Reading Notes: Beauty and the Basilisk

Bibliography: The Key of Gold by Josef Baudis (1922).

Plot:

·      Basilisk demanded daughter in exchange, beast just wanted a prisoner

·      Mary had to nurse the basilisk for 3 hours

·      Demanded she cut his head off and the serpent head that emerged

·      One she did this, it revealed a key to the castle and the basilisk became human

·      Mary and the basilisk got married

Characters:

·      3 sisters

·      Mom

·      Basilisk

Setting:

·      Not a lot of details on setting

·      Large castle in the forest

·      Personified the roses: “There was a large garden full of roses, so beautiful that no painter alive could paint them, and all the roses were smiling at her.”

Basilisk by Friedrich Johann Justin Bertuch (1747-1822).

This story is very similar to that of Beauty and the Beast. However, there are key differences that separate the two. To begin with, the characters are different. Beauty and the Basilisk contains 3 sisters, a mother, and the Basilisk. Instead of asking the father for one rose when he goes to market, Mary asks her mother for a total of 3 roses. When the mother is entrapped by the Basilisk, he offers her the roses in exchange for her daughter. To which the mother agrees because she feels as though she has no choice. When Mary arrives at the castle, she is told that she will have to nurse the Basilisk for three hours each day. This goes on for three days, when on the fourth the Basilisk brings Mary a sword and demands that she chop of his head. When she protests, the Basilisk threatens to tear her apart if she refuses to comply. She follows his orders and when his head it chopped of, a serpent emerges and demands she chop his head off as well. Once this is done, he begins to turn into a young man and says that they must be married. Mary agrees and a wedding is held.