Hey, Jenn (though anybody can answer, really)

[conuly]

When it comes to fairy tales...

Do you want the GOOD kind, where the parents abandon their kids, and the witch eats children and locks Hansel in a cage and is eventually hoisted on her own petard? Or the wussy kind where the kids innocently get lost and the witch turns the kids into gingerbread decorations?

The GOOD kind, where Granma gets eaten and the wolf gets chopped into bits? Or the dull kind, where Granma hides in the cloest and the wolf runs away?

The GOOD kind, where the Queen wants to eat Snow White, and ends up dancing in iron slippers? Or the strange kind, where the girl leaves for some unknown reason?

*waits*

Comments

[gingembre.livejournal.com]

I will give this due consideration.

[conuly]

C'mon, go for the gore. Counteract the white bread, sugarcoated drivel they try to promote nowadays.

[feathered.livejournal.com]

Well, I loved the GOOD kind even when I was really little. My theory is that kids are naturally morbid little creatures. At least, all of the children I've ever babysat are. It isn't as if reading them the GOOD fairy tales would teach them to be twisted or anything -- they're like that anyway.

Though I wouldn't read the original Sleeping Beauty to anyone under the age of nine unless prepared to have a serious conversation with the kid about rape.

[conuly]

1. Totally agree. My favorite "story" growing up was the poem of Jim, who ran away from nurse and got eaten by a lion.

2. Again, agree. I think I'd definitely go with the extended, but slightly toned down version - she only gets kissed, but then we move right into the Ogress.

[rachelkachel]

I don't think I know that version of Sleeping Beauty. O_O

[conuly]

Yeah, the original. He doesn't kiss her, he rapes her and she wakes up nine months later with twins. And then she goes to his home, and his mom is an ogress. When he's away, she tries to eat first one kid, and then the other (but they hide out at the cook's home) and eventually tries to kill the woman herself. JUST as she's about to push her daughter-in-law into a vat of snakes, her son shows up again, and she can't bear to admit what she was doing, so she herself dives in.

[divabat.livejournal.com]

I've only been familiar with the "good" version of those stories, not the dull ones o_O

[rachelkachel]

Oh. *blinks* I've read a bunch of Grimm's fairy tales, but that wasn't one of them.

[conuly]

Lucky. They're taking over.

[conuly]

That's because it's a Perrault.

[bridgetester.livejournal.com]

Have you seen Anne Rice's trilogy version? It's definitely adult.

[moggymania.livejournal.com]

Hmm... I've always had difficulty with fairy-tales in general, because they were more plot-oriented than character-driven, if that makes any sense. So I'll be the lone weirdo to say "I didn't want either kind, I liked traditional fantasy-fiction early on." ;-)

The versions I had of fairy tales as a child were a middleground between what you listed above, incidentally. (They all pre-date Disney, in any event.) The children were dumped in the woods by their parents, then killed the witch by sticking her in the oven and baking her to death... The grandmother escapes safely while the wolf is killed... I don't think Snow White was in the collections I had, but it could have been one of the tales I avoided. :)

[conuly]

1. That makes sense.

2. Yeah, the sweetening of fairy tales has been slowly going on for years.

[ladytalon.livejournal.com]

I support the teaching of the "dull" versions when the kids are little. Because that's what I learned, when I was young. And it makes the "good" version so, so, so much cooler to learn about it after you've memorized the sweet, safe version. "You mean she what??"

So I'm happy to have learned the dull ones, because the good ones are even better.

[moggymania.livejournal.com]

If it wasn't for the fact that my family might notice and get angry, I'd send you the old ones we have for you & the kids... I think they pre-date the 1950s. (My extended family was big on sharing. :-)

BTW, I tried looking for the Sit-and-Spin -- my mother said it's out there, we didn't give it away, but we haven't found it just yet. (Our garage is essentially a warehouse of old toys, clothing, etc. still.)

[adiva_calandia]

Hmm, intersting point. In fact, an excellent point.

[adiva_calandia]

Woah, weird. I've got this great book called "Little Lit", and it has the second half of that story, but not the fact that it's part of the Sleeping Beauty story.

Do you know any good resources for some of these original versions? Now I'm curious.

[conuly]

I hope you find it. I'd pay... really shitty money to have it.

[conuly]

No, I don't. I remember reading that the Ogress was the second part of Sleeping Beauty somewhere scholarly, but I can't recall where.

[conuly]

Never read Anne Rice.

[anotheralice.livejournal.com]

I prefer the good, morbid kind. I was raised on those, and I turned out just fine! (at least, maybe...)

[anotheralice.livejournal.com]

I'm reading that for a class now. Apparently, in the old, old versions of Sleeping Beauty, there was a King who came and impregnated her in her sleep, but he was already married. Meanwhile, Sleeping Beauty got pregnant with twins, and I can't remember if breastfeeding or the faeries taking care of her were what sucked the poison out, but anyway. The "ogress" was originally the King's wife, who tried to kill the children he had by his mistress beauty and feed them to him. But they adapted it to be his ogress mother in the later versions. ;)

I actually have a theory about Sleeping Beauty -- apparently all the older versions began with something along the lines of "There was once a Queen and King who wanted a child very much but couldn't have one. Eventually, they had a daughter..." Which is, y'know, an odd way to start a faerie tale. Then Sleeping Beauty pricks her finger and starts "bleeding" as she enters adolescence, and goes into a deep sleep while thousands upon thousand of princes try desperately to break through the difficult, tough brambles that encase her castle. Eventually, one strong robust Prince makes it through, at which point she wakes up, and the entire Castle comes to life. ... Can we say, fertility tale? ;)

[anotheralice.livejournal.com]

Perrault was the guy who compiled a bunch of faerie tales for the French courts, which is where Disney gets the kernels for a lot of their versions (he really cleaned them up a lot for the upper-class sensibilities -- though Sleeping Beauty's ogress is in that one!) And of course, Grimm is the source for most of the down-and-dirty versions. If you *really* want to get archaic, Basile and Straparola were the early Italians who seemed to first start recording faerie tales. And Bruno Bettleheim is one of the leading authorities on faerie tale interpretation, if you're into that.

Hope that helps! ;)

[beetlebomb.livejournal.com]

I remeber our storytelling teacher told us that in the original version of Little Red Riding Hood, the wolf made her take off her clothes and throw them in the fire, drink a jar of her grandmother's blood and get in bed with him!!!! One of the ladies in the class was so traumatized by this version she never returned to class!

[interactiveleaf.livejournal.com]

It's not just you. I'm sitting and reading this thread while discussing it with my BF, and he just said essentially the same thing. He adores traditional fantasy fiction, and, ironically, our child-free house is filled with children's books and toys--but the only fairy tales are in the pop-up books that he collects.