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The Gruesome Origins of 5 Popular Fairy Tales

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#1.
Cinderella: Mutilation, Sex, More Mutilation

The Version You Know
When they talk about "Fairy Tale Endings," they're almost certainly referring to this story. Or possibly some sort of football game. This is the dream of every little girl (and some little boys) that one day they too can rise up from the dirt and become a pretty pretty princess. You all know it; the step-mother and step-sisters who hate the beautiful Cinderella, and make her work all day, until one day a Fairy Godmother shows up and gives Cinderella pretty clothes and a pumpkin coach and sends her to the ball where she falls in love with the Prince.

But at the stroke of midnight it all ends, and she runs home, leaving only her glass slipper behind. The prince searches the land, finds Cinderella, the shoe fits, and they live happily ever after.

What Got Changed
This one goes way, way back, having been told across cultures for thousands of years before being made into numerous Hollywood movies. The identity of the Fairy Godmother changes often, and in fact she only showed up in Perrault's version, along with the pumpkin coach and the mice attendants which were all used in the Disney version. There's even a Chinese version of the story from around 850 AD, where "Yeh-Hsien" is given gold, pearls, dresses and food by a giant talking fish.

A famous difference in many versions of the story is the "glass slipper." Authorities on fairy tales (who you tend not to see at parties) disagree about whether Perrault's slipper was made of glass or fur, as the words in French (verre and vair respectively) are pronounced almost the same. It's kind of important, because if the Prince was wandering the land looking for a lady with the perfect "fur slipper" ... well, it doesn't take Freud to figure that one out, and suddenly the Prince doesn't look so noble.

One thing Perrault left out that the Grimm's delighted in putting back in was the violence. The sisters, desperate to fit into the slipper, mutilate their own feet, cutting off the toes and heels all described in exquisite Germanic detail. When the Prince eventually realizes Cinderella is the one for him, birds peck out the sisters' and mother's eyes for their wickedness.

You can probably understand why Disney went with Perrault's version for an adaptation.

Learn about the horrors behind some other stories you grew up with in The The 5 Creepiest Urban Legends (That Happen to be True) or, read famous pornography describer Mike Swaim's blow by blow account of a sex tape far more terrifying than anything contained in any tale or legend.





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In one of the original versions of Snow White, she coughs up the apple and wakes up.

Posted on 1/2/2009 2:18:28 PM

@Hermit: you know I think that is actually very possible !

Posted on 12/28/2008 12:47:39 PM

AHAHAH AWESOME !!! I used to listen to and read the grimms brother version when I was little so when I saw the film for the first time I wondered where the hell all the mutilation was

Posted on 12/28/2008 12:42:58 PM

I'm sure most people have heard of the other version of cinderella... I heard it when I was three. Told by my grandma. My first thought was, "Man, that musta been painful."

Posted on 12/13/2008 3:09:00 PM

Aw man.
My childhood emories will never be the same again!

Posted on 12/8/2008 5:10:16 PM

So Rumplestiltskin dived up her vagina, eh?

I think you missed out on the obvious masturbation angle..

A stilt with a rumpled skin? Oh ho hooo... moral of the story is clearly that girls shouldn't use dildos!

Posted on 12/4/2008 1:28:41 PM

Man, we had the teacher read us the Horrifying Version of Cinderella in fifth grade. My thoughts were an odd combination of "Man, this is gross" and "Man, this is AWESOME!"

Posted on 12/1/2008 7:26:02 PM

The nuns at my school told us that Little Red Riding home was actually a cautionary tale for young girls. They said that it is really about puberty and menstruating ("little red") and the "wolves" (aka boys) who are suddenly on the hunt. My childhood is looking more unfortunate by the minute.

Posted on 11/21/2008 2:09:32 PM

It's not "comatose sex", it's rape. Rape is not sex.

Posted on 11/20/2008 6:35:54 PM

@ Zoey: Grimms with an apostraphe indicates the possessive sense, however as it's already a pluralisation, the apostraphe should be after the S, e.g Grimms', not Grimm's or Grimms's. The latter would be the contraction. Any typos or errors in this sanctimonious bit of preaching shall be explained away by the brilliance of Talisker malt whisky. I advise everyone to develope a dependance to it. For the price of one small problem, you virtually eradicate life's big problems. Good trade off. I wonder how long it'll be before anyone else comments on this ancient article? I could make this comments section my own. I rule this comments section! My opinion is all that counts. It's nice to feel important. It takes away the suffocating pain that real life brings me. It is very important that nobody ruins my dream comments section.

Posted on 11/19/2008 3:04:50 PM

I remember reading the mutilation version of cinderella, need to get me a adult version of the brother's grimm, my one while darker than most of the fairy stories lacks the violence said to be presen in this article.

Posted on 11/19/2008 7:12:52 AM

im pretty sure this story is actually old. go to http://stuffididlastnight.com for full details

Posted on 11/15/2008 5:02:55 PM

Ha, the Snowwhite story was the first text that I read on my own when I was just 5. The heart eating version. However, this didn't impress me much.

Posted on 11/11/2008 4:12:29 PM

... I thought all of this was common knowledge... I knew all of it already..

Posted on 10/30/2008 1:39:10 AM

Talking about a bird getting wood just gave me the wrong mental image.
And wasn't the mutilation left in the Roald Dahl version of cinderella?

Posted on 10/23/2008 5:34:42 AM

I have a copy of the Grimm's Fairy tales. the stories get weirder. Imagine a story about a mouse, a bird and a sausage living together. the sausage cooks it self for dinner every night, the mouse does house hold chores, and the bird gets wood. one day, the bird decides to get lazy, and says that he won't get would. he'd rather do the mouses job. so the sausage gets wood, the mouse cooks it's self, and the bird gets water. the sausage gets eaten by a dog, the mouse cooks himself dead (why didn't the sausage die?), and the bird falls into a well and dies. the lesson? do what you're supposed to, or EVERYONE DIES.

Posted on 10/6/2008 8:47:05 PM

i'd heard about the cinderella thing, but that Sleeping Beauty was creepy. Maybe it's cuz i just watched it again recently

Posted on 9/18/2008 1:52:05 PM

"You can probably understand why Disney went with Perrault's version for an adaptation."

Yeah back in the day the censors kind of had this thing against birds pecking eyes out and women chopping their own toes off in a movie for kids.

Posted on 9/17/2008 5:11:38 PM

Why are you spelling the Grimms with an apostrophe? I think that's wrong.

Posted on 9/16/2008 3:23:04 AM

Re Cinderella, I've read non-Disney versions where there was no stepmother, just two stepsisters. In one such version, believe it or not, though the stepsisters looked down on Cinderella somewhat and treated her like a slave, they actually got along. Also, when they found out who she was, they fell on their faces to ask forgiveness. Now THAT was the best version. And they weren't even ugly.

Posted on 9/11/2008 3:22:24 AM

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