The woman places the thorn of her animus
When the prince appears after a hundred years, the thorny hedge growing around the castle blossoms suddenly into beautiful roses.
The rose, says one medieval author, belongs to the goddess Venus and means love, for “there is no love without thorns.”
They also say “Ubi mel, ibi fel,” where there is honey, there is also the bitter gall.
You can refer the meaning of the thorn to the terrible involuntary hurts loving people always inflict upon each other.
There is the expression “a typical lovers’ quarrel.’’
We would call it an anima-animus quarrel, the sword crossing of animus and anima, which consists in a most horrible way of hurting each other in the most vulnerable spots.
Just where the man has a most uncertain delicate feeling, the woman places the thorn of her animus; and where the woman wants to be understood or accepted, the man comes out with some anima poison dart.
Such hedges of thorns in dreams refer to exaggerated touchiness, which is always combined with aggressiveness.
If a very touchy analysand comes, I know that I shall get a lot of very bad stings, so I put on an armor.
Touchy people are proud of their sensitiveness, by which they tyrannize others. An unkind word provides tragedy for months.
You cannot open your mouth because you might hurt the other person.
They get into tempers over everything and sulk and are hurt in their wonderful delicate feelings; it is just plain tyranny.
Such people usually have a very vulgar hidden power complex which comes out in the shadow—an infantile attitude toward life through which those around are tyrannized.
What should be a receptive, loving attitude becomes a thorny hedge, where every man who tries to penetrate gets so torn that he just retires. — Marie-Louise von Franz, The Feminine in Fairy Tales, Page 47
