Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles I remember being told fairy tales from a young age, and at the time, they seemed quite innocent. From brutal torture and murder to sexual assault and witchcraft, here are 10 Dark Fairy Tale Origins. I think everyone watching this will be familiar with the story of "Cinderella", but perhaps you are only familiar with the modern version. In the original version, the ugly step-sisters chop off parts of their own feet in an attempt to fit the glass slipper. But they weren't fooling anyone. When the prince learned of their tricks, he ordered the removal of their eyes. This was only the beginning of their punishment, as they were then sentenced to death by dancing on hot coals. In some versions, they weren't sentenced to death, but spent the rest of their lives as blind beggars living on the streets of some medieval slum. In "Hansel and Gretel", two young children find themselves lost in the forest. When they were taken in by an evil witch, she enslaves the children with plans of eating them, but they push the witch into the fire. With the witch dead, they are free to escape. In a different version of the tale, the children are captured by the devil. And, just like the witch, he also plans on eating them, so he keeps them locked in his house for a few days to fatten them up. And the devil did have a house, where he apparently lived with his wife. The devil and his wife were overweight to the point of being very slow. Taking advantage of this, the children grabbed a knife and cut their throats. When you hear the original version of "Snow White", your childhood will be completely destroyed. In the modern version, an evil queen tries to kill Snow White with a poison apple. When the seven dwarfs return home, they discover Snow White's dead body, but they couldn't bring themselves to bury her, so her body is placed in a glass coffin. One year later, her body is discovered by a prince, who breaks the poison curse with a single kiss and she is woken up. The original version was rather different. On discovering her body, the prince did not kiss Snow White; what he did instead was steal her body. So he put her on his horse for the long journey back to the castle. The evil queen was captured and sentenced to death by dancing. Death by dancing is quite simple: A pair of iron shoes would be placed into a fire until red hot, and someone would be made to wear them until they die. The story of Aladdin was included in "One Thousand and One Nights", but oral history has ensured the survival of many versions of it. Although it's an Arab folk tale, it is set in China. A local sorcerer convinces Aladdin to enter a booby-trapped cave in search of a magic lamp. In return for the lamp, he would make Aladdin the most wealthy man in all of China. But the sorcerer betrays Aladdin, trapping him in the cave. In most versions, Aladdin is rescued and taken home by a genie, and the genie makes him rich. In one version, Aladdin doesn't ask the genie for great wealth. The only thing he wants is revenge. Aladdin and the genie search the town for information on the sorcerer's location. When no one gives them any information, they start torturing people and murdering their children in front of them. That's where the story ends. The classic story of "Rapunzel" descries a beautiful woman trapped in a tall tower. The tower had no entrance or staircase. One afternoon, a prince discovers the tower, and Rapunzel allows him to climb into the tower by grabbing onto her long hair. They soon fall in love and hatch a plan for Rapunzel's escape. But her adopted mother finds out about the plan, and as she was the one who trapped Rapunzel, she didn't want it to succeed. She cut off Rapunzel's hair and sent her far away. She left Rapunzel's hair hanging from the tower window to trap the prince. That night, the prince climbed into the tower, only to see Rapunzel's evil mother. She pushes him from the tower, and he is blinded by the thorns below. Some versions tell that his sight is eventually restored and he finds Rapunzel, but others tell that he is blinded forever and Rapunzel is lost in a faraway desert forever. "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" dates back to around the year 1300. According to the tale, the old town of Hamelin has been overrun by rats. Desperate to control the situation, the local townsfolk agree to pay a man to lure the rats away from Hamelin, and so the man lured the rats away by playing the music on his magic pipe. But when he returned, the local townsfolk refused to pay him. In retaliation, he decided to kidnap their children and hold them for ransom. He did so in the usual way by luring them away with his pipe. Now, eventually the parents paid him, and they were reunited with their children. But there are more old and more gruesome versions of the story in which he forces the children into a river where they drown. "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame" features the character Quasimodo. He was a deformed hunchback who was abandoned by his own mother as a child. Adopted by the Archdeacon of Notre-Dame, and raised in the cathedral, he was never allowed to leave the Cathedral, as the local population was deeply scared of him. For a long time, he was considered a purely fictional character, but the memoirs of a Victorian sculptor suggest otherwise. They describe a hunched-back mason who worked on the cathedral. Could Quasimodo be real? "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" is a classic. The story begins with a family of bears who live in a house for some reason. One day, the three bears leave their home to do bear things for a while. While they were gone, a young girl called Goldilocks broke into their house. She ate their food and fell asleep in the small bear's bed. As she sleeps soundly, the three bears return home and discover the tiny home invader. Scared by their return, Goldilocks jumped out of the window and made her escape. But in the oldest versions of the story, Goldilocks didn't get the chance to escape. The bears simply tore her to shreds. I'm not quite sure what the moral of this story is... In "Little Red Riding Hood", a young girl travels through the woods to visit her grandmother. On arriving at her grandmother's house, she discovers the big bad wolf disguised as her grandmother, but she didn't realize until the wolf tried to eat her. And he would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn't for the meddling woodsman who saved the girl. In the original version of the story, the woodsman never rescues her, and she never reaches the house. It's literally just a tale of a girl being eaten by a wolf. It was told to teach children not to stray from their villages, as all kinds of dangers surround them. The original story of "Sleeping Beauty" is somewhat similar to "Snow White", although a lot more dark. In the story we know, a young princess seems to have been struck by an illness that put her to sleep. Not until 100 years later is she awoken by a kiss. She falls in love with the prince who kissed her, and the story pretty much ends here. However, in the original version, the prince doesn't wake her. On discovering her body, he decides to rape her. He then leaves her alone. Despite being both asleep and over 100 years old, this encounter impregnated her. Nine months later, she gave birth to twins, who managed to wake her up. It's really not a politically correct story, and I'm guessing not a true one, either. - Hey, is there trouble or not? - Huh? They're not having trouble, are they? I don't know; I've never seen anything like that. That's trouble of some kind, George. - What? - That's trouble of some kind, isn't it? Or not? I don't know. There it goes again. - Think I'll go and listen. - Hey, you think... - Strike one bike; see you up there? - They got troubles. I'm gonna go listen.
B1 UK rapunzel aladdin prince tower version snow white 10 Dark Fairy Tale Origins 1760 60 April Lu posted on 2018/02/22 More Share Save Report Video vocabulary