The Real Story Behind These 5 Famous Disney Stories

(Warning: The stories below might ruin your childhood. Proceed with caution.)

    I didn't grow up watching Disney fairy tales, but I did grow up reading the original stories retold (and disneyfied) by them. To tell you the truth, the earlier versions of many Disney stories are dark, violent, and really, really grim. But for me, these original tales pack more punch than the Disneyfied versions. Also, I think it's high time to give credit to the original authors from whom Disney has been ripping off.

    And so, here are the famous Disney stories retold from their original (or earlier) sources:

1. Sleeping Beauty

Original story by: Giambattista Basile

Original Title: The Sun, The Moon, and Talia (From Basile's book "Pentamerone")

Year published: 1634

The story: Talia was born to a wealthy ruler, but was prophesied to meet her end from a flax splinter. (No, she wasn't cursed, she was prophesied to die in the original story.) The king, Talia's father, tried to prevent this from happening by getting rid of all the flax in the kingdom, only to have done it in vain. One day, Talia saw an old woman spinning flax on a spindle and pleaded to stretch the hemp, at which point a flax splinter gets lodged under her fingernail, and seems to die. Unable to bury her daughter, the king dressed her in the most beautiful dress, adorned her coffin, and hid her in a palace deep in the woods. 

    On a hunting trip, a king stumbled upon the palace as he attempts to retrieve his lost falcon which happened to be inside it. He went in, saw Talia in her glorious beauty. He tried to wake her, but he couldn't. Smitten by the beautiful sleeping maiden, the king raped her instead. Afterwards, the King left the palace and seem to have forgotten about the affair. Talia became pregnant and the babies were born and cared for, as was Talia, by kindly fairies. The fairies would put the babies up to Talia’s breasts to feed, except one time, one of the babies instead sucked on Talia’s finger with the splinter in it and sucked it out, at which point she woke up.

    Quite a while later, the king remembered the girl and decided to go back to the house to see her again. This time, though, he found her awake and with twin babies she named “Sun” and “Moon”, as their origin was just as mysterious to her as the origin of the Sun and the Moon. They fell in love and would have had a happy ending, except that, you know, the King is already married. The King's wife got suspicious and forced the King's secretary to tell why the King has been going out too often, and found out about Talia and the children. To cut the story short, the Queen ordered the abduction of Talia's kids, planned to send them to the chef to cook them, and feed them to the King. As for Talia, she tried to burn her alive, but she was saved by the King. The King's rage was so intense that he murdered his wife and secretary. Luckily for the kids, the chef spared their life. 

2. Snow White

Original story by: Brothers Grimm

Original Title: Tale 53 or Sneewittchen (from the authors' Grimm's Fairy Tales)

Year published: 1812

The story: A queen wished for a daughter whose lips are as red as blood, skin as white as snow, and hair as black as night. Some time later, she gave birth to such a very beautiful baby and named her Snow White, but the queen dies in childbirth a short while later. Snow White's father, the King, marries again. The new queen is such a beauty to behold, although her heart is black as coal. She is vain and a very wicked witch. The queen has a magic mirror, which she asks every morning to check who's the fairest woman in the kingdom. 

    The magic mirror answers that it is her, the queen, who's the fairest of all. But years passed and Snow White started to bloom into a ravishing young woman, and she just gets even more beautiful as day passed by. One day, the queen asked the mirror the same question she asks every morning, and shockingly, the mirror said that Snow White is the fairest girl in the kingdom. 

    Blinded by jealousy and rage, the wicked queen ordered a huntsman to kill Snow White, and as a proof of Snow White's death, the huntsman is to bring back her liver and lungs, which she will consume to become as beautiful as Snow White. But the huntsman was ridden with guilt and conscience that he had let Snow White escape to the forest. He brought back a boar's inside to present to the queen. Pleased with herself, the witch consumed it. Believing that Snow White is dead, she asked the magic mirror again, and to her unpleasant surprise, the mirror answered that it's Snow White who's the fairest of all in the kingdom. 

    The queen devised a plan to kill Snow White by herself and located where she is. She found out that Snow White is in the woods, living with seven dwarves. She attempted to murder her thrice, and succeeded in the third try (or so it seemed), which is a poisoned apple. The dwarves placed her in a glass casket. Three days later, a prince stumbled upon the casket and as one of his servants trip over, and dislodged the apple from Snow White's throat, reviving her. The prince and Snow White fell in love, and concocted revenge against the wicked queen. They got married, the evil queen went to investigate it, only the prince ordered that the evil queen wear a pair of red-hot iron slippers and dance in them until she drops dead.

3.  The Little Mermaid

Original story by: Hans Christian Andersen

Original Title: The Little Mermaid (Den lille havfrue) 

Year published: 1837

The story: The little mermaid fell in love with a human prince that she saved. Unable to bear being apart from the prince, the little mermaid went to the sea witch for a potion that would give her a pair of legs. 

    The sea witch agreed, in exchange for her tongue and beautiful voice. In addition, the little mermaid won't be able to come back to the underwater world forever, that she will feel like she's constantly walking on sharp knives, and that she will only obtain a soul if she wins the prince's heart. It is said that the moment the prince marries another woman, the little mermaid will die of broken heart and will dissolve into a sea foam, without a soul.

    So off she went, despite these ridiculous conditions, for her love is greater than any pain or fear. She swims to the surface near the prince's castle and drank the potion. The potion felt like a sword stabbing through her insides and she fell down, passing out. The prince found her and kept her as a company. She became the prince's favorite companion, but the time came when the prince is forced to marry a neighboring princess in an arranged marriage. 

    The prince refused and told the little mermaid that he will only marry the woman in the temple who he believes to have saved his life. That was the little mermaid! But remember, she's mute, so she cant say it. As it turned out, the prince was told that the neighboring princess was the one who saved his life, for she was sent to the temple for her education that time!

    The prince and the princess got married, leaving a broken-hearted little mermaid. To cut the details, the little mermaid tried to murder the prince in his sleep for if she does this, she'll be able to go back to her family. But she didn't have the heart to do it, so she killed herself instead. But instead of dissolving into nothingness, she became one of the daughters of the air, and was given the chance to earn her soul after serving mankind for 300 years.

4. Cinderella

(one of the) Earliest well-known story by: Brothers Grimm

Original Title: The Little Glass Slipper

Year published: 1812

The story: It begins with the death of a young girl's mother. The very next spring, the father remarries a very evil woman who has two daughters of her own. The three of them turn the young girl into a servant who must sleep on the floor in the cinders, and they give her the nickname Cinderella. 

    Despite being treated so poorly, Cinderella remains humble. In the original story, planted a tree by her mother's grave, and it grows beautifully. Any prayer made by Cinderella under this tree is granted to her by a little white bird who tosses down her wish from the branches. (No, there was no fairy godmother here.)

    When the king announces that there is to be a three-day festival for the prince to choose his bride, Cinderella wants desperately to attend. Her stepmother, however, makes it seemingly impossible. Cinderella goes to the magic tree that has helped her often, and it tosses down a dress and slippers of gold, silk, and silver. She's so beautiful at the ball that nobody recognizes her, and the prince falls madly in love.

    At the end of the three-day festival, though Cinderella tries to sneak away each night, the prince is able to get one of her golden slippers. He knows that the woman who can fit into the shoe is the one he loves. One stepsister cuts off her toe to make the shoe fit and trick the prince, and the other cuts off her heel, but the birds once again help Cinderella by revealing the blood that is pouring out of the slipper in each case.

    Because Cinderella is the only one who can truly fit into the shoe, the prince knows that she is the mystery woman. The two get married, and at the wedding, doves peck out the stepsisters' eyes. So, Cinderella is able to enjoy her good fortune, and the evil stepsisters are paid back for the hate they showed to Cinderella. 

5. Pinnochio

Original story by: Carlo Collodi

Original title: The Adventures of Pinnochio

Year published: 1881-1882 (it was a series for a children's magazine)

The story: Pinocchio is a puppet who wants to be a human boy. When he tells lies, his nose grows long. At least, that's what most people remember about him. Carlo Collodi sets his modern-day fairy tale in Tuscany, Italy, in an uncertain era and starring an unexpected protagonist: ''Once upon a time there was a piece of wood.''

    Geppetto, a woodcarver, crafts a marionette (a puppet on strings) out of a piece of enchanted wood. He calls it Pinocchio, and Geppetto treats him like a son. In Geppetto's workshop, Pinocchio meets a talking cricket who tries to teach him his first lesson. ''Woe to boys who refuse to obey their parents and run away from home!''

    Thus Pinocchio's adventures begin. Pinocchio tries and tries to redeem himself, but at every turn, his will is challenged. At some point in the story, the real ending is that Pinnochio will be hanged and killed, as Collodi wants to show one moral lesson: even children can't get away from wrongdoings. But the editor of the magazine convinced Collodi to continue writing it, for the editor himself wanted a happy ending, and that's when the blue fairy came to rescue Pinnochio.