How Well Do You Know Your Fairy Tales?
Our Favorite Fairy Tales and Their Dirty Little Secrets
When you think of fairy tales, do you immediately picture a handsome knight rescuing a gorgeous damsel, placing her gracefully atop his snowy white steed, and trotting off to their standing-room-only wedding by the sea? Do you think of epic stories in which good conquers all, true love never dies, and beauty (even if disguised at first) is the ultimate sign of virtue?
If so, you are in for a rude awakening (though not nearly as rude as the first Sleeping Beauty’s, as you’ll soon find out). That’s because many of the wholesome, Disney-fied fairy tales we know and love are actually hiding much darker pasts—pasts filled with sex, violence, and terrifyingly inventive ways to kill people. Put it this way: if your kids read the original tales before bedtime, you’ll be calming their screams until morning!
I stumbled upon these grisly origins while doing research for my “Desperately Ever After” book series, which takes our most beloved fairy tale characters and imagines what happened to them when the wedding bells stopped ringing. From Hans Christian Andersen to the Brothers Grimm, consider these the skeletons buried deep in the back of Walt Disney’s closet.
Fair warning: you may experience loss of innocence.
