The true origins of 7 beloved fairy tale characters: A Halloween Horror Story
Once upon a time, in a land far far away, there lived our favorite fairy tale characters. They were paragons of virtue and nobility, who managed to persevere against all odds and vanquish evil, finally finding their happily ever after… Or so we are led to believe. Would it shock you to learn that some of your most beloved fairy tale characters weren’t exactly the G-rated sweethearts that Disney would have us believe? In fact, their original stories were closer to “An American Horror Story” special, rather than to the Disney Club.
With Halloween almost upon us, I’ve decided to forego focusing on traditional horror classics, which I did last year, and instead dive deeper into the rabbit hole to uncover the maddening secrets behind the origins of your favorite bedtime stories.
If you focus only on the light, you might not see the horrors that lurk in its shadows. Did you know the true origins of these 7 beloved fairy tale characters?
Sleeping Beauty
Rumpelstiltskin
Little Red Riding Hood
Hansel and Gretel
Jack and the Beanstalk
Snow White
Goldilocks
Sleeping Beauty
The story of Aurora (yes, for those of you that don’t know that’s her actual name) has always sounded so serene, hasn’t it? She fell victim to a terrible curse, but endured it stoically, to be awoken by true love’s kiss, save her kingdom, and live happily ever after. So pristine. And so wrong!
Before Sleeping Beauty twirled about singing with her woodland friends, her story was more akin to a nightmare than a peaceful dream. In the original version, she’s not awoken by True Love’s kiss, but by the birth of her twins. Yep, you read that right. She was awoken from her curse by the extremely painful sensation of giving birth to twins (feel free to use this in an argument about “Which one hurts more?” next time it comes up). You might be wondering, how in seven hells did Sleeping Beauty get pregnant while, well, sleeping. I’ll give you a second to catch up. You got there? By the gaping and shocked look on your face, I can only imagine that you did. But for those that are still blissfully in the dark, let me destroy the last vestiges of your childhood: Aurora conceived the twins after an unwanted visit by the King. Yep, it wasn’t Prince Charming that came to break the curse with a kiss. It was a king who saw the sleeping beauty and thought “Eh, might as well…”. Definitely not the kind of awakening I would wish on anyone.
Rumpelstiltskin
Okay, let’s be honest - Rumpelstiltskin is already about as evil and deranged a character as a family friendly fairy tale would allow. Asking for your unborn child pushes the boundaries of even the most liberal fairy tales. In the end of the widely known version, Rumpelstiltskin does get his just desserts, but the original version is much more hauntingly satisfying. You see, when the miller’s daughter decides to renege on her deal, Rumpelstiltskin gets mad. And I don’t mean regular mad. Not even Hulk mad. Not even raging toddler mad. He gets so mad, that he deserves a league of his own - he gets Rumpelstiltskin mad. In a full-on dramatic diva move, he literally tears himself in two. I guess that’s one way to split a disagreement…
Little Red Riding Hood
Before the age of Uber, Tinder and the likes, there were whole generations that learned NOT to talk to random strangers by reading the story of Little Red Riding Hood. It also taught some of us to always carry pepper spray on the way to Grandma’s house. But while in the modern retelling the little girl shrewdly deduces the Wolf’s deception and is rescued by the Hunter (or woodcutter in some versions), the original story has no such weak notions as “happy endings”. Little Red Riding Hood gets devoured by the Big Bad Wolf, and there is no axe-wielding messiah to come to her rescue. Talk about stranger-danger.
Hansel and Gretel
Ok, these are actually two characters, but since they both share the same fate, we’ll bundle them up together. Everyone knows the tale of the two wandering children, who find a house made of candy in the woods, get trapped by an evil witch, and after outwitting her they grab all the treasure they can carry and head back to their loving home. It’s a story about the power of love, sticking together through tough times, and never losing hope in the face of evil.
The original story focused on “slightly” different values. In fact, there was no witch or candy house to tempt Hansel and Gretel. And the kids didn’t just wander into the woods. They were abandoned by their parents, who couldn’t afford to feed them anymore. Yep, that’s right. They were abandoned to certain (and probably horrifying death) by their own parents. The witch only made it into the story much later, as someone probably thought that the original tale needed a villain they could actually vanquish. Nothing like some good old child abandonment to get you in the Halloween spirit.
Jack and the Beanstalk
Ah, yes. Jack and the Beanstalk. The story of a boy who everyone thought to be a complete imbecile for trading an entire cow for “magic beans”, who ends up discovering a whole new land in the clouds, outwits a giant and steals his treasure. He then chops of the beanstalk, and him and his mother live happily ever after, never going hungry or thirsty again. A tale of bravery, courage and boldness. You know where this is going by now, don’t you?
The original version of Jack wasn’t even close to his family-friendly counterpart. You see, Jack didn’t go to steal the giant’s treasure because he needed to feed his starving family, he did it because… well, because he could. And when the giant, in understandable righteous fury, decided to chase Jack down the Beanstalk, our “hero” grabs an axe and chops the beanstalk down, with the giant still on it, causing the behemoth to fall hundreds of feet from the air to his excruciating doom. The only part the story got right was that Jack never went hungry or thirsty again. I can only imagine that in proper sociopath fashion, Jack filled up his cellar with some “giant” steaks…
Snow White
There’s nothing quite as beautiful as untainted snow. And there’s nothing quite as dreadful as watching that snow turn from pristine to muddy to downright revolting. The original Snow White is a far cry from her “serenading birds” counterpart. In fact, being poisoned by the now iconic Apple is just the tip of the iceberg of what she had to endure. By the time she had escaped to the dwarves, she had survived multiple assassination attempts, including corsets meant to suffocate her, and a hair comb dipped in poison, meant to make her meet an excruciatingly painful demise.
Snow White manages to survive all of this and finally get her happy ever after wedding with her prince. But when the Evil Queen is invited to that wedding, something in Snow White snaps so completely that what happens next is horrifying even by Steven King standards. The Evil Queen is forced to don on red-hot iron shoes and dance in agony until she literally drops dead. I can understand Snow White wanting some revenge, but I’m always left wondering about the Prince and everyone else in the room - did they just watch with sadistic satisfaction while this whole thing unfolded? And nobody lifted a finger to stop it? Maybe the Evil Queen had had the right idea after all…
Goldilocks
There’s a reason why breaking and entering is a crime, kids. While the watered down version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears finds our cute little heroine casually exploring the home of the three confused forest denizens, the original version presents her in a rather different light. For starters, Goldilocks is not an innocent little girl, lost in the forest. She is an old, and rather ill-mannered woman. And if the three bears might have given her child version a pass for her transgressions, the older Goldilocks gets no such gentle treatment. I often wonder which bowl she ended up in…
And that’s a wrap on our list of the true origins of 7 beloved fairy tale characters. I think if there’s one thing you can take away from it, it should be this: when something (or someone) seems too good to be true, it probably is. And when you peek behind the family-friendly curtains of rainbows and sunshine, you might not like what peeks back. After all, what are “fairy tales” if not the original horror stories? Happy Halloween, everyone!
What are some of your favorite original fairy tales? Let us know in the comments if we missed any of your favorites!