Marie de France is Fair Rosamond the Sleeping Beauty

Above is an illustration from ‘Eliduc and Guilliadun’ by Marie of France. ‘Guildeluec Reviving Guilliadun’, may be the inspiration of Grimm’s ‘Sleeping Beauty’ who he named Rosamond. This led me to suspect that Marie of France is Joan Clifford, who was the paramour of King Henry de Anjou, Fair Rosamond.

For the last two days I have been searching the web for any connection between Marie of France, Fair Rosamond, and sleeping Beauty. In ‘Eliduc and Guilliadun’ there is a sleeping maiden who is revived by a red flower retrieved from the mouth of a weasel who found it in a deep forest. This is a resurrection from a death-like sleep, a coma, via a red flower that represents the blood of Christ.

In Marie’s ‘The Lay Of Yonec’ there is a beauty captured in a tower visited by a prince who changes into a hawk. The jealous husband puts…