

* AdaptationalSpeciesChange: In the original fairy tale, Snow White's stepmother was a human witch. In this version it's revealed that the stepmother was actually one of the Folk, which was why she was able to curse Snow.

"The Sleeper and the Spindle" is a short story by Creator/NeilGaiman, which manages to be both a FracturedFairytale ''and'' a CanonWelding of "Literature/SnowWhite" and "Literature/SleepingBeauty".

"The Sleeper and the Spindle" is a short story by Creator/NeilGaiman, which manages to be both a FracturedFairytale ''and'' a CanonWelding of "Snow White" and "Sleeping Beauty".

* AndTheAdventureContinues: At the end of the story the queen decides not to return to her country in order to be married, and she goes off with the dwarves on a new journey.
* BaitAndSwitch: The queen and dwarves assume that the story is going to follow the formula: they'll find a sleeping princess and a bitter enchantress waiting to die. [[spoiler:Nope; the witch is the one sleeping, stealing youth and sleep from the aged princess who is a ScatterbrainedSenior at times]].

* MundaneSolution: To get to the sleeping princess, the queen and the dwarves have to get through a barrier of razor sharp thorns, which has already claimed the lives of several would be rescuers. By this stage the briars are long dead even if they're still sharp, so the queen sets them alight with help from a tinder box.
* NeverWakeUpASleepwalker: Not for lack of trying; the dwarves initially try to shake some of the people they find awake, but it doesn't work. Later, they run from a mob of sleepwalkers that the witch is controlling, realizing that an enchanted sleep doesn't allow for easy waking.
* NoNameGiven: None of the characters in the story are referred to by name, although it's pretty clear who the queen and the princess are.

* AdaptationalSpeciesChange: Snow White's stepmother was a human witch. She reveals here that her stepmother was actually one of the Folk, which was why she was able to curse Snow.

* TheDogBitesBack: The old woman [[spoiler:is revealed to be the real princess, aged 100 years. Realizing who she is, the queen gives her the spindle and tells her she knows what to do. The old woman, freed from the previous {{Geas}}, stabs the witch int he heart]].

* TheReveal: [[spoiler:The beautiful girl who's slept for a hundred years is ''not'' the cursed princess, but rather the witch who cast the curse. The ''real'' princess is the old woman who's been forced to stay awake for all those years.]]

* BaitAndSwitch: The queen and dwarves assume that the story is going to follow the formula: they'll find a sleeping princess and a bitter enchantress waiting to die. [[spoiler:Nope; the witch is the one sleeping, stealing youth and sleep ]]

* AdaptatationalSpeciesChange: Snow White's stepmother was a human witch. She reveals here that her stepmother was actually one of the Folk, which was why she was able to curse Snow.

* NoNameGiven: None of the characters in the story are referred to by name, although it's pretty clear who they are.

* HoistByTheirOwnPetard: [[spoiler:The witch ends up being defeated by her own magic when the princess stabs her with the spindle -- 'a scratch is all that was needed'.]]