Stories
Here is a refrence tool for all the fairy-tale stories mentioned in posts. These are the originals I am comparing against. In some circumstances the summary is a compilation with various versions noted.
Cinderella
There are many versions of the Cinderella story ranging from ancient Egypt, to ancient China, to medieval Germany, to renaissance France. just to name a few. The stories may differ, but hold some commonalities.
The very basic idea of the story is that a beautiful young girl is motherless, sometimes fatherless too, and under the care of her spiteful stepmother and stepsister/s. The girl is forced into servitude and often given nearly impossible tasks such as picking out seeds from the ashes of a fireplace to keep her occupied. There is a ball or festival where a prince or king is looking for a bride. The girl cannot go because of some impossible task, but it aided by a magical item or creature that is often tied to her mother ie. fish, tree, birds, fairy, godmother, etc. She entrances the prince and some how, either by the royal’s cunning or the shoe simply falling off, she leaves a shoe or other object behind. The prince has all girls in the land try on the shoe and finally finds the girl and marries her.
Sleeping Beauty
Sleeping Beauty is a story with relatively few variations as compared to other stories. The more commonly known version is a retelling of the story The Sun, the Moon, and Talia by Giambattista Basile. Charles Perrault, as he did with Cinderella, made the story more palatable for the French court and then the brothers Grimm took it down in their collection of folk tales as it was passed orally from France to Germany. Since the more toned down version is better known it will be the point of comparison.
A king and queen have a daughter and invite many fairies to the christening. For one reason or another one fairy (sometimes said to be evil) is not invited to the event. The invited fairies bestow magical gifts upon the princess until the uninvited fairy barges in with a curse that the princess will die when she touches a spindle. One fairy that had yet to give her gift changes the curse so that the princess will fall asleep for 100 years rather than die. Despite the attempts to keep spindles out of the kingdom the princess does prick her finger and fall asleep. The royal court also falls asleep and a huge thorn bush grows around the castle. After the 100 years and some attempts to find the princess a prince comes to the castle, easily passes through he bush, and kisses the princess which awakens her. The court wakes up and the two are married.
Snow White
Snow White is one of the cases when the brothers Grimm really did have it published first. This was a folktale of the oral tradition before the brothers collected it, which is why there are a few variations in some of the details depending upon what region the tale comes from. Overall the story is pretty simple and together.
A young Queen wishes for a daughter who is a red as blood, as white as snow, and as black as ebony wood. The queen died when this child was born. The king took another wife who had a magic mirror. When little Snow White was seven she was so beautiful that the mirror must tell the Queen she is no longer the most beautiful. The queen sends a huntsman to kill Snow White and bring back her heart (in some variants her liver and intestines) so the Queen will know she is dead. The huntsman cannot kill the little girl so he lets her go and brings the Queen the heart of an animal to eat. Snow White stumbles upon a cottage and eats from all the plates and sleeps in all the beds. Seven dwarves come back to find their cottage in use, but let the little girl be until morning. Snow White promises to cook and clean for the dwarves if they let her stay. The queen soon finds out that Snow White is not dead. She tries to kill the girl with bodice laces, a poisoned comb, and finally a poisoned apple. The latter finally kills the girl. The dwarves do not have the heart to bury such a beautiful girl in the ground so they place her in a glass coffin. A prince comes by the dwarves’ cottage and is so enamored that he buys Snow White and the coffin to bring back to his kingdom. While in transit the apple piece is dislodged from her throat and Snow White comes back to life. The prince marries her. In a rage the Queen comes to the wedding only to be forced to dance to death in red-hot iron shoes.
The Frog Prince
The Frog King, or as it is more commonly known, The Frog Prince is a fairy tale first published by the Grimm Brothers in their collection of folk tales. The source of the icon idea that the princess kisses the frog into a prince is very unclear. There are many tales from various cultures that include a cursed amphibian. For the sake of simplicity the Grimm version will be the point of comparison.
A young princess is playing with a golden ball by a well. She drops the ball in the water and agrees to a deal with a frog if he gets the ball for her. The frog asks to eat from the princess’s plate, drink from her cup, and sleep in her bed. Once the ball is returned the princess runs away. The frog shows up at the castle during dinner. The King tells his daughter that she has to keep the promise she made though she doesn’t want to. The frog gets to eat and drink with the princess. She brings him to her room, but when he gets too annoying she throws him against the wall. The frog transforms into a prince with beautiful eyes. In the morning the two return to the prince’s kingdom.
The Twelve Dancing Princesses
The Shoes that were Danced to Pieces, more commonly known as the Twelve Dancing Princesses is a German tale that was collected by the Brothers Grimm. The name, as it sometimes indicated with other tales, does not show various versions. It just seems to be a more modern name that may have been changed in modern translations of the brothers’ collection.
A king had 12 daughters who would constantly wear out their dancing shoes despite being locked in their bedroom every night. This distressed the king greatly so he offered his kingdom to the man who could solve the problem. Many princes tried, but could not tell the king how the daughters were wearing out their shoes. A soldier comes to try his hand at the test after receiving advice and an invisibility cloak from a nice old woman. He was advised not to drink the wine brought to him since the princesses drugged it with a sleeping draught. The soldier follows the princesses into a secret place with a forest of silver and gold trees, a lake, and a grand palace. There the princesses dance with twelve princes. After three nights of this, the soldier presents some silver twigs and a cup as proof of the princesses’ goings about. The princesses confess and the soldier chooses the oldest to be his bride.
Rapunzel
Rapunzel is a story based off of many other stories. Many of the first versions came from Italy and had plotlines of a trapped girl with a wicked step-mother who somehow escapes her situation with her beauty and her hair. Other versions have her confined in different ways and released for different reasons. The most common version told today is the Grimm Brothers’ version based on the story of Parsillette, a French version of the tale. The summary below is of the Grimm version as it is the most well known.
A pregnant woman desires only to eat the Rapunzel plant that grows in her neighbor’s garden. Her husband steals the plant to satisfy his wife, but is caught by the owner of the garden who is a witch. She demands the child as payment for the thievery. When the child is born the witch whisks her away. At the age of twelve the witch locks her in a far away tower. The girl, Rapunzel, grows up into a beautiful young woman with long hair. The only way to enter the tower is by climbing Rapunzel’s hair. One day a prince hears Rapunzel’s singing and is so entranced he finds out how to enter the tower. Once she meets him Rapunzel agrees to marry him and he begins to bring her silk with which to weave a ladder to escape. The witch discovers this, cuts Rapunzel’s hair, banishes her to the desert, and entices the prince to the tower so that she may scratch out his eyes. The prince throws himself from the tower and is blinded by thorns. He comes to find Rapunzel with twin children once again because of her singing.
Princess and the Pea
The Princess on the Pea, more commonly known as the Princess and the Pea, is a tale by Hans Christian Andersen. There are a few other stories from other cultures that resemble this one in that the Prince is searching for a very delicate girl.
A prince was looking for a princess who was a true princess. He searched the whole world, but always found something wrong with her. One night during a storm, a princess came to the castle. The old queen devised a plan to have the girl sleep on twenty down mattresses with a single pea at the bottom. If she could feel the pea she was a true princess. In the morning, the princess was distraught that she had not slept a wink and was black and blue from something in her bed. The prince then knew she was a true princess and married her.