So I'm sure some of you know this, but some of you may not, so I want to mention it here. Many of our favorite Disney fairy tales were actually inspired by The Brothers Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm, who were from Hanau, Germany. They wrote tales of fantasy and published many of their most famous ones in their book Children's and Household Tales in 1812 and volume II of the book in 1815. This books included many of our still-favorites today, such as Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and over 200 other tales.
What most people don't realize, though, is that what we saw on our Disney VHS tapes as toddlers and young children has been highly modified from the original versions, and I don't mean it's English instead of German.
The Grimm Brothers were known for being, well, grim. Rapunzel? She was taken into the woods and beaten by the sorceress, who cut off her hair and, when the prince came to the tower, told him his love was gone forever. He threw himself off, landed in thorns which poked out his eyes, and wandered in the woods for years before he found Rapunzel there. Only then did they live happily ever after when she cried tears into his eyes, which became whole again, and they went back into the kingdom together. Disney definitely left out the whole suicide attempt, eye-gouging thing from Tangled.
Then there's Little Red Cap, or Red Riding Hood, as we know her, whose grandmother was eaten by the wolf who put on her clothes as a disguise. Red was eaten too, don't you know, and when the hunter came along, he cut them both out of the wolf's belly. Somehow they miraculously survived... And then filled the wolf's stomach with stones and sewed it up, so he was too heavy to run away and died immediately. No idea how he wasn't dead already, but the huntsman must've been an excellent surgeon.
Cinderella's stepsisters cut off pieces of their feet to fit into her golden slipper. Then at the end, pigeons pecked their eyes out.
The evil queen ate the pig's lungs and liver that the hunter told her were Snow White's organs. And there was no true love's kiss, either. The prince's men stumbled when carrying Snow White's coffin, which dislodged the piece of poison apple from her throat and she woke up. I find that kind of funny.
You can read the original versions of many of Grimm's fairy tales here.
And, just to throw this in here, I will be working on a story about Germany's "Fairy Tale Road" in March, which traces The Brothers Grimm's footsteps through Germany and stops at many places they were inspired by for their tales. Sleeping Beauty Castle and Rapunzel's Tower are just a couple of places I will be visiting during spring break and the following week as I go with Alpine Living to gather all the info for our magazine. I'll be sure to post pics and such on the blog of this fantastic journey!
6 comments:
Its actually quite amusing that so many things from childhood are in reality really really dark stories.
Like "ring around the rosey" and "london bridge is falling down".
I wonder why do we tell our children terrible tales in such a light hearted fashion?
I love this kind of stuff! We had to read Grimm's Fairytales for my history class and I really wish that someone would put out movies based on the actual stories and not child-proof them. I know I'll probably read the real things to my kids, because I think they illustrate the greater points of how awful greed and jealousy can make people.
I'm sure some of you have seen the trailers and whatnot for the new Red Riding Hood movie. While not particularly true to either the original or the Disney adaptation, it certainly takes the fairy tale to a dark, adult level.
It's always interesting to examine fairytales now. If I recall correctly, they weren't originally tales for children--just they've come to be associated with children more over the years.
I've had my eye on a Brothers Grimm anthology at Books-A-Million a couple of times now, and I hope to pick it up soon. I've read all of the originals of Hans Christian Andersen's fairytales (in an edition that came with images of Andersen's papercuts, which are an interesting and little-known element by themselves) (I wish I could remember who the translator was) and they're written in much the same tone as the original Grimm tales. For example, he wrote The Little Mermaid--in the original, the prince leaves her for another princess, and she is told that unless she goes and murders the prince and his bride in their sleep she will die. But she loves him so much that she jumps into the sea and turns into foam (a death for mermaids implying no existing eternal soul)... but because she was so good she ends up going to Heaven. A lot different from the Mermaid we know. ^^
But that is SO COOL about you going to Germany to do that. I can't wait to hear about it!
We had to read Grimm tales in middle school. Now that I'm older, I obviously think the original version was better. In response to a previous comment about making more accurate movies, they did. It's called The Brothers Grimm (2005 Heath Ledger Matt Damon). Not the best movie out there, but it's more or less based on the original Rapunzel story with minor tweeks for theatricality.
They were originally for children. Thus the title of their collection, Children's and Household Tales.
The Brothers Grimm movie is entertaining, at least :]
I just find it really interesting how the stories told to children have become less about scaring them into being good kids and more about not exposing them to anything which might influence them to be bad, if that makes sense... Honestly I feel like the first method would be more productive. Thoughts on this?
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