This is the dirtiest fairytale I've ever read.
It’s also very disturbing! Before Disney and others sanitized stories with a pg “true loves
kiss,” fairytales could be… really raunchy. This one’s also one of the most brutal, which
is saying a lot because I’ve covered a lot of old dark stories! There are lot of weird
royal kinks involving demons and shrubs, and there’s also gruesome stuff that
would feel more at home in a crime scene, so do consider this a heads up on both
counts. This is ALL hot and heavy, fun and filthy, with dastardly disturbing
details… and ‘murmurous’ Madams. So, join me, if you dare…. Once upon a creepy time, There were, as always, a well-off man
and woman who had everything… except for a child. And the desperately wanted one,
so much so that the wife constantly prayed: “if only I could bring something into this world,
I wouldn't care if it were a branch of myrtle!” ahem mind you DO be careful what you
wish for! She says this so often, and it bothers the heavens SO MUCH that they
DO make her pregnant - and nine months later she gives birth, not to a bouncing baby, but
to…. A sprig of myrtle. And I don’t know if birthing a sharp pokey twiggy tree would
be more or less painful than birthing a 10 lb turkey of a human being, but either way
sounds painful enough! Thank you very much. Now, we’ve covered myrtle before in
another folklore video, but to recap, as it’s extremely relevant to this story:
Myrtle is a beautiful flowering plant, often associated with the Goddess Venus (as
she rose out of the sea holding a sprig of it.) It’s symbolic for “love” and ‘poetry” and
is sacred because of it’s “ability to die and be reborn.” (A sure hint that this is gonna
be brutal!) Because of its revivifying lore, it is used as decoration in cemeteries, and in
funeral wreaths. And all of this is important, but for now, know that the new mother
is just so proud of her baby myrtle! She plants it in a pot decorated with “grotesques”
(which are similar to gargoyles, but a little different.) These sometimes faces, sometimes
animals are said to protect that building onto which they are carved, or in this case the
pot containing the baby myrtle. Mom displays it proudly in the windowsill and delights in pruning
and cooing over her plant child day and night. And I’m not sure for how long, (or how old
this myrtle tree is… because unfortunately that’s relevant - yay happily ever after!) because
one day the king’s son (of course!) passes by en route to a hunt. And now we get freaky because
quote: “he became so infatuated beyond all measure with the lovely branch of myrtle” that
he would pay “an eye for it.” Weird currency, but wow…. Fairy tale royalty sure are
notorious for… odd predilections. This one’s “infatuated” with a tree, but Sleeping
Beauty (Talia’s) errrr “lover” (an old-man king) “loved” (read took advantage of) a random
teenager he found in an abandoned mansion, who he THOUGHT WAS DEAD or at the very least
incapacitated beyond protesting. (for deets on that sick tale click here) And Snow White WAS
a literal dead girl too! In some versions her prince is SHOCKED I say SHOCKED when she actually
wakes up…. (he was all for bringing her home stiff as a board.) But pining after tree (lol)? That
was not a pretty mythological nymph prior to the transformation? That's a new one for sure! I am
unsure how one becomes this lusty for a shrub, and this… seems excessive, but just wait, because
Mom will NOT part with her plant baby, so the prince threatens her… and then bribes her more
and finally, finally, “after a thousands no’s” she agrees, so long as he holds it dear to his heart,
since she loved it quote “more than a daughter and valued it as much as if it had come from her
own loins.” Which, I mean, it technically did? Smitten, the Prince takes this potted plant
to his bedroom… and “hoes and waters it with his own hands.” What did you think was gonna
happen? Oh that? Ha strap in! One evening, after the prince blows out the candles and is all
snug in his bed he hears footsteps somewhere in the house… then quote “something groping its way
towards his bed.” He thinks it’s either a thief… or a house imp. Logical. But this guy is BRAVE
so pretends to be dead to see how this all goes down. Quote “When he felt that certain business
drawing close and touched it (such courage!) he realized what a smooth job it was: and where he
imagined he would be squeezing hedgehog needles he found a little something that was more
mellow and soft than Tunisian wool [...] and pliable [...] and delicate and tender.” [cut away:
THAT’S LITERALLY WHAT the story SAYS!] YEP. Guy reaches out to fend off a prickly imp, or else a
lady of the night that’s ah “well established” but finding instead super soft skin in a particular
area… flings himself across the bed and quote: “wrapped himself around it like an octopus.”
Sight unseen. He thinks maybe it could be a fairy, but also… doesn't really care because he’s
really only thinking with one thing. They “pose” and play other naughty games
all night. So recap: Prince, scared, pretends to be dead. Feels some soft fleshy
naughty bits and can’t even help it he flings himself on top of whatever it is and goes
HAM. without even seeing a dang thing.. This goes on for 7 NIGHTS. And the prince
doesn’t question it, has NO IDEA what this wonderful lay….d…. I mean lady looks like. But
now he’s finally starting to get curious about his good… luck. I mean… it’s about time? WHO or WHAT
is this would be like top of mind, right after a myriad of safety concerns, but like all fairy tale
princes, (who would rather ruin their steps with tar in order hopefully to snag the shoe of the
woman they are interested in rather than just ask her name…. ) this guy concocts some half-baked
plan to see the face of his mystical mistress: one night, while she is sleeping, he…. ties her
braid to his arm. (Got em!) and then calls a servant to bring over some candles. (Genius!)
When he sees her… she is more beautiful than anything he could imagine. He channels his inner
myrtle and waxes poetic for paragraphs about her Crimson lips! Pearly teeth! How she puts Helen
of Troy and Venus to shame with her radiance! How he shall never sleep again because she
is a perfect living statue! (kinda creepy?) Now, the ‘love at first sight” trope
is very overdone, but I’m…. not even sure what we’d call this one. “Wow thank
goodness the potentially demonic entity I was dropping anchor into for a week is really
pretty and I love her?” Trope? Lust is blind? Anyway, while externally monologuing this, his
arms are like snakes squeezing her body and neck, so of course she wakes up.. And gives the
cutest little yawn that just sends the prince into another round of loving
words. If she was perfect sleeping, her waking eyes quote “have pierced a
hole in his heart” and “oh my precious, if I was already about to lose my sense when
I saw this temple of Love without candles, what will be of my life now that you’ve
lit two lamps in it?” on and on you get it. SHE however, does not feel worthy of his
poetry, saying she’s merely fit to empty his chamber pot. Have some confidence girl!
I mean, fairy, because now it’s official: she’s a fairy. She’s also just so humbled that
she was able to be transformed from a myrtle tree into this quote “laurel bough” of a human that
gets to lay with a man of “such greatness and such virtue.” haha what? She can sense ‘fine
character’ from his hoeing and watering her? (Must be really good!) He thinks so anyway, and so
asks her to marry him right then. And also quote: “You will be the mistress of my scepter” oh no NO
lol. This nocturnal routine continues for days, the pair only leaving the royal
bed to use the royal chamber pot. And as gross as THAT thought is, this
happy tale is about to get gruesome. The prince is summoned away for three
nights tops, but he’s grown so in love with this myrtle fairy lady that his
“love” is bordering on jealous obsession, and he’s worried about leaving her alone. Because
of this, he asks her to return to her myrtle pot and stay in it the whole time he is away. She,
who is I’m sure enjoying her new human form and it’s freedom to walk around and not be stuck
in a pot, has no choice but to do his will, either by spell or by her desire to do his. She
requests simply that a little bell be tied to the top bough of the myrtle tree with a silk ribbon,
so when he comes home he can ring it and she can jump out and say “Here I am.”... yeah. It feels
like a failed surprise party already, but she’s really excited about it. Bless her. She seems
way too naive to me, but the prince humors her, and also asks his servant to keep making the
bed every night and to keep the myrtle watered. And don’t dare take any branches because this
jealous lover prince has them all counted, pal! Now, and we should have assumed this
of our overly eager kinky prince, but the story decides to tell us about all
the Prince’s ‘women in the wings’ - well it bluntly calls them the seven “women
of vice” but work is work, and to them, the Prince has stopped coming by to “plow
their fields” and they are growing concerned that a hot new thing has replaced them. And I
kinda think they have the right idea - that’s an income source just gone! You’d think with a
prince who rotates between 7 wonder women there would be some job security, but they didn’t
count on a freaking TREE supplanting them! Anyway, I gotta respect their hustle and gumption,
because they pull together funds to hire a mason to dig a full out TUNNEL FROM their house
INTO THE PRINCE’S BEDROOM to see if there was a pretty little thing stealing their business.
NO ONE saw this, and the mason was clearly well paid so as to not squeak a peep about it. But
it doesn't matter because the room is empty, except for the really pretty myrtle tree… which
they also fall in love with…NO kidding they rip that thing to SHREDS out of anger and
frustration I’m sure. (I hope they are at least compensated for this genius infrastructure
addition to the castle though! If things don’t work out with myrtle fairy this is a great
convenience to get to the night party house!) And things won’t work out with myrtle fairy
because THE WOMEN HAVE TORN THE TREE TO PIECES. The youngest madam of the bunch takes
the whole top of the tree, which of course has the little bell tied to it, which rings, and
myrtle fairy pops out “here I am.” READ THE ROOM FAIRY I know you’re new here but.... Seeing
how perfect and pretty this new competition is, the seven past lovers quote “lay their paws on
her” and say “you’re that “madam Magnificence” who has taken possession of the tender flesh
that belonged to us? [...] Go on, you’re on the draining board now!” (a “draining board” is the
stone slab corpses were laid on to… drain fluid… before burial - lese ladies are RUTHLESS!) and
they truly are, because they throw a stick at the fairy’s head… and the fairy tree lady breaks into
a hundred pieces. Each of the women then “took her share” which means they took turns hitting her
or else taking chunks of her body for themselves. It’s a bloody messy mess. We’re supposed to
be happy and appreciate that the youngest madam (you know the one who took just the tip of
the tree) only takes a lock of the dead lady’s golden hair as her trophy for a job well done.
Ok Gimli, but you still helped off a plant lady! The irony in the myrtle tree being
her own funeral wreath is amazing. What NOT amazing is when that servant walks in to
make the bed and SEES THE absolute CARNAGE. He’s as good as dead because he was not to touch
a branch on that tree… but there’s no tree anymore but a full on CSI crime scene. Quote:
“Sinking his teeth into his hand, he picked up the bits of the flesh and bones that remained,
and when he had scraped the blood off the floor, he piled everything back into the same pot,
which he watered. He then prepared the bed, closed the door, locked it” and then freaking
leaves this town in the dust. Maybe the prince won’t notice because the bed’s made all nice?
OR does this guy think this kind of Bluebeardian clean up job is what he was actually hired
for? Good freaking riddance in that case! The prince returns home, rings the bell, but
no silly unsurprise party is waiting for him! In fact, nothing is, and he’s too desperate
wait for his (now missing) servant to unlock the room that he kicks down the door. When he
sees his branchless myrtle tree in the pot, he goes to a very ‘dark place’ mentally and
emotionally. He’s distraught, and doesn’t want live in a world without his myrtle, and we
essentially get “oh, happy dagger” speech from him, that I won’t get into because this story
has enough CWs going on. “What sort of soul, harder than a bat’s, has ruined this lovely pot
of mine? [...] Without my darling sleep will be torture, food poison, pleaseure constipation,
and life a bitter fruit.” His eloquent words of lament are enough “to move the stones in the
street” and he turns sickly, or, you know quote: “the hams of his lips turned into rancid
lard.” That’s how you know he’s so sad! AND the fairy, who has so conveniently begun
‘sprouting “anew from the remains placed in the pot” is so moved by her lover’s tears, and
his despondent condition: quote “a wormy lizard, cabbage juice, jaundice, a pear, the ask* of a
fig pecker and a wolf’s fart” that she hurries up and grows back into her womanly form to
comfort him. She explains how the “old birds” split her head open, and pulled an Osiris on
her - which is NOT quite true? In that story, according to this one, The Egyptian
God Osiris’s brothers trick him, shove him in a chest they hammer shut, pour molten
lead into it, and shove it into the sea. Yes, the ladies of the night did the fairy
dirty and were very wrong to do so, but I don’t recall liquid metal until
right now, so she’s exaggerating a bit, no? Life returns to the Prince upon seeing his pretty
lady, and he “gave her a thousand caresses and cuddles, smooches and squeezes.” And he wants to
hear the whole story, from the top (presumably with no exaggeration). He discovers the servant
who fled was not at fault and hires him again (hasn’t that servant been through enough, prince?)
Prince get’s dad’s consent ot marry the fairy and they throw a huge wedding feast, with only the
most important lords of the lands in attendance…. And the “seven hags who had butchered
that suckling calf.” What a wedding party! The prince waits till everyone begins eating…. To
introduce the least appetizing wedding day feast game ever! He asks the whole room ‘What punishment
would you inflict on the person or persons who would maim my new bride?!’ (Could you imagine this
at a bridal shower?! Lol I mean, maybe Wednesday Addams’) If the nobles and dignitaries around
the table are shocked and off put by this game, they don’t show it and instead play along
by suggesting fun things like the gallows, tortured on the wheel, thrown off a cliff… etc.
But, of course, the good-time working women know which way the wind is blowing with this question,
and obviously what it means for their very-near futures. But they can't simply suggest a mild
punishment, on no! They have to play along like the nobles and keep one-upping the tortuous
suggestion before, lest they look suspicious. Channeling Elden Ring’s despicable Dung Eater,
they say “whoever had the courage even to touch that delectable morsel of Love’s pleasures would
deserve to be buried alive inside a sewer pipe.” The prince, in ‘A HA! Gottem’ moment of glory says
“You have brought suit against yourselves.. All that remains is for me to carry out your order,
since you are the ones who … made an omelet out of this pretty little head and minced up these
lovely limbs like meat for the sausage!” And, so 6 of the 7 are thrown into the sewer for the
rest of their days. BUt like… HOW DOES HE PROVE THIS? The fairy is all in one piece. There’s no
evidence of it, apart from the fairy’s account and the servant. The fairy is back and healthy and
immortal, so this just sounds like a convenient way for the Prince to finally (brutality) cut
ties with his “unattached” past lifestyle. But that 7th, youngest one madam? Apparently, even
though she ripped off the head of the myrtle tree and participated in the dirty deed and took hair
for herself, this young night lady is pardoned by the prince, given a dowry by him, and married to
that traumatized servant. WHAT? Sounds like the prince might really just have the hots for her on
the side in future (but that’s me having no faith in the prince - he was just SOOOO eager to octopus
whatever the heck was in his bed I wouldn't put anything past him.) He does, however, do right
by Myrtle’s parents, after basically bullying the mom into giving him the tree in the first place:
he gives them enough money to get by comfortably for the rest of their lives. Prince and Myrtle
are Happy Ever After, and I have to wonder if he’ll ever come to terms with her being basically
immortal and him not, but that’s not the point of this story. What is the point is this outdated
moral: “The lame goat gets by if it finds none who block it.” lol what? (something flustered
about ladies of the night, put that in!) Yeah, that’s referring to the ladies of the night,
but it…it’s just…it’s…it’s bad. The End! You may have guessed by now, by
the extremely colorful happenings and endearingly dirty descriptive language,
that this was a Giambatista Basile classic: “The Myrtle Tree.” This tale was written to be
performed live, and while the whole collection of fairytales was “for Little Ones” aka kids,
it’s kinda like how children's movies throw in naughty references that only the grownups
will understand? Multiplied by 100. There are of course other fairy tales that
share this “woman or tree?” theme! And this Myrtle tree is not the only fairy tale
where we plant the bones of the dead and they will revive under it’s branches. I’ve already
covered the Brother’s Grimms “Juniper Tree” (and another English version called “the Rose
Tree”) here. This thing also happens in a way in the “Cinderella” fairytales, where the ash
maiden’s own deceased mother is laid to rest under a Hazel tree. She visits so often that the
tree itself, or a fairy or bird from the tree, clothe her in magic clothes to help set her
destiny with the Prince. Folk lore trees are fascinating, but this particular fairytale
is so so spicy, passionate and brutal I thought it needed its very own video! But what
are your thoughts? Do you like spicier fairytales? What other tales and lore would you like me to cover on this channel? Let
me know in the comments below! And do be sure to subscribe so you
won’t miss the next weird video, stewing in the cauldron right now. Good bye!
