The Gruesome Origins of 5 Popular Fairy Tales
We know what's you're thinking. "What the hell is Cracked writing articles about fairy tales for? That's kids stuff! Give us more articles about the Top 10 Transformers Characters, or Worst Dressed Thundercat!" And that's good, because that means our Spyware technology is getting better than ever.
The thing about fairy tales, though, is that they weren't always for kids. Back when these stories were first told around campfires and in taverns in some medieval village there were very few kids present. These were racy, violent parables to distract peasants after a hard day's dirt farming, and some of them made Hostel look like, well, kid's stuff.
#5.
Little Red Riding Hood: Inter-Species Sex Play, Cannibalism
The Version You Know
Mention the words "fairy tale" to someone--if they don't think of gingerbread houses, or possibly a certain bar they know, they think of this story. Little Red on her way to grandmother's house meets the Big Bad Wolf and stupidly tells him where she's going. So he gets there first, eats Grandma, puts on her dress and waits for Red.
She gets there, they do the back-and-forth about what big teeth he has, and he eats her. Then, a passing woodsman comes and cuts Red and Grandma out of the wolf, saving the day.
What Got Changed
Most modern versions of fairy tales come from two sources: The Grimm Brothers from Germany, and Frenchman Charles Perrault, the collector of the "Mother Goose" tales. The big change they made to this one was the ending. That woodsman showing up seemed a little like a third act re-write of a movie due to bad test screenings, didn't it? Where the hell did the woodsman come from?
Well, the woodsman was a later addition to the tale. In the early versions of the story, Red and her Grandmother are dead. The. Goddamn. End. Also, in most versions the woodsman cuts the pair out of the wolf's belly, where they're mostly none the worse for wear despite being eaten, which implies to us the wolf in that story world eats like some sort of python, by unhinging its jaw and swallowing prey whole. Suspension of disbelief only goes so far.
Much earlier versions also liked to spice up the sexuality angle of the story, by having Red outwit the wolf by performing a striptease for him while he's lying in bed dressed as her Grandmother, and then running away while he's "distracted" (Note to any young girls out there: if you are ever abducted and menaced by someone, DO NOT DO THIS).
Wait, it gets worse. This is the most horrifying bit that got filtered out before the tale reached both the Grimm's and Perrault (and in fact, only made it into a few written texts). In this version, the Wolf dissects Grandmother, then invites Red in for a meal of her flesh, presumably with a side of fava beans and a nice Chianti. Then he eats her, too.
Story's over! Sweet dreams, little Sally!
And of course there are the original versions of Rapunzel's story. Where she's just as innocent as you'd expect someone raised in a tower would be. And the prince takes a little advantage of this. And then the witch who keeps her pokes out his eyes and throws Rapunzel out after Rapunzel asks her (still in innocence) why her dress is feeling so much tighter.
ReplyI remember back in 3rd grade when I was in Girl Scouts we had a guest speaker come and tell us all the original fairy tales. I found it awesome.
ReplyI remember so many different versions of "Red Riding Hood" and "3 Little Pigs." The endings changed so many times.
Reply"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."
ReplyI definitely remember the Cinderella story with the mutilation from my childhood. Cinderella must have had bound feet like in ancient China, or been some kind of a freak to have so small feet the shoe wouldn't fit anyone else...
ReplyOr she was really short and thin. My mother's shoe size used to be 4 (I think? I'm not sure in American sizes) before she got pregnant. Quite small for a grown woman. In her side of the family, you are tall at 5'2" (most average at 5' ) and have big feet at size 7.
Yeah, original fairy tales were much gruesome. But people sometimes forget that they were told among people who understood the world wasn't quite a forgiving place, some where warnings not just pretty stories to tell kids.
ReplyOne of the babies, seeking momma's milk, sucks on her finger and dislodges the flax, waking her, at which point we imagine she had a few questions. - Thank you Cracked. After the s****y workday I had, I really need to laugh myself silly.
ReplyTo be honest, I've read the original versions of all these anyway years ago, since I have the Brother's Grimm book. Still a good article, though...And the foot mutilation part of Cinderella really is disgusting. Was worse when I saw the play adaptation though, where they really cut off (Fake, obviously) bits of foot. Eugh.
ReplyYou just know that there are porn versions of each story.
ReplyIt's more like the modern adaptations are the non-porn versions of the original.
The originals ARE the porn versions of each story. They are all basically metaphors for the horrors and dangers of sexual deviance. Rumplestiltskin, for example, is essentially a metaphor that female masturbation makes women sterile - the idea being that the little gnome was in fact a little dildo and got stuck, preventing the queen from having any more children. Spinning straw into gold was a sexual euphemism for female masturbation at the time, and the baron was essentially a voyeur with a masturbation porn fetish. When you get really down to the old stories and the original symbology of them in the period, without all the dressing, they are all about violence, sex, and other cultural issues which we've basically lost the original meanings of and now tell our kids - yet these all sit in the subconscious and at a certain point, it all suddenly "clicks" and these messages start to make sense. Sometimes you are eight when you figure them out - sometimes you are eighty. There's nothing innocent here - it's about subverting stories to make them easier to pass by the censors so people think they are innocent, when really they are far from it.
Kind of strange to think about but a lot of folks learned about the old school Sleeping Beauty myth because Anne Rice mined it as inspiration for her trilogy of fantasy themed bondage porn.
ReplyHrm... Actually, Cracked missed the boat on this one. The real origins of the story are far more gruesome. The original is actually a story about necrophilia. It was so raunchy that even the Brothers Grimm toned it down for the second edition.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesWhich one?
I'd guess Sleeping Beauty?
I actually really want to know, but I'm afraid.
I believe it's Snow White that he's talking about. She dies at the end and in the original the Prince has sex with her to wake her up.
"And if you think the fairy tales were gruesome back then, you should have seen the merchandising tie-ins."
ReplyI was taking this seriously when I got to the snow white page until I saw SNOW WHITE AND HUNTSMAN SUMMER.
For a second there i thought it was part of the article.
HCA's The Little Mermaid was quite a gruesome tale as well
ReplyAnd depressing as all hell.
I remember I read the original Little Mermaid when I was like seven, and I went over to my dad and said, "Daddy, how come Ariel doesn't die in the Disney movie?" And he said, "It would depress the kids and possibly cause them to become suicidal."
Little Red Riding Hood actually originated as a story about witchcraft. The wolf represented a werewolf. The woodsman was represented the forest spirit in charge of Red's particular coven. The hood represents the hood that all new initiates wear, the basket was her offerings to the Woodsman, and Granny was her elder: Riding Hood's sponsor.
ReplyAlmost right, the story shows hints on shamanism, how ever it is more probable that the Woodsman symbolizes Christianity, destroying the shamanistic rites by disturbing the catharsis necessary for an initiated shaman.
Damn, I did research on this type of thing, some 10 years ago. Some lesser-known fairy tale has someone picking up 24? metal balls with their sphincter. For the love of God, I don't think it's worth the research involved to figure out which one that one was, again.
ReplyProbably the princess and the pea?
My third grade teacher told our class these versions of the classic fairy tales. Yes, this is what your tax money pays for in public school. Best third grade teacher, ever.
ReplyI already knew the Rumpelstiltskin one but I have no idea how I knew it.
I told my ESL students in Korea. The boys were grossed out, but the girls were absolutely fascinated.
My third grade teacher told my class all of these versions. I imagine I had the coolest third grade teacher of all time.
ReplyEven to say it twice!
This may be elsewhere, however: we read some German versions of the fairy tales in my college class. Did you know: in the Frog Prince, the princess doesn't kiss the frog? Instead, she gets totally disgusted by the idea of sleeping with a frog and throws him as hard as she can against the wall of her room. And he turns into a man. And my German teacher had no idea why we were so appalled. Also, it was at that time that I first heard the other version of Rapunzel, the one where by the time he finds her again she has twins.
ReplyI was actually the opposite; I read the one where he gets chucked at the wall first and was weirded out by the kissing version :)
Actually both versions exist in Germany, the throwing-wall-one is the short version, and then there is the much longer version of Der Froschkönig und der Eiserne Heinrich (Frog King and the Iron Henry) which is probably younger, as it mostly contains the Frog-kiss (evidence only since the 19th century). This version contains a second act in which the princess lives with the frog king but has to suffer many disgraces and proof her worth for somethingsomething by doing menial work, very socially critical.
Why five pages? No wonder my wrists are like an womans.
ReplyYeah. That's why.
holy ... holy shit!
Reply