Fairy tales?

Question

I've heard a few years ago that the 'true' fairy tales are pretty disturbing, that some don't have happy endings and usually put some details which make the story disturbing. Is this true at all?

I've heard a few years ago that the 'true' fairy tales are pretty disturbing, that some don't have happy endings and usually put some details which make the story disturbing. Is this true at all? If this is true, is there ANY way to read the versions at all?

Answer 1

It is very true. They were "niced" up for children consumption.

Answer 2

True fairy tales? Hmm...

If you mean the original stories, not those made safer for child consumption by Disney and the like, then yes, they are much more disturbing and often had no happy endings. Try reading "The Little Mermaid," for example. I think many of the stories probably came from real life experiences, but became strange allegorical tales over the years, finally written down in an even different version, only now to be turned into movies with "happily ever after" endings. Lovely, but not the whole truth by a long shot. In fact, Cinderella probably originally was arrested and imprisoned, sold into slavery, or even executed for impersonating nobility. For one example of changes in stories, read the poem at this site: http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/5082/mulanpoem.html. Then watch the Disney movie, Mulan. See the differences?

If you mean current true fairy tales, like "fairy tale weddings" and people finding their perfect match, and orphaned kids adopted by wonderful families and the like, then you might as well know it is a toss-up. Sometimes they live happily ever after, sometimes not. But these contemporary events may be the fodder for our future fairy tales that will be changed as the old ones, year after year, until even those the tale happened to would not recognize their life in it!

Answer 3

Your's is such a good question. Yes - the fairy tales of today have been "sweetened up" so that they don't frighten children. The original tales were told sort of like morality talks -cautionary tales about what happens when people do not stick to the "Norm".

If you want to read some original tales - Read Grimm's fairy tales, but then go further - read fairy tales from other countries - that will really freak you out then. Very entertaining - especially the Norse and Celtic fairy tales.

Answer 4

I have a book entitled, "The World's Best Fairy Tales" that you would probably like to read. it was copywrighted in 1967 by Reader's Digest. It has all the commonly known fairy tales of today ('Snow White, 'The Little Mermaid,' 'Puss In Boots,' Tom Thumb', 'Thumbelina,' 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,' etc) as well as a lot of the ones that are all but forgotten (like, 'The Goose Girl,' The Shoemaker and the Elves,' 'The Colony of Cats,' Hansel and Gretel,' etc).

And, yes, the fairy tales don't end as they are commonly thought to today. The originals, like in the book I mentioned, are much much more graphic then the versions told today. All of them, even most of them, don't have happy endings. In Hansel and Gretel the children shove the old woman into the stove and lock it's door, in LIttle Red Riding Hood, the woodsmen has to cut his way out of the wolf, the list goes on. No wonder the children from years ago where scared!

Answer 5

Yes. The oriiginal 'fairy tale' concept from The Brothers Grimm have "dark" themes, with wicked and twisted plots and sinister characters.

In modern times, some novelists have been taken with the irony and have revisited the idea. For example, I've heard that the fairly mainstream novelist Anne Rice had some titles under a pseudonym - including a 'modern fairy tale' of (I think) Snow White...

Racy stuff, from what I hear! And, not for children.

Answer 6

Alot of the Disney fairy tales are based on the Grimm fairy tales which are pretty disturbing for young children.

Answer 7

most fairy tales as we know them today have been changed just so the endings are happier
they were orginally warnings little children were supposed to mind or they could get killed
in little red riding hood the warning is to never go off the beaten path because dangers lie off the rode
if u r wondering hood is killed at the end of the real story

Answer 8

Most original fairy tales were really grim. A good graphic novel that has a good collection is the "Big Book of Grimm". You can find it at most comic shops.

Answer 9

It's all true. It also works for nursery rhymes. For instance, "Ring around the Rosies" is actually about a fatal disease that was supposed to be cured by flowers. So in it, everyone gathers around the "rosies" for flowers, and in the end, everyone "dies." Scary that children unknowingly learn that. Reminds me of a good book, but that's another topic, and I try to refrain from spam.

Answer 10

Oh yes. Snow WEhite has the evil Queen daning at her wedding until she dies.

Sleeping Beauty is even worse and Cinderella and the glass slipper....Disney could never make THOSe stories!

Answer 11

Very true. eg. Little Red Ridding Hood is about rape. Hence the symbolism of the hood being the girls virginity. In the original there is no Woodsman...