Lately, I heard something about fairy tales are really just fairy tales.
Not in the way how most girls would complain “there is no such thing as happily ever after“,
but in actual fact that these stories ended with really gruesome endings originally.
I did some research and did a compilation of 10 stories most of us are familiar with.

Most of us grew up reading (or watching) Walt Disney storybooks or movies thinking that one fine day,
some Prince Charming (or Princess, in my case) would pop out of nowhere and love us forever.

I wish they told us these original endings to the so-called fairy tales when we were a little younger.
These stories entertained me so much I feel compelled to share them with everyone I know!

WARNING – This is a REALLY wordy post.

CINDERELLA: THE STEP SISTERS WERE A LITTLE CRAZY

In Walt Disney’s version of the Cinderella, she met the Fairy Godmother and went to the ball.
She meets the Prince, fell in love, left her glass slipper behind because she has a curfew at midnight.
The Prince then picked up her slipper and combed the country looking for her.
And as usual, they lived happily ever after.

In the real version, which goes back to as early as 1st century BC, Cinderella was named Rhodopis instead.
There are no glass slippers or pumpkin coach in the original tale.
There is also another version by the Grimm Brothers where Cinderella’s step sisters cut off part of their own feet
to try to fit into the glass slippers.
But their plot was later disclosed by two pigeons which are on Cinderella’s side.
The two pigeons then pecked out the step sisters’ eyes,
leaving the pair of sisters to spend the rest of their lives as blind beggars.

HANSEL & GRETEL: THESE KIDS ARE SCARY

In the widely known version of Hansel & Gretel, the two children lost their way in the forest and
found themselves in a gingerbread house that belonged to the wicked witch.
But they later escaped by throwing the witch into a fire.

The earlier version of this tale is named The Lost Children.
In this version, the witch is replaced by a devil.
As the devil was about to prepare to eat the children, he wanted to put them on a sawhorse and let them bleed to death.
The two children pretended not to know how to get on a sawhorse so the devil’s wife demonstrated.
While she was lying down, the kids slashed her throat and escaped.

GOLDILOCKS AND THE THREE BEARS: BETTER NOT EAT OTHERS’ PORRIDGE

Goldilocks, in the kids-friendly version of this story, sneaked into the bear’s house,
ate their porridges, sat on their chairs and slept in their beds.
When the bears came home, she escaped through the window.

As we all know, it’s always not so nice to break and enter a stranger’s house.
And for goodness sake, bears eat people!
There are two versions to this story.

In the first, the bears finds Goldilocks before she could escape and ripped her apart and ate her.
In the second, Goldilocks is actually an old hag instead of a young girl.
When the bears woke her up, she climbed out of the window, broke her neck and died.

In either case, I think the moral of the story is to tell us not to sneak into other people’s house.
Point taken.

THE LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD: THE LITTLE GIRL IS NOT SO INNOCENT

We all know the Little Red Riding Hood’s story very well.
She visits her Grandmother and is stalked by the wolf on her way there.
The wolf dressed up as her Grandma and lies in bed to wait for Riding Hood’s arrival.
“What big eyes you have!”
“What big ears you have!”
“What sharp teeth you have!”
Then right before the wolf pounces on the girl, some hunter appears out of nowhere and shoot the hell out of the wolf.

In older versions of this tale, the hunter appeared after the wolf ate the Grandma and the girl.
He did not shoot the wolf because he did not want to hurt the two (who is miraculously still alive in the wolf’s tummy).
The hunter then proceeded to cut open the wolf’s stomach and saved Riding Hood and her Grandma.
Then the evil Riding Hood collected a bunch of rocks, put them into the wolf’s stomach and sew it up.
The wolf (who is miraculously still alive), tries to escape, but due to the weight of the rocks in its belly,
it falls down and dies.

Some versions of this story have a highly sexual overtone between Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf.
In one version, Riding Hood stripped naked and climb into bed with the wolf.

THE THREE LITTLE PIGS: THE THIRD PIG IS SICK

We all know the story of the three little pigs.

But in the original tale, the first two pigs who has shitty houses ended up become the Big Bad Wolf’s snacks.
When the wolf came to the third pig’s house, he was appalled because the house is stronger and cannot be blown away.
The third pig is smarter too.
So the wolf used guile to attempt to tempt the pig out – promising him turnips, apples and a visit to the fair.
After the pig reject all his propositions, the wolf turned violent again and climbed down the chimney.

Back in the house, the pig was already prepared so he boiled a huge pot of water in the fireplace.
Down came the wolf (together with the two pigs in his belly),
and he was boiled to death before becoming a gruesome dinner for the third pig.

SLEEPING BEAUTY: WHAT MIGHT PEOPLE DO TO A SLEEPING HOT BABE?

In the original Sleeping Beauty, the lovely Princess is put to sleep after she pricks her finger on a spindle.
She slept for a freaking long time before the Prince appeared, and strangely decided to kiss her,
they fell in love and lived happily every after.

But well, the original tale is far from being sweet.
In the original, Sleep Beauty was put to sleep because of a prophesy, rather than a curse from the witch.
There is no Prince in the original tale.
In his place, was a lustful King who took advantage of the sleeping girl and raped her.
After nine months, Sleeping Beauty gave birth (while she was sleeping, yes) to two children.
One of the child sucks her finger which removes the piece of flax that was keeping her asleep.
She wakes up to find herself raped and the mother of two kids.
Fuck her life.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST: THERE IS NO ENCHANTED ROSE, JUST A DAMN ANNOYING ONE

My favourite Disney story.
In the Disney’s version of this tale, Belle is studious, intelligent and filial.
She sets off to the woods after knowing her father was held captive by the Beast.
She managed to get in the castle, but was caught by the Beast.
They fell in love with each other, broke the curse, and the Beast became a handsome prince again.

The story is almost the same except that the rose belonged to Belle (who is just called Beauty in the original tale) instead.
The rose was not some amazing enchanted rose, just an ordinary one Beauty requested from her father.
Because Beauty wanted the bloody rose, her Dad has to pluck it from the Beast’s garden and made him angry.
The Beast wanted to eat the old man up, but also gave him a choice of either offering himself or one of his daughters.
(Yes, Beauty has siblings in the original version)
So Beauty went in her father’s place and lived in the castle with the Beast.
(Why is the father so horrible!)
They fell in love and broke the curse.

In the earlier versions, the Beast was never described in detail.
One of the versions described him with a “snake-like appearance”.
That’s gross.

THE LITTLE MERMAID: IS STUPID

Ariel is a mermaid who has a beautiful voice.
She exchanges her voice for a pair of legs with Ursula so that she could go on land and find her Prince Charming.
They fell in love and in order to save Ariel from the wicked witch of the sea,
he drove a ship’s broken bow into Ursula and saved the day!

In the original tale, Ariel had her tail split into two by the evil sea witch’s potion.
She proceeds onto land and continued to bleed absolutely everywhere.
The prince, strangely finds it delightfully amusing, and requested for her to dance for him.

After that, the mermaid found out that the Prince was actually about to marry another woman.
And according to the curse, she will turn into foam and dissolve if he does marry the other girl.
To avoid that, she has to kill the Prince.
But insanely, she chose to leave him to marry the other woman and she dissolves.
Mermaids do not have souls, so after she dissolves, she need to do 300 years of good deeds to earn one.
And each time a child cries, she has to do an extra day for each teardrop.

That’s crazy. She should have just killed the darn prince.

SNOW WHITE: THE QUEEN DIES A HORRIBLE DEATH

I guess everyone here knows the tale of Snow White and the Dwarfs.
The Queen asks a huntsman to kill her and bring back her heart.
The huntman couldn’t bring himself to do it and brought back the heart of a boar instead.
The witch became fed up when the stupid mirror insisted that Snow White is still the fairest of them all,
so she set out to give Snow White the poison apple.

In the original tale, the witch was actually more creative than just trying to poison the poor Snow White with a poison apple.
She tried to suffocate her to death with a super tight corset,
and also attempted to comb Snow White’s hair with some funky comb.
But it was at her third visit did she really got Snow White with the poisoned apple.

Snow White fell unconscious but eventually woke up when she was jostled by the Prince’s horse
as he carries her back to the castle.
(The Prince is so creepy, why is he bringing a dead girl back home!)

In the end, the queen is killed.
Her macabre punishment is with a pair of metal shoes, heated in a furnace until red-hot.
The shoes are put on the queen’s feet and she was made to dance in the fiery shoes until she falls down dead.

RAPUNZEL: SHE HAS MINI RAPUNZEL TOO!

In the original version of Rapunzel, a wandering prince hears Rapunzel singing from inside her tower.
He climbs Rapunzel’s hair and they fell in love with each other.
After a few more visits and plenty of sex, Rapunzel becomes pregnant.
When the sorceress next visits, Rapunzel asks why her dress is growing so tight around her stomach.

In anger, the sorceress chops off Rapunzel’s hair and banishes her into a nearby desert.
The sorceress waits in the tower for the prince to return.
When the prince next climbs the hair, he comes face to face with the sorceress.
In fear and depression from having lost Rapunzel, he jumps from the tower, and lands in a thorn bush.
The thorns pierce his eyes and blind him.

Rapunzel and the prince wander around separately for a while.
Eventually, they get close enough, because the price heard Rapunzel singing.
They reunite, and Rapunzel’s tears of joy land in the prince’s eyes, curing his blindness.
The prince takes Rapunzel back to his kingdom.
At this point, we can assume the situation is “happily ever after”,
though nothing more is said about what befalls the sorceress or Rapunzel’s unborn child.