every other generation

[marycatelli]

Philosophically contemplating family life in  fairy tale land.

The ones where the current king's mother was Snow White and grandmother was Sleeping Beauty, and great-grandmother was Cinderella -- and his mother-in-law was Rapunzel -- tend to get silly.

Though I just noticed that a number of them do not have the actual onstage king and queen have been in one.  Even when silly is the intent:

It was a splendid room, hung with portraits of the royal ancestors. There was Cinderella, the grandmother of the reigning monarch, with her little foot in her glass slipper thrust out before her. There was the Marquis de Carabas, who, as everyone knows, was raised to the throne as prince consort after his marriage with the daughter of the king of the period. On the arm of the throne was seated his celebrated cat, wearing boots. There, too, was a portrait of a beautiful lady, sound asleep: this was Madame La Belle au Bois-dormant, also an ancestress of the royal family.

But not Prince Prigio's actual parents.

In fact, both sets of royal parents missed out on being the marriageable generation in a fairy tale. Ah, well, "happy the people whose annals are blank in the history books." Being in one fairy tale, as the parents, is hard enough. It's their parents who got to feature.

Well, at least one set of grandparents for both the hero and the heroine. Hmm. may investigate more fairy tales that do not feature royalty at any point. Yes, they exist. They tend to involve a swan-maiden or a dove-maiden, etc, or else the mad scientist's ogre's beautiful daughter (or the witch's, or the devil's). And a rare few don't involve any of the three as the love interest.