Show Notes:
Today is part one of two where we are talking to Jess Bryant about her novels. Over the next 2 weeks you will hear about her journey of writing since she was as kid, keeping possession of your embarrassing stories, writing whenever you have spare time, overcoming self doubt, and her advice to be a reader first in your genre before writing in the genre.
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Jess’s Website – Jess’s Facebook group – Jess’s Facebook page – @jessbryantbooks on Instagram – @Jess_bry on Twitter – Jess’s TikTok
Jess Bryant is an avid indoorswoman. A city girl trapped in a country girl’s life, her heart resides in Dallas but her soul and roots are in small town Oklahoma. She enjoys manicures, the color pink, and her completely impractical for country life stilettos. She believes that hair color is a legitimate form of therapy, as is reading and writing romance. She started writing as a little girl but her life changed forever when she stole a book from her aunt’s Harlequin collection and she’s been creating love stories with happily ever afters ever since.
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Transcript:
Speaker A: Welcome to Frio’s Fairy Tales, where we believe fairy tales are both stories we enjoyed as children and something that we can achieve ourselves.
Speaker A: Each week, we will talk to authors about their favorite fairy tales when they were kids and their adventures to holding their very own fairy tale in their hands.
Speaker A: At the end of each episode, we will finish off with the fairy tale or short story read as close to the original author’s version as possible.
Speaker A: I am your host.
Speaker A: Freya victoria I’m an audiobook narrator that loves reading fairy tales, novels and bringing stories to life through narration.
Speaker A: I am also fascinated by talking to authors and learning about their why and how for creating their stories.
Speaker A: We have included all of the links for today’s author and our show in the show notes, today is part one of two, where we are talking to Jess Bryant about her novels.
Speaker A: Over the next two weeks, you will hear about her journey of writing since she was a kid, keeping possession of your embarrassing stories, writing whenever you have spare time, overcoming self doubt, and her advice to be a reader first in your genre before writing in the genre unmistakable Faded Mate series.
Speaker A: Book Four we make our own family.
Speaker A: Xander Leary gave up on the idea of family a long time ago.
Speaker A: He grew up bouncing around the foster care system, never finding a home to call his own.
Speaker A: He has no ties to anyone or anything, so the last thing he expected was a phone call saying his estranged older sister made him guardian to a niece he’d never known existed.
Speaker A: With no idea what else to do with a child, he heads for Nor, Louisiana, in search of the younger halfsister he barely remembers.
Speaker A: But what he finds in the little bayou town will change his life forever.
Speaker A: We make our own fate.
Speaker A: Maya DeLuca gave up on the idea of fate a long time ago.
Speaker A: She has no use for a fate that let a crazed wolf kill her parents, kidnap her sisters and torture her.
Speaker A: She’s worked hard to overcome her traumatic past, to grow into a strong, independent woman and a fierce alpha wolf.
Speaker A: She makes her own decisions, not some supernatural force.
Speaker A: She has her own plans.
Speaker A: And they don’t include the very human mate who just showed up on her doorstep with no idea that the supernatural world even exists.
Speaker A: We make our own happily ever after.
Speaker A: He’s human.
Speaker A: She’s a shifter.
Speaker A: But their connection is unmistakable.
Speaker A: Can Xander accepts this new world that he stumbled into?
Speaker A: Can Maya accept the possibility that fate chose right?
Speaker A: And if they can find common ground, will they discover that sometimes it’s our mistakes that lead us to exactly where we were always meant to be?
Speaker B: So the show is Freya’s Fairy tales, and that is two ways.
Speaker B: Fairy tales are something that we either.
Speaker A: Listened to or watched movies of or.
Speaker B: Read ourselves as kids.
Speaker B: And it’s also the journey of spending weeks, months, years writing your book and then finally getting through the process and getting to hold that in your hands is also a fairy tale for you as the author.
Speaker B: So I like to start with what was your favorite fairy tale or short story when you were a kid and did that favorite change as you got older?
Speaker C: Yes, because I started out loving Sleeping Beauty when I was a little kid.
Speaker C: I don’t know.
Speaker C: I think it was literally the movie version from Disney, of course.
Speaker B: Right.
Speaker C: I was obsessed with the fact that she got three little fairies to help change her dress and do all the different colors.
Speaker C: I think that’s what I was obsessed with more than the actual story.
Speaker C: I want a fairy that will change my dress to pink and blue and purple and green and any other color that I want as a man.
Speaker C: And then I got a little bit older and was like, okay, well, this is kind of weird because she’s asleep.
Speaker B: For most of it.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker C: So, of course, then it was Beauty and the Beast because I could really relate to Belle feeling like she didn’t really fit into her small hometown and being a book lover, of course.
Speaker B: Right.
Speaker C: That’s probably been my favorite for a very long time.
Speaker C: And then Cinderella, I mean, I have lots of favorites, but I always end up going back to Cinderella.
Speaker C: I love the story behind it of one night could change your whole life.
Speaker B: Now, around what age did you start to think you might want to start writing and start coming up with story ideas?
Speaker C: Oh, my gosh.
Speaker C: I was very young.
Speaker C: My mom actually was cleaning out some old stored stuff a while ago, and she was like, I have notebooks from when you were like, seven and eight where you were like, writing little stories.
Speaker C: Do you want these?
Speaker C: And I was like, Well, I don’t want anyone else to see them.
Speaker B: Right.
Speaker C: But I mean, I was always kind of living in my own little world, writing my own little stories.
Speaker C: So, yeah, since I was a little kid, that’s been what I did in my spare time.
Speaker C: Like, I would read a book and then I would be like, okay, well, now let’s write my old version of that story in my head.
Speaker C: And there’s a lot of in sync fan fiction out there.
Speaker C: I’m really glad that the Internet wasn’t around when I was a teenager.
Speaker C: That would be super embarrassing.
Speaker B: So now you have them in your possession, so no one else can ever have them.
Speaker C: Yes, exactly.
Speaker C: I have an entire binder of, like, college line written down in sync fanfic, where, of course, I always end up with Justin Temperlake, my sister, and I love to give her h*** for this right now because, of course, Lance is gay, right.
Speaker C: Like, modern day.
Speaker C: He’s come out not real life, obviously.
Speaker C: He’s always real.
Speaker C: You know, what I mean, right?
Speaker C: Yeah, she had a crush on him because I took Dustin, so she had to pick somebody else because she was a little sister, and so she always got to end up with Lance.
Speaker B: I don’t know how that worked out.
Speaker B: I assume he was gay the whole time and just kept it under wraps while he’s teen heart throbby and all that.
Speaker B: Yeah, it was probably years after he had came out that I even knew about it because that was my first concert, was in sync.
Speaker B: But I didn’t keep up with them once I started to get older.
Speaker B: So it wasn’t until, like, way later on that I found that out.
Speaker C: Yeah, I love him.
Speaker C: He’s adorable.
Speaker C: He and his husband are just so cute, and I love them.
Speaker B: So you wrote short stories as a kid.
Speaker B: When did you start writing lengthier stories that could eventually have seen the light of day?
Speaker C: Probably right after college.
Speaker C: I had graduated college and I had been writing in my spare time, but I didn’t have a whole lot of spare time.
Speaker C: I was being social and just studying when you could, and I had extracurriculars and studying and all of that, so I didn’t have a whole lot of time.
Speaker C: But once I got out of there, I got into my first big girl job, and I had just moved to Dallas at that point, and I didn’t have anyone in town that I really knew, so I would go home and write and just write all night.
Speaker C: And looking back, those were terrible stories, but they were kind of the start of me being like, okay, this is something that this is what I do.
Speaker C: I’ve always done this.
Speaker C: And there are these people that are publishing books that sound a lot like what’s in my head.
Speaker C: Maybe I could do this someday.
Speaker B: And so how long ago did you start writing your first book that you actually published, and how long did that book take you to write?
Speaker C: It didn’t take long once I decided that was what I wanted to do with it.
Speaker C: I was reading a Viviana Rand book.
Speaker C: She writes cowboy romance.
Speaker C: And that’s what I was writing at the time in my head because I’m from a very small town and everybody’s a cowboy, right?
Speaker C: I was literally reading it, and I was like, this is what I’m writing.
Speaker C: These are the same.
Speaker C: These could all be on the shelf together.
Speaker C: So I decided to just take the idea in my head and write it out and was like, okay, well, now how do I publish this?
Speaker C: And that was probably, I think it was like 2013 or so.
Speaker C: It was really in that first craze of indie publishing.
Speaker C: Everyone’s just throwing everything on the Internet to see what sticks or not exactly.
Speaker C: And I always say they make this post on Facebook and are like, if you could go back and tell yourself one thing before you publish your first novel, what would it be?
Speaker C: And I’m always like that just because you typed the end doesn’t mean you’re ready to hit publish.
Speaker B: Right?
Speaker C: You need editing, you need marketing, you need all these things because, I mean, I finished writing and was like upload, right?
Speaker C: Just put it out in the world as is.
Speaker B: And so how did the reviews come back?
Speaker C: They were really good.
Speaker C: They were very kind.
Speaker C: It was definitely in that era of people were just really into the steamy romance indies.
Speaker C: You could get them for cheap, you could get them online, you could read them on your e reader for the first time and you didn’t have to go into bookstores to ask for them.
Speaker B: Awkwardly stand in the section going, which one of these will get me less judged by the cashier?
Speaker C: Exactly.
Speaker C: I was just discovering that for the first time myself, being a young adult and being like, I can buy these because before that I had only ever stolen them from my aunt who had all of the harlequins.
Speaker C: And I would like sneak in to her room and be like, I’m not going to borrow this one for a little while and take it home and hope she doesn’t miss it and hide it under my bed.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker C: So that was kind of when I really started publishing.
Speaker C: But then I took a big break between that first one and then getting back into things.
Speaker C: So that first one came out in 2013.
Speaker C: I think I did the second one in 2014 and then I didn’t publish again until 20.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker C: I got married.
Speaker C: It was not a good relationship.
Speaker C: He did not want me writing that trash as he caught I wrote, but it was for myself and that kind of thing.
Speaker C: And then when I finally was able to get out of that relationship and get away, I was like, oh, look at this.
Speaker C: I have all these stories that have been piled up on my laptop.
Speaker C: Just saved.
Speaker C: I think I will go back to doing what I actually love doing now.
Speaker B: Right.
Speaker C: So that was kind of how I found my way back to the genre and back to myself too, because there was a lot in that relationship that I was like, these are not healthy and we’re not going to be putting this kind of stuff in books anymore.
Speaker B: But was it kind of like therapy for you to help get it out?
Speaker C: It was the first book that I published after my divorce.
Speaker C: I won’t say it was based on my relationship, but there are parts of it that I definitely went through as a domestic violence survivor and it definitely touched on those topics and everything.
Speaker C: And it was very cathartic to be able to write that as somebody else and then have her find her happily ever after.
Speaker B: So kind of a little bit of that for you now.
Speaker B: I saw your more recent stuff.
Speaker B: Is like werewolves and stuff.
Speaker B: So how did you make that jump from Harlow King over to fantasy?
Speaker C: Well, I always say that I like to write what I like to read and it changes anyways.
Speaker C: I say that I like to write what I like to read and that changes.
Speaker C: And it varies, sometimes months to month, sometimes year to year.
Speaker C: So in I think it was 2018 or so, I had a dream of all things, probably because I had been watching too much Teen Wolf and it was about werewolf shifters.
Speaker C: And I was like, okay, well, I know that’s not what I write because at that point I was only writing like, small town romance, right?
Speaker C: And I was like, I’m just going to do it and it’s a story, I love it, I’m going to put it out and we’ll see what happens.
Speaker C: So I put out this book, Duet of the Fadedmates Duet, like two books.
Speaker C: That’s it, story is over.
Speaker C: And now here it is, 2022, and people are still begging for more wolf books.
Speaker C: So I finally was like, okay, they’re still my best sellers four years later, despite everything I’ve written in between.
Speaker C: And I really enjoy writing the fun.
Speaker C: You know, I like to say mine aren’t really a fantasy book so much as a romance with paranormal elements because it really is about them and their humanity and their friendships and their relationships and all the normal stuff.
Speaker C: They just also happen to turn into werewolves.
Speaker C: So, yeah, I’m expanding that duet into a five book series now, like five years later.
Speaker C: It’s been crazy, but people loved it and enjoyed it, right?
Speaker B: So since 2013, obviously, you have learned the error of the not editing ways.
Speaker B: So what does your process nowadays look like from the end to actually uploading?
Speaker C: So from the end it goes, I do self edits as I go, so I try to catch all the most basic, obvious things myself, right?
Speaker C: Then it goes to my editor for the first round of edits and she gives me feedback, not just on, you need a comma here, which I always do because I love run on sentences.
Speaker C: So that goes to her for the first round.
Speaker C: It comes back, she gives me this doesn’t exactly fit here.
Speaker C: You’ve said this like seven times now to get the point, that kind of thing.
Speaker C: And then I go through a second round of edits, or I make her first round of edits and then it goes to my betas.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker C: They read it more for plot continuity, if there’s any holes, if I have, halfway through the book, changed his eye color or forgotten that so and so.
Speaker C: His name was John in book one, but he’s this side character that we don’t see again until now.
Speaker C: And now his name is Jim.
Speaker C: So that doesn’t really make sense.
Speaker C: Jess so it goes to them and then those come back.
Speaker C: I put theirs into that first round of edits, and then it goes back to the editor with all the changes for the final round of editing.
Speaker C: And then once I get the final edits back, arcs go out and it gets uploaded and pre orders and all.
Speaker B: That fun marketing stuff starts right in 2013.
Speaker B: What was the big promotional thing in that time?
Speaker B: Was it Facebook at that point?
Speaker B: Or how did you get people to buy your books?
Speaker C: I didn’t know anything.
Speaker C: I mean, I posted to my personal Facebook page and was like, I wrote a book, guys.
Speaker C: And of course, all of my small town bought it.
Speaker C: Southern Baptist raised people were like, oh, you brought a book, and then they bought it were scandalized.
Speaker B: And this is why I narrate a different name.
Speaker C: Yes.
Speaker C: And I always say, I’m like, you know, looking back, I probably should have come up with a pen name, but it never occurred to me in the moment to do it.
Speaker C: And now I’m just like, this is me.
Speaker C: It is what it is.
Speaker B: I started narrating in September of last year, so 2021, and I did my first five books under my own name.
Speaker B: And then I went, you know what?
Speaker B: My day job occasionally has background checks.
Speaker B: I should probably not keep narrating under my name just in case.
Speaker B: So I’ve picked a different name.
Speaker B: I had to like, I picked a name, had an author I was working with at the time say, hey, did you narrate all these erotic books?
Speaker B: And I went, no.
Speaker B: And so then I had to pick a different name and make sure no one else was using it.
Speaker B: And so then I did a bunch of nonfiction, and I had, like, a Christian nonfiction I was working on.
Speaker B: And then I started landing spicy books.
Speaker B: So then Freya was born because I didn’t think the two worlds should meet.
Speaker C: Yes, I understand that.
Speaker B: And Freya is known mostly on TikTok.
Speaker B: My mom and my sister, my best friend, know about it, and no one else in my real life does.
Speaker C: Hey, good for you.
Speaker B: And they aren’t on TikTok.
Speaker C: Go for it.
Speaker B: And now I’m like, working on my own books, which I fully intend to edit, and I’m like, we’re going to publish those under the Freya name because they will be spicy.
Speaker B: So while everyone knows I narrate and I’m writing, no one knows what name I do that under.
Speaker C: Awesome.
Speaker C: That’s a genius idea.
Speaker C: Honestly, I wish it had occurred to me to come up with some sort of pending, because it would have been nice to be like, I don’t know what you’re talking about right now.
Speaker C: My boss, who is a man in his late 60s, will literally just small talk and be like, so what are you working on these days?
Speaker C: I’m like nothing.
Speaker C: He’s like, you don’t have any books going right now.
Speaker C: Can we not talk about my books?
Speaker C: Right?
Speaker C: We know what they are.
Speaker C: You all are aware of what I write.
Speaker C: Several of you have read them just to give me crap about them, quite honestly.
Speaker C: Let’s not go there.
Speaker C: I just tell them, no, not working on anything anymore.
Speaker C: They may never look at it.
Speaker B: They could google you.
Speaker C: That’s all it would take.
Speaker C: But yeah, I work with 65 men and one other woman.
Speaker C: That’s awkward.
Speaker C: Yeah, so it’s weird.
Speaker C: And my dad works at the same company.
Speaker B: Oh, no.
Speaker C: Because it’s a small town and he’s aware, but he doesn’t want anything to do with it, so they just love giving him crap.
Speaker C: So, yeah, for the last two years, I’m just like, no, not working on anything because I’m not at that exact moment, I’m working on their actual work.
Speaker B: Right, so you weren’t promoting at the beginning.
Speaker B: So when did you start promoting and how did you start promoting?
Speaker C: Probably in 20, 17, 20 18 when I really got back into it okay and was like, this is something I’m going to do.
Speaker C: This is going to be more than just a hobby.
Speaker C: This is me now.
Speaker C: I write romance novels, and I just kind of made some friends along the way on social media and was like, what are you guys doing?
Speaker C: Who’s using who?
Speaker C: And all of that kind of stuff.
Speaker C: And just a lot of networking and figuring it out as I went along the way of what worked and what didn’t.
Speaker C: And I’m still doing that to this day.
Speaker B: Well, I feel like, too, that’s different for every author.
Speaker B: What works for one won’t work for another.
Speaker C: Exactly.
Speaker C: And it’s weird because for me, so many people to give advice are like, you have to do one thing, and that has to be your niche, and that’s what you stick to, and that’s how you get your readers.
Speaker C: And I don’t do that.
Speaker C: I’ve never done that.
Speaker B: I don’t plan to either.
Speaker C: If I want to write a small town romance, I’m going to write a small town romance today.
Speaker C: If I want to write paranormal, I’m going to write paranormal.
Speaker C: I’ve branched out into doing mail male romance because I love reading mail mail romance, which is something I never in a million years would have thought that I would enjoy, but I do, so I read a ton of that, and each book has its own set of marketing plans and what I think will work for that.
Speaker C: And they’re not the same through the different subgenres of romance I write.
Speaker C: They’re not even the same through some of the specific books in that subgenre.
Speaker C: It just is kind of what’s working at that moment that I can see and hear from my peers is working and, hey, let’s give this a try this time and see what happens.
Speaker B: So when did you make the jump to TikTok, and why did you make the jump to TikTok?
Speaker C: During the pandemic is when I joined TikTok, I was working at home full time, and I lived alone in a cabin in the woods.
Speaker C: Like, no lie.
Speaker C: It was literally a two bedroom cabin, just me and my dog.
Speaker C: And we were in the middle of nowhere, and it was like, yeah, you can go into town, but you can’t see anybody.
Speaker C: You can’t be around people and all this stuff.
Speaker C: And one of my friends was just like, Are you on TikTok?
Speaker C: And I was like, oh, my God.
Speaker C: No.
Speaker C: I don’t need another platform to be on.
Speaker C: What are you talking about?
Speaker C: And she’s like, Just get an account so I can send you the funny links and stuff.
Speaker B: Right?
Speaker C: So that’s how it started, of course.
Speaker C: And then it just spiraled from there into, oh, I can use this for my book stuff.
Speaker C: Okay, cool.
Speaker C: And now I’m on it far more than I should be.
Speaker C: I think most people and I think my love language now is sending people TikTok links of like, hey, check this out.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker B: Or I find there’s a couple of authors that do, like, tip things.
Speaker B: Golden angel is one of the ones.
Speaker B: I save her stuff the most because she does a lot of, like, here’s how to stuff.
Speaker B: And so I’ll save like right now she’s doing a series on how to upload your books to all these different EPUB places.
Speaker B: And so today I went through and downloaded the Amazon and the drafted Digital and Google books.
Speaker B: Those are the three she has out right now.
Speaker B: So I’m like, save this for future reference so that you can know how to do it.
Speaker C: Yes, I remember.
Speaker C: I don’t know when it was not too long ago when everybody was getting really into the A plus content for Kendall, where you can go in and put in images on your Amazon page to go with your blurb.
Speaker B: I must have missed that whole thing.
Speaker C: This is a thing that you could do.
Speaker C: And it was like every single video was a how to.
Speaker C: And I was like, say I must, and then have not been there.
Speaker C: It’s possible.
Speaker C: And then like, six months went by and I was like, oh, yeah, I saved all these videos, but I never went back and made anything to actually do it.
Speaker C: So I emailed my PA and was like, hey, you remember that whole A plus content thing we talked about?
Speaker C: And she was like, yeah, I thought you were making the images for me to upload.
Speaker C: And I was like, yeah, no, I’m going to need you to make the images because I do not have time.
Speaker B: So if you’re working full time, when do you have time to when do you write?
Speaker C: I write at night, mostly on weekends.
Speaker C: It’s pretty much whenever I can spare a single moment.
Speaker C: I’m not married.
Speaker C: I don’t have kids, so that makes it a lot easier.
Speaker C: I really have no idea how my friends who are married and have kids and work manage to find the time to write as well.
Speaker B: What happens is you convince your husband to write his own book and you have a kid that’s very, very self contained, but then you also pick up narrative, which takes time.
Speaker B: So you can’t write either.
Speaker C: Yeah, it’s a lot of just coming home, literally making something to eat and sitting down at the laptop.
Speaker C: That’s a lot of my life.
Speaker C: And there’s a lot of weekends and stuff when somebody texts and is like, hey, we’re doing XYZ, like, come out with us.
Speaker C: And I’m like, can’t.
Speaker C: I’m working.
Speaker C: I’m like, what do you mean you’re working?
Speaker C: Like, you work six to five on Friday and it’s Sunday.
Speaker C: And I’m like, yeah, but this is my other job and you know that I have these things that I have to do and it’s just as much a job as anything else.
Speaker C: No, I can’t come out.
Speaker C: Sorry.
Speaker C: But luckily I have weeded out most of those people that only see it as some random hobby I do that I’m going to get bored of and give up any day now in favor of just hanging out with them instead.
Speaker C: And I have some really great friends and support systems that really get where my time has to go.
Speaker B: Yeah, my best friend is actually one of my Alpha readers.
Speaker B: I write into a Google Doc, and so she has the link so she can go read through it.
Speaker B: As I’m writing right now, I’m researching for I started one book and then my brain went a different way, so now I’m researching for that book instead.
Speaker B: I tried to get back to it last weekend and I just couldn’t get into it.
Speaker B: So eventually when the other one is out of my head now as I’m researching, I’m like, this is going to be a really long series.
Speaker B: Who knows when that will happen?
Speaker B: But.
Speaker C: I understand that for sure.
Speaker C: I am actually in the middle of two series right now because I had decided to expand the wolf series at the same time that I was already in the middle of a contemporary Bodyguard romance series that I write.
Speaker C: Okay, so they’re both on book four right now, and it’s like they’re both going to be five book series.
Speaker C: I have to finish one and then the other.
Speaker C: I’m like, I can’t be going back and forth in these worlds because my head just cannot take being like, wait, which characters were doing what?
Speaker C: So I’m trying to finish up all of the I finished the fourth book.
Speaker C: I’m writing the fifth book in the Wolf shifters.
Speaker C: It’s going to come out in October and then 2023, I’m like, okay, guys, we will get back to the bodyguards, I promise.
Speaker B: And then do you know what’s coming?
Speaker B: Because if you’re finishing two series, do you know what’s coming next after that?
Speaker C: Already I have several different ideas.
Speaker B: Okay.
Speaker C: I haven’t decided which one is going to come first.
Speaker C: It will kind of just depend on who’s talking the voices in my head, which ones are yelling the loudest, but it will be something different.
Speaker C: I have a male male sports romance series that I want to write, and I also have a female private investigative series, so more romantic suspense for that, which I never done before.
Speaker C: So that would be exciting.
Speaker C: And I have all of them plotted out and saved in my notes.
Speaker B: I got to figure out which one.
Speaker C: I have to figure out which one is going to start talking next.
Speaker A: Jess liked Sleeping Beauty growing up.
Speaker A: She really liked the idea of three fairies that would change your dress color for you sleeping Beauty or Little Briar Rose, also titled in English as The Sleeping Beauty in the woods, is a classic fairy tale about a princess who is cursed to sleep for 100 years by an evil fairy to be awakened by a handsome prince.
Speaker A: At the end of them, the good fairy, realizing that the princess would be frightened if alone when she awakens, uses her wand to put every living person and animal in the palace asleep to awaken when the princess does.
Speaker A: The earliest known version of the story is found in the Narrative Purse Forest.
Speaker A: Composed between 1330 and 1344, the tale was first published by Giambatista Basil and his collection of tales titled The Pentagon, published post humorously in 1634.
Speaker A: Basil’s version was later adapted and published by Charles Perrault in historis A CONTESS du tempes Passe in 1697.
Speaker A: The version that was later collected and printed by the Brothers Grim was an orally transmitted version of the literary tale published by Perrault, the Arne Thompson classification system for folktales classifies Sleeping Beauty as being a 410 tail type, meaning it includes a princess who is forced into an enchanted sleep and is later awakened, reversing the magic placed upon her.
Speaker A: The story has been adapted many times throughout history and has continued to be retold by modern storytellers throughout various media.
Speaker A: Today we will be reading the fairy by Charles Perrault.
Speaker A: Don’t forget we’re reading Lamont de Arthur, the story of King Arthur and of his noble Knights of the Round Table on our Patreon.
Speaker A: You can find the link in the show notes.
Speaker A: The Fairy there was once upon a time a widow who had two daughters.
Speaker A: The eldest was so much like her in the face and humor, that whoever looked upon the daughter saw the mother.
Speaker A: They were both so disagreeable and so proud that there was no living with them.
Speaker A: The youngest, who was the very picture of her father for courtesy and sweetness of timber, was with all one of the most beautiful girls ever seen, as people naturally love their own likeness.
Speaker A: This mother even doted on her eldest daughter, and at the same time had a horrible aversion for the youngest.
Speaker A: She made her eat in the kitchen and work continually.
Speaker A: Among other things, this poor child was forced twice a day to draw water above a mile.
Speaker A: And a half off the house and bring home a pitcher full of it.
Speaker A: One day, as she was at this fountain, there came to her a poor woman who begged to let her drink.
Speaker A: Oh, I with all my heart goodie, said this pretty maid, and rinsing immediately the pitcher.
Speaker A: She took up some water from the clearest place of the fountain and gave it to her, holding up the pitcher all the while that she might drink the easier.
Speaker A: The good woman, having drank, said to her, you are so very pretty, my dear, so good and so mannerly, that I cannot help giving you a gift.
Speaker A: For this was a fairy who had taken the form of a poor countrywoman to see how far the civil tea and good manners of this pretty girl would go.
Speaker A: I will give you for gift, continued the fairy, that at every word you speak there shall come out of your mouth either a flower or a jewel.
Speaker A: When this pretty girl came home, her mother scolded at her for staying so long at the fountain.
Speaker A: I beg your pardon, Mama, said the poor girl, for not making more haste.
Speaker A: And in speaking these words, there came out of her mouth two roses, two pearls and two diamonds.
Speaker A: What is this I see?
Speaker A: Said her mother, quite astonished.
Speaker A: I think I see pearls and diamonds come out of this girl’s mouth.
Speaker A: How happens this child?
Speaker A: This was the first time she ever called her child.
Speaker A: The poor creature told her frankly all the matter, not without dropping out infinite numbers of diamonds.
Speaker A: In good faith, cried the mother, I must send my child thither.
Speaker A: Come hither, F****.
Speaker B: Look what comes out of thy sister’s.
Speaker A: Mouth when she speaks.
Speaker A: Wouldst thou not be glad, my dear, to have the same gift given to thee now has nothing else to do but go and draw water out of the fountain?
Speaker A: And when a certain poor woman asks thee to let her drink, to give it her very civilly, it would be a very fine sight indeed, said this illbred minks to see me go draw water.
Speaker A: You shall go.
Speaker A: Hussy, said the mother, in this minute.
Speaker A: So away she went, but grumbling all the way, taking with her the best silver tanker in the house.
Speaker A: She was no sooner at the fountain than she saw coming out of the wood a lady most gloriously dressed, who came up to her and asked to drink.
Speaker A: This was, you must know, the very fairy who appeared to her sister, but had now taken the heir and dress of a princess, to see how far this girl’s rudeness would go.
Speaker A: Am I come hither, said the proud saucy s***, to serve you with water prey.
Speaker A: I suppose the silver tankard was brought purely for your ladyship, was it?
Speaker A: However, you may drink out of it if you have a fancy.
Speaker A: You are not over and above mannerly, answered the fairy, without putting herself in a passion well, then, since you have so little breeding and are so disobliging, I give you for gift, that at every word you speak there shall come out of your mouth a snake or a toad.
Speaker A: So soon as her mother saw her coming, she cried out, well, daughter?
Speaker A: Well, mother, answered the pert hussy, throwing out of her mouth two vipers and two toads.
Speaker A: Oh, mercy, cried the mother.
Speaker A: What is it I see?
Speaker A: Oh, it is that wretch, her sister, who has occasioned all this, but she shall pay for it.
Speaker A: And immediately she ran to beat her.
Speaker A: The poor child fled away from her and went to hide herself in the forest not far from thence.
Speaker A: The king’s son then on his return from hunting, met her, and seeing her so very pretty, asked her what she did there alone, and why she cried, alas, sir, my mama has turned me out of doors.
Speaker A: The king’s son, who saw five or six pearls and as many diamonds come out of her mouth, desired her to tell him how that happened.
Speaker A: She thereupon told him the whole story.
Speaker A: And so the king’s son fell in love with her, and considering with himself that such a gift was worth more than any marriage portion whatsoever, in another, conducted her to the palace of the king his father, and there married her.
Speaker A: As for her sister, she made herself so much hated that her own mother turned her off.
Speaker A: And the miserable wretch.
Speaker A: Having wandered about a good while without finding anybody to take her in.
Speaker A: Went to a corner in the wood.
Speaker A: And there died the moral money and jewels still we find stamp strong impressions on the mind but sweet discourse more potent riches yields of higher value is the power it wields another civil behavior costs indeed some pains requires of complacency some little share but soon or late it’s due reward it gains and meets it often when we’re not aware.
Speaker A: Thank you for joining Freya’s fairy tales.
Speaker A: Be sure to come back next week for the conclusion of Jess Bryant’s journey to holding her own fairy tale in her hands and to hear another of her favorite fairy tales.
