A fairy tale can be kind and instructive, good always wins in it, and everyone remains happy. Naturally, if this is not the original version of the fairy tale - after all, most of what you can read now is a reworked version. And what was originally written can only cause horror, since there you will not find either a happy ending or a guaranteed victory of good over evil. Initially, they were also aimed at an adult audience, so you can find some pretty dark moments in them.
"Sleeping Beauty"
The Italian Giambattista Basile is the author of the original version of this tale, which can terrify anyone. The Prince finds Sleeping Beauty, but does not wake her up, but rapes her. She later gives birth to children and wakes up to one of the children sucking a splinter out of her finger. The prince then kills his wife in order to live with Sleeping Beauty.
"Pinocchio"
In the original version of the tale, Pinocchio, freshly carved from a log, escapes. He falls into the hands of the police, who think that Geppetto treated him cruelly, so they put the master in jail. Pinocchio returns to Geppetto's house, but some time later dies, suffocating on a tree.
The story of Peter Pan
This tale has a lot more adult themes than you might think. Peter Pan brings Wendy to Neverland to be a mother to the lost boys. Over time, she falls in love with Peter and asks him how he feels about her. And he describes himself as her faithful son, breaking her heart.
"Three piglets"
Some English versions This tale tells that the wolf ate the first and second pig after blowing away their thatched and wooden houses.
Mermaid
The original story, narrated by Hans Christian Andersen, describes the Little Mermaid, who has recently gained legs instead of a tail and can walk. But at the same time, every step brings her unbearable pain. If the prince marries another, then the little mermaid will die and turn into sea foam. And yes, the prince married another. However, the Little Mermaid sisters got a dagger - if they kill the prince and drip his blood on their feet, then her tail will return to the Little Mermaid. No, the Little Mermaid, of course, did not.
"Aladdin"
Aladdin is the hero of a Middle Eastern fairy tale where he is locked in a cave, rubs the ring he found and asks the genie to take it to his mother. His mother cleans the lamp found by her son and summons an even more powerful genie, which gives Aladdin wealth and a palace. However, the evil wizard forces Aladdin's wife to steal the lamp, summons the genie himself, and transfers the palace and wealth to the place of his home. Aladdin rubs the ring and asks the genie to take it to the palace, where he kills the wizard, rubs the lamp and asks the genie to take the palace back.
"Ugly duck"
Hans Christian Andersen's tale of the ugly duckling is known all over the world. In the real version, the little duckling suffers from bullying by other ducks and domestic animals, runs away to the forest, where he lives with wild geese and ducks until they are killed by hunters. The duckling is picked up by a woman, but in her house a cat and a chicken mock him even more, because of which he runs away again and only then joins the swans.
"The Frog King"
In some versions of this tale, it is not the kiss of the good princess that releases the king from the spell. This can only be achieved with an ax and his severed head. And in the original version of the Brothers Grimm, the princess throws the frog against the wall with all her might so that he turns into a man.
"Alice in Wonderland"
The original version of Lewis Carroll is extremely strange in many ways. For example, during the journey, Alice finds a caterpillar smoking a hookah on a mushroom. Also of note is her departure from the tea party, during which she calls it the dumbest tea party she has ever attended.
"The beauty and the Beast"
In the original version of the tale, Belle's father comes first to the monster's castle, picking a rose from the garden for his daughter. The monster notices him doing this and is furious that after everything he has eaten, he wants to take the rose as well. The monster only allows him to leave with the promise that he will return. However, Belle learns the story and goes to the castle instead of her father, where the Beast repeatedly asks her to marry him, but she refuses until he is near death from grief. Only then does her tears turn him into a prince.
"Cinderella"
In the Brothers Grimm version, Cinderella's older sister cuts off her fingers in an attempt to fit her foot into her shoe. The second sister cuts off her heels. In both cases, two doves sent by Cinderella's dead mother point out to the prince that there is blood in the shoe. When Cinderella marries the prince, the doves return and peck out the eyes of her older sister.
"Puss in Boots"
Charles Perrault's Puss in Boots is a cat who wants to help his poor owner become rich. The cat constantly catches rabbits in the forest and presents them to the king as gifts from the fictional Marquis of Carabas. One day, he steals his master's clothes while he is bathing in the river and informs the passing king that this is the Marquis of Carabas. The cat then threatens people to confirm that this is Karabas. The convinced king gives him his daughter as a wife.
"Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs"
The original fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm tells a much darker story. For example, the Evil Queen asked to get rid of Snow White in the following way - take her to the forest, kill her, and bring her liver and lungs so that the Queen can eat them. Later in the story, when Snow White and the Prince are getting married, the Queen shows up at the wedding, not knowing whose wedding it is. She is forced to dance in metal boots brought from the fire until she dies.
"Hansel and Gretel"
There are different interpretations of this tale. This may be a reference to the many parents who had to abandon their children during a major famine in Europe in the 14th century. Or it could be a reference to the story of the oven maker who was so jealous of the gingerbread that another woman baked that he told everyone that she was a witch, after which she was burned in her own oven.
"Mulan"
The original version of the story about Mulan tells that the main character, having returned from the war, finds out that her father has died, her mother has married another, and the khan demands that she become his mistress. Mulan cannot bear it and kills herself.
"Rapunzel"
In the fairy tale of the Brothers Grimm about Rapunzel, the main character is still the same young and beautiful girl, but she becomes pregnant from the prince. The wicked witch cuts off her hair and drives her out into the desert, and when the prince comes and climbs up her hair, she throws him down.
"Little Jack Horner"
This children's song tells how the bishop hid the documents for the lands from the king and thieves, but the king quartered him, and only the servant Jack managed to escape with the pie and documents.
"Brer Rabbit"
Scholars believe that "Brother Rabbit" is an allusion to American slaves who used various tricks against their masters.
"Swan geese"
The original fairy tale of the Brothers Grimm is extremely cruel. The maid persuades the princess to switch places, after which she marries the prince, kills the talking horse to get rid of the evidence. But in the end, they still put her naked in a barrel filled with spikes and lower her down the mountain.
"Chicken Little"
In this story, an acorn falls on the chicken's head and goes to the king, gathering other animals along the way to tell the story that the sky is falling. Most versions of the tale end with the fox inviting all the animals to his home, where he eats them.
"Blue Beard"
In this tale, an ugly but rich man constantly takes young wives for himself, but no one knows where they disappear. The next wife receives all the keys from him while he is away, including from a room that cannot be opened. When the wife does open it, she finds all of Bluebeard's ex-wives hung on hooks.
"Rumpelstiltskin"
The girl's father tells the king that she can weave straw into gold. She does not cope with the task, and by morning death awaits her. She meets a dwarf who runs an errand in exchange for her first child, but when the baby is born, she cannot give it away. The dwarf asks her to guess his name, which she fails to do. When the girl tells the dwarf his name, he stands on one leg, grabs the other and tears himself in half.
"The Fox and the Dog"
This wonderful story of friendship between a fox and a dog in the original ends very sadly. When both heroes grow up, the dog, on the orders of the owner, has to drive and kill the fox. After some time, the owner himself takes the dog into the forest and kills him, because he cannot take him with him to the nursing home.
"Hameln Pied Piper"
The Pied Piper was hired by the mayor of the city to rid him of the rats. He did his job, but the mayor refused to pay him for it. So the rat-catcher returned and took all the children out of the city - they were never heard from again.
"Little Red Riding Hood"
There are many different versions of the ending of this tale, but the most cruel is the one in which the wolf killed the grandmother, made pies stuffed with her meat, and poured her blood into a bottle of wine - and fed Little Red Riding Hood with it before eating her too.
Educators and psychologists often complain that folk tales too cruel. If they only knew what parents tell their offspring - how would you say it? - Heavily edited versions of the magical stories. The originals were much more, uh... naturalistic, or something...
For example, let's take the fairy tale about the dead princess, familiar to everyone from the cradle. Do you know that the beautiful maiden was not awakened at all by the kiss of the brave prince? The Italian version of this story, dated 1636, says that a passing young man raped a damsel sleeping in a dead sleep and went on without hesitation. The three connecting rods actually threw the old lady up the steeple of St. Paul's; Cinderella's stepmother chopped off a piece of her daughter's foot, and as for Snow White, let's say that the evil queen wanted not so much her heart as her tender body...
Many of you probably want to ask the same question: how could you tell such "fairy tales" to small children?! Folklore scientists explain this phenomenon as follows: fairy tales are part of oral folk art, and adults told not only children, but also adults what they themselves had heard somewhere.
In addition, in ancient times, adults treated children not as babies, but as future adults who needed to be prepared for adulthood. And yet, mind you, then the upbringing of the younger generation took place naturally - children and their parents slept in the same room, mothers gave birth to their brothers and sisters in their own presence, and nothing to say about preparing breakfasts, lunches and dinners from bloodied skinned carcasses ...
Today, few people know about two people who made a huge contribution to the history of mankind, preserving for future generations excellent examples of "oral folk art". No, these are not the Brothers Grimm! One of them is the Italian Giambattista Basile, who wrote "The Tale of Tales" (it contained fifty Sicilian tales and was published in 1636).
The other is the Frenchman Charles Perrault. His book, containing eight fairy tales, was published in 1697. Seven of them have become classics, and among them are Cinderella, The Blue Bird, Sleeping Beauty, and Little Thumb. So, let's put out the lights, kids, and daddy will tell you a new story.
Sleeping Beauty.
When she was born, the sorceress predicted a terrible death for her - she would die from a prick of a poisoned spindle. Her father ordered all the spindles to be taken out of the palace, but the beauty - her name was Thalia - nevertheless pricked herself with a spindle and fell dead. The king, her inconsolable father, placed his daughter's lifeless body on a velvet-lined throne and ordered Thalia to be carried to their small house in the forest. They locked the house and left, never to return.One day a foreign king hunted in those forests. At some point, his falcon escaped from his hands and flew away. The king rode after him and came across a small house. Deciding that the falcon could fly inside, the cavalier climbed into the window of the house.
The falcon was not there. But he found the princess sitting on the throne. Deciding that the girl had fallen asleep, the king began to wake her up, but neither pats on her cheeks nor screams awakened the sleeping beauty. Being inflamed by the beauty of the girl, the king, according to Basile, transferred her to the bed and "gathered the flowers of love." And then, leaving the beauty on the bed, he returned to his kingdom and for a long time forgot about the incident.
Nine months have passed. One fine day, the princess gave birth to twins - a boy and a girl, who lay next to her and sucked her breasts. It is not known how long this would have continued if one day the boy had not lost his mother's breast and had not begun to suck her finger - the same one pricked with a spindle.
The poisoned thorn popped out, and the princess woke up to find herself in an abandoned house all alone, except for the lovely babies who came from nowhere.
Meanwhile, the foreign king, suddenly remembering the sleeping girl and the "adventure", again gathered to hunt in those parts. Looking into an abandoned house, he found a beautiful trinity there. Having repented, the king told the beautiful princess about everything and even stayed there for several days. However, then he nevertheless left, however, promising the beauty to soon send for her and the children - in these few days they managed to fall in love with each other.
Returning home, the king could not forget about the meeting with the princess. Every night he left his royal bed, went into the garden and remembered the beautiful Thalia and her children - a boy named Sun and a girl named Moon.
And his wife - that is, the queen, whom he somehow did not find time to tell about the newborns - suspected something. First, she interrogated one of the royal falconers, and then intercepted the messenger with the king's letter to Thalia.
Meanwhile, the unsuspecting Thalia quickly gathered the twins and went to visit her lover. She did not know that the queen ordered all three to be seized, the babies killed, cooked from them several dishes and served to the king for dinner.
At dinner, when the king praised meat pies, the queen kept muttering: "Mangia, mangia, you eat yours!" The king was tired of listening to his wife's mutterings, and he abruptly cut her off: "Of course, I eat mine - after all, your dowry was worth a penny!"
But this was not enough for the evil queen. Blinded by a thirst for revenge, she ordered that the princess herself be brought to her. "You vile creature!" said the queen. "And I will kill you!" The princess sobbed and screamed that it was not her fault - after all, the king "broke her fort" while she slept. But the queen was adamant. "Start a fire and throw it in there!" she ordered the servants.
The desperate princess, groaning, asked to fulfill her last wish She wanted to undress before she died. Her clothes were embroidered with gold and adorned with precious stones, so the greedy queen, after thinking, agreed.
The princess undressed very slowly. She let out a loud and plaintive cry as she took off every article of her dress. And the king heard her. He broke into the dungeon, knocked the queen down and demanded the return of the twins.
"But you ate them yourself!" said the evil queen. The king sobbed. He ordered the queen to be burnt in an already lit fire. Just then the cook came and admitted that he disobeyed the queen's order and left the twins alive, replacing them with a lamb. The joy of the parents knew no bounds! Having kissed the cook and each other, they began to live and make good. And Basile ends the tale with the following moral: "Some are always lucky - even when they sleep."
Cinderella.
The first European fairy tale about Cinderella was described by the same Basile - however, that original Cinderella did not lose her glass slipper at all. The little girl's name was Zezolla, short for Lucresuzzia, and she had already shown a homicidal inclination as a child. Having agreed with her nanny, she ruined her evil stepmother by inviting her to look at her mother's chest. The greedy stepmother bent over the chest, Zezolla with force lowered the lid - and broke her stepmother's neck.After burying her stepmother, Zezolla persuaded her father to marry her nanny. But the girl did not feel better, because her life was poisoned by six nanny's daughters. She continued to wash, wash, clean the house and shovel ashes from stoves and fireplaces. That's why they called her Cinderella.
But one day, Zezolla accidentally stumbled upon a magical tree that could grant wishes. It was only necessary to cast a spell: "O magic tree! Undress yourself and dress me!" Near this tree, Cinderella dressed up in beautiful dresses and went to balls. Once the king himself saw the girl and, of course, immediately fell in love. He sent his servant to look for Zezolla, but he could not find the girl. The enamored ruler became angry and cried out: "By the souls of my ancestors - if you do not find a beauty, then I will beat you with a stick and kick you as many times as there are hairs in your vile beard!" The servant, protecting his own ass, found Cinderella and, grabbing her, put her in her own cart. But Zezolla called out to the horses, and they rushed off. The servant fell.
Something else that belonged to Cinderella also fell. The servant returned to the master with the acquired object in his hands. He jumped up, happily grabbed the object and began to cover it with kisses. What was it? Silk slipper? Golden shoe? Glass slipper?
Not at all! It was a pianella - a stilted galosh with a cork sole, just like the women of Naples during the Renaissance wore! These galoshes on a high platform protected long women's dresses from dirt and dust. The height of the platform usually reached 6-18 inches.
So, imagine a king tenderly pressing to his chest such a large and awkward object as this very pianella, and not only pressing, but also cooing over him like a dove: if, they say, it’s not my destiny to find you, my love, then I will die in my prime. But I will still find you, my love, no matter what it costs me! And the young king sent messengers who traveled all over the kingdom and tried on the found pianella for each woman. So Cinderella was found.
Basile's tale is full of romanticism and speaks of a somewhat strange kind of fetish - shoes. However, the Northern European versions of Cinderella are much more gory.
Let's compare the Italian version with Scandinavian and Norwegian. Let's take the third act. The prince ordered to smear one step of the palace porch with resin, and the shoe of the local Cinderella - in these places she was called Aschen puttel - stuck to her. After that, the prince's servants went around the kingdom to look for the owner of such a small foot.
And so they got to Cinderella's house. But besides the poor thing herself, two stepmother's daughters still lived there! First, the eldest daughter tried on the shoe - locking herself in the bedroom, she pulled on the shoe, but in vain - her thumb interfered. Then her mother told her, "Take a knife and cut off your finger. When you become a queen, you won't have to walk much!" The girl obeyed - the shoe fit.
The delighted prince immediately put the beauty on a horse and galloped to the palace - to prepare for the wedding. But it was not there! As they passed the grave of Cinderella's mother, the birds perched in the trees sang loudly:
"Look back, look back!
Blood is dripping from the shoe
The shoe was small, and behind
It's not your bride sitting!"
The prince looked back and indeed saw the blood dripping from the girl's shoe. Then he returned and gave the slipper to the second stepmother's daughter. And that one turned out to be too thick a heel - and the shoe did not fit again. The mother gave the second daughter the same advice. The girl took a sharp knife, cut off part of the heel and, hiding the pain, squeezed her foot into the shoe. The joyful prince put another bride on a horse and galloped to the castle. But... the birds were on guard! Finally, the prince, returning to the same house, found his Cinderella, married her and lived in complete happiness. And envious girls were blinded and subjected to flogging - so as not to covet someone else's.
Yes, it was this version that served as the basis modern fairy tale- only the publishers, taking pity on the little kids, crossed out even the slightest hint of blood from their version. Incidentally, the fairy tale of Cinderella is one of the most popular fairy tales in the world. She has been living for 2500 years and during this time she received 700 versions. And the earliest version of "Cinderella" was found in Ancient Egypt- there, mothers told their children at night a story about a beautiful prostitute who was bathing in the river, and at that time an eagle stole her sandal and took it to the pharaoh.
The sandal was so small and elegant that the pharaoh immediately announced a nationwide wanted list. And, of course, when he found Fodoris - Cinderella - he immediately married her. I wonder what number the wife of the pharaoh was this Cinderella? ..
Three Bears
An old woman breaks into the bears' house. She was an old ragged beggar, and it took almost a hundred years for the old woman to turn into a little thief with blond curls (by the way, if we were talking about a young girl, did she really break into the bears' house? Maybe it was still three filming one bachelor's apartment?)The English poet Robert Susie published this tale in 1837, "equipping" it with phrases that since then have been successful for all parents without exception: "Who was sitting in my chair ?!" "Who ate my porridge?" As Susie wrote, the old woman broke into the house, ate porridge, sat on a chair, and then fell asleep. When the bears returned, she jumped out the window. "Whether she broke her neck, froze to death in the forest, or was arrested and rotted in prison, I don't know. But since then, the three bears have never heard of that old woman."
The British can be proud - for many years this version of the tale was considered the first. True, in 1951, in one of the libraries in Toronto, they found a book published in 1831 with the same tale. It was written for her nephew by a certain Eleanor Moore.
Mrs. Moore's tale is rather strange. According to her version, the old woman climbed into the house of three bears, because shortly before that they offended her. And at the end, when the three bears caught her, they slowly and in detail discussed what to do with her now:
"They threw her into the fire, but she did not burn; They threw her into the water, but she did not sink; Then they took her and threw her on the steeple of St. Paul's - and if you look closely, you will see that she is still there! "
The version of the tale, edited by the poet Susie, existed for quite a long time, until in 1918 someone replaced the gray-haired old woman with a little girl.
The brutal truth about the rapist prince and the killer Cinderella
Educators and psychologists often complain that folk tales are too cruel. If they only knew what parents tell their offspring - how would you say it? -- Heavily edited versions of the magical stories. The originals were much more, uh... naturalistic, or something...
For example, let's take the fairy tale about the dead princess, familiar to everyone from the cradle. Do you know that the beautiful maiden was not awakened at all by the kiss of the brave prince? The Italian version of this story, dated 1636, says that a passing young man raped a damsel sleeping in a dead sleep and went on without hesitation. The three connecting rods actually threw the old lady up the steeple of St. Paul's; Cinderella's stepmother chopped off a piece of her daughter's foot, and as for Snow White, let's say that the evil queen wanted not so much her heart as her tender body...
Many of you probably want to ask the same question: how could you tell such "fairy tales" to small children?!
Folklore scientists explain this phenomenon as follows: fairy tales are part of oral folk art, and adults told not only children, but also adults what they themselves had heard somewhere.
In addition, in ancient times, adults treated children not as babies, but as future adults who needed to be prepared for adulthood. And yet, mind you, then the upbringing of the younger generation took place naturally - children and their parents slept in the same room, their mothers gave birth to brothers and sisters in their own presence, and nothing to say about preparing breakfasts, lunches and dinners from bloodied skinned carcasses .. .
Today, few people know about two people who made a huge contribution to the history of mankind, preserving for future generations excellent examples of "oral folk art". No, these are not the Brothers Grimm! One of them is the Italian Giambattista Basile, who wrote The Tale of Tales (it contained fifty Sicilian tales and was published in 1636). The other is the Frenchman Charles Perrault. His book, containing eight fairy tales, was published in 1697. Seven of them have become classics, and among them are Cinderella, The Blue Bird, Sleeping Beauty, and Little Thumb.
So, let's put out the lights, kids, and daddy will tell you a new story.
sleeping Beauty
Just gave birth to twins
When she was born, the sorceress predicted a terrible death for her - she would die from a prick of a poisoned spindle. Her father ordered all the spindles to be taken out of the palace, but the beauty - her name was Thalia - nevertheless pricked herself with a spindle and fell dead.
The king, her inconsolable father, placed his daughter's lifeless body on a velvet-covered throne and ordered Thalia to be carried to their little house in the woods. They locked the house and left, never to return.
One day a foreign king hunted in those forests. At some point, his falcon escaped from his hands and flew away. The king rode after him and came across a small house. Deciding that the falcon could fly inside, the cavalier climbed into the window of the house. The falcon was not there. But he found the princess sitting on the throne.
Deciding that the girl had fallen asleep, the king began to wake her up, but neither pats on her cheeks nor screams awakened the sleeping beauty. Being inflamed by the beauty of the girl, the king, according to Basile, transferred her to the bed and "gathered the flowers of love." And then, leaving the beauty on the bed, he returned to his kingdom and for a long time forgot about the incident.
Nine months have passed. One fine day, the princess gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, who lay next to her and sucked her breasts. It is not known how long this would have continued if one day the boy had not lost his mother's breast and had not begun to suck her finger - the same one pricked with a spindle. The poisoned thorn popped out, and the princess woke up to find herself in an abandoned house all alone, except for the lovely babies who came from nowhere.
Meanwhile, the foreign king, suddenly remembering the sleeping girl and the "adventure", again gathered to hunt in those parts. Looking into an abandoned house, he found a beautiful trinity there. Having repented, the king told the beautiful princess about everything and even stayed there for several days. However, then he nevertheless left, however, promising the beauty to soon send for her and the children - in these few days they managed to fall in love with each other.
Returning home, the king could not forget about the meeting with the princess. Every night he left his royal bed, went into the garden and remembered the beautiful Thalia and her children - a boy named Sun and a girl named Moon.
And his wife - that is, the queen, whom he somehow did not find time to tell about the newborns - suspected something. First, she interrogated one of the royal falconers, and then intercepted the messenger with the king's letter to Thalia.
Meanwhile, the unsuspecting Thalia quickly gathered the twins and went to visit her lover. She did not know that the queen ordered all three to be seized, the babies killed, cooked from them several dishes and served to the king for dinner.
At dinner, when the king praised meat pies, the queen kept muttering: "Mangia, mangia, you eat yours!"
The king was tired of listening to his wife's mutterings, and he abruptly cut her off: "Of course, I eat mine - after all, your dowry was worth a penny!"
But this was not enough for the evil queen. Blinded by a thirst for revenge, she ordered that the princess herself be brought to her.
"You vile creature!" said the queen. "And I will kill you!"
The princess sobbed and screamed that it was not her fault - after all, the king "broke her fort" while she slept. But the queen was adamant.
"Start a fire and throw her in there!" she ordered the servants.
The desperate princess, groaning, asked to fulfill her last wish - she wanted to undress before her death. Her clothes were embroidered with gold and adorned with precious stones, so the greedy queen, after thinking, agreed.
The princess undressed very slowly. She let out a loud and plaintive cry as she took off every article of her dress. And the king heard her. He broke into the dungeon, knocked the queen down and demanded the return of the twins.
"But you ate them yourself!" said the evil queen. The king sobbed. He ordered the queen to be burnt in an already lit fire.
Just then the cook came and confessed that he disobeyed the queen's order and left the twins alive, replacing them with a lamb. The joy of the parents knew no bounds! Having kissed the cook and each other, they began to live and make good.
And Basile ends the tale with the following moral: "Some are always lucky - even when they sleep."
Cinderella
When the sisters tried on the shoe, they had to chop off their legs
The first European fairy tale about Cinderella was described by the same Basile - however, that original Cinderella did not lose her glass slipper at all.
The little girl's name was Zezolla, short for Lucresuzzia, and she showed a homicidal inclination even as a child. Having agreed with her nanny, she ruined her evil stepmother by inviting her to look at her mother's chest. The greedy stepmother bent over the chest, Zezolla with force lowered the lid - and broke her stepmother's neck.
After burying her stepmother, Zezolla persuaded her father to marry her nanny. But the girl did not feel better, because her life was poisoned by six nanny's daughters. She continued to wash, wash, clean the house and shovel ashes from stoves and fireplaces. That's why they called her Cinderella.
But one day, Zezolla accidentally stumbled upon a magical tree that could grant wishes. It was only necessary to cast a spell: "O magic tree! Undress yourself and dress me!"
Near this tree, Cinderella dressed up in beautiful dresses and went to balls. Once the king himself saw the girl and, of course, immediately fell in love. He sent his servant to look for Zezolla, but he could not find the girl. The enamored ruler became angry and cried out: "By the souls of my ancestors - if you do not find the beauty, then I will beat you with a stick and kick you as many times as there are hairs in your vile beard!"
The servant, protecting his own ass, found Cinderella and, grabbing her, put her in her own cart. But Zezolla called out to the horses, and they rushed off. The servant fell. Something else that belonged to Cinderella also fell.
The servant returned to the master with the newly acquired object in his hands. He jumped up, happily grabbed the object and began to cover it with kisses. What was it? Silk slipper? Golden shoe? Glass slipper?
Not at all! It was a pianella - a stilted galosh with a cork sole, just like the women of Naples during the Renaissance wore! These galoshes on a high platform protected long women's dresses from dirt and dust. The height of the platform usually reached 6-18 inches.
So, imagine a king tenderly pressing to his chest such a large and awkward object as this very pianella, and not only pressing, but also cooing over him like a dove: if, they say, it’s not my destiny to find you, my love, then I will die in my prime. But I will still find you, my love, no matter what it costs me!
And the young king sent messengers who traveled all over the kingdom and tried on the found pianella for each woman. So Cinderella was found.
Basile's tale is full of romanticism and speaks of a somewhat strange kind of fetish - shoes. However, the Northern European versions of Cinderella are much more gory.
Let's compare the Italian version with Scandinavian and Norwegian. Let's take the third act.
The prince ordered that one step of the palace porch be smeared with pitch, and the shoe of the local Cinderella - in these places she was called Aschen puttel - stuck to her. After that, the prince's servants went around the kingdom to look for the owner of such a small foot.
And so they got to Cinderella's house. But besides the poor thing herself, two stepmother's daughters also lived there! First, the eldest daughter tried on the shoe - locking herself in the bedroom, she pulled on the shoe, but in vain - her thumb interfered. Then her mother said to her: "Take a knife and cut off your finger. When you become a queen, you won't have to walk much!" The girl obeyed - the shoe fit.
The delighted prince immediately put the beauty on a horse and galloped to the palace to prepare for the wedding. But it was not there! As they passed the grave of Cinderella's mother, the birds perched in the trees sang loudly:
"Look back, look back!
Blood is dripping from the shoe
The shoe was small, and behind
It's not your bride sitting!"
The prince looked back and indeed saw the blood dripping from the girl's shoe. Then he returned and gave the slipper to the second stepmother's daughter. And that one turned out to be too thick a heel - and the shoe did not fit again. The mother gave the second daughter the same advice. The girl took a sharp knife, cut off part of the heel and, hiding the pain, squeezed her foot into the shoe. The joyful prince put another bride on a horse and galloped to the castle. But... the birds were on guard!
Finally, the prince, returning to the same house, found his Cinderella, married her and lived a life of complete happiness. And envious girls were blinded and subjected to flogging - so that they would not covet someone else's.
Yes, it was this version that served as the basis of the modern fairy tale - only the publishers, taking pity on the little children, crossed out even the slightest hint of blood from their version.
By the way, the fairy tale about Cinderella is one of the most popular fairy tales in the world. She has been living for 2500 years and during this time she received 700 versions. And the earliest version of "Cinderella" was found in ancient Egypt - where mothers told their children at night a story about a beautiful prostitute who was swimming in the river, and at that time an eagle stole her sandal and took it to the pharaoh. The sandal was so small and elegant that the pharaoh immediately announced a nationwide wanted list. And, of course, when he found Fodoris - Cinderella - he immediately married her. I wonder what number the wife of the pharaoh was this Cinderella? ..
Three Bears
An old woman breaks into the bears' house
She was an old ragged beggar, and it took almost a hundred years for the old woman to turn into a little thief with blond curls (by the way, if we were talking about a young girl, did she really break into the bears' house? Maybe it was still three filming one bachelor's apartment?)
The English poet Robert Susie published this tale in 1837, "equipping" it with phrases that since then have been successful for all parents without exception: "Who was sitting in my chair ?!" "Who ate my porridge?"
As Susie wrote, the old woman broke into the house, ate porridge, sat on a chair, and then fell asleep. When the bears returned, she jumped out the window. "Whether she broke her neck, or froze to death in the woods, or was arrested and rotted in prison, I don't know. But since then, the three bears have never heard of that old woman."
The British can be proud - for many years this version of the tale was considered the first. True, in 1951, in one of the libraries in Toronto, they found a book published in 1831 with the same tale. It was written for her nephew by a certain Eleanor Moore.
Mrs. Moore's story is rather strange. According to her version, the old woman climbed into the house of three bears, because shortly before that they offended her. And at the end, when the three bears caught her, they slowly and in detail discussed what to do with her now:
"They threw her into the fire, but she did not burn;
They threw her into the water, but she did not sink;
Then they took her and threw her on the steeple of St. Paul's - and if you look closely, you will see that she is still there!
The version of the tale, edited by the poet Susie, existed for quite a long time, until in 1918 someone replaced the gray-haired old woman with a little girl.
Author: Kira CHETVERTAK
Everyone knows the tale of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The story of a girl who fell into a dead sleep after she tasted a sent apple became popular in Europe thanks to Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, who included it in one of the editions of his collection Children's and Family Tales.
Today, the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm are often criticized for excessive cruelty - it is in their version of Cinderella's sisters that they cut off their thumbs and heels to stuff their feet into the shoe, and then the doves peck out the eyes of the evil sisters.
And I must say that modern mothers are not too different from the noble ladies of the XIX century. Those, too, after the world saw the first collection of fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm (it happened in 1812), criticized the authors for excessive cruelty and the presence of scenes of a sexual nature in the book for children.
However, what kind of life - such fairy tales, because the plots fairy tales Jacob and Wilhelm did not invent from scratch, but wrote them down from the words of the narrators.
If we talk about "Snow White", then it is believed that Ferdinand Siebert, the son of a pastor who taught at the Friedrich Gymnasium in Kassel, told the brothers-collectors of folklore. This happened after 1814, since the story of Snow White did not appear in the first editions of the collection of fairy tales.
WHAT WAS THE ORIGINAL Plot OF THE FAIRY TALE?
If we talk about the plot of "Snow White" as presented by the Brothers Grimm, then the first half of this fairy tale does not differ much from the well-known Disney version: the same envious stepmother with a magic mirror, the hunter who refused to kill the girl, and the gnomes who sheltered her in their house .
Curious differences begin in the second half of the story. Firstly, the stepmother in the version of the Brothers Grimm came to Snow White more than once, but visited her three times and all the time with different "gifts": the first time she brought a suffocating lace for her dress, the second - a poisoned comb, and the third - the same poisonous apple.
Snow White woke up not at all from the kiss of the handsome prince. It's just that she was so beautiful in the coffin that the prince immediately ordered her lifeless body to be delivered to his palace. The servants did not carry the coffin very carefully, one of the porters stumbled, a piece of the sent apple flew out of Snow White's throat, and then she woke up.
Well, the stepmother was generally treated harshly. This lady was foolish enough to come to Snow White's wedding out of curiosity, where her stepmother was caught and forced to dance in red-hot iron shoes until she fell dead. Here is such a good happy ending. But this is all a saying, the real fairy tale, as they say, lies ahead.
WHO WAS SNOW WHITE'S HISTORICAL PROTOTYPE?
Snow White is a story based on real events. Moreover, the main character has two historical prototypes at once. Let's get to know them.
Applicant number one is Countess Margareta von Waldeck, daughter of Count Philip IV, who ruled Waldeck, a city in Hesse. Born in 1533, her father spent her youth in Vianden (Luxembourg), knew Martin Luther personally and actively promoted Lutheranism in Waldeck and Hesse.
The first wife of Philip, who became the mother of Margaret, was Margaret from East Frisia, and after the death of his wife, the count remarried Katharina from the city of Hatzfeld.
The relationship between the daughter from her first marriage and the stepmother categorically did not go well, and the 16-year-old Margaret von Waldeck was sent to Brussels. There she met the Spanish Prince Philip - the future king of Spain from the Hamburg dynasty Philip II.
The young prince boasted an excellent education, and they say he had a fine sense of nature and art. In a word, there is nothing surprising in the fact that passionate love soon arose between him and Margareta, no.
By the way, Margaret's appearance perfectly fits the description of Snow White: also white skin, black hair and a bright blush.
But, as you know, strong feelings in the event that they do not meet political interests should be nipped in the bud.
Most of all, Philip's father, Charles V, who had his own plans for his son, was not happy about the prince's romantic passion. Not so happy that Margareta suddenly died mysteriously at the age of 21, according to rumors, she was poisoned by agents of the Spanish king.
This story received wide publicity, because in the 16th century they loved to weep over the tragic story of unhappy love no less than today.
But in the city of Lohr am Main, which is located in Bavaria, it is believed that the real Snow White was Baroness Maria Sophia Margareta Katarina von und Ertal, who was born on June 25, 1725.
She was the daughter of Philipp Christoph von Ertal, ruler of the local lands, and his wife, Baroness von Bettendorf. After the death of his first wife, Philip remarried to Claudia Elisabeth Maria von Wenningen, Countess of Reichstein, and this lady did not love her stepdaughter with all her heart.
And the stepmother from the city of Lor am Main actually had a talking mirror - an acoustic toy that her husband gave her on her wedding day.
The mirror was made in Lohr am Main in 1720, today it is exhibited in the city museum. The gnomes from the tale are supposed to be undersized miners who lived in the village of Bieber, which is located west of the city, and is surrounded by seven mountains.
The local tunnels were very small and narrow, so only small people were hired to work in Bieber. Also, the miners wore clothes with bright hoods, which are very reminiscent of dwarf costumes.
The stepmother could poison Mary with the help of poisonous belladonna - this plant is found everywhere in the vicinity of Laura am Main.
WHY APPLE?
The fairy tale "Snow White" is filled with many symbols. For example, the number 7 - the number of gnomes, according to some researchers, does not just coincide with the number of planets, which in Latin languages gave the names of the days of the week: Moon (Monday), Mars (Tuesday), Mercury (Wednesday), Jupiter (Thursday), Venus (Friday), Saturn (Saturday), and the Sun - Sunday.
The number 3 is also often mentioned in the fairy tale. Three drops of blood fall on the snow, when Snow White's mother wishes for a daughter with fair skin, black hair and scarlet lips, the stepmother also visits Snow White three times and brings her the gifts of Venus: a lace for a dress , comb and apple.
However, with an apple, everything is generally not easy. This fruit in the European tradition is still a fruit. Everyone remembers that Eve took an apple from the hands of the Serpent and what it led to, but this fruit had an equally bad reputation in the ancient tradition.
This refers to the famous “Apple of Discord” with the inscription “Most Beautiful”, which Paris gave to Aphrodite, which offended Hera and Athena, and the very same Trojan War described by Homer in the Iliad.
And yet, Snow White, falling asleep in a dead sleep, is a kind of reflection of the ancient Celtic beliefs that one cannot sleep in an apple orchard. Like, if you fall asleep under an apple tree, you may never wake up again, because there is a great chance that fairies living in a tree trunk will steal your soul.
In Somerset, England, this superstition evolved into a curious legend about the Apple Man, a spirit that lives in the body of the oldest apple tree in the garden. On the night of January 17, Apple Man had to make offerings, pour cider at the roots of the apple tree and lay out slices of bread, sometimes bread was also tied to the branches of a tree.
And in England there was a legend that one peasant had absolutely nothing to eat, but he still decided to give the last piece of bread to the Apple Man, and in return he told the peasant about the treasures hidden in the ground.
So sometimes apple perfumes were also useful, but sleeping under these trees was still considered a life-threatening occupation, so it is not surprising that Snow White did not die, but fell asleep in a dead sleep, having tasted the apple.
Educators and psychologists often complain that folk tales are too cruel. If they only knew what parents tell their offspring - how would you say it? - Heavily edited versions of the magical stories. The originals were much more, uh... naturalistic, or something...
For example, let's take the fairy tale about the dead princess, familiar to everyone from the cradle. Do you know that the beautiful maiden was not awakened at all by the kiss of the brave prince? The Italian version of this story, dated 1636, says that a passing young man raped a damsel sleeping in a dead sleep and went on without hesitation. The three connecting rods actually threw the old lady up the steeple of St. Paul's; Cinderella's stepmother chopped off a piece of her daughter's foot, and as for Snow White, let's say that the evil queen wanted not so much her heart as her tender body...
Many of you probably want to ask the same question: how could you tell such "fairy tales" to small children?! Folklore scientists explain this phenomenon as follows: fairy tales are part of oral folk art, and adults told not only children, but also adults what they themselves had heard somewhere.
In addition, in ancient times, adults treated children not as babies, but as future adults who needed to be prepared for adulthood. And yet, mind you, then the upbringing of the younger generation took place naturally - children and their parents slept in the same room, mothers gave birth to their brothers and sisters in their own presence, and nothing to say about preparing breakfasts, lunches and dinners from bloodied skinned carcasses ...
Today, few people know about two people who made a huge contribution to the history of mankind, preserving for future generations excellent examples of "oral folk art". No, these are not the Brothers Grimm! One of them is the Italian Giambattista Basile, who wrote "The Tale of Tales" (it contained fifty Sicilian tales and was published in 1636).
The other is the Frenchman Charles Perrault. His book, containing eight fairy tales, was published in 1697. Seven of them have become classics, and among them are Cinderella, The Blue Bird, Sleeping Beauty, and Little Thumb. So, let's put out the lights, kids, and daddy will tell you a new story.
sleeping Beauty
Just gave birth to twins
When she was born, the sorceress predicted a terrible death for her - she would die from a prick of a poisoned spindle. Her father ordered all the spindles to be taken out of the palace, but the beauty - her name was Thalia - nevertheless pricked herself with a spindle and fell dead. The king, her inconsolable father, placed his daughter's lifeless body on a velvet-lined throne and ordered Thalia to be carried to their small house in the forest.
They locked the house and left, never to return.
One day a foreign king hunted in those forests. At some point, his falcon escaped from his hands and flew away. The king rode after him and came across a small house. Deciding that the falcon could fly inside, the cavalier climbed into the window of the house.
The falcon was not there. But he found the princess sitting on the throne.
Deciding that the girl had fallen asleep, the king began to wake her up, but neither pats on her cheeks nor screams awakened the sleeping beauty. Being inflamed by the beauty of the girl, the king, according to Basile, transferred her to the bed and "gathered the flowers of love." And then, leaving the beauty on the bed, he returned to his kingdom and for a long time forgot about the incident.
Nine months have passed. One fine day, the princess gave birth to twins - a boy and a girl, who lay next to her and sucked her breasts. It is not known how long this would have continued if one day the boy had not lost his mother's breast and had not begun to suck her finger - the same one pricked with a spindle.
The poisoned thorn popped out, and the princess woke up to find herself in an abandoned house all alone, except for the lovely babies who came from nowhere.
Meanwhile, the foreign king, suddenly remembering the sleeping girl and the "adventure", again gathered to hunt in those parts. Looking into an abandoned house, he found a beautiful trinity there. Having repented, the king told the beautiful princess about everything and even stayed there for several days. However, then he nevertheless left, however, promising the beauty to soon send for her and the children - in these few days they managed to fall in love with each other.
Returning home, the king could not forget about the meeting with the princess. Every night he left his royal bed, went into the garden and remembered the beautiful Thalia and her children - a boy named Sun and a girl named Moon.
And his wife - that is, the queen, whom he somehow did not find time to tell about the newborns - suspected something. First, she interrogated one of the royal falconers, and then intercepted the messenger with the king's letter to Thalia.
Meanwhile, the unsuspecting Thalia quickly gathered the twins and went to visit her lover. She did not know that the queen ordered all three to be seized, the babies killed, cooked from them several dishes and served to the king for dinner.
At dinner, when the king praised meat pies, the queen kept muttering: "Mangia, mangia, you eat yours!" The king was tired of listening to his wife's mutterings, and he abruptly cut her off: "Of course, I eat mine - after all, your dowry was worth a penny!"
But this was not enough for the evil queen. Blinded by a thirst for revenge, she ordered that the princess herself be brought to her. "You vile creature!" said the queen. "And I will kill you!" The princess sobbed and screamed that it was not her fault - after all, the king "broke her fort" while she slept. But the queen was adamant. "Start a fire and throw it in there!" she ordered the servants.
The desperate princess, groaning, asked to fulfill her last wish - she wanted to undress before her death. Her clothes were embroidered with gold and adorned with precious stones, so the greedy queen, after thinking, agreed.
The princess undressed very slowly. She let out a loud and plaintive cry as she took off every article of her dress. And the king heard her. He broke into the dungeon, knocked the queen down and demanded the return of the twins.
"But you ate them yourself!" said the evil queen. The king sobbed. He ordered the queen to be burnt in an already lit fire. Just then the cook came and admitted that he disobeyed the queen's order and left the twins alive, replacing them with a lamb. The joy of the parents knew no bounds! Having kissed the cook and each other, they began to live and make good. And Basile ends the tale with the following moral: "Some are always lucky - even when they sleep."
Cinderella
When the sisters tried on the shoe, they had to chop off their legs
The first European fairy tale about Cinderella was described by the same Basile - however, that original Cinderella did not lose her glass slipper at all. The little girl's name was Zezolla, short for Lucresuzzia, and she had already shown a homicidal inclination as a child. Having agreed with her nanny, she ruined her evil stepmother by inviting her to look at her mother's chest. The greedy stepmother bent over the chest, Zezolla with force lowered the lid - and broke her stepmother's neck.
After burying her stepmother, Zezolla persuaded her father to marry her nanny. But the girl did not feel better, because her life was poisoned by six nanny's daughters. She continued to wash, wash, clean the house and shovel ashes from stoves and fireplaces. That's why they called her Cinderella.
But one day, Zezolla accidentally stumbled upon a magical tree that could grant wishes. It was only necessary to cast a spell: "O magic tree! Undress yourself and dress me!" Near this tree, Cinderella dressed up in beautiful dresses and went to balls. Once the king himself saw the girl and, of course, immediately fell in love. He sent his servant to look for Zezolla, but he could not find the girl. The enamored ruler became angry and cried out: "By the souls of my ancestors - if you do not find a beauty, then I will beat you with a stick and kick you as many times as there are hairs in your vile beard!"
The servant, protecting his own ass, found Cinderella and, grabbing her, put her in her own cart. But Zezolla called out to the horses, and they rushed off. The servant fell.
Something else that belonged to Cinderella also fell. The servant returned to the master with the acquired object in his hands. He jumped up, happily grabbed the object and began to cover it with kisses. What was it? Silk slipper? Golden shoe? Glass slipper?
Not at all! It was a pianella - a stilted galosh with a cork sole, just like the women of Naples during the Renaissance wore! These galoshes on a high platform protected long women's dresses from dirt and dust. The height of the platform usually reached 6-18 inches.
So, imagine a king tenderly pressing to his chest such a large and awkward object as this very pianella, and not only pressing, but also cooing over him like a dove: if, they say, it’s not my destiny to find you, my love, then I will die in my prime. But I will still find you, my love, no matter what it costs me! And the young king sent messengers who traveled all over the kingdom and tried on the found pianella for each woman. So Cinderella was found.
Basile's tale is full of romanticism and speaks of a somewhat strange kind of fetish - shoes. However, the Northern European versions of Cinderella are much more gory.
Let's compare the Italian version with Scandinavian and Norwegian. Let's take the third act. The prince ordered to smear one step of the palace porch with resin, and the shoe of the local Cinderella - in these places she was called Aschen puttel - stuck to her. After that, the prince's servants went around the kingdom to look for the owner of such a small foot.
And so they got to Cinderella's house. But besides the poor thing herself, two stepmother's daughters still lived there! First, the eldest daughter tried on the shoe - locking herself in the bedroom, she pulled on the shoe, but in vain - her thumb interfered. Then her mother told her, "Take a knife and cut off your finger. When you become a queen, you won't have to walk much!" The girl obeyed - the shoe fit.
The delighted prince immediately put the beauty on a horse and galloped to the palace - to prepare for the wedding. But it was not there! As they passed the grave of Cinderella's mother, the birds perched in the trees sang loudly:
"Look back, look back!
Blood is dripping from the shoe
The shoe was small, and behind
It's not your bride sitting!"
The prince looked back and indeed saw the blood dripping from the girl's shoe. Then he returned and gave the slipper to the second stepmother's daughter. And that one turned out to be too thick a heel - and the shoe did not fit again. The mother gave the second daughter the same advice. The girl took a sharp knife, cut off part of the heel and, hiding the pain, squeezed her foot into the shoe. The joyful prince put another bride on a horse and galloped to the castle. But... the birds were on guard! Finally, the prince, returning to the same house, found his Cinderella, married her and lived in complete happiness. And envious girls were blinded and subjected to flogging - so as not to covet someone else's.
Yes, it was this version that served as the basis of the modern fairy tale - only the publishers, taking pity on the little children, crossed out even the slightest hint of blood from their version. Incidentally, the fairy tale of Cinderella is one of the most popular fairy tales in the world. She has been living for 2500 years and during this time she received 700 versions. And the earliest version of "Cinderella" was found in ancient Egypt - where mothers told their children at night a story about a beautiful prostitute who was swimming in the river, and at that time an eagle stole her sandal and took it to the pharaoh.
The sandal was so small and elegant that the pharaoh immediately announced a nationwide wanted list. And, of course, when he found Fodoris - Cinderella - he immediately married her. I wonder what number the wife of the pharaoh was this Cinderella? ..
Three Bears
An old woman breaks into the bears' house
She was an old ragged beggar, and it took almost a hundred years for the old woman to turn into a little thief with blond curls (by the way, if we were talking about a young girl, did she really break into the bears' house? Maybe it was still three filming one bachelor's apartment?)
The English poet Robert Susie published this tale in 1837, "equipping" it with phrases that since then have been successful for all parents without exception: "Who was sitting in my chair ?!" "Who ate my porridge?" As Susie wrote, the old woman broke into the house, ate porridge, sat on a chair, and then fell asleep. When the bears returned, she jumped out the window. "Whether she broke her neck, froze to death in the forest, or was arrested and rotted in prison, I don't know. But since then, the three bears have never heard of that old woman."
The British can be proud - for many years this version of the tale was considered the first. True, in 1951, in one of the libraries in Toronto, they found a book published in 1831 with the same tale. It was written for her nephew by a certain Eleanor Moore.
Mrs. Moore's tale is rather strange. According to her version, the old woman climbed into the house of three bears, because shortly before that they offended her. And at the end, when the three bears caught her, they slowly and in detail discussed what to do with her now:
"They threw her into the fire, but she did not burn; They threw her into the water, but she did not sink; Then they took her and threw her on the steeple of St. Paul's - and if you look closely, you will see that she is still there! "
The version of the tale, edited by the poet Susie, existed for quite a long time, until in 1918 someone replaced the gray-haired old woman with a little girl.
