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Historic Children’s Fairy Tales That Will Haunt Your Nightmares

Aimee Heidelberg December 10, 2023 30 min

Fairy tale image of boy getting thumbs cut off by man with giant scissors — Little Suck-A-Thumb gets his thumb scissored off. Heinrich Hoffman (1845 ed.). Public domain.

Little Snow White – Attempted (and successful) murder

Fairy tale illustration of Snow white leaning out window toward old woman with comb in hand — Snow White meets her second death with a poisoned comb (1852). Project Guternberg, public domain.

The Brothers Grimm original version of Snow White is far more disturbing than the Disney version. Snow White’s stepmother, the evil queen, is informed by a magical mirror that Snow White is more beautiful. The queen commissions a huntsman to cut out Snow White’s liver and lungs. Unwilling to kill Snow White, he tries to substitute a boar’s liver and lungs The evil queen eats them, thinking they belong to Snow White.

Thanks to the magic mirror, the queen finds the girl hiding in the woods with seven dwarves and tries to kill her three times. First, with a corset laced too tight. Second, she tries a poisoned comb. Both times the dwarves revived Snow White. The final time, she uses a poisoned apple. This works, and the dwarves couldn’t bring Snow White back. They put her in a glass coffin because they couldn’t bear putting her in the ground.