Before Disney made them role models for little girls, many of the princesses had not so happily-ever-after fates. Once upon a time, fairy tales were not meant to be sweet stories children dreamed about. Instead many of them were meant to be nightmares that they feared. Take a look at some of the original fates of our beloved characters.
Originally recorded as “Schneewittchen” by the Brothers Grimm, Snow White is a classic story built upon the rule of three that so often pervades fairy tales. The evil queen, her stepmother, approaches her three times during Snow White’s stay with the seven dwarves. The first time the queen presents beautiful new laces for Snow White’s corset and proceeds to lace her so tightly she cannot breathe until the dwarves come and cut her free. The second time the queen gives her a poisoned comb which renders her immobile until the dwarves, once again, rescue her by removing it from her hair. The third time the queen arrives Snow White is a bit more cautious and insists the old woman take a bite from the apple before she will. Alas, only one side of the apple was poisoned and Snow White still falls to her sleepy fate.
In the case of this story, our princess still finds her happiness when the prince awakens her with a kiss, but the evil queen receives a fate Disney wouldn’t be comfortable showing. Rather than tumbling over a cliff to her doom as Disney would have it, the Brothers Grimm tell a tale where the queen is actually invited to Snow White and the Prince’s wedding. Yet she still must pay for her crimes when upon her arrival she is met with a pair of iron shoes that had been set upon hot coals. The evil queen is forced to wear the red-hot shoes as she danced until at last she dropped dead upon the floor.
In “Tangled,” Disney’s version of Rapunzel, little of the original story was kept other than the idea of a beautiful young woman being kept in a tower with no entrance but a small window. Her long hair serves as the means for her captor to enter the tower until one day, a young man sees the beautiful Rapunzel and climbs her hair to meet and eventually rescue her. (Although in “Tangled,” the young man was just trying to escape and happened upon Rapunzel by accident.) Yet this is only a tiny part of the story originally told.
In Europe there is a plant called the spiked rampion, also known as the White Rapunzel. This fairy tale begins when a pregnant woman complains to her husband that she is craving the rapunzel in the garden behind their home. Unfortunately this garden belonged to a fairy, so no one ever dared disturb the plants, but out of love for his wife the husband dug up some of the root and brought it home. But his wife wanted the root again and again. Eventually he was caught by the fairy and escaped only by promising her the baby when it was born.
Everyone knows the next part of the story, Rapunzel’s imprisonment in the tower. What you may not have heard is how the evil fairy found out the prince was visiting the tower each day in her absence. One day Rapunzel complained to her captor, “Frau Gothel, tell me why it is that my clothes are all too tight. They no longer fit me.” The young woman was pregnant with twins and, after cutting her hair, the fairy cast her out into the wilderness where she later gave birth and struggled to raise her children.
The prince returned the next day, called out to Rapunzel, and when the cascade of hair fell down the tower he quickly climbed up only to find a very angry fairy waiting for him. The fairy threw him from the window and when he fell he went blind. Although this sounds like a miserable existence for our two lovebirds, after many years the blind prince stumbles upon Rapunzel who recognizes him and her tears restore his sight.
The mermaid of Hans Christian Andersen’s creation received no fairy-tale ending, despite what Disney may have you believe. She would not become a bride, would not return to her family, and her actions would even cost the poor girl her life.
The story starts out much the same way most of us remember: sister princesses living in the great kingdom of the Sea King, while the youngest dreams of the world above. When each mermaid turns 15, she is allowed to swim to the surface and see the world for herself. Each of the elder sisters soon return to their way of life below surface, no longer wishing for the human world, but the youngest cannot help herself and after she saves a prince from drowning becomes obsessed with becoming part of his world.
She travels to the sea witch who informs her she can in fact grant her legs, but at a cost much higher than the Disney version may suggest. Not only will the young girl lose her voice, but the loss will be permanent and she will also suffer immense never-ending pain in her two legs although to humans she will be the most graceful of dancers and move about more lightly than any of their kind. She will also forfeit her life if the prince does not love her and marries another. Her heart will break and she will simply become foam on the waves. Never will she be allowed to return to her mermaid form.
The mermaid takes the risk and the prince finds her on the shore, soon bringing her to his castle where he dresses her, feeds her, and keeps her at his side. He promises that if he were to choose a bride, he would choose her for her kindness and devotion to him. But alas, he rediscovers the young woman whom he met on shore after the mermaid saved him from drowning and his marriage to the young lady is quickly arranged.
The mermaid is given one last chance to live when her sisters cut their hair with the sea witch’s knife and present the knife to their youngest sibling, begging her to plunge the dagger through the heart of the prince before sunrise so that her legs may once again become a tail and she can rejoin her family in the ocean. But the girl’s love for the prince is too great and she tosses both the knife and herself into the sea.
Yet she is not transformed into sea foam! For her good heart she is instead greeted by the daughters of the air who raise her up into the sky with them and promise her that she will in time gain the same immortal soul that humans possess and rise into the kingdom of heaven. It may not be the happily ever after wedding little girls dream about, but for the mermaid it is still a positive ending.
Robert Godwin-Jones, “Schneewittchen,” Virginia Commonwealth University.
D. L. Ashliman, “Rapunzel,” University of Pittsburgh.
Zvi Har’El, “The Little Mermaid,” Hans Christian Andersen.
