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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.

Disney-fication of Grimm and Andersen

Fairy tale illustration of iron shoes heating in a fire — Disney’s Snow White left out the Evil Queen’s torture with burning iron shoes. Project Gutenberg (1852), Public domain.

Most of the Grimm tales are familiar to today’s audiences. Since 1937, when Walt Disney first interpreted Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs(1935) for movie screens, the Walt Disney Company has cornered the market on reinterpreting the original Grimm tales. Disney takes away the scary bits to make it palatable for families. Cinderella‘s stepsisters keep all their body parts.

Neither The Little Mermaid and Mulan commit suicide. Snow White and her prince don’t revenge-torture the Evil Queen with iron shoes full of burning coal. Disney made the Grimm stories palatable. For almost ninety years, the Disney tales have defined what being a princess should be, leaving out the gruesome Grimm endings in favor of weddings and happily ever after.