World classic, retold in simple Mandarin
Sleeping Beauty
睡美人
Sleeping Beauty (睡美人, Shuì měirén) is a fairy tale by Brothers Grimm, retold in simple Mandarin as a 4-chapter story with audio for learners at about HSK 1 (Beginner).
Retold from the Brothers Grimm and Perrault: a princess pricks her finger on a spindle and the whole castle sleeps for a hundred years, until a prince finds a way in.
Meet the voices
- Narrator · 旁白 — The warm storyteller who sets the scene.
- Briar Rose · 玫瑰 — A kind, curious princess who turns fifteen and finds a little door.
- The King · 国王 — A cheerful, loving father who tries to protect his daughter.
- The Queen · 王后 — A gentle mother who worries about her daughter.
- The Thirteenth Fairy · 老仙女 — The fairy who was not invited and gives an angry curse.
- The Twelfth Fairy · 好仙女 — The kind fairy who turns the curse into a long sleep.
- First Fairy · 第一个仙女 — A fairy who gives Rose beauty.
- Second Fairy · 第二个仙女 — A fairy who gives Rose a kind heart.
- The Cook · 厨师 — A big castle cook with a loud voice and a soft heart.
- The Kitchen Boy · 小厨工 — A skinny boy who always says it was not him.
- The Old Spinner · 老奶奶 — A kind old woman spinning thread in the tower.
- The Prince · 王子 — A brave young prince who comes on the last day of the hundred years.
- The Old Man · 老人 — A wise old man on the road who knows the old story.
4 chapters, one journey
Chapter 1: The Thirteenth Fairy
第十三个仙女
A king and queen invite twelve fairies to their baby's feast, but forget one. She arrives in a rage with a terrible gift for the little princess.
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Chapter 2: The Little Door
小门
On her fifteenth birthday Rose is left alone in the big castle. She climbs an old staircase and finds a tiny door nobody ever told her about.
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Chapter 3: The Hundred-Year Sleep
睡一百年
The whole castle falls asleep, even the cook with her hand in the air. A hundred years later, a prince hears about the sleeping princess.
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Chapter 4: The Rose Hedge
玫瑰开了
The thorns bloom into roses and let the prince pass. In the tower a girl sleeps, and a whole castle waits, with a dish still on the fire.
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Key words in Sleeping Beauty
Behind the story
This tale comes from Europe. The Brothers Grimm printed it as “Little Briar Rose” in their collection of folk tales, and the French writer Charles Perrault told an earlier version in 1697. Here it is retold simply, with the princess named Briar Rose.
Chinese readers know it as 睡美人, the “sleeping beauty”. Grimm's tales are known in China as 格林童话, and stories like this one are often read by children and by students learning a foreign language.
Did you know?
- In Chinese, 睡美人 literally means “sleeping beauty”, and it is also used for anyone who sleeps very deeply.
- Many old European fairy tales have a curse that is softened by a kind helper, just like the twelfth fairy here.
- The Brothers Grimm published their first collection of tales in 1812.