How Have Fairy Tales Changed Over Time

Movie Poster: Hansel & Gretel Witch Hunters

In loftier schoolhouse I remember having to sit down through a Disney cartoon rendition of Goldilocks and the Three Bears (1994) for a unit of measurement nosotros were doing on fairy tales. It told the usual story – Goldilocks comes to the bears' house, tries the porridges, the chairs and the beds, falls asleep, and then runs abroad when the bears come home. Unfortunately, in this version they extended the story. Goldilocks and the three bears get friends. And then an evil circus man captures the bears and Goldilocks must save and free them. Oh, and since it's Disney, they also add an obligatory annoying sidekick creature to provide some comic relief. I think it was a rabbit.

Suffice to say I felt similar this drawing took a fairy tale I knew and liked, smothered it in sickly sweet icing, tacked on some cheap candles, and and so strength fed information technology to me by the shovel-total. (If you feel like 50 minutes of torture, you can watch it on YouTube.)

Interestingly though, what I retrieve of equally the 'proper version' of Goldilocks that Disney ruined, is actually quite unlike to the original 19th Century version. Information technology turns out that in early renditions of the tale, which was merelyThe Story of the Three Bears,'Goldilocks' was a nosy, foul-mouthed, ugly quondam woman (called 'Silverish Pilus'… only subsequently did this figure get a young girl named Goldilocks). The bears were originally three male bears, not a mother-father-son family.

The Story of the Three Bears Illustration

This isn't the but fairy tale that'due south surprised me similar this. In fact, that high schoolhouse unit of measurement was pretty fascinating, because it opened my eyes to how many different versions of fairy tales there are, and how they change as they move into different cultures and time periods. I was recently reminded of this fact when a friend leant me their copy of the original Brothers Grimm Kinder- und Hausmärchen. I read through a few, and several were quite unlike to the versions I knew.

And so, inspired by this feel I decided to choice three of my favourite fairy tales and investigate how they've changed in the last few centuries:

1. The Three Fiddling Pigs

In modern versions, all three pigs tend to survive, considering each ane runs to the next house once its house gets blown over. In earlier versions the pigs aren't so lucky… the first ii pigs become eaten by the wolf. Similarly, modern versions sometimes give the wolf a kinder fate – i.e. he descends the chimney of the brick house, burns himself on the burn and runs away (equally in the 1933 Disney drawing version), whereas older renditions by and large see the wolf cooked live in a strategically-placed pot of boiling water. When he falls in the pig slams on the lid, cooks him upward, and then eats him for dinner.

Too, as a child I never remember encountering the section at the end where the 3rd pig repeatedly outsmarts the wolf (the wolf suggests the pig come out to collect apples and get to the fair etc., and the squealer does, but is clever enough to avoid getting eaten each time). This part is nowadays in the 19th Century version inThe Nursery Rhymes of England (1886), but I think it may have been excluded from modern versions. Perhaps this is because it lengthens the tale, isn't equally interesting, and doesn't make much sense (why would the clever pig leave the house at all?).

two. Hansel and Gretel

Hansel and Gretel seems to exist ane fairy tale that remains largely preserved over time, differing but in small ways. Most tales involve the breadcrumbs, the gingerbread house, the evil witch who locks Hansel in the cage, the chicken bone Hansel extends instead of his finger, and Gretel tricking the witch and pushing her into the oven.

Where the differences seem virtually notable are at the start of the tale, with the starving parents abandoning their children. Modern versions tend to have an evil stepmother either convincing the father to carelessness the children in the forest, or simply enacting the plan without the father's knowledge, or fifty-fifty just accept the kids wandering into the forest of their own accord to collect berries (as in this vintage stop motility version from the 1950s). In older versions (such as the first version collected past the Brothers Grimm, which they afterwards adapted) the mother and father are both the biological parents of the children, and both decide to carelessness them in the forest.

Some say this fairy tale originated in the 1300s during the period of the Great Famine, during which people were desperate and starving enough to carelessness their children (leaving them to fend for themselves), or even resort to cannibalism. In that context, the concept of parents wilfully abandoning their ain children could seem quite conceivable… but obviously not so much in modern society. Nowadays I gauge information technology it has to be an evil stepmother, or the mistakes of the children themselves, that country Hansel and Gretel in the witch'southward forest.

three. Cinderella

The 1697 version of this tale past Charles Perrault, titled Cendrillon, is perhaps closest to the version that I grew up with. I'd argue information technology's the version most people would recite today if asked. It contains the familiar elements of the fairy-godmother, the pumpkin railroad vehicle, and the glass slippers.

Illustration: Aschenputtel (Cinderella) with doves

Aschenputtel (19th Century analogy by Alexander Zick)

What I observe fascinating, withal, is the German version nerveless by the Brothers Grimm:Aschenputtel. It'southward still the Cinderella story, but with some striking differences. In this version, a serial of birds and a hazel tree on her mother's grave aid Cinderella in her fourth dimension of need. When she asks to go to the ball, her evil stepmother says she can merely come in one case she's finished sorting through a pile of lentils. The birds assist her achieve the task chop-chop, but the evil stepmother and stepsisters leave without her anyway. She cries out for help under the hazel tree and the bird in information technology throws downward a beautiful clothes and shoes. Three times she goes to the ball and dances with the prince, and three times she escapes before he can observe out who she is (once past jumping into a pigeonry, of all things). The last time she leaves behind a golden slipper.

What really shocked me, nonetheless, is the ending. When the stepsisters try on the shoe and it doesn't fit, the female parent produces a knife and suggests the kickoff sister cutting of her toe, and the second cut off her heel, saying "when you're princesses, you won't need to go by foot anymore". They do and then, and the shoe fits. The prince is tricked, until two pigeons cry out "there'due south blood in the shoe", and he sees he was fooled. Finally Cinderella tries on the shoe, and the prince recognises her. They ally, and the stepsisters nourish the wedding, trying to get dorsum into Cinderella's favour. Then two pigeons come up and peck their optics out (I'm not joking… this truly happens and is a focus of the catastrophe)

Perrault'due south Cendrillon predates this version, but I wouldn't be surprised if this Grimm version bears more resemblance to the earlier oral versions of the tale. Regardless, I tin see why the version with the fairy god female parent, the midnight deadline and the drinking glass slipper is the one that has endured. Those features are merely more appealing… and the toe-cut and eye-pecking aren't.

Sanitising Fairy Tales

Some of the changes in fairy tales seem to me to be the result of the tales moving into unlike cultures and blending with other stories, and then that elements of different fairy tales mix together. For example, the ending of 1 Brothers Grimm version ofFiddling Red Riding Hood is very similar to the ending ofThe Three Little Pigs (with the wolf falling into a pot when descending the chimney), and the ending of another Brothers Grimm version of Piddling Reddish Riding Hood bears resemblance to the ending of the German fairy taleThe Wolf and the Seven Young Goats(with them filling the wolf's tummy with rocks and sewing it upward).

Yet, one of the obvious differences is besides that violence and death tend to become toned downward in mod versions. In a previous mail service I marvelled at the disturbing content of some 19th Century German language plant nursery rhymes, just fairy tales from the same menstruation can be similarly dark. It seems that as a society, our consensus on what is and isn't suitable for children has changed dramatically, and modernistic children's books and film studios (like Disney) reflect these changes in the more than sanitised versions of fairy tales that they present.

Hans Christian Andersen had some tales with pretty tragic endings that were later given a happier spin by Disney. As a friend of mine recently pointed out: if yous thinkThe Fiddling Mermaid ends with the mermaid happily marrying the prince, think again!

A Change in the Wind?

All of that said, I do wonder if we're now seeing a swing dorsum in the reverse direction. Recently, motion-picture show and TV adaptations of fairy tales seem to be all the rage, with productions likeMirror Mirror, Snow White and the Huntsman, Once Upon a Time, Cherry Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, Jack the Giant Slayer and Maleficent all hitting screens in the last 4 years (and I'thousand sure there are others I'g forgetting).

From what I've seen, these films are more often than not aimed at adults and packed with violence and gore and dark gothic scenery (and in some cases, sex). They seem to exist part of the more than full general trend in modern films toward a gritty, night and more 'realistic' style. You merely need to compare former and new renditions of Batman films, or of the James Bond films, to come across how our tastes have changed, and I approximate this has extended to fairy tale adaptations.

Fifty-fifty outside of film, it seems people are gravitating toward older versions of fairy tales, and even building on them to create more gritty 'realistic' versions that accent sexual subtexts or symbols. Even Disney seems to exist changing the way it adapts fairy tales, with recent productions likeTangled andFrozensignificantly modernising the tales (though they still steer clear of the blood and gore).

Suffice to say, I'd be curious to run into where fairy tales were at in some other 300 years!