The Dark Origins of Fairy Tales

Fairy tales are for kids right? Well not at first they weren't. They were dark tales of murder, rape, incest, cannibalism and mayhem geared toward adults. What changed? Chuck and Josh will drop that knowledge and more in today's episode.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from house Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, and again it's just the
two of us. Yep with you guys, empty student. Yes,

(00:23):
just are I feel like we're You know that the
coke commercial from the seventies that Madman I never saw
the chow Oh really, yeah, that's a good one. I've
heard heard good things. You're You're not the first person
I've heard mentioned it. It's like we're holding hands with
our our listeners all across the world, across the world.

(00:45):
I'd like to buy the world a coke thing. I
supposed to them. I don't want to spoil anything for anyone. Okay,
wow what happens at that? But like there's a plot
that's a huge plot point. I'll just I'll tell you afterwards. Okay.
If never gonna watch the show, yeah I probably won't.
I mean, like I pick and choose what I'm going
to get into, you know, like it's a commitment. Especially

(01:08):
how many seasons did that thing goes six for? You're
not like most people who just watch whatever is on
in front of them until it's over a lot of people.
Do most people do what you don't think. People pick
and choose their their culture, they consume. I think that
they do, but I think they're they're more ready to
jump in than I am. Like the idea of like
taking your tablet to the beach to watch TV. That's

(01:30):
not like a great thing to me. That's that's like
what happened to us. So what you're saying is you're
more selective than your average Joe. I guess. But I
don't mean to make myself seem all like Laude dot
or anything like that. You know, I'm just saying I
don't watch I don't watch TV shows like Narcos. Remember
I told you to watch it the other day. Yeah,
and other folks have told me that, So I'm gonna

(01:52):
watch it. So I saw the first episode amazing, amazing stuff. Um,
and I started to watch the second one. I was like,
I just I can't write now. I don't know what
it is about me. So you recommended that to me
before you saw it. No, I saw the first US like,
I could have seen the first couple of minutes and
it would have been like, go watch this whole series.
I think it's gonna be great, and then you bailed

(02:13):
on it. Yeah, but I haven't bailed entirely. But I
guess that's my point. Is I like, like, it's not
just something I can pick up like willy nilly, and
I don't know why because it's TV. Well, here's what
I used to do. Boy, we're already so sidetracked, but
I don't care um because there's no one in here,
no one here to stop us, right to pull the plug.
Here's what I used to do is I would watch

(02:33):
a show, let's say a few seasons, and then if
it started getting bad, like True Blood or Dexter, I
would be like, well, yeah, but I've got to finish it.
And then I got to the point where I was like, no,
I don't need to finish it. I can bail on
a TV show that starts to suck. Yeah, the show
runner bailed on you exactly, so why can't you bail on?
And then I'll just read about the finale because that's

(02:54):
all I care about is seeing how it ended. And
in the case of Dexter's finale, it was amazingly all
fully great. So but yeah, I think that's that's fair.
Same with books. Too, I mean, like, why plow through
a book that you're like, I cannot I cannot care
about this any longer. I think it have I'm only
forty four, but I do since my mortality a little bit, like,

(03:17):
wait a minute, do I need to watch this season
of this thing that I don't like because I'm gonna die?
And I haven't seen Casablanca yet? What I haven't seen Casablanca?
Really you should, I know, because I'm gonna die. I
mean you should, Like that's a any any night of
the week kind of movie. You know, I plan to? Okay? Um, So,

(03:38):
speaking of dying, Chuck, it turns out that in fairy Tales,
these wonderful little things that Disney promoted and turned into well,
wonderful little things, it started out with a lot more death,
a lot more destruction, a lot more cannibalism, how about murder, rape, incest, torture, kidnapping,

(03:58):
sex with the comatose, necrophilia, probably somewhere in one we
haven't heard of yet. Um, but yeah, that's where fairy
tales or that's the kind of um, that's the type
of tales that fairy Tales started out as. Yeah, and
we are going to uh, I think we agreed we're
gonna do a show on fairy tales, probably like the

(04:19):
brothers Graham, Hans, Christian Anderson and Chairo, the Three the
Three Biggies. Yeah, and fairy tales in general, because it's
really interesting. Well, let's make this a two parter, so
this will be part one and then part two will
be a fuller explanation of everything we just talked about.
So um, we don't have to go into it too much.

(04:40):
But the point is is that many, many years ago,
there were such things as oral traditions folk tales, and
they were typically passed along by say, women who are
working at looms or people who put the kids to bed.
And we're passing the time before the fire because there
weren't tablets you could take to the beach to watch
Orange is the New Black anywhere, you know, so you

(05:02):
had to entertain yourself somehow. So adults told each other
tales and these form the basis of fairy tales, which
seems weird to us now because fairy tales you tend
to associate with kids, but that just wasn't the case before. Yeah,
and apparently the brothers Grim, Jakop and Wilhelm originally intended
them for adults. Things weren't selling so well, so they said,

(05:24):
maybe we should um sanitize these a little bit, lighten
them up, and see if we can get kids, um
to read these grizzly morality tales, right, you know, to
scare them into being you know, straight shooters. Yeah, and
then Walt Disney came along and he said, you think
you sanitize things, wait till I put my Disney stink

(05:45):
on it, because my Disney stink smells like roses. It does.
There's like glitter and like fairies and it's just all
very nice. It smells like I was trying to think
of the best smell I can think of, but um
per plus smells pretty great. I had a friend who

(06:09):
used to call the s U a v E shampoo,
called it swave. It was pretty funny on purpose. Yeah,
like like that was legitimately what they thought it was. Yeah,
he really thought that. He like, you know, stay at
his house, Like, hey, if you need anything that's opened
on some swave in there. You know, it's hilarious. Yeah,

(06:30):
you were talking about how Disney sanitized it. Yeah, that's right,
sanitized things, And um, so we're gonna I don't think
we're gonna do all ten, because that's what we do.
But we're gonna talk about some of the earlier versions
of um now sanitized classics, because it's kind of fun
because you see just how far we came by, you know,

(06:52):
when things became disneyfied Chuck. Um. Should we talk about Binocchio. Yeah,
that's a good one, which was as far as Disney
films go, that was maybe the creepiest of all. Yeah,
because of the stranger danger that wound throughout it, and
that was part of the original The original thing was like,
you don't go off as strangers, you don't run away

(07:14):
with from home. There's plenty of predatory adults who wanted
to just do all sorts of horrible things with you.
That's right. So Pinocchio was kidnapped by Stromboli and uh
basically was threatened with you know, Pinocchio was made of
wood and said I'm gonna burn you alive. You're gonna
make a good fire one day if you get too old,
if you don't stay young, which is also creepy, Yeah

(07:36):
it is, And Pinocchio was like, oh no. But the
source story was by Carlo Carlo Collodi in three and
Carlo Collodi, and so Pinocchio was teased in that version
by um about his wood head, by Jimny Cricket. Um.
I don't know if they called him Jimny Cricket in

(07:57):
that version though, but it was a cricket, yeah, and
he definitely didn't have a top hat. And seeing when
you Wish upon a star, that was all Disney. So
Pinocchio gets really upset and there's a hammer and kills
the cricket with the hammer, and then Pinocchio is hanged
and killed, tied up, hanged and killed by the fox

(08:17):
and the cat. Oh I thought, like by the court
for killing the cricket by his enemies. But he loses
his temper and as a result, the one of the
main characters in the story loses his life, and Pinocchio
is left to be like, what have I done? And
then he's killed. That's a great children's story, is but

(08:38):
think about how bizarre that is that at one point
there was a story that adults told one another about
a wooden boy, yeah, who they really wanted to stay
a boy or else they'd burn him alive. And we'll
get into more like fairy tale analysis and that kind
of thing in the other episodes just chew on that
for a little while she won the weird psychosis that

(09:00):
lies behind that. Alright, uh up, next we have The
Little Mermaid, which I don't think of course, I'm just guessing,
but I didn't know there was an original source story
has Christian And yeah, I had no idea eighteen thirty seven. Um,
was it actually called the Little Mermaid? I guess it was.
I think it was. And there's actually a statue of
the Little Mermaid um in uh Hans Christian Andersen's home

(09:24):
country Utopia. Yes, in Denmark. Yes he was Danish, right,
I think Copenhagen Harbor. There's a statue over, but not
the Disney one. Right, So that is Ariel Obviously we
all remember and love that movie. Actually I didn't because
I was a senior in high school at the time,

(09:45):
so I wasn't into that. I was too busy watching
uh bat TV on the beach. Um. All right, okay,
so in the movie we all remember the Ariel um
makes a deal with Ursula, the sea wit, and she says,
you know what, you can be human if you'd like,
just give me that beautiful singing voice of yours. Uh

(10:06):
And in the real version, that was the which offers
her a potion in exchange for her tongue when she
cuts out, yeah, and Ariel says sure first of all,
which is weird, um, but she says, this will also
make you feel like a sword has pierced your body forever,
and you'll be able to dance, but it will feel
like you're dancing on knives, and it'll feel like there's

(10:27):
maggots eating at your man. So she takes a deal anyway. Uh,
all for a dude. Yeah, all for a guy, So
say what you will about that as well. Um. In
the original version, eventually these uh I think the sea
ladies come out of the ocean and say, if you

(10:47):
kill the prince, they give her a dagger, so you
can kill this guy and drip that blood on your
feet and you'll get your mermaid tail back. And she says,
I can't do it, so she flings herself into the
ocean and becomes c foam, which is what happens, but
then she goes the sisters take her into heaven and
the dude ends up marrying another lady, which she watches

(11:11):
as she's ascending into heaven. Right, So no blood on
her feet. Nope, never never killed the Prince Cinderella, Yes,
not cinder Fella. Nois movie with Dean Martin too, right one.
I think he might have been fella. Was it the

(11:34):
same thing? Was it the exact same story? But just
Jerry Lewis is pretty much And that's a pretty old story.
But the Disney version basically has like Cinderella is very
sweet and beautiful and kind, but she's being basically human,
trafficked by her own wicked stepmother who makes her do
everything that her too lazy, ugly inside and out daughters

(12:00):
don't do. Don't we shouldn't we don't want to do
that's right, like clean out the senders from the fireplace.
Hence her name. Is that where that came from? I
believe so no idea. So the original story was from
and Shao Um Cinderella or the Little Glass Slipper. And
as you remember in the original um, she is allowed

(12:21):
to go to the she's dressed up by the fairy godmother. Yeah,
very godmother, very great character of a pretty You get
the ride in this great horse drawn carriage which used
to be a pumpkin, remember, and it will turn into
a pumpkin at midnight, so you'll lose all those nice
clothes in that glass slipper. If you want everyone to

(12:41):
like you for being wealthy, make sure they don't see
you after midnight. You have to like the messages these
are sending. When you really dig into it, it's pretty hard.
I can't wait to talk about it in the next episode.
It's all just one big teaser for everybody. It is
the fun teaser before the grim ending. So she takes
off um before midnight. The Prince is like, wait, wait,

(13:04):
come back, uh please, and she's like no, I gotta god,
I can't let you see that I'm actually poor and pretty.
And he's like what, I couldn't hear you. She's likeing
and she takes off, but she leaves behind her glass slipper,
And in this glass slipper that fits her perfectly is
what the Prince decides to use to identify this mystery woman.
So he starts looking throughout the kingdom. Correct and in

(13:26):
the original version, which I said by p Oh, it's
actually pretty much like that, but in eighteen twelve, And
that's the thing with fairy tales, they're rewritten a lot
throughout the ages by different folks with different versions, And
in eighteen twelve the grand brothers had a version called Um,
which I don't even know what that means. I don't
either Osten. Maybe it's the same thing Cinder and Aston.

(13:50):
Maybe I don't know the pootel what is that? I
have no idea, Okay, but anyway, So the evil stepmother
in this version Um says to her stepdaughters. To the
oldest one, she's like, here's what you do. I know
that shoe won't fit on the around your big hammer toe.
So here's a knife. Cut that thing off and the
shoe will fit. And she does it. She cuts off

(14:12):
her toe, puts on the slipper, and the Prince was like,
this is great until these pigeons, magic pigeons come along
and say, hey, Prince, check that toe out. It's bleeding
through the glass slipper. Like her shoe is filled with blood.
She's like Rome and Michelle's high school reunion all of
a sudden. So the Prince is like, you get away

(14:32):
from me, impost and sends the eldest daughter, the eldest
stepsister away. The youngest one tries the same thing, except
she cuts off part of her heel which seems to
me exponentially more painful than cutting off your own toe. Yeah,
same bit. Apparently, Charles Parrault was like, I can't come
up with anything else, We'll just go with the same thing.

(14:53):
The two pigeons point out the bloody shoe and the
the the younger sister goes away, and then finally, somehow
Cinderella ends up in the in the with the shoe on, right, yeah,
and he says, I found you. We're gonna go get married,
And in an act of good favor, she invites the
step sisters to the wedding because she was such a

(15:14):
nice person, probably to rub salt in the wounds. Well, yes,
and also because um, she knew that her pigeon friends
were going to pluck their eyes out, which they did, yep,
one at a time. They pluck out one eye each,
and then they come back and finish the job pluck
out the other eyes. So here's the thing. We were
raised with this kind of stuff, right, Like, I mean,

(15:35):
I'm familiar with the Disney version of all these things,
but I also had like a fair idea that there
was a weird, darker um foundation to these stories before. Right, Um,
imagine not having ever been exposed to this kind of thing.
Think about how bizarre some of the twists and turns
that take place in these stories. Are talking pigeons end

(15:56):
up plucking out the sister's eyes after exposing them here,
Like that's just a weird extra twist, you know. Yeah,
like if the aliens came down, right, they're like, this
is what we read our children on earth? Why does wrong?
All right, well, let's take a little break here. Oh yeah,
we forgot to do this, and we'll come back and
talk about a little someone with a red writing something.

(16:22):
Mm hmm. I don't think I might know who you mean,

(16:44):
all right, A little red riding Hood. That's who I
was talking about. Everybody, it's not going to guess that.
So let's recap the real story here, which is, uh,
everyone knows this one as well. I'm assuming little Red
riding Hood is traveling through the woods to deliver her
food to her dying grandmother, and she meets the hungry wolf. Yeah,

(17:05):
she's bringing butter. A pot of butter? Is that what
it was? According to Charles Parral delicious. So the wolf says,
I like to think way in advance and make grand schemes.
So I'm going to tell you, little girl who would
like to eat, to stay here and pick some flowers.

(17:25):
Grandma would love some flowers that she's dying. Yes, so, um,
and by the way, where's grandma live? And riding Hood
while she starts picking flowers, like, oh, down the way
and take a left at the the old oak tree,
and then, um, don't make eye contact with the talking pigeons.
That's right, right, and you'll find grandma's house. So the
wolf takes off while Little Red Riding Hood just picking

(17:47):
her flowers. Unbeknownst to her, the wolf has gone and
is now eating her grandmother to death. Yeah, and then,
like Norman Bates style, dresses up in her clothing, sits
with his back to her in a rock chair and
lays and wait, which you would think that's dark enough. Yeah,
that's pretty dark. Just eating grandmother is bad enough. Right.

(18:08):
In the Grim version, it was called Little Red cap Um,
which doesn't have the same ring. Now, Little Red riding
Hood beautiful just rolls off the Little Red cap No,
this kind of ends right there, you know. So a
Little Red Riding Hood is is actually eaten by the
wolf in their version. And then a because she comes
in the world stressed as the grandmother and they have

(18:31):
a little exchange and she ends up getting in exchange,
and so he eats her dead, or we think she's dead.
A woodsman comes along and it cuts the wolf open
with uh, well, there's different versions. Shears are an axe
and the woman, the grandmother and little Red Riding Hood
come out and as if you think that's the end, no, no, no,

(18:54):
let's fill the wolf with rocks. And the version and
the grim version, the wolf gets up, tries to go away,
but he has weighted down by the rocks inside of
his body and collapses and dies. So it's a good ending,
yeah it is. That's the grim version. In the Charles
Parult version, he ended his with the moral of the

(19:15):
story kind of thing um. In the moral his story
was do not get in bed with a sexual predator.
Because then his story, Little Red Riding hood Um comes
to grandmother's house and she suspects that something is a
miss um, but she still takes off her clothes and
gets into bed with grandmother when she's invited to by

(19:36):
this wolf dressed as grandmother, and she says, what big
arms you have, what big legs you have? What big
years you have, and the wolf has a smooth answer
for everything. You know what I'm saying, uh, and then
ends up eating her just she dies. She's eaten to
death by a wolf, and that's the end of the story.
And then the moral is his little girls should not um,

(19:58):
should not expose themselves you predation by sexual predators. Basically,
it's not exactly how Pearl put it, but essentially that's
what you're saying. Well, here's a direct quote from parole
or p oh, excuse me, um. From this story, one
learns that children, especially young lasses, pretty courteous and well bred,
do very wrong to listen to strangers, and it is

(20:18):
not an unheard thing if the wolf is thereby provided
with his dinner. I say wolf, For all wolves are
not of the same sort. There is one kind with
an amenable disposition, neither noisy nor hateful nor angry, but
tam obliging and gentle, following the young maids in the
streets even into their homes. Alas who does not know

(20:38):
that these gentle wolves are all such creatures the most dangerous.
So you're basically saying like they're all gross and dirty
and preying on you. Yeah, which I mean, hats off
to him for performing that public service. But where's the
fairy tale that says sexual predators do not predict. I
don't think they read uh stories, for they were once

(21:00):
young children, young boys who could have been raised on
that kind of thing. That's a good point, you know.
I tip my little red cap to you. Thank you.
Uh oh, this is a good one. Hansel and Gretel, Yeah,
I grew up next to um an older couple who
had a dog named Gretel Schnauser. So cute, sweet dog.

(21:21):
So this one starts out with an evil step mom
married to a dad of the father of Hansel and Gretel,
and she's like, you guys eat way too much food
and your dad and iron uh, danger of going hungry.
So we're gonna take a long walk in the woods
and only two of us are coming back, so the kids.

(21:42):
She does this twice because the kids are smart enough
on the first go around to leave a trail of
pebbles in the woods. So I thought it was breadcrumbs.
That's part two. The first they leave the pebbles, they
come back and she's like, son of all right, we're
gonna do this again, and you're not taking any pebbles.
She walks about into the woods again. They leave breadcrumbs,

(22:03):
which are famously eaten, and so they are now stranded
in the woods. Find the pigeons, the talking pigeons, probably so,
so the plan has worked. From the evil step monster. Uh,
They then encounter the bloodthirsty witch, who basically is like,
look at this sweet gingerbread house. Why don't you come
on in here, because I know you little piglets like
to eat. Yeah, and they do. They go in, Yeah,

(22:25):
they go in, and I mean a house made of gingerbread,
Like that's that's a great device right there, you know,
I mean, who wouldn't want to just come into that
house and see what's inside? If the house is made
of gingerbread, what the heck is the microwave made of
There might be charcuterie inside. Sure, so um. Once inside,
they're trapped because this is the house of an old

(22:46):
witch who seems like a kindly old lady. As they're
going in, then once the door shuts, there in trouble. Right. Yeah,
Gretel is basically enslaved. Hansel is locked in a cage
and fattened up like a goose so she can eat. Yeah,
And then At some point, the witch says, what the heck,
I'll eat you both. Uh, And this gives Gretel the

(23:07):
chance to get a drop on the witch. Yeah, which
is pretty funny to me. The witch is basically like, hey, Gretel,
why don't you go and look in that oven, let
me know if it's hot enough. And she's blind and
the witches and Gretel's like, I don't know what you mean.
Why don't you show me what you mean? Right? And
the witch says, okay, you stupid girl, let me show

(23:29):
you exactly. So she shuffles over and she's like, you
stick your head in like this engage the right because
Gretel went and pushed her in by the rump and
the witches burned alive to death. Yes, And then Hansel
and Gretel make their way back home and the stepmother
is dead. But in the alternate version, uh, Gretel is like, wow, Hansel,

(23:51):
you do look pretty good and eats him alive. Oh really.
Well what gets me is they go back home, stepmother's dead.
They don't explain how she died, and I wonder if
the dad was just like, so, uh sorry about Mary
and that lady who tried to kill you twice start
diggingy holes in the backyard. Should we take a break?

(24:13):
Oh yes, I think we should. All right, we'll take
another quick break and we'll come back with some of
my favorites. Welcome back to story time with Chuck and Josh. Yes,

(24:45):
adult story time. Yeah, because if your kids are listening this,
you're a monster yourself. Um rumpelstilt skin. This one really
creeped me out when I was a kid because it
featured a uh an imp, like a a creepy, beastly
imp who not only that, had like um, a lack

(25:08):
of control over his emotions. He was prone to emotional
output and he was like unstable, which even even more scary.
You know. So this one starts out there's a miller
who tells the king that, um, you know, my daughter
can spend straw into gold. You ought to see this
girl go. He's totally full of it. Though, totally full
of it. I don't know what. I'm sure he was

(25:29):
expecting to get away with it. I don't know how.
Who knows, because he's just gonna like hit the king
over the head with something when he came to look
and then marry him while he was unconscious. So the
King says, great, she's cute. Let's trap her in the
castle and lock her in a room with a bunch
of straw spinning into gold, lady, and I'll marry you. Yeah.
And she's like. She gets in there and she's like,
I have no idea how to spend anything into gold. Uh.

(25:52):
And this little imp rumple stilt skin climbs up says
I can actually do that, and if you give me
some jewelry, I'll spend that junk into gold. Uh. He does.
So the King is like, this is sweet. Let me
lock you in a bigger room with more straw. Rumple
still skin comes back, spends all that into gold for
more jewelry, comes back a third time because now she's hooked. Yeah,

(26:15):
she's hooked. And she's like, I don't have any more jewelry,
Like what are we gonna do here? And what he says,
I got an idea. I got an idea. I've always
wanted to own a human child. So you go ahead
and start spinning and I'll make sure this gets uh
turned into gold, and then you can marry the king.

(26:37):
And when you guys have a kid, you just give
it to me. And she's like, what are you gonna
do with the kid, and he's like, don't worry about
don't worry about that at all. It'll be fine. Um.
So she says that sounds like a good idea. I
can get the gold now, but pay later, and he says, yes,
if you want to look at it like that, that's fine,
and she says, let's do it. So they they end

(26:59):
up colluding this last time. The king marries her and
years passed, and then the woman has a child and
one day Rumpel still a child she came to love
despite knowing that there was a bounty on the child's head. Yeah,
and it was conceived under duress. Let's just say, okay, um,
but she loved the child and Rumpel stillt skin comes

(27:22):
a calling, yeah, and he says, hey, remember me, and
she's like, how could I forget? He said, I'm back
to claim my bounty. Give me that kid. I've got
lots of neat things planned and she says, I'd kind
of like to keep my kid, actually, and he's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, okay.
I love funning games. So how about this. I have

(27:44):
a really weird name that you've never heard before. I've
never told you. If you can guess my super weird,
one of a kind name, we'll just call the whole
thing off. Yeah, I'll give you three days even and uh,
she gets the name. She does. She overhears him, right,
She sneaks around and overhears him in his own layer.
I don't remember. I think that's how it is. Okay,

(28:06):
so she but she guesses his name correctly, and he
does not like that at all. By the way, in
the early eighties, Harve vachas Tattoo from Fantasy Island played
Rumpo Stiltskin in a TV version of this. Yeah, so
this outburst must have been particularly upsetting because you love Tattoo,
so you don't want to see Tattoo playing Rumpo Stiltskin

(28:27):
having this outburst where he's just lost his human child
that's been promised to him for years because this lady
managed to guess his name. And he goes the devil
told you that, and he stops his foot and he
stops it so hard it goes right into the earth
and gets stuck there like up to his waist. Yeah,
and he gets really angry about that and says, let
me get my leg out of here and he tears

(28:49):
his body into two pieces and the ladies off the hook. Yeah,
in the eighteen twelve version, he just runs away, and
they actually went back in eighteen fifty seven to allow
him to tear his body in half. It's a weird
way to die, I agreed. Who has that that kind
of upper body strength? Well, I guess so. And there's

(29:10):
a new TV show out too. I don't know if
it's still out that had a lot of these characters,
like Once upon a Time or something. Yeah, yeah, I
think so. Yeah, I didn't watch it, though, I think
it's still around. What is it? I think? So? What's
his face? Robert Carlyle's in it from Trainspotting. Love that guy? Yeah,
he's good. Uh, all right, let's skip that one because

(29:30):
that one. Just what about snow White? You want to
do that one? Yes, snow White. So snow White was
the one that changed everything. That was Disney's first animated
full length feature, and apparently everybody, including his wife, said,
do not do this. This is not the way to
try to make your name, and he said, no, I'm
gonna do it. He borrowed one and a half million

(29:51):
dollars at the time to make this movie, and it
turned out that everybody loved it. Obviously, it's apparently the
tenth highest grossing film of all time adjusted for inflation. Wow, still,
that's crazy. Yeah. So snow White was the one that
everybody thinks of when you think of a fairy tale
becoming sanitized or disneyfied, you know. Yeah, because in the

(30:12):
Grim version there was there was a heart in a
box that the evil was the evil the evil witch,
the evil witch, the the one who is jealous of
snow White's beauty. She wanted her heart in a box. Yes,
that actually made it into the Disney version. Yeah, that
was a sanitized version right in the in the full
Grim version, she wanted to eat the liver and lungs

(30:35):
of snow White as a matter of fact, which is
a little freaky. Um. So the the the sanitized Disney
version wasn't quite fully sanitized compared to the other one,
but a little. They cut out the cannibalism. Yeah. And
in the Grim version, snow White at her wedding, the
evil stepmother, um gets involved there and the guest heat

(30:59):
a pair of iron shoes on burning coles four. Snow
White into these shoes to dance until she dies yep,
from wearing I guess. I guess her feet are burned
off or something. She just danced herself to death. She's
a dance dance, dance, dance, dancing machine. And got a
couple of more here. Rapunzel. Yeah, overtly sexual, overtly sexual.

(31:25):
And I just realized while researching this that the Beastie Boys, Uh,
we're clearly literature fans from the what Comes Around song Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
let down your hair, or I will climb up and
get into your underwear. That's the Beastie Boys line. And
I remember it. When I heard that line, I was like, well,
that's childish, but that's actually exactly what happens in the

(31:48):
original version, add rock, that was pretty childish. Yeah, is
that what you thought? I did not like your usual,
you know, collegiate, high minded stuff. Uh. It's the Disney's
movie Tangled, is the Rapunzel version that's been super sanitized. Uh.

(32:11):
And it's about a young girl whose hair has miraculous
properties that make you not age. So obviously there's gonna
be some evil lady that wants the hair who happens
to be a which builds a tower to house Rapunzel. Unfortunately,
she doesn't think to make the tower taller than Rapunzel's
hair is long. Error. Rapunzel has a suitor, a prince.

(32:35):
I believe it's got to be a prince. I didn't
even have to look down. Yes, it's I'm sure it's
a prince. Always needed a prince to save the damsel, right,
which we'll talk about in the next episode. Um. But
she liked to let her hair down and let the
guy climb up her hair every night after the Which
went to sleep, and they would get it on in
the tower where she was locked up. And they did
this a lot. And apparently one day she was very

(32:59):
young and nine eve otherwise UM, and she said to
the Which, my clothes grow tight. And the witch is
like what that means? Figured out what was going on.
UM banished Rapunzel to the desert and said, be gone
with you. And Uh. The prince comes back one day
and tries to I guess he gets into the tower somehow.

(33:21):
He climbs up in the tower and he is confronted
not by Rapunzel, his lover, but by the witch. By
the wicked witch who's like, I know what you did, Yes,
and there are a couple of versions. He either leaps
from the tower or she pushes him from the tower,
and in both versions he his eyes are gouged out
by the thorns below and he's blinded right, but he's
still very much in love. He wanders the earth, blind

(33:43):
and homeless from that point on until he, by chance
encounters Rapunzel, who's living as a single mom raising their
kids twins on her own, apparently in a desert like town,
maybe somewhere in Nevada or Arizona. Barstow. Okay, so she Zimbarstow,
raising their twins as a single mom, and he, a

(34:03):
homeless blind man, encounters her, and apparently it's just like
when Ralphie comes back home in a Christmas story. Um,
she starts crying at the sight of him, uh, and
her tears heal him. Heal his sight. Now that he
has sight, apparently he's immediately got a home again. So

(34:24):
they make their way back to his kingdom and get
married and live happily ever after, which is very rare
if you haven't caught on by this point in time. Yeah,
that is a really rare story. And it's sweet too,
because you know, the love goes beyond there that immediate
once once the sex drives up, it seems like another another.

(34:47):
Yeah that that the dude is just like whatever, I'm fine.
This guy in one version jumps out of the tower
to kill himself and is blinded and wanders the earth.
That's sweet. Once the sex drives up. Um, all right,
let's finish it off with the worst of them all,
because it's straight up is rape. Yeah, you know, there's

(35:10):
no dancing around what happens in Sleeping Beauty. It's like
killed Bill. What do you mean at the beginning of
Kill Bill? Oh? Sure remember? Yeah? Uh so in the
Disney version in nine, of course you remember, there was
a young princess and a sorceress, uh dooms her and
cast a spell on her and says you're gonna die
at sixteen, which is uh even in our time, pretty young.

(35:33):
Did you understand why? No, probably jealousy, Yeah, she's probably ugly.
In Sleeping Beauty was a beauty. Uh So she says,
you know what, You're gonna prick yourself on a spindle
and you're gonna die. That is the spell. Uh. It
can only be undone by a good fairy. Of course,
the good fairy comes along says you can get out

(35:54):
of the slumber if a prince your true love awakens
you with a kiss. Pretty innocuous, right, sure, I mean
why not? Why not just just let's make it interesting?
Is what the what the which said? That's right? But
there's an earlier version in the fourteenth century from France.
I don't have no idea how to pronounce that paras forest, okay.

(36:16):
And in this version, the prince returns, finds the woman, uh,
laying in bed, naked and unconscious, and he rapes her. Yeah.
He's like, I can't help myself, and I'm a prince,
so no rules apply to me. Pretty much. So she
becomes pregnant, um has a kid still while asleep, she

(36:39):
doesn't wake up from this. She gets raped, she has
gets pregnant, has a baby. Um her her little baby
bites on her finger, thinking he's breastfeeding, and causes the spindle,
the chip from the spindle to fall out of her hand.
I guess, yeah, her finger where she picked it. Yeah,
and saves her. So all anybody had to do was

(37:01):
remove the the what's it called him? The flax chip? Now?
What is it call? When a piece of wood gets
into your fingers. Splinter. She had a splinter. All anybody
had to do was remove it, and she would have
been fine pretty much. Luckily her kid was a dumb
dumb and didn't know a breast from her finger. That's right.
Then there's another version called The Sun, the Moon and

(37:23):
Talia from the six thirty four by uh gim Batista Basil.
And in this version, it's a king who actually rapes
the maiden. She has twins, and the queen finds out
and she says, you know what, come here, cook, take
this lady, take her kids, cook him, kill him, cook

(37:44):
him and feed him to the king. And he says
all right, But then he goes off. He's like, I
just can't do that. What am I some kind of sick? Oh?
I'll just kill a baby lamb and stead and he
feeds them lamb. So yeah, if you were a cook
or a huntsman or a woodsman during this era, you
like part of your job was murder, Like you were

(38:06):
expected to murder innocence at the at the whim of
the people in charge. I'm just cutting down some trees.
Do you need me to kill someone? Right? I got
an X you want me to put someone's heart in
a box. All right, Well that was it. Um, be
sure to listen to part two of this where we
talk about all the weirdness that's behind all of this weirdness, right,

(38:29):
and drugs. Sure, it's always behind the weirdness. Right. Don't
you think the grand brothers were token on something? I
don't know. Let's find out all right. Uh, if you
want to know more about fairy tales that were way
darker than you realize as a kid, just type something
like that into the search bar at how stuff works
dot com and it will bring up this wonderful article.

(38:50):
And since I said wonderful, it's time for a listener mail.
I'm gonna call this we inspired someone to go back
to college? How about that? Hey, guys, my name is Maria.
I'm from LAKEWD, Ohio suburb of Cleveland. I've been listening
for a few years, and oh I'm sorry for years.
And as soon as I heard you were coming to Pittsburgh,
I flipped out and called my mother immediately. She's also

(39:12):
a huge fan. Her name is Joanne. Please give her
a shout out. So they came to Pittsburgh and they
were in the audience. So, however, the reason I'm writing
is way more important than that. You guys were my
inspiration to go back to college. After listening to how
sign language works, I signed up for classes about a
week later. By the first day, I was in love
not just with the language, but also with school. I'd

(39:35):
forgotten how much I love to learn and be challenged,
And at the start of fall semester next year, I'll
be returning to school full time and it could not
be happier. Uh. In the words of my best friend's dad,
you belong there. How about that? Also in your episode,
you mentioned three sentence structures for sign language, um I employee,
employee I, or I employee I, and you were curious

(39:59):
about the last struck Sure, and the purpose is for clarification.
With the different structures long sentences or sentences like I love,
you can get super confusing, uh, she said, or sentences
it's clearly not a long sentence. It's hard to tell
who was giving and who was receiving the love. By
adding the second eye, you're clarifying who is performing the verb.

(40:20):
So thanks again for being my entertainment and my inspiration.
Keep on doing what you do. You never know whose
life you won't influence. Next, that is from Marie Rasmussen.
Thank you so much for that email. Marie. We appreciate
you best of luck in college and continuing your education.
And thank you to you and your mom Joe Anne
for coming to our show. I'm glad you guys had

(40:42):
a good time. Uh. If you want to get in
touch with us because we inspired you to do something great,
or um, because we make you angry whatever, Actually, you
know what, we don't care to hear from you if
we make you angry to yourself. Uh. You can get
in touch with us for Twitter at s Y s
K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com,

(41:04):
slash stuff you Should Know. You can send us an
email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff Works dot com,
and as always, join us at our home on the web,
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