Dark Fairy Tales

Original Grimm, Perrault, Andersen versions before they were softened.

Before the fairy tales were softened, Snow White's villain was her own mother, Red Riding Hood was eaten, and the Little Mermaid never got a wedding. This section goes back to the first editions of the Brothers Grimm (1812), Charles Perrault (1697) and Hans Christian Andersen.

Each story says which edition a detail comes from and when it changed, so you can tell the original from the later version.

9 stories

Printed only in KHM vol. 1, published Dec 20, 1812 (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin).
The Grimm Tale They Cut
The first edition of Grimms' Fairy Tales (Dec 20, 1812) contained a two-part story about small children who play "butcher" and actually cut a boy's throat. It was gone by the second edition, and most readers have never heard of it.
Dec 20, 2026
When the Stepsisters Lost Their Eyes
In the Grimms' Cinderella, the stepsisters cut off parts of their own feet, and birds peck out their eyes. The foot-cutting was there in 1812. The eye-pecking was added seven years later.
Grimms' KHM vol. 1 (with Rapunzel as no. 12) published Dec 20, 1812 (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin).
Rapunzel’s Tight Dress
In the Grimms' first Rapunzel (1812), the witch finds out about the prince because Rapunzel innocently complains that her little dresses are getting too tight. A few pages later she gives birth to twins in the wilderness.
Grimms' Kinder- und Hausmärchen vol. 1 published Sun Dec 20, 1812 (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin).
Snow White’s Mother Was the Villain
In the first printed edition of the Grimms' Snow White (Dec 20, 1812), there is no stepmother. The queen who wants Snow White's lungs and liver, salted and cooked for her dinner, is the girl's own mother.
Dec 21, 2026
The Christmas Tree That Ends in Fire
Four days before Christmas 1844, Andersen published a story about a Christmas tree. After one glorious Christmas Eve, it is dragged to the attic, mocked by rats, and chopped up to heat a brewing kettle. The same thin book introduced The Snow Queen.
The tale is set on New Year's Eve and ends on New Year's morning.
The Match Girl’s New Year’s Eve
Hans Christian Andersen set The Little Match Girl on New Year's Eve, and she is found frozen on New Year's morning. He wrote it in November 1845 to go with a picture that had already been drawn and printed for something else.
190th anniversary of Andersen's Feb 11, 1837 letter to B.S.
The Little Mermaid Gets No Wedding
Three days before Valentine's Day 1837, Hans Christian Andersen wrote to a friend about his new story, The Little Mermaid. Letting a mermaid win a soul through a man's love, he said, was "bestemt galt" (decidedly wrong). So he wrote one where the prince marries someone else, she is handed a knife to kill him, and she turns to foam instead.
Feb 14, 2027
Bluebeard’s Two Morals
Perrault's 1697 Bluebeard has a room of murdered wives, a key that will not stop bleeding, and a sword raised over the heroine's head. Then it ends with two morals. The first scolds her curiosity. The second says relax, this is a tale of olden days: husbands are not like that anymore, and these days it is hard to tell which spouse is the boss.
Feb 14, 2027
Red Riding Hood’s First Ending
In the first printed Little Red Riding Hood (Paris, 1697), nobody comes to save her. The wolf eats her, the story stops, and a rhyming moral explains that the most dangerous wolves are the gentle, charming ones who follow young ladies all the way home.

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