Disney‘s animated canon has established what many people think of fairy tales throughout the world. Usually, things start with a plucky, kindhearted heroine wanting more and end with a showdown with a horrifying villain and a happy reunion with true love. That said, Disney didn’t invent these fairy tales. They existed for centuries beforehand and many older versions actually go in completely different directions to what people would recognize.
People might think fairy tales end with a happy marriage, usually into a royal family, but many older versions of classic stories actually have a second act where the villain tries to get revenge on the protagonist. Occasionally, villains suffer horrific fates, even if they are well-deserved.
That said, the protagonists aren’t always promised a happy ending in fairy tales, either. Of course, it’s important to remember that fairy tales have been retold for so long that there are bound to be countless versions of a story that have been practically lost to time.
8 Snow White Was Rescued By Her Own Father
Many who grew up watching Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs remember the iconic scene of the prince waking Snow White from her death-like state with a kiss. However, while the Grimm Brothers had a few different renditions of the story, there is no magic kiss. In the original manuscript, for example, the prince has nothing to do with Snow White waking up.
There Was No Love’s First Kiss, Either…
In this version, Snow White’s parents are given a larger role. The Queen is Snow White’s own mother, and it’s the princess’s father who finds her in the woods in the glass coffin. That said, the king still arranges for Snow White to marry a prince after she is revived.
In other versions, the prince is involved with Snow White’s awakening, but it’s usually only indirectly. In one version, the lovesick prince has his servants carry around Snow White’s casket everywhere he goes. Eventually, one servant grows so tired of this that he beats the girl, causing her to cough up the poison apple, reviving her. In another, the prince’s men trip while carrying her coffin, which once again dislodges the apple.
7 Beauty and the Beast Were Cousins
Beauty and the Beast sees Belle break the spell on the prince, which transformed him into the titular Beast. While this is also the case in the original story, a few things are different. In Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve’s version, the prince’s mother is horrified to learn that Beauty is a merchant’s daughter and not of noble blood. A fairy, who had been watching over Beauty, comes to her defense.
Belle Was Sort Of a Changeling
Not only does the fairy point out that Beauty already proved herself by breaking the spell, she reveals that the girl actually is a lost princess and was placed within the merchant’s family to protect her, having taken the place of the merchant’s own dead infant daughter. Moreover, Beauty’s real father and the Beast’s mother are revealed to be brother and sister, making the title couple blood-cousins.
Much of this was cut when Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont abridged the story. Her version, however, also added another aspect to the ending. In this version, Beauty’s sisters, who tried to delay her from returning to the Beast, are cursed to become living statues and perpetually watch their sister in her happiness.
6 Rapunzel Gets Pregnant In the Tower
Rapunzel, the inspiration for Tangled and its long-haired heroine, recounts the story of a maiden held captive by a witch. Her singing draws the love of a prince, but he doesn’t exactly rescue her. In the Grimm Brothers’ original take on the story, the witch realizes Rapunzel has a secret visitor when she becomes pregnant with the prince’s children.
The enraged witch banishes Rapunzel to the wilderness (where she gives birth to her children) and blinds the prince. Fortunately, the blind prince finds Rapunzel and her tears restore his sight.
The Prince Doesn’t Always Survive the Story
Interestingly, Disney incorporates the magic tear in its version of the story, where Rapunzel manages to heal Flynn Rider after he’s mortally wounded by Mother Gothel. Many early versions also have the prince dying at the end of the story, often permanently. One such example is a French version of the story, “Parsillette,” in which the heroine decides to return to her godmother after running away with a prince, causing him to fall down dead.
5 The Little Mermaid Didn’t Marry the Prince
Disney’s The Little Mermaid sees Ariel, the titular siren, get her happy ending when her father lets her return to the world above and marry her prince. The film was even given a sequel that introduced the daughter of the mermaid and her prince. Hans Christian Andersen’s original story goes a bit differently.
Ariel’s Name Might Reference the Original Ending
In the original, the prince is in love with a temple maiden who he believes is the one who really saved him. To his delight, and the mermaid’s misfortune, she turns out to be a foreign princess and his betrothed. The Sea Witch gives the mermaid a chance to return to the prince if she kills him, but she refuses, even on pain of turning into sea foam.
Her sacrifice does not go unrewarded, however. Instead of dying, she is transformed into a “daughter of the air” and joins others of her kind. Though the prince is lost to her, she has a chance of gaining a soul. Interestingly, over the years, fans have often wondered if the mermaid’s name in the Disney version, Ariel, was a nod to the “daughters of the air” in the original story.
4 Sleeping Beauty Has a Whole Second Act
Disney ends Sleeping Beauty with the prince saving the princess with a kiss, with them walking down to meet her parents and celebrate their betrothal. However, Charles Perrault’s original story goes on a bit further after this point. For starters, there is no kiss, the princess simply awakes because one hundred years have passed and a prince just happened to enter the castle at the right time. The princess’ parents are also long dead.
Basile’s Version Is Even Darker
After Sleeping Beauty marries the prince, he leaves for war, leaving her and their two children at the mercy of the prince’s mother, who is revealed to be a flesh-hungry ogress. The mother-in-law orders her servants to gradually kill and cook the princess and her children for her to eat, but they hide them instead.
The queen finds out, but the prince returns in time, causing his mother to throw herself into a vat of snakes. Sleeping Beauty presumably lives happily ever after, assuming the prince doesn’t inherit his mother’s cravings.
Interestingly, an older Italian version of the story, “Sun, Moon, and Talia,” written by Giambattista Basile, took this second act in an even darker direction. Instead of a prince, a married king stumbles upon the sleeping maiden, Talia, and forces himself on her, causing her to bear two children, Sun and Moon. Similar to Perrault, a queen later wants to destroy the heroine and her children, but, this time, it’s the king’s wife instead of his mother.
3 The Princess Nearly Kills the Frog
The Princess and the Frog only uses the original fairy tale of The Frog Prince as a starting point. In fact, the original story exists in-universe, as the film opens up with Tiana’s mother Eudora sharing it with her daughter and Charlotte, foreshadowing things to come. However, even the version presented in the film is slightly different than the Grimm Brothers’ version.
It’s Not Easy Bein’ Green
In popular culture, the cursed prince is famously saved with a kiss from the princess. In fact, this has brought about the popular idiom, “You have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince.” However, in the Grimms’ version, there is no magic kiss. Instead, a princess agrees to be a frog’s friend and companion if he fetches her golden ball. However, she gets so fed up with him that she throws him across the wall. This violent act is what breaks the spell, though the two end do up falling in love with each other.
Many early versions have the frog “die” in some form to break the spell, such as having the heroine chop off the frog’s death. Interestingly, Tiana crushing Naveen with a book could be seen as a holdover from the violent fates the frog prince encounters in such stories.
2 Pinocchio Just Dreamed Being a Real Boy
By definition, Pinocchio isn’t quite a fairy tale, as it is technically a children’s novel by Carlo Collodi, though it does have similar themes of magic and transformation, including a literal fairy. Naturally, characters from Disney’s Pinocchio are sometimes included in stories and crossovers involving characters from Disney’s other fairy tale adaptations. Much like Disney, Collodi does end his story with Pinocchio becoming a real boy, but that wasn’t always the plan.
The Puppet Was Also Going to Die Early On
The story was originally published in a serial form and Collodi had intended to end it with Pinocchio being hung by the Fox and the Cat. Allegedly, due to the influence of Collodi’s editor, more chapters were added in which the puppet is rescued by the Fairy with the Turquoise Hair, the original version of the Blue Fairy. The story continued, with the Fairy ultimately transforming the little wooden boy into flesh and blood.
It’s also been alleged that Collodi was working on a sequel to his story before his death. Notably, Pinocchio becoming human would have been revealed to have just been a dream. That said, it’s possible the puppet still would have become human in the end, anyway. In fact, surviving pieces of the manuscript imply Pinocchio would have ended up a king.
1 Cinderella Turns Into a Ghost Story
When it comes to Cinderella, many people expect to hear that in the original Grimm Brothers story, the sisters cut off parts of their feet to fit the slipper and later get their eyes pecked out by birds, with Disney censoring that part. In truth, the Disney version does not have these elements because it is actually based more on the version written by Charles Perrault, which predates the darker Grimm version. Perrault’s Cinderella forgives her stepsisters and arranges marriages for them.
Revenge Beyond the Grave & Murder Most Foul
In many early Asian versions of the story, such as the Vietnamese Tam and Cam, the Cinderella figure is killed by her stepmother after she marries the prince so that he’ll marry her own daughter. In these versions, Cinderella rises from the grave to expose the crime. In Tam and Cam, for example, the heroine returns as a variety of animals and objects that are routinely destroyed by her stepmother until she finally regains her human form.
Usually, there is still a happy ending, with Cinderella returning to life and reuniting with her prince. Often, however, she gets revenge on her stepmother by killing her stepsister and sending the remains back to her mother. Upon realizing what has happened, often after mistaking the gift for meat or sauce, the horrified stepmother dies of a broken heart.
Interestingly, even the Grimm Brothers noted that Cinderella doesn’t always end at the marriage, as seen in a few versions they researched. One example they noted seemed to combine the story with Bluebeard. After Cinderella marries a king, he tells her not to open a secret room, in which there is a well of blood. Her sister pushes her in and takes her place, but Cinderella is ultimately rescued by soldiers who hear her screams for help. Of course, there’s still the lingering question as to why Prince Charming has a well full of blood in the first place.
