They ate without return, gave birth in a dream, disfigured themselves to avoid the harassment of their brother - these are children's fairy tales … We have collected for you 9 most famous stories that are very different from the way we remember them from childhood.
1. The Little Mermaid
The Disney cartoon is firmly ingrained in our memory, and we believe that the story ended well. Red-haired Ariel turned into a human and was able to marry Prince Eric. The wedding was wonderful, and both people and inhabitants of the underwater world were seen among the guests. Peace, friendship and love won again.
No matter how it is!
In the very first version of the tale by Hans Christian Andersen, the mermaid sees the prince marry the princess and falls into despair. The sisters bring her a knife and offer to slaughter the prince:
"When its warm blood sprinkles on your feet, they will again grow together into a fish tail and you will again become a mermaid."
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From great love, the little mermaid, of course, could not do this, so she threw herself into the sea and turned into sea foam. Andersen later changed the ending to make it a little more optimistic. Some magical creatures called the heroine from the foam, and she became the "daughter of the air." She never found love, but at least she survived, albeit in a different capacity.
2. Pied Piper of Hamelin
In the Brothers Grimm's tale, the city suffered from hordes of rats. Suddenly a piper appeared there, who promised to save the inhabitants from the misfortune for a good reward. People agreed, the hero played his pipe and the rats, enchanted by the music, left the city. But then the townspeople got the idea to save money, and they refused to pay him. The piper played his instrument again and took all the children out of the city.
I returned it only in exchange for money. The miser pays twice and everything.
In the original story, the piper never returned anyone. He simply took all the children to the river, where they, obeying his music, drowned themselves. Only one lame boy survived, who could not keep up, lost his rhythm and accidentally escaped. Some scholars generally believe that the tale hints at the piper's dirty passion for young children.
3. Little Red Riding Hood
Do you remember Charles Perrault's version? The gray wolf ate the grandmother, and then her granddaughter, but either a forester, or a lumberjack, or hunters walked past, who called the wolf to account. The belly of the beast was ripped open, and the people inside had not yet had time to digest. All saved, hurray!
The original French tale ended much worse. The cap asked the wolf for directions, but he sent her in the wrong place. The girl never got to her grandmother's house, because she came to the wolf's den, where she was safely eaten. And that's it, finita la comedy. No forester and no grandmother, only a well-fed wolf and a dead heroine. Teaching children not to talk to strangers.
4. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
In Brothers Grimm's Snow White, the queen asked the hunter to kill her stepdaughter and bring her a heart as proof. The hunter did not cope with the task, because he felt sorry for the girl. He let her go, and the queen presented the heart of a wild boar.
In the original story, the queen asked for Snow White's liver and lungs and told her to serve them to her for dinner. In addition, Snow White woke up not at all from the magic kiss of love, but from the shaking when the prince drove her on a horse to his castle. What he was going to do with her there, history is silent. But if you read this article to the end, you will understand that in ancient times the princes treated the sleeping maidens without any respect.
5. Rumplestiltskin
An unexpected turn - this tale was made much worse by later authors. In the original, Rumplestiltskin makes a magic deal with the girl in exchange for her first child. The heroine by that time does not want to get married, so she agrees. But when everything changes, and the child is still born, she becomes sorry to give it to the dwarf. Rumplestiltskin says he will free her from the deal if she can guess his name. The girl (by that time is already a queen) sends the servants to look for an answer, and one of them accidentally overhears Rumplestiltskin singing a song about himself beloved by the fire. When the next morning it is revealed that he has lost, the dwarf flees the city in disgrace.
In the updated version, the Brothers Grimm added bloody brutality. Rumpelstiltskin was so angry that he was beaten that he stamped his right foot hard and drove it deep into the ground. Then he grabbed his left leg, pulled, and ripped himself in half in a rage.
We also know this tale in the Russian version of Masha and the Three Bears. A little girl got lost in the forest and went into a strange house. There she ate, sat on someone's chairs, and finally fell asleep in the smallest of the three beds. When the owners returned home, she woke up, saw that they were bears, and in horror fled through the window.
The original tale has two options. In the first, in the final, the bears find Goldilocks, tear it apart and eat it, so that it would be discouraging for children to roam around other people's houses without asking. In another version, Goldilocks turns out to be an old witch, not a little girl, also jumps out the window, but then ends badly - either she breaks her neck, or she is arrested for vagrancy and sent to a correctional house.
7. Hansel and Gretel
In the Brothers Grimm version, we are shown two small children who get lost in the forest and accidentally go to the gingerbread house of the wicked witch. They are kept locked up for a while, and then the witch begins to prepare to eat them. Clever kids deceive the witch, roast her instead of themselves and run away.
In an earlier French version of the tale, the devil is shown instead of the witch. He's going to saw the children on the box, like a log, so that they bleed. Brother and sister begin to break the comedy that they do not know how to lie on the box correctly. The devil tells his wife to show. The kids cut her throat and run away. And now attention, the question: what was the devil himself doing at this time? So stunned by what was happening, that he remained standing there?..
8. Girl without a handle
Honestly, the last version from the Brothers Grimm is not much better than the original, but there are some differences. In the version known to us, the devil promises untold wealth to the ruined miller in exchange for what is behind the mill. The poor man thinks that there is nothing but an ancient apple tree, and agrees. But it turned out that his daughter was there at that moment. The devil tries to take the girl, but cannot - she is too pure and innocent for him. Then he threatens to take her father if she does not allow her hands to be cut off. The girl has to agree, but then she meets the king, marries him, and later her hands grow back "for piety."
In an earlier version of the tale, there is no devil. The girl had to cut off her hands to become ugly, otherwise her brother constantly pestered her with bad intentions. In another version, the father himself chopped off his daughter's hands as punishment for the fact that she refused to enter into a relationship with him inadmissible for relatives.
9. Sleeping beauty
Charles Perrault's version of the fairy tale looks very nice. The beautiful princess pricked her finger with a spindle, fell asleep for 100 years, but then the prince came, kissed her, and she woke up. The young people played a gorgeous wedding and lived happily ever after.
Alas, the original tale is not so sweet at all. The princess fell asleep, the prince came, admired the sleeping beauty, took advantage of it without a twinge of conscience and dumped in an unknown direction. Nine months later, the heroine gave birth to twins - without waking up! The children screamed with hunger and began to suck her fingers. So the excess infection was removed from the body, and the girl awakened as a single mother with two children.