a while back, i remember learning that the fairy tales, we all loved as kids and prolly still love as adults are not as sweet or lovely as disney made them out to be. for example, cinderella wore a fur shoe instead of a glass slipper. due to this i have always wanted to read the "original" stories. and just like the issues i have had with translations, i wanted to find the most "authentic". so when i read about philip pullman's "fairy tales from the brothers grimm", i had to check it out! (note: i want to say all of the authentic fairy tale talk mentioned before was due to that brothers grimm movie with matt damon and heath ledger. i always wanted to see it to learn about the "true" tales but never did).
before i go on, how great is that cover?!?!? it's an illustration called "the children in the woods" by c. lucy. i love that it has this sinister vibe with the blackbirds. i also enjoy that is retro looking.
so philip pullman did all of this research to present his version of the brother grimm's fairy tales. he shared 50 fairy tales and at the end of each section shared: the tale type, what similar stories there are in other countries or within the grimm canon, the source the grimms got the story from, and then his quick analyze of it. it's interesting how countries share similar stories, i think that would make for an interesting book, to know what in human nature causes us to create similar folk tales or how those folk tales spread. (i should google. this book prolly already existed.)
and as much as i would loved to share my analyze of all 50 fairy tales in the book, i thought i would share the "real" version of disney classics and also my favorites fairy tales.
some of our beloved disney classics were in this but sadly the best parts were taken out to make the stories more kid friendly.
cinderella-
in this version the evil stepmother had the stepsisters cut their feet to make the shoe fit. one stepsister cut her heel and the other her toe! also during the wedding ceremony, each of the stepsisters get an eye pecked out by the turtlesdoves that helped cinderella go to the ball.
snow white-
instead of just taking snow white's heart, the huntsman was to cut out her lungs and liver as proof that snow white was dead. in addition to that the evil queen ate her lungs and liver! (more cannibalism is to come) also the evil queen came around, a handful of times to try to kill snow white when she lived with the dwarves. also the dwarves had no names (but if you saw that one "saved by the bell" episode, you already knew that.) finally, the poisoned apple worked. the dwarves put snow in a glass coffin. one day a prince came and asked to buy snow because he had fallen in love with her and would treat her with honor and respect as if she were alive. (creepy, right?!?!) the dwarves gave snow to prince and as his servants carried her down, one tripped which shook the coffin and dislodged the apple and snow white came to life! they then marry. at the wedding, snow white's evil stepmother showed up and they put her in hot iron shoes in which she danced until she died.
rapunzel-
tangled was definitely the g-rated version. so rapunzel's birth mother wanted some rapunzel from a witch's garden so her birth father stole some. he was caught and as a result he had to give up their daughter. (this seems horrible but really he shouldn't have been stealing in the first place!)
so the witch put rapunzel in the tower and had her put down her hair so she could climb up. a prince discovered rapunzel in the tower and they fall in love.
however in this version, the prince knocked her up! pullman lets us know because rapunzel's clothes became
tighter. the witch was outraged and banished rapunzel and her two children (she has twins) to a strange land. the witch then waited for the prince and threw him from the tower. he landed in a thorn bush and is blinded. he wandered the earth and miraculously finds rapunzel and the children. her tears cured his blindness and they live happily ever after.
oddly the premarital sex thing is not an issue. though she was banished for a while so that could have been it. ps rapunzel is an abortifacient. so odd that rapuznel's mom was craving it while she was pregnant.
briar rose-
the main difference was that the spell was for a hundred years, not just the short time in the disney movie. (i will add i do love the disney version more because of maleficent!)
but i wanted to give this story to discuss, as pullman did, about bruno bettelheim's
theory that "the sleep of a hundred years that follows the unexpected loss of blood 'is nothing but a time of quiet growth and preparation, from which the person will awake mature, ready for sexual union'". that is a interesting take on this fairy tale, it being a hidden moral that one should wait for both mind and body to be mature before being come sexually active and not assuming the body is ready because it has it's period.
my favorites:
"the juniper tree"-
this is the story of a man and a woman had a son but the wife died and was buried under a juniper tree. he remarried and has a daughter. the stepmother hated the son and one day killed him but chopping off his head. she did it by slamming the lid of a chest on his neck when he was looking in it to get an apple. then she tied the head back on and acted like nothing happen. then the sister goes to the brother and when he didn't respond the stepmom told her to hit him and his head fell off! (how horrifying!!!) then the mom chopped up his body and put it in a stew. when the father came home, she told him the son went to visit his family and then fed him the little boy stew!! the little sister gathered his bones and buried them under the juniper tree. the boy's spirit than became a bird and he had a beautiful song about his fate. using his song he had a goldsmith give him a necklace, a shoemaker give him shoes, and an apprentice give him a millstone. he then went home and sang his song. when his sister came out, he gave her the chain, then the father the shoes and finally the stepmother, the millstone. the millstone crushed her to death and the boy magically appeared to live happily ever after.
seriously a fairy tale with cannibalism?!?!? but surprisingly not the only one, in "the robber bridgegroom", a bride discovered her husband belonged to a band of robbers that ate young girls. and of course there is hansel and gretel's child eating-witch. (which i never got until i started subbing, seriously kids can be so frustrating that one could eat them out of anger. though they are usually gross and germ-y so i could not imagine them
tasting good). random sidenote: everyone knows the tale of hansel and gretel but i had forgotten why they were lost in the forest. it turns out because their family was so poor and the stepmother got rid of them so she wouldn't have to feed them. plus there would be more food for her! parenting at its finest!
thousandfurs-
this story is a little different because instead of an evil stepmother as the villain it's a disgusting father. there once was a king and when his wife died she had him promise that he would not marry someone less beautiful or with less golden hair than hers. he promised and as a result could not find anyone to marry. until his daughter came of age, she looked just like her mother. he decided to marry her. the daughter was horrified and told her father that she would marry him if he made her three dresses, one golden like the sun, one silver like the moon, and one glittery as the stars. she also wanted a coat made of a thousand different furs (she thought this would take him a while . . . but it didn't). the day before they were to be marry she took the dresses and put on the coat and ran away.
she was hiding in a tree when the king and his huntsmen came across her. they thought she was a beast because of her coat but when they discovered she was a girl they took her set her to work in the kitchen. she started to cook for the king and leave random items in his food like a ring.
the king would hold balls and thousandsfur would sneak into them after cleaning up (of course) and wearing one of the dresses her father made for her. of course, the king fell in love with her but she always ran away early before he could find out who she was. on the last night as she left, he slipped a gold ring on her finger.
the next day when he found a gold bobbin in his food, he called for thousandfurs and saw the ring on her finger and proposed to her. they lived happily ever after!
gambling hans-
what i enjoyed about this story is that it treated the lord, st. peter, death and the devil like regular people. to the point where it was almost like a bad joke, think "the lord, st. peter, and the devil walk into a bar . . "
so gambling hans is a gambler. and one day the lord and st. peter come to him because they need a place to stay. of course hans, screws up and gambles the money they give him for bread. but being the lord he forgives.
after their stay, the lord decided to give hans three rewards for his hospitality. hans asked for a deck of cards this always won, a pair of dice that always won, and a fruit tree in which if anyone climbed it they need hans permission to get down.
hans began to gamble and won everything. st. peter was worried he would own the world so he sent death for him. when death arrived, hans asked him to get some fruit for their trip. of course, death was stuck in the tree for seven years and during that time no one died! so the lord intervened and death came down from the tree and strangled hans.
so hans ended up in hell. hans gambled with the devil and won all of his ugly devils. he took them to hohenfurt where they grew hops they climbed the hop poles to heaven. but that caused trouble in heaven so they kicked him out and hurled him to earth. his soul was smashed into pieces and went everywhere. there is a piece in every gambler that is alive today!
i realize the rehashing of these tales will take to long and really you should just pick it up, so will share the titles of my favorites:
"the boy who left home to find out about the shivers"
"little brother and little sister"
"the girl with no hands"
"bearskin"
"the moon"
as i was reading, i realized that these fairy tales were not for children. most of them
involved an evil stepmother that was trying into kill a child or ruin a child's life. there was a lot of deceit and ghosts had to help uncover the truth. and the villains all ended up with some grotesque and horrible death. also life was pretty easy for one if they were beautiful because some king would come by and see your beauty and save you from your miserable life. not exactly the best model for life for little kids. but then again fairy tales today aren't just for kids but kids of all ages. and i think these version are better then the sugar and spice and everything nice wholesome stuff we spoon feed kids today. i definitely will still let my future little kids know the disney versions of these tales but when they hit the double digits, i will have them read this book.
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