The Real Stories Behind Our Most Cherished Fairy Tales
^ When you finally get your fairy tale ending but it’s the German Version
At some point during college, most people take a class that has no relation to their major, is on a fairly straight forward subject, and offers the opportunity to grab a low effort high grade to balance out getting their knees taken out by the quantum physics and organic chemistries of the world. At UChicago, as I dragged my (metaphorically) bloodied corpse into my last quarter, finally having finished the college’s core and everything I needed for the pre-medicine requirements, I furiously poured over the spring class catalog for my deserved shot at a mindless A. “Comparative Fairy Tale: The Brothers Grimm, H. C. Anderson, Asbjørnsen and Moe” – as someone who spent 80% of their childhood in various princess costumes, how hard could it be?
Turns out this was quite the popular course for the Germanic Studies majors. While I came to class with 500+ chemical reactions log jammed in my head and debilitating anxiety about everything that could be going wrong with my DNA at any given moment, my fellow classmates were armed with four years of german literature studies. It quickly became clear to me that this class was on a fast track to becoming Disney Channel for rocket scientists.
Some people know that Disney’s most popular films and our classic fairy tales have much darker origins but luckily many of you didn’t dedicate a quarter of your college career maiming some of your fondest childhood memories. Instead of enchanting the reader, these tales were meant as cautionary tales with dire moral lessons. So to round out this on an expectedly twisted note, the darker origins of some of our most beloved classics:
^’Snow White’ but also me and a collection of my Hinge algorithm’s “Most Compatible” selections
Cinderella
In the murkier Grimm’s version, in order to fit into the slipper, one of Cinderella’s stepsisters cuts off her toes and then the second sister cuts off her heel. Two doves sent by Cinderella’s mother from Heaven alert the prince of blood coming from the shoe to inform him of the falsity. Finally, after the shoe fits Cinderella, Prince Charming marries Cinderella. At the wedding, the doves return and poke out the eyes of the stepsisters and drive them to beg on the street.
Red Riding Hood
In the original version, the Big Bad Wolf arrives at Red Riding Hood’s grandmother’s house early and eats both the grandmother and Red Riding Hood. When a woodcutter finds the Wolf, he makes an incision on the its stomach and rescues both of them alive. Red Riding Hood then fills the beast’s stomach with stones. The moment he wakes up and wants to run away, the Wolf collapses due to the heavy weight of the stones and dies.
Hansel and Gretel
It is said that this story actually points to the parents who deserted their children during a major European famine in the 14th century. In the story, the evil mother abandons her stepchildren in a deep forest to let them die as the couple was unable to feed them any further. In the forest, they discover a cottage which belongs to a cannibal witch. The children, after devouring the feast thrown by the old woman, outwit her and kill her.
The Little Mermaid
In the original, mermaids live for 300 years but when they die, they dissolve into sea foam with no soul. In order to become a human, you have to earn the true love of one. To become physically human, this mermaid sacrifices her voice by getting her tongue literally cut out and her new legs incur knife-like pain with every step. Now, the prince she does this for isn’t your traditional prince charming; he makes her sleep on a cushion outside of his door like a pet THEN falls in love with a princess who looks just like the mermaid, leaving the mermaid justifiably wrecked. Her sisters show up with a magic knife that will transform her back to a mermaid if she stabs the prince with it. She almost commits the murder but for SOME reason, is overpowered by her love and instead throws herself into the ocean. Instead of becoming sea foam, she is incarnated as a “daughter of air” for 300 years, with a caveat: if she’s a helpful air, blowing windmills and moving ships, an immortal soul is hers. If she blows into the room of a child who is obedient, she gets a year off of her sentence. If that child is having a tantrum, she will cry in sorrow and each tear will add a day to her sentence,
Snow White
In Grimm’s original version, the evil queen turns out to be Cinderella’s real mother who sends assassins to kill her and get her liver and lungs for her to eat so she could become younger and fairer. Later in the story when the prince and Snow White get married, the evil queen is also invited to the event and is forced to dance until she dies of the hot iron shoes she is made to wear.
Rapunzel
The basic setting of Rapunzel in the Brothers Grimm’s version is the same as that we know of. Rapunzel is a beautiful young woman with very long, golden hair, trapped at the top of a tower by her mother, who happens to be a witch. But things get murkier. Rapunzel is visited by a prince who impregnates her. The moment the mother gets to know about this, she chops off Rapunzel’s hair and throws the prince off the window. His eyes roll out of his sockets during his fall and Rapunzel is transported to a place along with her children to live the life of a beggar
For the most wild one – Sleeping Beauty
So there is a prophesy that a princess will meet her death from a flax splinter. Flax then gets under her fingernail and kills her, prompting her father to lay her corpse on a bed in his estate. Later, another king finds the princess, rapes and impregnates her…then returns to his wife. The dead (?) princess gives birth to twins and is revived when one sucks the flax from her finger. The (married) king who violated the princess is still (strangely) in love with her so goes back to visit. After he explains how she’d gotten pregnant, rather than call law enforcement, she decides she loves him. The king stays for a bit then goes back to his WIFE who is now getting suspicious. When she finds out about the princess, she kidnaps the kids her husband sired and (normal) unsuccessfully attempts to cook them. Next the queen kidnaps the princess, who has no idea that she’s been a mistress, and after explaining that the queen’s husband raped her, the queen tries to throw her into a fire. The princess delays the act by slowly undressing (logical), and in the knick of time, the king walks in, throws the queen in the fire, and they marry, living *~*~* happily every after *~*~*.
The Frog King
We all know how the ugly frog turned into a handsome prince when the princess kissed it. But the original story does not actually involve a kiss. In fact, the frog metamorphoses into a prince by a wicked slam on the wall. She is so annoyed by the frog following her around that she violently chucks it at a wall. After she exhibits remorse after senselessly murdering a creature, he is turned into a prince.
Want more?
A piece about the repression of women in Grimm’s Fairy Tales (an excellent one)
An interesting article about the subtly dark material children consume