Everyone knows about the Grimm fairy tales. For a lot of people, they were probably one of the first stories they heard. They can be a little bit dark, and in recent times, there have been many spin-offs of the tales into popular television shows and movies. But there are also a lot of things that you may not have known about the Grimm brothers and their fairy tales. For one thing, they were written as a German nationalist effort to preserve German folklore. And though the brothers claimed that every word of those fairy tales came from the mouth of an old German peasant, that is not necessarily true.
These tales come from all over the world. There are traces of Cinderella and Little Red Riding Hood everywhere if you know where to look. Another interesting thing about these fairy tales is that they were originally written for adults. They were supposed to be scandalous and horrific tales that one adult could tell to another. They had everything from drugs to sex and of course, violence, but when these adult tales did not sell the way that the brothers had hoped, they were forced to tone them down and try to market them towards children.
The toning down of the tales generally meant taking out a lot of the sex and psychological trauma and oddly enough, replacing them with more violence. Though the stories are still dark in their weaker version, they are nothing compared to what they used to be. Even now, going back to read some of the tales again is very strange. They come across as unnecessarily horrifying. Thinking about the fact that these were read to children for so long is incredibly interesting because it really calls into question what we present to children on a daily basis and what we try to hide from them.
Earlier I mentioned that these stories started out as a German nationalist effort; well, the brothers Grimm would have had no idea how far this sentiment would go. During World War II, Hitler wanted these stories taught in all German schools and to the boy scouts in an effort to spark interest in German literature. Because of this, many places in the world stopped talking about the fairy tales because they became associated with the Nazis, and to this day, some of the stories bear anti-Semitic sentiment.
In the end, these are just stories, but doing a little digging and thinking a little harder about them can uncover some very strange origins. You may think that you know a lot about fairy tales, but take some time to go back and read them. They are much stranger the second time around.
