DARK AND DISTURBING ORIGINAL VERSIONS OF CHILDREN'S FAIRY TALES

SLEEPING BEAUTY

Italian Giambattista Basile’s version of Sleeping Beauty is really dark,

the king who finds the girl rapes her while she’s asleep. She later on

gives birth (while asleep) and is awoken only because one of the kids

sucks out a splinter under her finger which was keeping her asleep.

The king later kills his wife (who tried to get him to unknowingly eat the

children) to be with Sleeping Beauty.

PINOCCHIO

In Carlo Collodi’s original version, once Gepetto carves Pinocchio,

the marionette runs away. He’s caught by the police who assume

Gepetto has abused him and they imprison the puppet maker.

Pinocchio goes back to Gepetto’s house that night and accidentally

kills the wise talking cricket. He later gets hung from a tree and suffocates.

PETER PAN

Peter and Wendy by J.M. Barrie has more adult themes than you’d guess.

Peter brings Wendy to Neverland to act as a mother to the Lost Boys.

With time, Wendy starts to fall in love with Peter and asks him how he

feels for her. He describes himself as her faithful son – now that’s

the strangest friend zoning we’ve ever heard!

THE THREE LITTLE PIGS

Some versions of this English tale have the wolf eating the first and

second pigs after he blows their weak straw and stick houses down.

THE LITTLE MERMAID

Hans Christian Andersen’s original story has the newly-legged mermaid

walking but in excruciating pain with every step. If the prince married

someone else, she would die and turn into sea foam. Spoiler alert:

the prince married another. (In an attempt to save their kin, the mermaid’s

sisters traded their hair for a dagger from the sea witch. If the mermaid

killed the prince with it and drips his blood onto her feet, she would return

to being a mermaid. Spoiler alert, she didn’t kill him.)

ALADDIN

Aladdin is a Middle Eastern fairy tale in which Aladdin, then trapped in

The magic cave, rubs a ring he wears and a lesser genie takes him

back to his mother. His mother cleans the lamp and reveals a more

powerful genie who gives Aladdin his wealth and palace. The sorcerer

(not called Jafar) tricks Aladdin’s new wife, gets the lamp, and has the

genie transport the palace to his home. Aladdin uses the ring genie to

transport there, kills the sorcerer, and brings his palace

back to where it was.

THE UGLY DUCKLING

Hans Christian Andersen’s tale The Ugly Duckling is a famous story

world-round. The real version has the little chick originally harassed

incessantly by the other barnyard animals. He escapes and lives with

wild geese and ducks who are soon slaughtered by hunters. An old

woman takes him in, but her cat and hen harass him even more so he

leaves again. After much abuse and spending winter alone, he joins

the swans who return in spring.

THE FROG PRINCE

In some versions, it’s not a kiss from the princess’s goodness that

transforms the frog into a prince but chopping off his head. In the

original Brothers Grimm version, the princess slams the frog into

the wall to turn him back into a prince. Ouch! (A Russian folk version

has a prince come upon a female frog/princess.)

ALICE IN WONDERLAND

Lewis Carroll’s version is odd throughout, including Alice finding a

caterpillar smoking a hookah on a mushroom as well as her leaving

the tea party ticked off at all the riddles and calling it the

stupidest tea party she ever attended.