It’s no secret that fairy tales—the originals anyway—are both dark and strange. Personally, I think the bizarreness of old fairy tales is just part of their charm. It can be fun to hunt down those disturbing and ridiculous originals and realize just how many gruesome details the Disney movies left out. To give you an idea, here are fifteen dark fairy tale facts that you probably don’t remember from your childhood:
1. Many Evil Stepmothers in Fairy Tales Used to Be Actual Mothers
It’s easy to imagine jealous stepmothers treating protagonists horribly. But it’s a little-known fairy tale fact that lots of these villains used to be the real parents. In the original Hansel and Gretel, it’s their biological mother who convinces her husband to abandon their children in the woods. There are even versions of Snow White in which the murderous evil queen is her actual mother trying to murder her daughter. Most of these villainous mothers got sanitized out of fairy tales because the Grimm Brothers thought audiences would accept this behavior more readily from a stepparent.
2. The Original Sleeping Beauty Gets Raped in Her Sleep
I so wish some fairy tale facts weren’t true. In the Italian version of Sleeping Beauty, Sun, Moon, and Talia, Sleeping Beauty’s parents lay her comatose body in a beautiful house in the woods. A king stumbles across her while hunting, and when he can’t wake the beautiful sleeping girl, he rapes her and then heads out on his merry way. Ick. In this same story, it isn’t a kiss that breaks the sleeping curse but Beauty’s newborn twins suckling on her fingers. AFTER she births them in her sleep.
3. Little Red Riding Hood Dies
The modern story of Little Red Riding Hood that we all know is actually the tale of Little Red Cap from Germany. The Grimms included a dashing woodsman who cuts open the wolf’s stomach to rescue Red and Grandma. But the original French fairy tale has no such rescue. Little Red just gets eaten and dies. End of story. This morality tale was intended to teach French girls not to give up their virtue to strange men. Like Little Red Riding Hood, if they messed up in this area, there was no coming back. Yikes.
4. Goldilocks Was Once a Foul-Mouthed Old Woman
Believe it or not, the famous Goldilocks wasn’t always a blonde little girl. An earlier version of this fairy tale, The Tale of Three Bears by Robert Southey, features an old woman who swears like a sailor. She tries the bears’ porridge, chairs, and beds just like Goldilocks. When the bears come home to a trashed house, she escapes out the window. But an even earlier version of this story by Eleanor Mure takes a dark turn. The angry bears decide to punish the old trespasser by trying to burn her, drown her, and then impale her on the steeple of St. Paul’s Cathedral. Can’t make this stuff up, people.
5. Cinderella’s Dad Is Alive and Well in the Story
This fairy tale fact surprised me so much that I wrote an entire article about it. Because yes, Cinderella’s dad is alive in almost every old version of Cinderella. It’s only in modern retellings that he dies. In the original fairy tales, he passively watches his new wife torment his daughter in terrible ways. In some versions he actively participates in the abuse, and in the worst cases, he IS the villain trying to marry his own daughter! No joke.
6. The Original Little Mermaid Is a Total Downer
Seriously, this fairy tale is depressing. First of all, the Little Mermaid doesn’t just lose her voice to become human. She also feels the sharp pain of knives with every step she takes on her newly acquired legs. And she doesn’t live happily ever after in the end. Instead the prince falls in love with someone else. She gets one last chance to kill the prince on his wedding night so his blood can transform her legs back into a fish tale, but she doesn’t go through with it. Instead she lets her bargain with the sea witch play out and turns into sea foam.
7. There’s No Kissing in the Original Frog Prince Story
It’s well known that true love’s kiss can break any spell, but this original fairy tale begs to differ. In the original Frog Prince story, it isn’t a sweet kiss that transforms the little frog. It’s the princess flinging his body against the wall of her bedroom in a fit of rage. Totally does the trick, and she’s delighted to discover that her frog fiancé is now a beautiful man. In some versions of the story the princess breaks the spell by cutting off the frog’s head. I’m not exactly sure what moral we’re supposed to be learning here . . .
8. Snow White’s Prince Never Kisses Her Either
While we’re on a roll of murdering fairy tale romance, what about Snow White’s iconic first kiss? Unfortunately this is also a Disney invention. In the original Little Snow White, she dies because the bite of poisoned apple gets lodged in her throat. When the prince and his men see her in the glass coffin, the young royal finds the girl so beautiful that he wants to take her body back to his kingdom. The prince’s servants bump the coffin while lifting it, and the piece of apple flies out of Snow White’s mouth. Miraculously alive again, the girl gets engaged on the spot. That’s one romantic Heimlich maneuver.
9. The Wicked Queen Eats Snow White’s Heart
Yes. Really. It’s a little-known fairy tale fact that when the huntsman brings Snow White’s heart as proof that the princess is dead, the queen doesn’t just keep it in a box. She salts it and eats it right then and there. In some versions of Snow White, the queen demands the little girl’s lungs and liver as proof of her death. Aaaaaaaand she eats those too. Seriously, how can you not respect a villain who literally eats her enemies? She’s not the only fairy tale villain who does . . .
10. Cannibalism Happens in Many, MANY Fairy Tales
Seriously what is the fascination of people eating other people? Fairy tales explore this dark theme an awful lot in their original renditions. Old versions of Little Red Riding Hood depict the wolf killing the grandmother and feeding her flesh and blood to her granddaughter. We have the child-eating witch of Hansel and Gretel, obviously. We have the man-eating giant in Jack and the Beanstalk. We have an evil stepmother feeding her stepson to his own father in the Juniper Tree. We even have cannibalism in some versions of Sleeping Beauty. I guess cannibalism is just too sensational and nightmarish of a concept to pass up.
11. Beauty and the Beast Was Originally about Arranged Marriage
Don’t get me wrong, this is a fairy tale fact that I personally hate. Who doesn’t love the modern romance of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast and the enduring message of redemption and love? Well . . . the real version of Beauty and the Beast is nothing like this. Instead it was written as a French morality tale preparing young girls for arranged marriages to older and sometimes beastly men. Basically it’s a story pointing out the economic advantages to arranged marriages—and how love can come later. If you’re lucky.
12. Beauty and the Beast Ends with her Selfish Sisters Turning into Stone
Oh you thought Beauty was an only child? Not so. In the original fairy tale she’s the youngest of several brothers and sisters, and her two older sisters are vain, lazy, and pretty terrible. During the course of the story they try to convince Beauty to turn on the Beast, and when this fact comes to light, the Beast punishes those pesky sisters-in-law by turning them into stone statues. They are fated to spend all eternity at the castle gate watching their little sister’s happiness.
13. One of the Three Little Pigs Eats the Big Bad Wolf
If you remember the Three Little Pigs as a delightful, innocent romp for children, you probably haven’t read the original story by Joseph Jacobs. After the wolf devours the first two little pigs from the wreckage of their destroyed houses, he tries to outsmart the third pig brother. When all his attempts fail, the Big Bad Wolf climbs onto the roof of the brick house and goes down the chimney—straight into a pot of boiling water. The wolf dies instantly, and the last pig standing cooks up his corpse. And eats him for dinner. Survival of the fittest I guess?
14. Some Versions of Rapunzel Have Sad Endings
No, not another sad ending! Actually most versions of Rapunzel turn out fine with her prince finding her again and Rapunzel healing his blindness with her magic tears. The royal then marries her and takes Rapunzel and their infant twins back to his palace. But there’s a more obscure version of Rapunzel with a very different ending. One where the witch turns Rapunzel into a frog and the prince gets cursed with a pig’s snout. So much for happily ever after, but I give this version points for creativity.
15. Cinderella’s Evil Stepsisters Get Mutilated
If you’ve read the Grimms’ version of Cinderella, you already know what I’m about to say. Those evil stepsisters know perfectly well that the little shoe won’t fit, but their mother encourages one daughter to cut off her toe and the other to saw off her heel to fool the prince. Both ruses fail when Prince Charming sees their blood in the slipper. Ick. But the Grimms REALLY exact revenge when the stepsisters attend Cinderella’s wedding. The girls are hoping to gain the princess’s royal favor, but instead Cinderella’s birds peck out the stepsisters’ eyes, leaving them crippled and blind. I can’t think of a better fairy tale fact to end on.
