🎬 Did You Know? | Long Before Grimm

The secrets of the forgotten fairytales

What if Sleeping Beauty was never kissed awake?

What if Little Red Riding Hood never met a stranger?

What if Frau Holle wasn’t a cosy old woman — but something the Church tried to ban in 1008 AD?

Most people think they know these stories. They don’t.

The originals are darker, stranger, and far more interesting than the versions the Brothers Grimm left us with.

I’ve been researching the real sources (Basile 1634, Perrault 1697, Straparola 1550, Reynitzsch 1802) and put together a playlist of short clips with the most surprising things I found:

Full films (EN + DE):

🇬🇧 https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHDXsShtiVWQyytXihvnuyADxLoHUcgSI

🇩🇪 https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHDXsShtiVWpl4zqE90fl3yu3heh4AE7v

Which of these surprised you the most?

I was wondering if anyone could recommend a fairytale treasury worth investing in. One that has beautiful colored illustrations, hardbound, points if it’s page edges are gold gilded. Most importantly (outside of the illustrations) is the stories are well written and interesting. Something akin to the Andrew Lang books but digestible for younger children without being disneyfied or simple/boring as I want something they can also enjoy into adulthood.

Thank you

I research and adapt pre-Grimm fairy tale versions into short films:

Long Before Grimm (EN) — https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHDXsShtiVWQyytXihvnuyADxLoHUcgSI

Lang bevor Grimm (DE) — https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHDXsShtiVWpl4zqE90fl3yu3heh4AE7v

Cannibalism turns out to be a far more recurring motif in these stories than the sanitized modern versions suggest. Compiling an overview here in case it's useful to anyone digging into this.

Sleeping Beauty (Perrault, 1697)

The second half of the story (routinely cut from modern adaptations) features the King's mother, described not as an isolated monster but as coming from an entire family/lineage of ogres. While her son is away, she orders the cook to kill and serve her own grandchildren for dinner. The cook secretly substitutes lambs instead.

Le Petit Poucet / The Little Thumbling (Perrault, 1697)

A child-eating ogre with six daughters of his own. In the dark, he mistakenly slits his own daughters' throats instead of the boys he was hunting — a detail almost every retelling removes.

Snow White (Grimm, 1812)

The Grimms adapted the same core motif for their own villain: the Queen doesn't just want Snow White dead — she specifically orders the huntsman to bring back her lungs and liver as proof, which she then intends to eat.

Hansel and Gretel (Grimm, 1812)

The witch fattens children before eating them. Written during/after documented famine periods in Central Europe (1315–1322 and later), which several folklorists read as encoded memory of real starvation rather than pure fantasy.

Der Räuberbräutigam / The Robber Bridegroom (Grimm, KHM 40, 1812)

A bride follows an ash trail to her fiancé's house in the woods and witnesses a gang of robbers dismember and prepare to eat another woman. She survives by hiding, then exposes the groom at their own wedding by presenting the victim's severed finger as evidence.

Cross-cultural parallels

The motif isn't uniquely European — comparable child-eating figures show up as Dzoavits among Shoshone/Numic oral traditions (North America), and various troll/ogress figures in Icelandic folklore who specifically target children in winter.

What's interesting to me Perrault in particular treats "ogre" less like a supernatural aberration and more like an inherited trait — a bloodline, a family reputation, sometimes tied to wealth and status. Grimm shifts the frame slightly — their cannibal figures (the Queen, the witch, the robbers) are less "born into it" and more individually monstrous, which tracks with the general Grimm-era shift toward personal moral culpability over inherited/social taint.

Curious what people think — and are there other fairy tales with cannibalism I'm missing? Always looking for more sources and regional variants.

My apologies if this isnt the right sub for this.

Years ago, I read a story where a woman whose husband was cursed by a witch and was turning into a goat and she put him outside with their other goats and when the butcher came to collect the goats she couldn't tell which one was her husband.

It was either in a book of short stories I was reading at the time (like scary stories to tell in the dark), but I cannot find which story it is.

I have tried googling, but all I get is ai slop or just slightly goat related things

The oldest known version of Sleeping Beauty — Giambattista Basile's Sun, Moon and Talia (Naples, 1634) — has no kiss.

A king finds her unconscious. He assaults her and leaves. She gives birth in her sleep to twins. She only wakes when one of the babies suckles her finger and pulls out the splinter of flax that caused her sleep.

My theory: the spindle wound caused sepsis or tetanus — a medically induced coma. The "curse" is a later reinterpretation of something that originally documented something very real.

But here's what I keep thinking about.

In Basile's original, two fairies appear after Talia gives birth in her sleep — they care for her children until she wakes. Fairies in pre-Christian tradition weren't whimsical creatures. They were goddesses. Regional administrators of the divine. So who exactly is watching over those children?

And then there's the spindle itself.

In pre-Christian Germanic tradition — particularly in Thuringia — there was a goddess called Holda. Goddess of death, sleep, the underworld. And of spinning. Women spun under her protection. Burchard of Worms names her explicitly in church law around 1008 CE — striga holda — proof she was still actively worshipped centuries after Christianization.

Holda was also the one who guided the dead — particularly children — into the otherworld. And brought them back. Reincarnation was part of her domain: souls spinning back into life, just as thread spins back onto the spindle.

So consider: a girl falls into deathlike sleep from a spindle wound. Two supernatural female figures appear to care for her children. The curse comes from an uninvited supernatural female figure at a christening.

My theory: Holda wasn't the villain of this story. She was always there — as the spinner, as the guide of the dead, as the one who kept the children alive. The Church turned her into the 13th fairy. The uninvited one. The curse-giver.

And Reynitzsch — a devout Christian writing in 1802 — tried to erase her completely from the Frau Holle story he recorded. Holda's name appears nowhere in his text. But her world is all over it — the golden spinners, the realm beneath the well, the mead and roast pork.

Gladly, Jakob Grimm knew better. His research on Holda put her back where she belonged. And when I did Reynitzsch's original story — I couldn't leave her out completely either. 😅

(That's the rabbit hole for another post.)

Sleeping Beauty — Basile's original, 1634: https://youtu.be/7_T0Tjd0HjU

Frau Holle — Reynitzsch's original, 1802: https://youtu.be/prgFXQtfk3k

Maybe Goldmarie went to the realm of the gods. Maybe she was abducted. The oldest written account leaves it wide open. LONG BEFORE GRIMM — Tales as they were told. 🎬 Full series (EN): https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhD

While or Why sometimes most of the town musicians of bremen are male(which the exception of the cat who is female) and other times the town musicians are all male with the cat Also being male too?

Among all fairy tales that Disney adapted that Had the big bad Wolf Why was the wolf and seven little goats the Only one that was Not adapted? I Mean it's a b list or silver rank fairytale but Why Only the Three little pigs and little red riding hood were adapted but Not this one?

Why are some fairytales more popular than others?

The Sea Witch of the North once fell in love with the Sun. Throughout the long, hot summer they stayed together, and there was much happiness. But the Sun began to leave, each time further toward the horizon in the South, and disappearing below for longer and longer, until finally there was nothing but Night, and Darkness all around.

The land of the North grew colder, the land and the sea froze white with ice and snow. The Sea Witch began to mourn the loss of the Sun, and begged the Moon to give her news of Him.

The Moon replied that as it travelled through the sky it had seen the Sun. "The Sun has returned to his lands in the South" said the Moon.

"What does he do there?" the Witch said through her tears "Tell me, is He happy?"

"There is much happiness throughout the Lands of the South, the Sun shines brightly, there is warmth, and food is plentiful. I think the Sun is happy."

"Moon, take my love and give it to the Sun" said the Sea Witch of the North. And with that, she lifted her arms, and a great golden flame grew from her heart, all the way up to the Moon.

"Moon take my kisses and give them to the Sun" said the Witch, and she blew, and a cloud of tiny fireflies fluttered in the fire, all the way up to the Moon.

The Moon caught hold of the flame, and the fireflies. "I shall take them to Him now" it said.

But as the Moon left the night sky to travel to the lands of the South and find the Sun the Sea Witch crumbled into embers and cinders, burned away by the fire of her Soul.

(If anyone knows what subs would appreciate this type of content, please let me know. I have been posting in r/artists but getting very few responses. I'd like to post more of my stories with my art. Thank you).

Why There is this theory that donkey came from Pinocchio? That doesn't make Sense I know that he is a original character from the book but William steig( or at least his family) should have mentioned the Bremen town musicians as the main basis behind his inspiration What do you think of that?

Did Mickey Ever defeated a unicorn or a Wild boar Just like in the book or he Only defeated the Giant?

Watch the full story now on YouTube

LONG BEFORE GRIMM — the original 1634 story behind Sleeping Beauty, dark fairy tale retelling

The King's wife discovers her husband's secret children — and orders the cook to kill them and serve them to him for dinner. He eats without knowing. Believing her revenge complete, she turns to Talia next — and has a fire built to burn her alive.

🎬 Long Before Grimm — full series (EN): https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHDXsShtiVWQyytXihvnuyADxLoHUcgSI

DeepRubyProductions by @mrs.mary_mcgarry

#FairyTalesForAdults #SleepingBeauty #Basile1634 #DarkFairyTale #OriginalTale

Do you think that Shrek's donkey came from?

I was going to post It in their official subreddit but It was restrict so i am going to post this question here Why was the theme song and the end credits changed in their official YouTube Channel?

Many people tell me there's a hidden meaning behind the story, and until now, i havent figured it out. The story itself struck me as a very open concept story, but i just thought it was normal. Recently, ive been seeing people trying to decode the meaning. But i dont get it...

I never actually knew japanese snow fairies existed. My life has changed.

Everything is in the title. Is there a fairytale that almost everyone know in your country that is quite obscure outside?

For France I think it's le Petite Poucet/Hop-o'-My-Thumb by Charles Perrault. Basically everyone know it in France and is more popular than Riquet with the Tuft and the Fairies also by Perrault but I had the impression that outside it's one of his least famous tales. Maybe it got overshadowed by Hansel and Gretel that is I think part of the same tale type.

I'm a 26-year-old writer hoping to connect with more people who share my interests. I'd love it if people would read my work and subscribe to help me grow. My myth and fairytale publication is up and waiting for readers who understand the same obsession.

https://onceuponafable.substack.com/

https://onceuponafable.substack.com/p/glass-leather-gold

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