The Original Versions Of Classic Fairy Tales Are Actually Horrifying (Photos)
Most of the fairy tales we now know started out as stories Germans told each other in the 17th and 18th centuries, and we can learn a lot about how things were back then by reading them.
One big thing they teach us, for example, is German people then were huge creeps who loved to terrify their children.
Seriously, the original versions of classic fairy tales sound like they were written by Jack The Ripper while high on mushrooms.
Reading these fairy tales and deciding, "Hey, you know what? This would totally make a great Disney movie," is like reading about a serial killer who turns his victims into human marionettes and deciding to make a new line of Barbies based on that.
I don't want to give too much away before I get started, but let me just say OVER HALF of these involve cannibalism.
Enjoy!!!
Cinderella
More appropriate title: "Cinderella and Her Gang Of Flying Murder Pokémon"
Original plot: In the Brothers Grimm version of this classic childhood staple, there is a lot less musical theater and A LOT more blood and terror and bird violence.
In their version, Cinderella's stepsisters mutilate their feet in a desperate attempt to fit into the heteronormative glass slipper: One of them straight up chops her toes off, the other slices off her heel.
And does the gore stop there? I'm glad you asked. No, it does not stop there.
Remember how in the Disney version, Cinderella gets a bunch of chill birds to help her make a dress? Well, they're in the original version too -- except this time, instead of having them help her with her going-out outfit, she gets them to pluck out her step sisters' eyeballs.
Yeah, that's how this CHILDREN'S STORY ends. BIRD BLINDING.
Moral of the story: If someone can control birds, don't f*cking make them do chores.
The Three Little Pigs
More appropriate title: "How Everyone I know Got Killed"
Original Plot: The one main difference between the story we all know and the original version is that the wolf eats the two pigs who built those sh*tty houses. The third pig is left to live alone in his brick fortress with only the memories of his fallen companions to keep him company.
Moral of the story: If you don't have opposable thumbs, don't build your own house.
Sleeping Beauty
More appropriate title: "How Not To Teach Kids About Consent"
Original plot: In the early version of this story, Sleeping Beauty goes into a deathlike sleep after getting a splinter in her finger. Then some sh*tty king finds her and rapes her.
Then he leaves to go be king somewhere and she gives birth to his twins, while still asleep. One of the twins sucks on her finger and the splinter comes out and she's like "Oh, I have kids now. Great."
Later, the king comes back and they fall in love (because a f*cking guy wrote this). This pisses off his sh*tty queen, who tries to feed the king the twins and burn sleeping beauty alive -- but the king finds out about that and burns the queen alive instead.
Then everyone lives happily ever after.
Moral of the story: Violence.
The Frog Prince
More appropriate title: "Love Hurts (A Lot)"
Original Plot: OK, so remember how in order to turn the frog into a prince, the lady in the fairy tale has to kiss it (which is like a metaphor for taking a leap of faith or something)? Well, originally the rules were a little different. In earlier versions, instead of kissing it, she has to either smash it to death against a wall or, you know, very romantically cut its head off.
Moral of the story: If you want to find the man of your dreams, torture and kill all animals.
Little Red Riding Hood
More appropriate title: "Sex is Death"
Original Plot: As if "Little Red Riding Hood" needed to get any weirder, in the earlier versions, there are a few key differences.
First of all, when Little Red Riding Hood arrives at her grandmother's house, the wolf has already murdered the grandmother and serves her sliced-up corpse to LRRH for a delightful meal washed down with a bottle of wine laced with g-ma blood.
Oh, and in these versions she strips naked and burns her clothes before she gets mauled to death. The end.
Moral of the story: The only way to be less subtle with this moral is if, instead of telling them a story, people just tattooed all little kids' foreheads with the words "DON'T F*CK." That, or made them read "Twilight," which has basically the same premise.
Hansel and Gretel
More appropriate title: "Hungry Orphans Get F*cked Over Again"
Original Plot: A story about two kids who find a house made of candy with a witch who wants to fatten them up (Kobe beef style) before cannibalizing them -- which ends with them pushing her into her own oven -- can't really get any crazier or more grizzly. But, some historical context can help out.
Historians think the story was written as a response to the famine in Europe during the 14th century, when lots of parents abandoned their children and left them to starve to death.
This sheds a particularly depressing light on the whole "House Made Of Candy" and "Trail of Bread Crumbs" thing.
Yeah, you can go ahead and start crying now.
Moral of the Story: Don't abandon your kids, Europe.
Rumpelstiltskin
More appropriate title: "Men Are Weird Sometimes"
Original plot: In the Brothers Grimm version of this weirdo story, a miller makes a deal with the king, saying his daughter can weave straw into gold. The king is then like, "Sure, I'll take that deal. But if she can't do it, I get to kill her."
To which the miller is like, "Word, that seems reasonable."
Anyway, the miller's daughter then makes a deal of her own with an imp named Rumpelstiltskin, who will turn the straw into gold for her if she gives him her firstborn child.
But when she finally gives birth to the child and Rumpy shows up to take it, she's like "No you can't have my kid, you f*cking creep."
So Rumpy says fine he'll let her keep her child (cause, you know, he's a nice guy) if she can just guess his name.
When she guesses it correctly, Rumpelstiltskin gets so mad that he stomps his foot straight through the ground and, when he tries to pull it out, he rips himself in half.
THE END.
Moral of the story: Anger management.
Snow White
Original plot: In the Brothers Grimm iteration of the tale, the queen doesn't just try to kill Snow White -- no, that'd be way too boring for 18th century German people. Instead, she enlists a huntsman to CUT OUT SNOW WHITE'S LIVER AND HEART SO SHE CAN EAT THEM.
Apparently eating someone's organs is really good for getting rid of upper arm fat.
And the insanity doesn't end there.
Apart from the fact that at one point a prince tries to CARRY AWAY a comatose Snow White (Seriously, what the f*ck is wrong with 18th century German people?), the story ends with her waking up, marrying the prince who was going to rape her (second time this happened in one of these BTW), and then making the queen (who politely shows up at the wedding) put on a pair of burning hot iron shoes and DANCE HERSELF TO DEATH.
OK, competition over, that is officially the most metal way to die.
Moral of the story: Girls love it when guys want to kidnap them?
