Written by Ayça
Thought fairy tales were all pampered princesses and happily-ever-afters? Think again. The original versions of some of our best-loved fairy tales are a far cry from their Disney versions. We’ve glossed over the true nature of these nursery songs and bedtime stories for the best part of a century - so here are the darkest fairy tales from the bookshelf revealed.
LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD
Charles Perrault, 1697
Today we’re more familiar with the Brothers Grimm version of this tale, where a girl and her grandmother are gobbled up by a wolf, but rescued by a huntsman. In Charles Perrault’s original, there is no happy ending. In this version, the little girl is a well bred young lady who is given false instructions by the wolf when she asks the way to her grandmothers. Foolishly riding hood takes the advice of the wolf and ends up being eaten. And here the story ends. There is no woodsman – no grandmother – just a fat wolf and a dead Red Riding Hood. The moral to this story is to not take advice from strangers.
RAPUNZEL
Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de la Force, 1698
The original story, Persinette was penned by French noblewoman – and royal mistress – Mademoiselle de la Force. Persinette was kidnapped at birth by a fairy, who locked her in a tower with all the things she could ever wish for. The fairy was her only visitor and, as the tower had no stairs, she climbed Persinette’s long hair whenever she visited her.
However, a prince sees Persinette, climbs up her hair to the tower, seduces her and she falls pregnant. When the fairy discovers her swollen belly she banishes Persinette. The next time the prince visits, he finds the fairy in the tower who blinds him. The lovers eventually find each other and the prince’s sight is restored by Persinette’s tears.
GOLDILOCKS AND THREE BEARS
Robert Southey, 1837
In this heart warming tale, we hear of pretty little goldilocks who finds the house of the three bears. She sneaks inside and eats their food, sits in their chairs, and finally falls asleep on the bed of the littlest bear. When the bears return home they find her asleep – she awakens and escapes out the window in terror. The original tale (which actually only dates to 1837) has two possible variations. In the first, the bears find Goldilocks and rip her apart and eat her. In the second, Goldilocks
jumps out of a window when the bears wake her up. The story ends by telling us that she either broke her neck in the fall, or was arrested for vagrancy and sent to the “House of Correction”.
SNOW WHITE
The Brothers Grimm, 1812
In the tale of snow white that we are all familiar with, the Queen asks a huntsman to kill her and bring her heart back as proof. Instead, the huntsman can’t bring himself to do it and returns with the heart of a boar. Now, fortunately disney hasn’t done too much damage to this tale, but they did leave out one important original element: in the original tale, the Queen actually asks for Snow White’s liver and lungs – which are to be served for dinner that night! Also in the original, Snow White wakes up when she is jostled by the prince’s horse as he carries her back to his castle in the Grimm version, the tale ends with the Queen being forced to dance to death in red hot iron shoes!
HANSEL AND GRETEL
The Brothers Grimm, 1812
In the widely known version of Hansel and Gretel, we hear of two little children who become lost in the forest, eventually finding their way to a gingerbread house which belongs to a wicked witch. The children end up enslaved for a time as the witch prepares them for eating. They figure their way out and throw the witch in a fire and escape. In an earlier French version of this tale (called The Lost Children), instead of a witch we have a devil. Now the wicked old devil is tricked by the children (in much the same way as Hansel and Gretel) but he works it out and puts together a sawhorse to put one of the children on to bleed (that isn’t an error – he really does). The children pretend not to know how to get on the sawhorse so the devil’s wife demonstrates. While she is lying down the kids slash her throat and escape.
THE LITTLE MERMAID
Hans Christian Andersen, 1836
The 1989 version of the Little Mermaid might be better known as “The big whopper!” In the Disney version, the film ends with Ariel the mermaid being changed into a human so she can marry Eric. They marry in a wonderful wedding attended by humans and merpeople. But, in the very first version by Hans Christian Andersen, the mermaid sees the Prince marry a princess and she despairs. She is offered a knife with which to stab the prince to death, but rather than do that she jumps into the sea and dies by turning to froth.
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