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Top 10 Gruesome Fairy Tale Origins
by Jamie Frater, January 6, 2009
Fairy tales of the past were often full of macabre and gruesome twists and endings. These days, companies
like Disney have sanitized them for a modern audience that is clearly deemed unable to cope, and so we see
happy endings everywhere. This list looks at some of the common endings we are familiar with – and
explains the original gruesome origins. If you know of any others, be sure to mention it in the comments –
or if you know of a fairy tale that is just outright gruesome (in its original or modern form), speak up.
10
The Pied Piper

In the tale of the Pied Piper, we have a village overrun with rats. A man arrives dressed in clothes of pied (a
patchwork of colors) and offers to rid the town of the vermin. The villagers agree to pay a vast sum of
money if the piper can do it – and he does. He plays music on his pipe which draws all the rats out of the
town. When he returns for payment – the villagers won’t cough up so the Pied Piper decides to rid the town
of children too! In most modern variants, the piper draws the children to a cave out of the town and when
the townsfolk finally agree to pay up, he sends them back. In the darker original, the piper leads the children
to a river where they all drown (except a lame boy who couldn’t keep up). Some modern scholars say that
there are connotations of pedophilia in this fairy tale.
9
Little Red Riding Hood

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The version of this tale that most of us are familiar with ends with Riding Hood being saved by the
woodsman who kills the wicked wolf. But in fact, the original French version (by Charles Perrault) of the
tale was not quite so nice. In this version, the little girl is a well bred young lady who is given false
instructions by the wolf when she asks the way to her grandmothers. Foolishly riding hood takes the advice
of the wolf and ends up being eaten. And here the story ends. There is no woodsman – no grandmother –
just a fat wolf and a dead Red Riding Hood. The moral to this story is to not take advice from strangers.
8
The Little Mermaid

The 1989 version of the Little Mermaid might be better known as “The big whopper!” In the Disney
version, the film ends with Ariel the mermaid being changed into a human so she can marry Eric. They
marry in a wonderful wedding attended by humans and merpeople. But, in the very first version by Hans
Christian Andersen, the mermaid sees the Prince marry a princess and she despairs. She is offered a knife
with which to stab the prince to death, but rather than do that she jumps into the sea and dies by turning to
froth. Hans Christian Andersen modified the ending slightly to make it more pleasant. In his new ending,
instead of dying when turned to froth, she becomes a “daughter of the air” waiting to go to heaven – so,
frankly, she is still dead for all intents and purposes.
7

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Snow White

In the tale of snow white that we are all familiar with, the Queen asks a huntsman to kill her and bring her
heart back as proof. Instead, the huntsman can’t bring himself to do it and returns with the heart of a boar.
Now, fortunately disney hasn’t done too much damage to this tale, but they did leave out one important
original element: in the original tale, the Queen actually asks for Snow White’s liver and lungs – which are
to be served for dinner that night! Also in the original, Snow White wakes up when she is jostled by the
prince’s horse as he carries her back to his castle – not from a magical kiss. What the prince wanted to do
with a dead girl’s body I will leave to your imagination. Oh – in the Grimm version, the tale ends with the
Queen being forced to dance to death in red hot iron shoes!
6
Sleeping Beauty

In the original sleeping beauty, the lovely princess is put to sleep when she pricks her finger on a spindle.
She sleeps for one hundred years when a prince finally arrives, kisses her, and awakens her. They fall in
love, marry, and (surprise surprise) live happily ever after. But alas, the original tale is not so sweet (in fact,
you have to read this to believe it.) In the original, the young woman is put to sleep because of a prophesy,
rather than a curse. And it isn’t the kiss of a prince which wakes her up: the king seeing her asleep, and
rather fancying having a bit, rapes her. After nine months she gives birth to two children (while she is still
asleep). One of the children sucks her finger which removes the piece of flax which was keeping her asleep.
She wakes up to find herself raped and the mother of two kids.

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5
Rumpelstiltskin

This fair tale is a little different from the others because rather than sanitizing the original, it was modified
by the original author to make it more gruesome. In the original tale, Rumpelstiltskin spins straw into gold
for a young girl who faces death unless she is able to perform the feat. In return, he asks for her first born
child. She agrees – but when the day comes to hand over the kid, she can’t do it. Rumpelstiltskin tells her
that he will let her off the bargain if she can guess his name. She overhears him singing his name by a fire
and so she guesses it correctly. Rumpelstiltskin, furious, runs away, never to be seen again. But in the
updated version, things are a little messier. Rumpelstiltskin is so angry that he drives his right foot deep into
the ground. He then grabs his left leg and rips himself in half. Needless to say this kills him.
4
Goldilocks and the Three Bears

In this heart warming tale, we hear of pretty little goldilocks who finds the house of the three bears. She
sneaks inside and eats their food, sits in their chairs, and finally falls asleep on the bed of the littlest bear.
When the bears return home they find her asleep – she awakens and escapes out the window in terror. The
original tale (which actually only dates to 1837) has two possible variations. In the first, the bears find
Goldilocks and rip her apart and eat her. In the second, Goldilocks is actually an old hag who (like the
sanitized version) jumps out of a window when the bears wake her up. The story ends by telling us that she

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either broke her neck in the fall, or was arrested for vagrancy and sent to the “House of Correction”.
3
Hansel and Gretel

In the widely known version of Hansel and Gretel, we hear of two little children who become lost in the
forest, eventually finding their way to a gingerbread house which belongs to a wicked witch. The children
end up enslaved for a time as the witch prepares them for eating. They figure their way out and throw the
witch in a fire and escape. In an earlier French version of this tale (called The Lost Children), instead of a
witch we have a devil. Now the wicked old devil is tricked by the children (in much the same way as Hansel
and Gretel) but he works it out and puts together a sawhorse to put one of the children on to bleed (that isn’t
an error – he really does). The children pretend not to know how to get on the sawhorse so the devil’s wife
demonstrates. While she is lying down the kids slash her throat and escape.
2
The Girl Without Hands

Frankly, the revised version of this fairy tale is not a great deal better than the original, but there are
sufficient differences to include it here. In the new version, a poor man is offered wealth by the devil if he

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gives him whatever is standing behind his mill. The poor man thinks it is an apple tree and agrees – but it is
actually his daughter. The devil tries to take the daughter but can’t – because she is pure, so he threatens to
take the father unless the daughter allows her father to chop off her hands. She agrees and the father does the
deed. Now – that is not particularly nice, but it is slightly worse in some of the earlier variants in which the
young girl chops off her own arms in order to make herself ugly to her brother who is trying to rape her. In
another variant, the father chops off the daughter’s hands because she refuses to let him have sex with her.
1
Cinderella

In the modern Cinderella fairy tale we have the beautiful Cinderella swept off her feet by the prince and her
wicked step sisters marrying two lords – with everyone living happily ever after. The fairy tale has its
origins way back in the 1st century BC where Strabo’s heroine was actually called Rhodopis, not Cinderella.
The story was very similar to the modern one with the exception of the glass slippers and pumpkin coach.
But, lurking behind the pretty tale is a more sinister variation by the Grimm brothers: in this version, the
nasty step-sisters cut off parts of their own feet in order to fit them into the glass slipper – hoping to fool the
prince. The prince is alerted to the trickery by two pigeons who peck out the step sister’s eyes. They end up
spending the rest of their lives as blind beggars while Cinderella gets to lounge about in luxury at the
prince’s castle.
Contributor: JFrater
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About Jamie Frater

Jamie is the founder of Listverse. He spends his time working on the
site, doing research for new lists, and cooking. He is fascinated with all
things morbid and bizarre.

Read More: Listverse | Twitter | Facebook

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606 comments 4

Discussion Community Share

Juliette • 7 months ago

Don't forget- in the original Red Riding Hood (the Grandmother, as it was called) the girl also did
a strip tease for the wolf and threw her clothes in the fire, and she ATE HER OWN GRANDMA XD but i
knew this stuff when i was four, these were the versions my mother told me. I had a great childhood :D
54 • Reply • Share ›

kyofu Juliette • 3 months ago

indeed! my mother told me original stories but i later ended up getting a book with the real
stories in the as well... xD
2 • Reply • Share ›

Danny Carmona kyofu • 2 months ago

Hi , I want to introduce myself, my name is Danny Carmona.

http://princelogan.wordpress.c...
3 • Reply • Share ›

Danny Carmona Juliette • 2 months ago

http://princelogan.wordpress.c...
1 • Reply • Share ›

Pragnya • 9 months ago

I will never be able to look at a fairytale book the same way again
27 • Reply • Share ›

Emily • 7 months ago

Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and The Pied Piper were the most Gruesome to me as I am 10
years old. The stories were very interesting. I'd quite like to buy and read the original books Or maybe a
cartoon. Anyone want to type up some more stories for me? It can be gross I don't really care .-. lol xD
But please do :)
18 • Reply • Share ›

Business101 • 4 years ago

How different would Disneyland be if they stuck to the original endings or used some of the
other stories?
Can't imagine kids waiting to get their picture taken with the "Girl with no Hands" also, how would she
sign their autograph book?
25 1 • Reply • Share ›

Kid Business101 • 6 days ago

She could get a stamp, I don't know the exact name for them, they used to be used to seal
letters and sign that way!

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