The fairy tale collections of the Brothers Grimm, which included such timeless stories as Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella, and Snow White, are known and celebrated throughout the world. However, some of their original entries don’t seem to quite fit the children’s fairy tale tone that you might expect and a few were actually quite . . . grim! In fact, the first volumes collecting these tales were not considered suitable for children when they came out and one of the stories ended with “And then everyone was dead”.
Brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm published their first volume of fairy tales in 1812 which consisted of 86 stories including those mentioned above, and then the second volume came out two years later in 1814. These books collected tales, legends, and folklore that had been passed down for many years throughout various regions of Europe. The first volume was titled Children’s and Household Tales suggesting that it was intended for younger readers, but at the time people felt that it was a bit too edgy, in part because of some of the more scholarly material it contained (the brothers were academics who specialized in folklore) and also because many thought the subject matter was not necessarily child-friendly.
The original tales had a much more violent bent such as Snow White’s stepmother (originally mother) being forced to dance at her wedding in red-hot iron shoes and the princess from “The Frog and the Prince” throwing the frog against the wall instead of kissing him. (Hey, they say love hurts!). There were also some sexual innuendos such as Rapunzel noticing that her dress was getting tight, suggesting her pregnancy. Much of this was sanitized in later collections of the tales and would then be completely omitted when Disney and other Hollywood studios would bring the stories to a mass audience. But then some of the tales just could not be altered enough to the point where modern audiences would consider them acceptable for children.
Take for example the tale “The Death of the Little Hen”. In this odd little ditty, the rather greedy little hen of the title decides not to share the large nut he has found, but then ends up choking on it. He screams frantically to the little rooster who is with him which sends that critter on a rather extended mission to get some help, though all is for naught because when he returns the little hen is dead. The little rooster then decides to bury little hen which leads to another set of follies which involves the other animals of the forest coming to help and all but the rooster drowning when they try to cross a brook. The little rooster then buries the little hen by the brook and dies himself from grief leading to the final line of the tale “And then everyone was dead”. (You can read the whole story if you like over at this link.)
Just imagine Walt Disney trying to adapt that fairy tale! Not surprisingly, “The Death of the Little Hen” never achieved quite the same level of popularity as other Grimm tales like Snow White, Cinderella, or Rumpelstiltskin. But who knows, maybe Roland Emmerich will one day take a stab at a film version and give us the apocalyptic fairy tale disaster movie we didn’t know we were waiting for!
Source: Wikipedia and Grimm Brothers’ Home Page
