I totally agree, the original fairy tales are really violent! I mean, in the Brothers Grimm version of Cinderella (no idea if it has another name in English, in German it’s called Aschenputtel,more or less meaning ash girl) the stepsister cut of their calves and toes so they can fit in the shoe! In Snow White the Mother has to dance in hot iron shoes until she drops dead! That’s really dark.
Still, my parents read me the stories as a little girl (I must have been REALLY young, because I don’t remember at all). I remember one of my kindergarten teachers reading some fairy tales to us.
I always liked the stories and only now do I realise how macabre some of them are. Then again it’s like that with many children’s books. Think of Harry Potter.
Here’s a pic of my Grimm story book. It was my father’s as a little boy.
