What's in a Fairy Tale?

When I was a child, there was nothing I enjoyed more then a good fairy tale.  Truth be told...I actually still enjoy fairy tales.  The other day I went through YouTube and re-watched some of the old Disney princess movies.  But you'd be surprised to find out how far the versions we know and love today, differ from the original tellings.

I have this book, The Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things; and it tells about the origins of everything from Kleenex, to dentures. Including, the original versions of many fairy tales and nursery rhymes.  These stories are not what you'd expect from our familiar childhood friends.  In the original Goldilocks and the Three Bears "Goldilocks" doesn't have golden locks and is actually a homeless, grumpy, old women.  In Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,  the queen eats the "heart" of Snow White (For those of you that don't know the story, it wasn't really Snow White's heart, it was the heart of a pig that was substituted for Snow White's by the huntsman.) with a good deal of salt, and in the end the queen is forced to wear red hot shoes, and ends up dancing herself to death.  In Cinderella the step mother mutilates her daughter's foot to get it to fit into the shoe; and lets just say, that if the original Sleeping Beauty were to be made into a movie now a days, it would be rated R... 

For those people who say that children see way to much stuff today, and have become desensitized to all sorts of bad thing with all of the TV shows and movies they watch.  Try reading the original Little Red Riding Hood.

Until I write again, do svidaniya. (That's "good bye" in Russian)

~Nat