in Tales from the Vault (FT207:80), March 1986 section, it talks about research throwing up questions on the Brothers Grimm folktales, and goes on to say:
I don't get this. Although today the most well-known versions of many stories are the highly-altered happy-ever-after tales for children, I'd be far more inclined to blame Disney & co. for that than the Brothers Grimm. It's certainly true that they constantly edited and re-wrote tales to suit their sense of propriety, but changes can be tracked from the first edition of 1812 to the last in 1857, and stories compared. The 1812 Snow White (actually Little Snow White) and Rapunzel are the versions FT mentions above, red-hot slippers, pregnancy and all. I don't see how later edits pose any problem for scholars, let alone inflict incalculable damage.
And the Grimms certainly didn't edit out all the darker or sexual elements of the tales. Snow White's would-be killer mother of 1812 becomes her step-mother in 1819, but the iron shoes and dance of death are still there, right through to the final edition of 1857. Rapunzel's 1812 naive question as to why her clothes are getting tight is dropped; but when the 1857 prince finds her again in the wilderness, she is with "her twin children that she had borne, a boy and a girl". In Cinderella, the later version is actually blacker. The step-sisters, ugly only on the inside, are left chagrined in 1812, but from 1819 have their eyes pecked out by pigeons at Cinders' wedding. That's not what I would call bowdlerised.
The Rapunzel quote is from my 20+-year-old copy of "Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales", which includes beheadings, child-murder, cannibalism and more within its 211 stories. Definitely not bedtime reading for the little ones. . .
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Nowl
The damage to the scholastic value of Germanic fairytale tradition is incalculable as they also bowdlerised many of the stories: for example, in the original, Snow White was tormented by her mother, not her step-mother and, in the end, the wicked queen is forced to dance in red-hot iron slippers until she dies; and Rapunzel's secret is betrayed, not by a careless word, but by her pregnancy. Bedtimes will never be the same again!
I don't get this. Although today the most well-known versions of many stories are the highly-altered happy-ever-after tales for children, I'd be far more inclined to blame Disney & co. for that than the Brothers Grimm. It's certainly true that they constantly edited and re-wrote tales to suit their sense of propriety, but changes can be tracked from the first edition of 1812 to the last in 1857, and stories compared. The 1812 Snow White (actually Little Snow White) and Rapunzel are the versions FT mentions above, red-hot slippers, pregnancy and all. I don't see how later edits pose any problem for scholars, let alone inflict incalculable damage.
And the Grimms certainly didn't edit out all the darker or sexual elements of the tales. Snow White's would-be killer mother of 1812 becomes her step-mother in 1819, but the iron shoes and dance of death are still there, right through to the final edition of 1857. Rapunzel's 1812 naive question as to why her clothes are getting tight is dropped; but when the 1857 prince finds her again in the wilderness, she is with "her twin children that she had borne, a boy and a girl". In Cinderella, the later version is actually blacker. The step-sisters, ugly only on the inside, are left chagrined in 1812, but from 1819 have their eyes pecked out by pigeons at Cinders' wedding. That's not what I would call bowdlerised.
The Rapunzel quote is from my 20+-year-old copy of "Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales", which includes beheadings, child-murder, cannibalism and more within its 211 stories. Definitely not bedtime reading for the little ones. . .
--
Nowl