Top 10 Shocking Origins Of Popular Fairy-Tales

We all loved fairytales when we were younger and watched the Disney movies thousands of times. However, what most people don’t know is that the endings of most of them were changed because the original ones were too gruesome and twisted.

 

1. The Pied Piper

The Pied Piper we know of enters a town and successfully removes all the rats with the help of his music. When the villagers refuse to pay him, he tells them that he will remove the children from the town as well! This is when the villagers agree and he allows the children to leave the cave. In the original, the Pied Piper drowns all the children.

 

2. Little Red Riding Hood

We all know that Red Riding Hood gets rescued by a woodsman who single-handedly gets rid of the wolf. In the original tale, Red Riding Hood gets eaten by the wolf.

 

3. The Little Mermaid

In the version we know of, Ariel transforms into a human and gives up her tail to marry Eric and their wedding is magical. However, in the original version, Ariel is depressed after the Prince gets married to a beautiful princess. Somebody gives her a knife with which she is meant to kill the prince but because she can’t bring herself to do it, she jumps into the water. She turns to foam and dies.

 

4. Snow White

In the modern version, the Queen asks for Snow White’s heart which the huntsman is supposed to deliver after he kills her. In the original version, the Queen asks for her lungs and liver which she plans to eat for dinner.

 

5. Sleeping Beauty

Sleeping Beauty falls asleep for a 100 years after a curse is put on her and the prince wakes her up by kissing her. In the original version, the young lady is raped by the king after which she gives birth to two children and yes, she is asleep the whole time.

 

6. Rumpelstiltskin

In the modern version Rumpelstiltskin has to turn the straw into gold so that a young girl can face up to a challenge. She is meant to pay him back by giving him her child which she cannot do in the end. Rumpelstiltskin tells her that he will leave her alone if she guesses his name and he does. In the original version, he gets so mad that he tears off his legs from his body.

 

7. Goldilocks and the Three Bears

We all know that Goldilocks runs out of the window when the bears come back home and catch her sleeping. In the original version, she isn’t as lucky and the bears eat her up.

 

8. Hansel and Gretel

Instead of a witch, the original version featured a devil who wants to eat the two children. He figures out their plans and creates a sawhorse which one of the children is supposed to get on top of and bleed to death. The wife shows them how and that is when Hansel and Gretel cut her throat and run away.

 

9. The Girl Without Hands

In the revised version, the girl gives up her hands to save her fathers life and in the original version, she does the same but her motive is to keep her incestuous brother away by making herself unappealing.

 

10. Cinderella

In the original version of this fairytale, the two step-sisters want to fool the prince which is why they cut away a portion of their feet. The prince finds out and orders some pigeons to peck out their eyes.

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4 Responses

  1. zhorez

    about Little Red Riding Hood:
    in the eldest versions Little Red Riding Hood takes out a knife, cuts open the wolf’s stomach when it is asleep after having eaten the grandmother, places heavy stones inside the stomach, sews it back together and leaves. when the wolf wakes up, it is very thirsty, it goes out to the well to drink, but its stomach is so heavy that it falls into the well and drowns
    in another version (Hungarian i think)the wolf is an ogre, which eats Little Red Riding Hood and the grandmother. the morale: listen to your mother

    Reply
  2. Rafał

    Hello.
    Could anybody tell me where I can find the original versions of these fairytales?

    Reply
  3. Tuesday

    Actually these are just different countries versions. We just always hear the English versions, where the others were considered savage

    Reply

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