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Historic Children’s Fairy Tales That Will Haunt Your Nightmares

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.
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The Girl Who Trod the Loaf: Inger Goes to Hell

Fairy tale image of starving, unhappy girl stuck by the feet to a loaf of bread
Inger stuck to the loaf. The Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen (1899). New York Public LIbrary, public domain.

The devil and his great-grandmother noticed Inger, with the loaf of bread stuck to her foot like glue and brought her to hell.  She stuck to the ground by the bread, stiffening into a statue as damned souls swarmed around her. Even so, she happily convinced herself that the other souls are enraptured at her beauty, despite her being covered in creeping snakes, slime, and toads. But she grew hungry.

Her body had stiffened, though, and could not reach a piece of the bread sticking her to the ground to satiate her hunger.  As her suffering increased, she heard the terrible things people were saying, including how she brought on her own fate.  She became redeemed when one soul felt pity for her and made her rethink her misdeeds.  Repentance in her heart, she changed into a bird, flying free from hell.

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