Disney princesses – most girls grew up and are growing up wishing to be one. However, what you might not know is that the stories of these Disney princesses were changed… a lot… to make their stories seem more like a fairy tale than to share the dark origins behind the real stories.
In case you haven’t heard of the origins I am speaking about yet, here are some of them:
4 Dark Origins of Disney Princesses You Might Not Know About Yet
Snow White
In the Disney movie, everything ends well. Snow White falls into a deep sleep caused by the Evil Queen’s sleeping curse, but the prince kisses her, breaks the curse and they live happily ever after, while the Evil Queen falls off a cliff.
In the original story, however, the Evil Queen doesn’t fall off of the cliff. No, Snow White actually invites her  to her wedding, where she was made to dance in a pair of hot iron shoes until she died. And oh, the prince doesn’t kiss her to wake her, either. The prince’s servants actually trip while transporting her coffin and the poisoned apple gets dislodged from her throat.
No ‘kiss of true love’ there!
Cinderella
In the Disney movie, as always, everything ends well. The prince looks for Cinderella all over the kingdom, eventually finds her and Cinderella and her prince get married – happily ever after. They don’t really mention or show what happen to Cinderella’s stepmother or stepsisters, but we can assume that they continued their lives as horrible, horrible people.
In the original story, however, we see exactly what happens to Cinderella’s stepsisters. In the original story, Cinderella’s stepsisters come to her wedding – only to be greeted by pigeons who peck out their eyes and leave them blinded for life. And oh, while trying to fit into the glass slipper, one of them cuts off her toes, while the other slices off her heel. Gruesome much?
Sleeping Beauty
In the Disney movie, again, everything ends well. The prince finds Sleeping Beauty fast asleep, wakes her up with true love’s kiss, everybody in the kingdom wakes up, and they get married.
This is followed by a pretty scene of the prince and Sleeping Beauty dancing in the clouds like they are on Cloud Nine.
In the original story, however, the king finds Sleeping Beauty fast asleep and then, well… rapes her and leaves her there. Nine months pass and Sleeping Beauty gives birth to twins, one of which keeps sucking on her finger. The constant sucking removes the flax in Sleeping Beauty’s finger and she discovers – surprise, surprise! – that she’s a mother (who was also raped, by the way – did I mention that?). The story goes on for a while after that, but I think that’s enough to ruin your Disney dreams for now.
The Little Mermaid
In the Disney story, of course, everything ends well. The Little Mermaid becomes human and lives happily ever after with her prince (let’s forget for a moment that she chooses to be with her prince and leaves her entire family behind).
In the original story, however, things get really complicated.
In fact, in the original story, the human version of The Little Mermaid endures pain with every step as a human felt like a knife through her legs. She doesn’t just ‘lose her voice’, either; the Sea Witch actually cuts her tongue out. Aside from that, The Little Mermaid also never gets to make her prince fall in love with her. In fact, he marries someone else completely. But wait – the story gets another twist!
Upon learning about the wedding, The Little Mermaid’s sisters cut off all of their gorgeous hair in exchange for a dagger, which The Little Mermaid could use to kill the prince, become a mermaid again and rejoin her family. As she stood there that night to kill the prince, though, she couldn’t muster the courage to do so because she still loved him so much. Instead, she threw away the dagger, threw her human tongue-less self into the ocean and became sea foam.
These stories sound incredibly dark and depressing, but I would LOVE to see these original stories turned into movies someday. What about you?
