The Dark Origins of Fairy Tales, Part I

Podcast Transcript

Modern fairy tales often conclude with a protagonist achieving their dreams and a simple “happily ever after.”

This popular image, often promoted by studios like Disney for family-friendly consumption, only scratches the surface of these classic narratives.

In reality, many of these beloved stories boast far darker origins, featuring unsettling themes and grim endings that would be entirely unsuitable for children’s movies.

Learn about the true stories behind popular fairytales on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

Most people’s knowledge of fairy tales comes from popular media, especially movies, particularly Disney movies.

Disney’s goal isn’t to create an accurate telling of the original fairy tales. They just want to make something entertaining and family-friendly, and are willing to sacrifice the original text to achieve this.

As such, most people don’t really know the original stories. They only know the sanitized version that Disney has provided.

The goal of this episode is to explain the original story and how it differs from the Disney version.

It’s only fair to start with Walt Disney Studios’ first animated film, ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.’

The inspiration for Snow White comes from a collection of stories called Grimm’s Fairytales. This book was compiled by two German brothers, Wilhelm and Jakob Grimm, in 1812.

Many of the stories written by the Grimms do not originate with them; instead, they were passed down orally for generations. The Grimm brothers’ contribution was compiling these stories into a single book.

The original Snow White and the Disney version are among the more faithful adaptations, with the story following similar beats: the Evil Queen’s motives stay the same; she tries to kill Snow White; the princess eats a poisoned apple; and she eventually wakes and lives happily ever after.

However, there are a few key differences.

In both the film and Grimm’s fairy tales, the Queen wants to kill Snow White for being the fairest in the land. To do so, she hires a Huntsman to kill the young girl and bring back her organs.

In the movie, he is told to bring back a heart as proof of death. However, in the Brothers Grimm version, the desire for organs is more nefarious.

In the Grimm story, the Evil Queen wants the Huntsman to bring back Snow’s liver and lungs, not her heart. She wants the organs to consume them, believing this will give her Snow White’s youth and beauty. The organs the huntsman gives her are not human, but she eats them anyway, thinking they are.

Additionally, in the Grimm’s tale, the Evil Queen tries to murder Snow White three separate times. The first two attempts fail, and the third attempt to kill Snow White is with the apple, but her determination to kill Snow and the princesses is naively much more on display in the Grimm version.

Another major change between the Grimm and Disney versions of Snow White is the Evil Queen’s death.

In the Disney version, the dwarves find the sleeping Snow White and chase the Queen to a cliff. The Queen tries to drop a boulder on them, but lightning strikes the cliff. She falls to her death.

In the Grimm version, the queen lives far longer. In this version, Snow White is awakened by the Prince, who asks for her hand in marriage. She agrees, and the couple is to have a wedding.

Simultaneously, the Evil Queen asks her magic mirror who the fairest in the land is, and the mirror replies that the fairest is the Prince’s Bride.

The Evil Queen still thinks Snow is dead and goes to the wedding to see the new fairest person. She is shocked to find Snow White. Before she can act, hot iron shoes are put on her feet; she is forced to dance until she dies.

Many of the original elements of the Snow White story have the same rough theme as the movie. The Disney version makes the film more concise and kid-friendly by removing cannibalism and the Queen’s hideous death.

While Snow White largely follows its source, many other Disney tales diverge significantly to create magical, happy endings.

One example of a story that heavily deviates from the source material is ‘Sleeping Beauty.’

There were several versions of ‘Sleeping Beauty’ written before Disney made the film. The three most popular variants are written by Giambattista Basile, Charles Perrault, and the Brothers Grimm.

As Basile’s version of ‘Sleeping Beauty,’ known as “Sun, Moon, and Talia,” is believed to be the first published version of the fairytale, it will be our comparison to the Disney version.

Basile was born in Italy in 1566 and died in 1632; his sister published his works after his death. One of the posthumously published works was the original ‘Sleeping Beauty’, which appeared in a collection published in 1634.

In this version, the princess is named Talia. At Talia’s birth, a group of astronomers predicts that the princess will be put in danger from a “splinter of flax.” This results in the king removing all spinning materials from the kingdom.

In the 1959 Disney version, the princess is Aurora. At her birth, the fairy Maleficent curses her. On her 16th birthday, Aurora will prick her finger and fall into a deep sleep. Only true love’s kiss can break the spell. The king removes all spinning wheels from the kingdom.

In Basile’s tale, Talia visits an old woman spinning flax, tries it, and falls asleep after a splinter lodges under her nail. In Disney’s version, Aurora pricks her finger on a spindle and sleeps.

The stories split after the princesses fall asleep.

In Basile’s version, the king, who is distraught, leaves his daughter’s essentially lifeless body in a country manor and proceeds to abandon the home forever.

Years later, another king discovers the manor, finds the beautiful sleeping princess, and, after failing to wake her, rapes her before leaving.

Talia becomes pregnant from this encounter and gives birth to twins, Sun and Moon. Fairies put the children at her breast to feed. One twin accidentally sucks the flax from her finger and wakes her.

The King who fathered here children later returns, finds Talia awake, and tells her what he did. They stay at the manor together for a while. Eventually, the King must return home to his wife, who becomes the story’s main villain.

The king’s wife learns about Talia and the twins from his sleep-talking. She writes to Talia, pretending to be the king, and requests that the twins come to the palace.

After the twins arrive, the queen orders a cook to kill them, cook them, and serve them to the king. The cook hides the children instead and serves the king lamb.

The queen summons Talia, intending to burn her alive. The King learns of the plot, burns his wife instead, marries Talia, and they live happily ever after.

In the Disney tale, Aurora is betrothed to the prince named Phillip. The two had met before, but Phillip did not know her identity. When he learns the truth of her being put to sleep, he uses a magical weapon to fight and kill Maleficent. He finds Aurora, kisses her, breaks the spell, and they live happily ever after.

Both stories open similarly, with a spinning related material cursing the young princess and their family taking measures to prevent the tragedy from occurring and with a tragic finger-related accident putting her to sleep.

However, what occurs after the finger injury is very different. The magic of true love is taken away, the princess is no longer raped, and the love interest and villain arc are completely changed.

The final tale we are discussing today is ‘The Little Mermaid.’

The original story of ‘The Little Mermaid’ was written by the Danish author Hans Christian Anderson in 1837. It was part of a collection of fairy tales Anderson was publishing.

The central plot of a young mermaid princess desperate to be human remains the same across both tales, but how it plays out is very different.

Both tales start the same way. The young mermaid is fascinated by the world beyond the ocean. She swims to the surface, falls in love with a prince, and saves him from drowning. The prince does not know who saved him.

The original Danish tale then differs. The mermaid asks her grandmother about life as a human versus life as a mermaid. She learns mermaids live longer but turn into seafoam when they die. Humans live shorter lives, but their souls live forever.

The desire for an eternal soul and to be with the prince leads the mermaid to seek out a sea witch, a plot element similar to that of the Disney tale. In both Disney’s and Anderson’s versions, the exchange for becoming human is to trade their voice.

However, the exact terms of the deal differ based on the media.

In the Danish version, the mermaid will never be able to return to the sea, and every time she takes a step, it will feel as though a sword is cutting through her body. She will feel like she is walking on knives and will never forget the cost of losing her tail. However, it’s not all bad, as she will dance more beautifully than any human before her.

Additionally, she won’t obtain a soul unless the Prince falls in love with and marries her. If he marries someone else, the mermaid will die and become sea foam.

The terms of the deal in the Disney version are quite different. The sea witch, Ursula, offers Ariel the voice deal, giving her three days to receive true love’s kiss from the prince and keep her legs. If Ariel were to fail in this mission, she would become Usula’s property.

From there, the Disney version goes off with stereotypical Disney hijinks. Ariel meets the prince, and the two spend time together. Before they can complete true love’s kiss, Ursula comes to the surface, pretending to be the prince’s savior, and the two are to be married.

Ariel’s voice gets restored through animal-related chaos, the Prince and Ariel defeat the witch, Ariel keeps her legs, and the couple lives happily ever after.

This is completely different from the Danish version.

After the mermaid takes deal, she is found on the shore by the prince. He is enchanted by her beauty and loves to see her dance, which the mermaid does for him despite feeling like knives are stabbing her feet.

The Mermaid and Prince begin to bond, but the prince does not love her. Instead, he marries a young princess whom he believed saved him earlier from the shipwreck.

The Princess and the Prince marry, and the mermaid’s heart breaks, just as the witch promised. She is given a final chance at survival: if she kills the prince, she will become a mermaid again and be happy.

The mermaid is unable to do so and instead jumps into the sea and dissolves into sea foam. However, because she did not kill the prince, she is offered an immortal soul.

The original story of the ‘Little Mermaid’ is full of pain and sacrifice. The mermaid does not achieve her dream of marrying the prince, and her life is full of suffering. While one of her major wishes, having an immortal soul, is achieved, you cannot say her life was a particularly happy one, whereas, in the Disney film gives Ariel all she could ever want.

Overall, the original stories behind Disney films are often much darker and explore complex themes and ideas that the studio often removes in favor of a happy, family-friendly story.

The stories in this episode are not the only ones whose original versions are much darker than what most of us know. There are many more fairy tales with disturbing origings that will be covered in future episodes.