10 Horrifying Original Endings of Fairy Tales

1. Larfin Jackarse
   August 13th, 2009 at 2:46 am

   Hmmm...interesting.

   I am still upset that Kimba got ripped off by Simba.

   Ohh wait...that isn't a nursery rhyme.

2. Willo the Wisp
   August 13th, 2009 at 4:41 am

   "Original" here is a meaningless term. Most fairy stories are folk stories with a long and largely untraceable oral history, and come from a long tradition of telling and retelling. The Grimms toured Europe and wrote down particular versions by various storytellers, out of the thousands of possible variations. So there's no way of knowing which is the "original" version of a fairy story, and Disney's interpretation is as valid as the Grimms'.

3. ted
   August 13th, 2009 at 6:50 am

   So, it's more normal for the Prince to put the girl's body in a wagon - maybe for burial - rather than to start kissing an unconscious or dead woman?

4. ted
   August 13th, 2009 at 6:52 am

   Oops, wasn't supposed to be a question. lol

   Just pointing out maybe the "Disney" version is the more creepy.

5. Katew
   August 13th, 2009 at 9:50 am

   Cool article! I teach a college course of fairy tale analysis and have a blog devoted to the art, history, analysis, etc., of fairy tales.
   Current scholarship suggests that the Grimms got most of their stories from middle class young women who were friends or friends of friends with young women with whom they were already acquainted. The Grimms felt keenly the humiliation that Napoleon had laid upon the group of small and large entities that now make up Germany. They wanted to promote a sense of German unity through these tales.
   It's absolutely true that no one "owns" the "truth" about fairy tales. However, they do get unfairly blamed for giving girls passive role models and rescue fantasies. With the exception of "Sleeping Beauty." a lot of fairy tale heroines are rather plucky, at least in the original versions.
   But if you want to avoid being bummed out, do not read Andersen's original of "The Little Mermaid," which certainly was his story, his creation.

6. Gauldar
   August 13th, 2009 at 9:56 am

   This post brought forth the inspiration that provoked me to find this information.

   http://bertc.com/subfive/recipes/cow_lung.htm

   I can't say I've ever eaten lung before.

7. Johnny Cat
   August 13th, 2009 at 11:40 am

   I'll never forget the last line of one of the Grimm tales, I think it was Sleeping Beauty: "And they all lived happily until they died."

8. Gauldar
   August 13th, 2009 at 11:47 am

   @Willo the Wisp

   When I hear the word "original", it's usually meaning first known publication. Sure, the story may have been adapted over the years, but the original will be the oldest copy available in my opinion. Just as long as we are able to keep excavating our past, we will keep gaining more insight into our origin, and in what ways we have changed.

9. A.J.
   August 13th, 2009 at 1:48 pm

   O'kay kids, it's getting late! Time for a bedtime story.

   "OH GOD, NO"!!!!!!

10. Nicholas Dollak
    August 13th, 2009 at 3:08 pm

    As Willo the Wisp pointed out, due to the long & tangled histories of folk tales, "original" is a rather meaningless term here. Earliest dates of publication are usually quite recent; by then, many stories had gotten around and branched off into different variants. But I do agree that the darker versions of stories are often more substantial & satisfying! I never liked the Disneyfied versions. (Well, "Aladdin" works well - but that's really "The Thief of Baghdad," a modern tribute to Arabian Nights tales.)

    Someone on the listverse.com site wondered WHY these stories would be considered suitable for children. There are several things to keep in mind here: 1. They were usually meant to be cautionary tales; 2. Adults enjoyed them, too; and 3. People were generally much more closely acquainted with death & disease, and often as a matter of routine. They didn't go to the store and buy a frozen tray of stuff called "chicken"; they grabbed the bird, chopped its head off with an axe --- basically supervised the entire transformation from living thing to pile of greasy bones on the kitchen floor.

    I don't think anyone was traumatized by these stories at all. For a great collection of Grimm tales with surprisingly spooky illustrations by Maurice Sendak, check out a book called "The Juniper Tree" in the Folklore section. The title story contains the delightfully morbid line (during a scene in which a mother opens a wooden chest full of apples so her son can select one) "But then the Evil One whispered in her ear, and she dropped the lid. The boy's head flew off and rolled among the apples."

    Pleasant dreams!

11. G
    August 14th, 2009 at 5:19 pm

    Growing up, my parents had an old book set of tales that did have the varied gruesome versions in them. But I think the stories were also told with consequence and morality so the gruesome parts were just "parts" but not the focus of the stories. I remembered these stories were entertaining and not scary. Just like how we used to love huddling together in the dark sharing ghost stories or urban legends.

    I read the Neil Gaiman version about Snow White from the Queen's perspective where the prince was actually a necrophiliac. It was supposed to be a take on how the Queen was misunderstood. It was an interesting take and obviously not for children to read.

12. J
    September 15th, 2009 at 6:50 am

    The earliest version I have read was one from even before the grimms. It was even more cruel than the grimm version. Snowwhite was killed by the huntsman and she ate the lungs and liver for diner. I have to note that I do not know from which source I got this since its a long time ago.

    To G who posted before me. I read a simmular story in a japanese manga by Kaori Yuki where the prince (ludwig) is a necrofile and only takes her with him because that is his interest. Snowwhite wakes up and screws his dad. The price kills her in the end and preserves her with a bunsh of other girls. In this story both snow white, the prince and the queen are rather evil in nature.

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