Top 10 Origins of Disturbing Tales

Throughout history, fairy tales and fables have shown us more about our society (past and present) than we would like to imagine. The Top 10 Origins of Disturbing  Fairy Tales point out some bizarre and gruesome stories that have changed how we look at things.
Many of these classic tales have been gentrified to allow modern society to cope with some of the macabre themes that are the underlying messages that many of us encounter daily and perhaps unconsciously give us direction. But, unfortunately, not everyone “lives happily ever after.”
Here we take a look at some of the common origins of disturbing fairy tales throughout history.
Some readers may find the content disturbing.

Cinderella

In the current and most well-known and modern version of the Cinderella fairy tale. The beautiful Cinderella is swept off her feet by the prince and her wicked step-sisters marrying two lords and “everyone living happily ever after.” From what we know, the tale’s origins go way back to the 1st century BC, where Strabo’s heroine was called Rhodopis, not Cinderella. However, the story was similar to the modern one, except for the glass slippers and pumpkin coach. The Grimm brothers painted a few more horrific versions of this classic tale. Here, the nasty step-sisters cut off parts of their own feet to fit them into the glass slipper. The prince is alerted to the trickery and summons two pigeons, pecking out the step-sister’s eyes. The two sisters are now blind beggars, destined to a life of poverty and anger. While Cinderella is living a lavish life. “Happily Ever after.”

The Little Mermaid

The Disney version of the littles Mermaid was very successful at the box office. However, this is not the version that Hans Christian Andersen penned initially. The most recent movie version ends with Ariel, the Mermaid, being changed into a human, and marries Eric, the prince. An event is a massive event attended by humans and merpeople. Yet, in the original versions, Ariel sees the prince marrying a princess and is so distraught that she attempts to stab and kill her in a fit of rage and jealousy. However, with a change of heart, she throws herself into the sea. There she dies churning in the angry ocean.

Hans Christian Andersen created a modified version to this ending, making it a little more palatable. Instead of dying in the foam of the angry sea. She becomes the daughter of the air and is waiting to take her place in heaven. Either way, there is no wedding, and she is dead waiting for access to Saint Peter’s gate.

Hansel and Gretel

In what is believed to be the Bavarian version of this very well-known and grim tale. We hear of two young children, Hansel and Gretel, who become lost in the forest. Lost in the woods, they come upon a gingerbread house belonging to a wicked old witch. The children are enslaved by the witch and forced to eat (fattening them up) as she prepares them for eating. However, they confuse the old crone while heading to the oven, sending her fate for the children. 

There is an earlier French version of essentially the same story called “the Lost Children.” No longer do we have a witch. The devil has replaced it. Here the children tricked the devil (very similar to Hansel and Gretel), but the devil is very cunning and works out their plan in advance. He tries placing one of the children on a sawhorse to bleed out. Pretending not to know how to get on a sawhorse, the devil’s wife demonstrates this for them. While she is lying down, one of the children grabs a large knife and slashes her throat and makes their escape.

The Pied Piper

In the well-known tale of the Pied Piper, a man arrives dressed in clothes of pied (a patchwork of colours) and agrees to rid the village which rats have overrun. The villagers decide to pay the Piper a large sum of money to rid the town of these vermin- which he does. Pulling out his pipe from under his jacket, he plays a shrill tune and draws the rats out of town, conquering them. Upon his return, seeking payment, the villagers decide that they will not pay the Piper for his duties. 

Angered and stoic, The Piper once again removes his pipe, this time enchanting all of the village children and leading them to out of time where they stay until the townspeople agree to the Piper’s demand, and he then returns the children to their families. In the original darker versions of this tale, the Piper leads the children to a river where he leads them to their death as they drown in the fast-moving river. All the village children drowned except the lame boy who could not keep up and fell on the route. Thus the literary adage “that we must all pay the piper.” Recently some modern members of academia believe that there are connotations of pedophilia in this fairy tale.

Rapunzel

Rapunzel is one of the most famous German fables and the subject of much fascination. The idiom ‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair is becoming all too memorable. In the Grimm version, the happy couple, however, had to endure many more than is initially apparent. They were only reunited after Rapunzel had been cast out into the wilderness by the angry witch. Pregnant and alone, the prince was blinded after falling from the tower and into the thorny brambles below.

Another, the even older version was written in 1600 by an Italian writer named Giambattista Basile. In this version, Rapunzel is sold to an ogre when she was a baby. As a penalty for stealing parsley from a garden. Later, the witch took her first-born child from her. For the rest of her life, she remained locked in the tower. However, the original true story that inspired all of these fairy tale versions is the darkest one of all. Instead of an evil witch locking a beautiful girl in a tower, the captor was the girl’s father, who was so controlling over his daughter’s life that it led to her death.

Anyone know a parent like that? Read more of Top 10 Origins of Disturbing Tales.

Little Red Riding Hood

The contemporary version of this tale, which many of us are most acquainted with, ends with the woodman breaking into grandma’s house and slaughtering the wolf with massive blows of his axe. However, the original French version (by Charles Perrault) has a much more dire ending. Red Riding Hood is no little girl but a young lady bred of distinction in this version. The young lady accepts the wrong directions from the wolf and follows these instructions to Grandma’s house. Foolishly, Red Riding Hood falls into the wolf’s trap and is ravished and eventually eaten. There is no mention of the woodsman or the grandmother—just a metaphoric wolf and a dead Red Riding Hood. Left with the lesson that we should never speak to strangers.

Rumpelstiltskin

Unlike many fairy tales, the author initially tried to make this one much more gruesome than was originally intended. As we know from the original account, Rumpelstiltskin spins straw into gold for a young girl who faces death unless she can duplicate the process. In return, Rumpelstiltskin asks for her first-born child. She agrees, but when it comes time to turn over her first and only child, she can’t do it and renege on their agreement. Rumpelstiltskin, very upset by this, tells her that he will let her out of the contract if she can guess his name. Otherwise, he will take the child by force. For many nights he would dance around the fire, singing his name to himself. Finally, she overhears him and guesses that his name must be Rumpelstiltskin. Furious, he runs away, and he is never seen again.

I am sure that sounds very familiar to many people. Still, the author thought that to be a little tame, so he added this added attraction. Rumpelstiltskin, angered, does not run off as previously thought. Instead, Rumpelstiltskin drives his right foot into the ground, grabs his left leg and rips himself in half. Only the bisected remains stain the cobbled road.

This truly another of the Top 10 Origins of Disturbing Tales.

Sleeping Beauty

While most of us know Sleeping Beauty’s story, the lovely princess pricks her finger on a spindle and puts her to sleep. A prince kisses her one hundred years later, with the curse broken, she awakens. Soon after, they get married and have children and “live happily ever after.” We have to admit that this sounds very enchanting, but is that what the author intended? Unfortunately, as with many modern takes on these age-old fables, the true story is much more difficult, if not bizarre, to comprehend.

In the original- you are not going to believe any of this, so please read on. The young woman sleeps for a hundred years because of a prophecy rather than a curse. A king riding through the forest comes upon Sleeping Beauty and takes it upon himself to preside over as property. Nine months pass, the young woman gives birth to two children, all while still asleep. One of the children sucks her finger, which removes a piece of flax that has kept her asleep. Waking up, she finds herself defiled and the mother of two children. No Prince, no kiss, but now with two children. “No, happily ever after.”

 Snow White

A well-known tale that has been told many times. For the most part, it has been left untouched from the original story. As we all know, the Queen asks a huntsman to kill her and bring her heart back as proof of her death. The huntsman, captivated by the sleeping beauty, can not bring himself to murder the young woman and brings back the heat of a wild boar as proof of her death.

However, the Queen requested that her liver and lungs be served as the evening meal in the original script. We believe that the prince wakes Snowwhite with an enchanted kiss. However, according to the original story, Snow White wakes when the prince’s horse jostles her as he carries her back to his castle. Not to be forgotten is that in the Grimms version, the tale ends with the Queen dancing to her death in red hot iron shoes!

“All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.”

-Edgar Allan Poe.

The Top 10 Origins of Disturbing Tales  stories mentioned above have gone through many revisions throughout history, and I contend that they will continue to do so. The Three bears now to sell toilet paper-I don’t remember that part in the fable. These origins reach deep within our consciousness and offer a new conclusion each time we read them.

Do any of these stories offer you insight into your psyche? Are they relatable today, and do you see them from a new perspective? Will you recant the sanitized or the macabre versions the next time you speak of them?
Whatever decision you make, we would like to know. So please leave your comments in the box below.

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