Fairy tales of the past were often full of macabre and gruesome twists and endings. These days, companies like Disney have sanitized them for a modern audience that is clearly deemed unable to cope, and so we see happy endings everywhere. This list looks at some of the common endings we are familiar with – and explains the original gruesome origins. If you know of any others, be sure to mention it in the comments – or if you know of a fairy tale that is just outright gruesome (in its original or modern form), speak up.
In the tale of the Pied Piper, we have a village overrun with rats. A man arrives dressed in clothes of pied (a patchwork of colors) and offers to rid the town of the vermin. The villagers agree to pay a vast sum of money if the piper can do it – and he does. He plays music on his pipe which draws all the rats out of the town. When he returns for payment – the villagers won’t cough up so the Pied Piper decides to rid the town of children too! In most modern variants, the piper draws the children to a cave out of the town and when the townsfolk finally agree to pay up, he sends them back. In the darker original, the piper leads the children to a river where they all drown (except a lame boy who couldn’t keep up). Some modern scholars say that there are connotations of pedophilia in this fairy tale.
The version of this tale that most of us are familiar with ends with Riding Hood being saved by the woodsman who kills the wicked wolf. But in fact, the original French version (by Charles Perrault) of the tale was not quite so nice. 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.
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. Hans Christian Andersen modified the ending slightly to make it more pleasant. In his new ending, instead of dying when turned to froth, she becomes a “daughter of the air” waiting to go to heaven – so, frankly, she is still dead for all intents and purposes.
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 – not from a magical kiss. What the prince wanted to do with a dead girl’s body I will leave to your imagination. Oh – in the Grimm version, the tale ends with the Queen being forced to dance to death in red hot iron shoes!
In the original sleeping beauty, the lovely princess is put to sleep when she pricks her finger on a spindle. She sleeps for one hundred years when a prince finally arrives, kisses her, and awakens her. They fall in love, marry, and (surprise surprise) live happily ever after. But alas, the original tale is not so sweet (in fact, you have to read this to believe it.) In the original, the young woman is put to sleep because of a prophesy, rather than a curse. And it isn’t the kiss of a prince which wakes her up: the king seeing her asleep, and rather fancying having a bit, rapes her. After nine months she gives birth to two children (while she is still asleep). One of the children sucks her finger which removes the piece of flax which was keeping her asleep. She wakes up to find herself raped and the mother of two kids.
This fair tale is a little different from the others because rather than sanitizing the original, it was modified by the original author to make it more gruesome. In the original tale, Rumpelstiltskin spins straw into gold for a young girl who faces death unless she is able to perform the feat. In return, he asks for her first born child. She agrees – but when the day comes to hand over the kid, she can’t do it. Rumpelstiltskin tells her that he will let her off the bargain if she can guess his name. She overhears him singing his name by a fire and so she guesses it correctly. Rumpelstiltskin, furious, runs away, never to be seen again. But in the updated version, things are a little messier. Rumpelstiltskin is so angry that he drives his right foot deep into the ground. He then grabs his left leg and rips himself in half. Needless to say this kills him.
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 is actually an old hag who (like the sanitized version) 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”.
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.
Frankly, the revised version of this fairy tale is not a great deal better than the original, but there are sufficient differences to include it here. In the new version, a poor man is offered wealth by the devil if he gives him whatever is standing behind his mill. The poor man thinks it is an apple tree and agrees – but it is actually his daughter. The devil tries to take the daughter but can’t – because she is pure, so he threatens to take the father unless the daughter allows her father to chop off her hands. She agrees and the father does the deed. Now – that is not particularly nice, but it is slightly worse in some of the earlier variants in which the young girl chops off her own arms in order to make herself ugly to her brother who is trying to rape her. In another variant, the father chops off the daughter’s hands because she refuses to let him have sex with her.
In the modern Cinderella fairy tale we have the beautiful Cinderella swept off her feet by the prince and her wicked step sisters marrying two lords – with everyone living happily ever after. The fairy tale has its origins way back in the 1st century BC where Strabo’s heroine was actually called Rhodopis, not Cinderella. The story was very similar to the modern one with the exception of the glass slippers and pumpkin coach. But, lurking behind the pretty tale is a more sinister variation by the Grimm brothers: in this version, the nasty step-sisters cut off parts of their own feet in order to fit them into the glass slipper – hoping to fool the prince. The prince is alerted to the trickery by two pigeons who peck out the step sister’s eyes. They end up spending the rest of their lives as blind beggars while Cinderella gets to lounge about in luxury at the prince’s castle.
Contributor: JFrater
These fairy tales are a moral base to learn from as a child. Most parents would not talk to their children about the issues in these stories so they are an important resource for young minds. I can’t stand the modern sanitised versions! Bring it back!!!
As I am reading a certain list, I always know when I will see “JFrater” at the bottom — The lists are well put together, very interesting and consise.
I especially liked this list.
Very entertaining list, well done jfrater!
I couldn’t help but laugh at the Rumpelstiltskin version (morbid sense of humour I know). Talk about one of the all time greatest dummy spits, can you imagine the headlines:
“Strange little gnome creature is so angry that a girl knows his name that he rips himself in half”. He must have been having a REALLY bad day
I grew up on the “old” versions of fairy tales–I had Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale books, and I loved them. “The Little Mermaid” was one of my favorite stories, and it upset me terribly when I saw the Disney movie. I couldn’t believe they would ruin the story that way.
Now that I’m grown up, I can look at those tales and see the dark and disturbing themes, but as a child I only remember feeling wonder and fascination. I’ve grown up to be a stable, well-adjusted adult, so there must be something to what Randall said.
i know a version of the handless maiden story in which her trials only *start* at losing her hands. like many myths and fairy tales, it’s an allegory for the journey made by our psyches.
Another very entertaining list jfrater ! Are you on some kind of list- making steroids or something? Randall, I appreciated your thoughts on explaining how these types of tales would be appropriate for kids. Thinking back when I was a kid myself I remember horsing around with friends and pretending to do gruesome stuff to each other including things mentioned in some of theses tales without the help of reading them in the first place. So I don’t think any of these versions would have mentally scarred me in the least. Maybe these writers were just giving the kids what they wanted.
I say we all need to reinstate the original stories to tell our kiddies before nighty-night.
You know,… to set them straight.
I was lucky enough to have a book of these goodies that my great grandmother gave me as a child and look at me now!
makes me think of Max and Moritz
still have the original german edition that was passed down.
IIRC, the fairy tale where the evildoer is punished by being drug around in a barrel full of nails is Falada. I second the recommendation of Deerskin for a twisted story, and love Robin McKinley’s novelization of the story.
SurLaLune.com has many great annotated fairy tales, as well as listing variant and modern versions of them.
The Brothers Grimm have a statue of them in Hanau Germany. One of them standing and one of them sitting. It is said that at New Years on Midnight that they switch positions.
Jfrater, if you’re looking to make a second list, The boy who cried wolf would make a good start.
I already knew the Cinderella grossness, but for the rest I was mostly unaware of the awesome original stories.
Sleeping Beauty made me laugh so hard too. Imagine the moment one realises they’ve been raped and had two kids AND wondering what your surroundings are, everything being unfamiliar to the time you knew when you fell asleep.
I’ve been reading for months and this is truly the best list ever. Great work, Listverse!
Before and between my classes this morning I read up about the Grimms and Andersen. The Grimms collected their stories, and tried to maintain the original style of oral tradition. The wiki article doesn’t say so, but Andersen seems to have written his. His seem to be based in cities more than the Grimms, which seem more to rural.
The sanitisation of the Grimms’ stories started even in their own lifetime. As their volumes were reprinted, various changes were made, including changing several mothers into step-mothers.
Also, what about The Red Shoes? I remember my grandmother giving me that book as a child but scribbling out “cut off her feet” with “removed the shoes.”
Very good list! I’ve always loved fairy tales. I am a very moralistic person and I think part of the reason is due to reading or having fairy tales read to me as a child. Times have changed so much. Parents try to protect their children from the horrific things that make up fairy tales, but look around us. It seems to be most of those kids that are clueless, getting into trouble, and just want to lie around and do nothing. The kids these days couldn’t handle being kids like we were when I was growing up. Not only the fairy tales!
Why in the world does Rumpelstinskin WANT a baby anyway?..
That has always confused me a bit… Does he want to eat it?…
I must say… Listverse is kicking ass the past few days! Rock on with your bad self, Jamie
Even as a little kid, I thought the Disney movies were lame. You always knew how it would end. I don’t think I’ll be reading these versions to my little ones! Maybe when they are older
When I was growing up, we had a very old fairy tale book. I remember a story about a girl’s finger being cut off because the robbers couldn’t get her ring off. Anyone know what it might be?
I’ve actually heard of all of them except the Girl Without Hands. I’ve even heard most of the original endings! I have to ask, what the hell was wrong with Hans Christian Andersen?! Here’s a guy who has cool ideas for stories, then tears the readers’ hearts out at the end. The Little Match Girl freezes to death, the Little Mermaid dies miserably, the toy soldier melts in the fire. Somebody wasn’t held enough as a baby or something!
wicked list
Awesome list once again Jamie! I absolutely love the Disney-fied versions (sorry Randall!) but the darker side of me really likes the gruesome “original” versions as well. I bought a book of “The Original Grimm’s Fairy Tales” or something a few years ago, and read through some of it, but not all, and now it’s packed up in a box somewhere, I’ll have to find it.
@ Copperdragon’s comment way back near the top- The book “Wicked” by Gregory Maguire and the musical adapted from that book are both amazing. Your question “What do you think of the book & play…” can’t be answered together though, since the two are so incredibly different from one another. I’ve read the book once, seen the musical twice in San Francisco, and have the soundtrack on my ipod. The play is more upbeat, fun & silly at times, cheerful, with a happy ending believe it or not! The book is more disturbing & morbid. Again, both amazing.
Gregory Maguire has actually written a few books that are a different perspective or different version of well-known stories. There is a sequel to Wicked called Son of a Witch, then there’s Mirror, Mirror (based on Snow White), and Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister (based on Cinderella of course). He’s got some other books out as well, but these are the only ones I’ve read.
Great list. “Grimm’s Grimmest” might be one of the books some people have been referring to. Morbid, awesome stuff.
http://www.amazon.com/Grimms-Grimmest-Wilhelm-Grimm/dp/0811850463
JFrater, as a possible future list you could do all the different versions of worldwide Cinderella stories. I’m a big fan of fairy tales, especially Cinderella, are there are just so many.
The story of Vasilissa the Beautiful and Baba Yaga, from Russia, with her talking doll.
Catskinella, a story told in the black communities of the 19th century, about a girl who in trying to get out of a marriage she does not want, asks for a dress made from the skin of a single cat.
The Chinese version about the beautiful Yeh-Shen, who has no fairy godmother, but the bones of her only friend, a magic fish.
The story of the Many Furred Creature, where the kings daughter refuses to be married except to the someone she cares for, so she blackens her face with soot, and works in the kitchens, only to come out to three balls in her three dresses, one like the moon, one like the stars, and one like the sun.
There are many different versions of that one including Allerleirauh, Northvegr, and in a way Catskinella, which I mentioned above.
The african story of Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters, about two sisters, one sweet and kind, the other mean and selfish who are called before the king for him to marry one of them.
Or the story of Nomi and the Magic Fish, a Zulu girl starved by her stepmother, is given food by a magical fish. The stepmother finds out, and kills the fish. The bones of the fish tell her to throw them into the chiefs garden, who promptly decrees that he will marry the girl who can pick them up. Nomi is the only one who can.
Or of Rhodopis, a story written by Strabo two thousand years ago. An eagle steals her sandal and drops it in the lap of the king, who thinks it’s beautiful and decides to marry the owner.
And there is the story Benizara and Kakezara of the Japanese girl who uses magic and her brains to win over a noblemans heart, not only with her beauty but also her superb poetry.
Even the story of the Indian boy who cares for a cow after his father dies and brother leaves, and is rewarded with beautiful golden hair, of which a princess finds a strand of and searches to marry him, in How the Cowherd Found a Bride.
I’m sure you can find many more, but they are all pretty fantastic, and I would love to see a compilation of them
Also, loved this list. So much.
This is a great list, however, I think the actual origins (when known) should be cited for all of them and the descriptions could be a bit more accurate rather than just a cut and paste from a wikipedia article.
It doesn’t look like anyone’s mentioned the story of Rapunzel yet – I can’t remember the details, but it involves a prince being blinded by thorns and Rapunzel being banished to the desert while pregnant. Pretty *****ed up.
Also, instead of watching the musical Wicked, which is decent but not quite brilliant, the musical Into the Woods by Sondheim interweaves many of the original fairytales as an allegory for the complexities of the human condition.
Idreno: there is not a single line copied and pasted from wikipedia in this article – it is completely original. But thanks for presuming the worst – always a pleasant trait in a person.
Randall- i looked at your post at i think #72 and i gotta say, that is one of the best explanations for why something is the way it is on the site. in this case, why the storys have been so watered down. good job even though i understood maybe 75 to 80% of the words you used. good job.
I haven’t been on this site for some time now, and gosh how I’ve missed it. Jfrater, this is now one of my favorite lists, I really enjoyed it. My grandma died on Sunday so I need to escape my thoughts and this helped. Thanks.
warningdontreadthis: welcome back! I am sorry to hear about your grandmother – you have my condolences.
jfrater- victoria on 141 has a good idea for a list
oh wow . . this is why i love this site
. . haha so gruesome i love it!
Thank you, just keep making great lists and I’m sure to make it
Warningdontreadthis: Welcome back and I to am sorry for your loss.
Last time I visited this list(about 24 hrs ago) there were only 9 entries, glad to see you found a tenth!
Wow, great list I’m always fond of your rather morbid lists!:D In retrospect it’s a little frightening that since I wa just a little boy my mother always told me the gruesome version of Cinderella…No wonder I didn’t understand a thing when I saw the disney movie for the first time:P
Re: the fur vs. glass slipper in Cinderella, (106.evacreek) I always heard that the ‘fur slipper’ was a euphemism… ?
I heard that her glass slippers were actually squirrel fur slippers.
From out of the ten listed, I knew 8.
(the exceptions are Rumpeltstiltskin and The Handless Girl)
Hungarian cartoon films are several times better than any of the Disney productions.
I recommend you them.
Wow this is awesome!!
I didn’t know anything bout this!!!
how about Shrek (the original book and the first movie)
Great mashup of fairytale creatures and stories. Definitely designed for adults.
ligeia – I don´t know if anyone has mentioned this book, but I found it a flea market. It´s called ´The Classic Fairy Tales´ by Iona and Peter Opie. It´s awesome. It has most of the above tales plus histories of the stories. The original tales are written in the english language of the time, which is also fascinating.
Great list!
anybody watch “Pan’s Labyrinth”? not exactly a Grimm’s Fairy Tale, but a modern, adult fairy tale anyways. What I loved best about this movie is that it shows the world of a child’ imagination… being used to overcome the hardships & uncertainties, cruelties and fear of normal life during war…
rtr
p.s. I can remember a Japanese fairy tale I read years ago about ‘fox maidens’, or women who are fox spirits by day and beautiful maidens by night…that seduced young men…stole their souls & strength… i think they are called kitsune…
cass: thanks! that sounds perfect, I’ll have to order it in my local bookshop.
ringtailroxy: I love that film, the end always brings a tear to my eye, its so sad, but also happy.
This entry has been stolen and used in the Scottish Newspaper ‘The Daily Record’ today, 7th January on page 8 and online at http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/entertainment/entertainment-catch-all/2009/01/07/, without an ounce of credit being giving to the author or this site.
I encourage everyone to email the person who has stole this and claimed it as their own at b.mciver@dailyrecord.co.u and register your disgust.
(163)
The products of Listverse are worth to steal
it’s a kind of acknowledgement…
Wow, thats pretty creepy, espacially Sleeping Beauty and Hansel and Gretel!
Although, I must say, I have never even heard of The girl without hands…..
*especially. (I CAN spell, I swear)
I had a yellow book once called Grimms Faerie tales… alot of the tales in their are more along the lines of the original, I remember the cinderella oneand such. Though the one I remember the most was blue light about an old soldier who smokes a magic pipe. He gets thrown in prison and on the day of his execution he asks for one last puff and the whole town is slaughtered….some scaryness.
119. lo:…http://www.holycow.com/dreamin…..ass-apples…
****
If that isn’t one of the more macabre and gruesome tales I’ve ever read, I don’t know what is!
Thank you for a truly interesting, and twisted, story.
The easiest way to avoid identity theft on a forum is to not allow anonymous postings. Only registered users can post and then Randall’s posts are ALWAYS Randall, unless his wife figures out his sign-in password and posts for him. It also stops most immature postings that do nothing but insult. For those registrants who do abuse the posting system, you ban their IP number.
Most forums on the web are handled this way.
Skydiver: Jamie has been pretty adamant in the past about allowing people to post without registering, it has allowed tons of people to post who otherwise wouldn’t have bothered registering. Some of these people post once or twice on a list, never to return, some end up registering & becoming “regulars.”
They do have the ability to do an IP ban, even without us being registered. It has been done before.
ueah, how embarrassing, don’t know if it was a senior moment or a simple brain fart, but I did mean to say Into the Woods, not Wicked. Thank you Callie.
And “fur slipper” might,indeed, be a euphemism for,um,something else furry. That appeals to my admittedly dirty mind, and conjures images of Walt Disney rotating like a top!
If anyone enjoyed reading these you should consider purchasing the Grimms Fairytales book… It is filled with many of the popular fairy tales (like Cinderella) which were originally written by the Grimm brothers. Might I add that some stories are pretty gruesome! BUT TOTALLY AWESOME
My mom used to read them to me when I was little… haha
Okay, so two of my most remembered fairy tales aren’t even mentioned. “Bluebeard” is the story of a man who gets married and then skins and eats his wives, or tortures them in some other way. When his latest wife finds out, she manages to escape with help from her family. Although I think there is a version where Bluebeard eats her too. In “King Thrushbeard” a princess refuses all her suitors because there is something wrong with them, even if it’s completely arbitrary, like not liking a guy’s facial hair. Finally her daddy gets fed up and commands her to marry the next man who walks through the door. It’s a peasant, and once they’re married and happily installed in his shack, he sets about some pretty horrendous physical and mental abuse, all on the premise of teaching her a lesson. Of course, in the end, it turns out that she’s married the guy who’s facial hair she didn’t like
Another that I remember was “Faithful John”, where the king’s faithful servant, John, saves the king’s life twice and the life of the queen once. What does he get for his trouble? He gets turned into stone. Well, somehow, his statue gets anthropomophized, and he tells the king that if he would like to get his old Faithful John back, all he has to do is cut his twin boys in half and smear the blood on he statue. And what does the king do? Cuts his boys in half and smears the blood on the statue, of course. As if that wasn’t enough, John (who apparently has magic powers now) ressurects the children, but says that now they must test the wife. So they stick the kids in a trunk and torture the wife when she comes home by telling her that the king killed his sons to bring back John. And the wife says, “Oh, that’s nice. Good to see you John, hope you’ve been well. Can I see my kid’s bodies now?” So then they tell her that it was a test and that she got it right and the kids are shown to her (still in the trunk) and does that seem wrong to anyone else?
Also, to the poster who asked about the girl who gets her finger cut off–I think you’re referring to eiher “The Seven Swans” or “The Seven Ravens”, which are pretty much the same story. It’s about a sister living with her seven brothers in a hut in the woods, and while they’re out, some robbers come in and try to rob them. Either she hides, or the ring she’s wearing makes her invisible, or something, but in anycase, the robbers don’t see her. And for some reason, the robbers have a witch with them. So when the brothers get home, they get turned into the birds of the title, and now the sister has to find a way to save them. She does, and I don’t remember all the details, it’s been a while, but eventually, in order to get into heaven and get their cure, she has to cut off the finger with the ring on it to use as a key. Which doesn’t quite make sense, why can’t she just stick her finger in the lock still attatched to her body? But whatever.
I remember reading a snow white picture book-all the characters were dogs and in the end the queen was made to dance on hot coals until she died! Good, wholesome, traumatizing times!
168. segue-
i’m so glad you liked gaiman’s “snow, glass, apples.” i have the book and was so pleased to find it legitimately posted online.
it’s such a haunting interpretation of “snow white” (shivers, thinking about it)
here’s the link again, if anyone wants it without scrolling up.
http://www.holycow.com/dreaming/stories/snow-glass-apples
(and i DO realize that it coming up abbreviated “dreamin…….ass-apples…” is pretty fantastic
)
In psychology and psychiatry it is a common place that childhood traumas can ruin one’s personality for his entire life.
The “moral” of these stories are the moral of the Middle Ages!
While stationed in Germany, I was able to follow most of the fairy tale trail.
It was quite worthwhile.
http://www.germany-tourism.de/ENG/destination_germany/master_tlfstrasse-id14.htm?cc_lang=
I wanna see sources.
*edited due to excessive use of capitalization in violation of FAQ*
hey i think there may also be some truth behind the pied piper of hamelin if you research about the childrens crusades. sounds like it could be a similar story. also read sylvia by bryce courtney i know its only a story but it gives you a different perspective!