August 7, 2025 • 56 mins
When we think of the Brothers Grimm, images of whimsical princesses, charming princes, and talking animals often spring to mind, thanks in large part to the sanitized versions we’ve grown up with. But delve deeper into the origins of these beloved tales, and you uncover a far darker, more complex, and sometimes disturbing reality. This episode of Dirt Nap City pulls back the curtain on Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, not as creators of fairytale magic, but as diligent collectors of existing oral traditions, preserving a snapshot of 19th-century German folklore, with all its inherent shadows.
The Grimm brothers embarked on their ambitious project to document the rich tapestry of German oral storytelling, believing these narratives held vital clues to the nation's cultural identity. What they meticulously transcribed were not always tales of pure virtue and innocent wonder. Instead, their original collections, like Children's and Household Tales (1812-1815), were replete with stark realities, brutal punishments, and moral ambiguities. Take "Rapunzel," for instance, where the prince’s visits lead to Rapunzel's pregnancy, a detail conveniently omitted in later adaptations. "Little Red-Cap" (Little Red Riding Hood) originally depicted a far more gruesome end for the grandmother and a more cunning, less bumbling wolf. And the tragicomic figure of "Rumpelstiltskin" still retains a hint of its unsettling origins, where a life-or-death bargain hangs in the balance.
However, the darkness in these tales extends beyond mere violence or difficult themes. A more troubling aspect lies in the antisemitic undertones present in some of the Grimms' collected stories. While not always overtly stated, certain narratives subtly perpetuate negative stereotypes, a reflection of the pervasive prejudice within the society from which these stories emerged. Disturbingly, these themes were later amplified and exploited by the Nazi regime in the 20th century. Hitler’s propagandists recognized the power of these deeply ingrained narratives, twisting existing prejudices within the tales to further their own hateful agenda, transforming folklore into a tool for state-sanctioned bigotry.
Over the decades, as the Grimm tales gained international popularity, they underwent a gradual process of sanitization, particularly as they were increasingly marketed towards children. Publishers and translators smoothed over the rough edges, excised explicit content, and softened harsh moral lessons, creating the "kinder, gentler" versions many are familiar with today. This evolution culminated in the widespread, often drastically altered, adaptations by Disney, which, while enchanting, fundamentally reshaped the narratives, replacing gritty realism with idealized fantasy. This episode explores the journey of these tales, from their raw, often unsettling origins to the polished, palatable versions that have largely eclipsed the Grimms' original, darker legacy. Join us as we uncover the true nature of these iconic stories and the uncomfortable truths they reveal about history, culture, and the enduring power of narrative.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Alex (00:06):
Oh, hello, everybody.
Welcome to another episode ofdirt nap city, the show about
interesting dead people. I'mAlex. I'm here with my friend
Kelly. Kelly, How you been, man,
Kelly (00:24):
I'm doing very well, Alex. I'm on a little bit of a
vacation at the moment, which isnice. It's been a busy summer so
far. So nice to unplug. But youknow, I always got time to talk
with you about interesting deadpeople and dead
Alex (00:39):
ends. Oh yeah, I got a couple of interesting guys
today. Two, it's, I'm doing atwo for today, two for Tuesday.
Kelly (00:46):
Those are always interesting because, you know,
it's double your pleasure,double your fun.
Alex (00:51):
So some of the doubles ones where I think we started
with Siskel and Ebert, yeah,most recently, the Wright
Brothers, right? And like theWright Brothers, these dudes
were brothers.
Kelly (01:05):
Oh, okay, okay.
Alex (01:07):
And like, Hanna Barbera, kind of, and the Wright
Brothers, kind of, you can'ttalk about one without the
other. They were kind of, youdon't even really, there's
nothing that I really learnedthat distinguishes one from the
other too much. They kind of dideverything together.
Kelly (01:26):
And are they known as?
Are they known as the somethingbrothers?
Alex (01:30):
Kind of, yeah, kind of, yeah, okay, but it's not the
Chemical Brothers. It's not thebrothers Johnson,
Kelly (01:37):
oh, man, you've just just taken away my guesses,
Alex (01:41):
but they were German. What were some of the Germans we've
had on here? We've had Einstein,yeah. We had diesel, yeah,
diesel, Rudolph, diesel, andrudol, Harvey, Zeppelin. What
was his name? What was
Kelly (01:53):
Zeppelin's name? Count, Baron von
Alex (01:56):
Veron von these weren't Baron Vons, but these were
German brothers born a yearapart, 1785 Jakob was born in
1785 and Wilhelm was born in1786 and I like doing Germans
because you have such a commandof the German language, having
(02:18):
lived there for A LITTLE WHILEvacation there a few times.
Yeah, Jakob died in 1863 vitalhelm died in 1859 and they were
born in Hana Hesse Castle, whichis now just castle. It Back then
it was part of the Roman Empire.
Now it's Germany, but now if youwanted to go visit their grave,
(02:44):
it would be in Castle, Germany.
Kelly (02:49):
Castle. Okay. Is that northern or southern? Do
Alex (02:52):
you know this was Southern Germany?
Kelly (02:57):
Okay. Bavaria, yes, yes,
Alex (03:01):
yes. And were they? And, more importantly, kind of by the
Black Forest, I think
Kelly (03:06):
sports fault, were they?
Oh, wait a minute, wait aminute, were they authors
Alex (03:15):
of a sorts, yes, a little Is this the brothers? Grimm?
Brothers, Grimm, let's go. Let'stalk about the brothers. As
Kelly (03:22):
soon as you said, Black Forest, that kind of, that kind
of gave it away. Or
Alex (03:26):
as they were known, they brutal, grim, the Bruder grim,
the Bruder grim. So, like Isaid, they kind of did
everything together, and theyweren't as much authors as they
were. They were they were bothprofessors. They were scholars,
(03:47):
podcast hosts. Yes, their areaof expertise was folklore,
folklore. So some of the mostpopular stories that we know
came from the Brothers Grimm,but they didn't write them.
Kelly (04:03):
These were, these were folklore stories,
Alex (04:05):
right? So there's really not a lot of background about
these guys that's veryinteresting. I'll tell you a
little bit. I want to dive rightinto basically what they
collected and kind of what itsaid about the time that the so
we there's not too much you knowabout them being ambulance
drivers or hating school oranything like that, their father
(04:27):
died in 1796 when Jakob was 11and Wilhelm was 10. And you
know, as we've talked about fromsome of these other folks that
lived back then, that when yourfather dies, that really puts
you in a bad situation, becausethen you're kind of losing
income, right? Yeah, yeah.
Stability puts the family inpoverty, which was the case this
(04:50):
family was, you know, you kindof go down a social class. And
when you think about it, when westart talking. About some of
these fairy tales or folkstories. Fathers in these
stories are idealized and almostwell, and all the villains are
females in these in thesestories, you have all the really
(05:13):
other wicked witches,stepsisters and stepmothers and
witches and and frowes and allthis, this, it's a lot of
villains, a lot of femalevillains, which I think, for two
guys that lost their father whenthey were very young. You know,
you can't now, again, theydidn't write these stories, but
(05:33):
those are the ones that kind ofspoke to them. Okay, they grew
up very close. Obviously, createexperiencing such a trauma at
such a young age, you'd becomeclose, and they were both at the
top of their classes. I thinkthey both graduated like number
one in their class. They went tothe University of Marburg, and
they both were interested inGerman folklore. They even lived
(05:56):
together, like even afterWilhelm got married, they Jakob,
you know, lived in the housewith them. They shared a desk
their whole life, and they wereburied side by side. So really,
I don't have anything to sayabout one that I'm not going to
also say about the other. Ithink one of them was more of a
linguist, and the other was moreof a storyteller, but it doesn't
(06:21):
really matter for for what Iwant to talk about today. Yeah,
Kelly (06:28):
no, I didn't even know they were real people. I always
kind of thought it was afictionalized I don't know. I
never knew. I've heard of them,but didn't know much about them.
So have
Alex (06:37):
you? Have you ever heard of the literary period? Called
Kelly (06:43):
romanticism. Romanticism, yeah, I think I've heard of it.
I don't know much about it.
Alex (06:48):
So romanticism was the end of the 18th century in Europe.
It was kind of a response to theindustrial revolution. So
romanticism and stories and artthat was from the Romantic
period was all about likeappreciation of nature and
(07:09):
imagination. And in German, inGermany, that would be a lot
about the forest and the forestbeing kind of a dark place to
avoid. But that was the naturein nature in Germany. Was the
forest, right? Okay, there wasalso romanticism. Was was all
about individualism and passionand intuition, and that the
(07:34):
learning about yourself and thebeauty that the world, that if
you look around the world's abeautiful place, and it evokes
these emotional responses. And alot of the stories had to do
with the of nature, but also thesupernatural and the fascination
with mysterious things andtrolls and witches, and, like
(07:56):
you said, and and particularlyin Germany, uh, people love to
talk about the Middle Ages with,you know, castles and forests
and witches and knights andthese stories. I mean, we're
talking about the 1800s here,but those stories really
resonated. I think they still dotoday. I think if you look at
(08:18):
like, Game of Thrones, peopleare still interested in Harry
Potter. People are stillinterested in that kind of
magic, kind of stuff. But theBrothers Grimm were interested
in preserving the stories of thedifferent cultures inside
Germany, and that they believedthat folk tales were kind of a
reflection of the soul of theGerman people. So they wanted to
(08:41):
to find that. So they wouldtheir methodology was pretty
cool. They would go aroundcollecting stories from people.
Now, when they wrote theirbooks, they made it sound like
they were collecting storiesfrom like peasants and, you
know, towns folk. They weremostly middle class women, and
(09:02):
they would ask questions like,Do you remember any stories your
nanny told you when you weregrowing
Kelly (09:06):
up? I love to ask that question. That's, that's a great
that's a great sort oficebreaker, but
Alex (09:11):
it wasn't exactly like campfire stories or anything
like that. But they would goaround and ask different, mostly
women, about the stories thatwere passed to them. And a lot
of these were stories that hadbeen passed around for kind of
centuries, and they had neverbeen written down. And they
found that the culture reallyhad a rich tapestry, I suppose,
(09:34):
of of stories that kind ofpeople knew, but it had never
been really written down before.
So what they would do is theywould take these stories, they
would gather them, they wouldfind commonalities, they would
edit them, they would embellishthem, and they would put out,
like um, a book with acollection of stories, pretty
short. Each one was like 1000 to2000 words. Um. And they wrote
(09:57):
80 edited 86 stories from 1812,to 1857, and every year, every
few years, they put out a newedition. There were seven total
editions. That's all they reallydid, though. Put out seven
books. There was a collection ofthese fairy tales. I'm gonna
(10:18):
call them fairy tales. I'm notsure if they ever knew that
word. And the very firstedition, though, the 1812
version, was the one that I wantto focus on, because that was
the version that wasn't meantfor kids. I think once the books
came out, people started readingthem as families, and then the
kids really got into him. Sothey responded by every edition
(10:41):
after 1812 they they sanitizedit made it a little more
friendly. And the versions weknow today were the DIS are the
Disney versions, right? Itstarted with, like Snow White in
1937 100 years later, that werereally, really sanitized. But
like I said, the first editionwas not meant for kids. They
(11:02):
added a lot of, like, Christianelements and maybe more
archetypes. You know, you seethese archetypes, the same kind
of tropes over and over there.
We know them as tropes now, butthey didn't really, you know,
they invented those things,right? There was a lot more
sexual content in the 1812version, but so they softened a
(11:26):
lot of the sexual stuff, butthen ramped up the violence. The
violence was not something thatthey thought kids shouldn't hear
about. In fact, discipline wasabout fear, so the more violent
you could make a story. And ifyou could throw in a a moral to
that story, of you better not dothis, or somebody's gonna boil
(11:49):
you right, or poison you, or eatyou or burn you alive you made
into pickled brine, or a lot ofabandonment, kind of things.
They were all about that. Nowthe word grim already meant,
like dark. They didn't, we don'tsay things are grim because of
the Brothers Grimm, like grimwith 1m was always a word, yeah,
(12:12):
but I think they really leanedinto that like, I think maybe
because their name was grim,they knew they could go as dark
as possible. Yeah. Really leaninto that name. Yeah,
Kelly (12:22):
the the brothers, the brother Smith, or the brothers
Jones, doesn't have that muchcache as the Brothers Grimm,
Alex (12:29):
I think they did lean into that. They also got rid of
anything that was too French. Alot of these stories, their
their origin is kind of moreFrench. So, you know, something
that might have originally takenplace in a chateau is now taking
place in a castle, yeah. Butthere were other little changes,
like, you know, Snow White inthe original Snow White, the
(12:52):
evil queen was her birth motherin the original version, and
they changed it to thestepmother. Later on, they found
that changing things tostepmothers made them a lot more
morally okay to have that personmess with the kid if they were
not related to them, right?
Kelly (13:11):
Not their blood mother, not their Yeah, which really for
200 for
Alex (13:15):
the next 200 years, made it probably really difficult to
be a step parent. Yeah, yeah,yeah. But, like I said, the
Brothers Grimm were looking forsomething they called
volksgeist.
Kelly (13:29):
Oh, that's people's ghosts. People's spirit, yeah,
Alex (13:32):
yeah. Spirit, the kind of to get, the spirit of authentic
Germans and, like I said, andnot French because of Napoleon,
who was kind of running thingsat the time. They were very anti
French.
Kelly (13:46):
I see our episode about Napoleon, right? So
Alex (13:50):
let's talk about some of the stories. One of them is
called um ashen puto.
Kelly (13:57):
Ashen puto black like ashen
Alex (14:03):
ash Pluto is ash fool or ash girl, which is Cinderella.
Okay, Cinderella, cinders wouldbe, you know, like
Kelly (14:16):
Cinder yeah, oh yeah, dressed in yellow, went upstairs
to kiss a fella. What aboutschneevich in? Schneevich and
Schnee? Schnee is Snow White.
Oh, snow witch, no, Snow White.
Snow White. White is Vice but
Alex (14:36):
schneevich In, I mean, loosely translated to see it
snow though Hansel and Gretel,hmm,
Kelly (14:45):
yeah, two kids, brother and sister
Alex (14:48):
wrote caption.
Kelly (14:50):
Red Rapunzel, no, wrote what?
Alex (14:57):
Wrote caption, you?
Kelly (15:00):
Yeah, well, cop is head but, or Cap, cap, oh, red cap.
Who is that Little Red RidingHood
Alex (15:12):
wrote caption, but it was little red cap girl or
something, yeah, rumpus did skin
Kelly (15:20):
well, I mean, that was a name, but,
Alex (15:23):
yeah, that's it's, right, it's Rumplestiltskin, and then
Rapunzel was the other one. Wow.
So I can talk about any and allof those. Those are the ones
we're going to talk about today,but I'm going to let you pick
which one to talk about first.
Kelly (15:38):
Well, let's say Rapunzel.
Let down your hair. So
Alex (15:43):
in the 1812 version of Rapunzel. So do you know the
story of Rapunzel? Do you knowit like off the top of your
head? She
Kelly (15:50):
has long hair. She's trapped in a tower, and she lets
her hair down so that she can berescued. The guy can climb up
using her hair.
Alex (15:58):
The guy, yeah, the prince, yeah, right. There's always a
prince involved, right? It'salways damsels in distress, and
some guy rescues them. And we'vetalked about what rescue means
in previous episodes, right,right, so in the original
Rapunzel, it was very sexual. Infact, she asked him, she asked
(16:26):
the prince, you know, he goes upto visit her a lot, and at one
point she asked him, Why are myclothes getting so tight?
Because she's pregnant and so inthe you know, so a man. And his
wife live by a walled gardenowned by a witch named Frau
(16:48):
goto, and the wife becomespregnant and craves Rapunzel.
And Rapunzel is a salad green inGermany, it's like, okay,
watercress or something, or kaleor something. So the man sneaks
into the garden to steal theRapunzel. And then the second
(17:09):
time he does it, the Witchcatches him and she spares him.
He says, oh, please spare me.
This is a very common thing. Shesays, I'll do it on one
condition that's also verycommon. You must give me the
baby when it's born, otherwiseI'll kill you. That's really
cool. So he agrees. And whenit's born, the Witch names the
baby Rapunzel, and takes heraway. And then when Rapunzel
(17:33):
turns 12, got the locks her in atower with no doors or no
stairs, and whenever the witchwants to visit, she says,
Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let downyour hair so I may climb the
golden stair. And then she wouldput down her hair that she had
never got cut, and the witchwould climb up, and that's how
(17:53):
she would see her. Well, aprince overhears this one day,
and because, you know, princesare always just walking around,
Kelly (18:01):
yeah, they're just like listening here to the ground.
Well,
Alex (18:05):
he's enchanted, and he sneaks up, climbs her hair, and
they begin a secretrelationship. He gets her
pregnant. This is again, in theoriginal version. Then frog got
the finds out that she'spregnant. She cuts off her hair
and banishes her to the desert,and then the prince. And she
(18:27):
tricks the Prince by lettingdown her hair. He climbs up. She
reveals herself. The Princejumps off from the tower in
horror and lands in thorns,lands in thorns, blinding
himself. Then he wanders thedesert for years looking for a
Rapunzel, until he finallyfounds her and the the baby his
(18:51):
tears of joy heal his eyes, andthey return to the kingdom and
live happily ever after. Wow,crazy, huh? Now, and she, she
gave birth to twins, actually,and they reunited. Now, in
subsequent versions, they tookout the teen pregnancy part,
they made it more violent. Theybut big morals, like they added
(19:18):
a lot of morals and the ideathat, you know, discipline
through fear, these stories keptkids in line. You know, you
better not, you know, go out onyour own or this stuff might,
might happen to you.
Kelly (19:29):
Wow. No, I guess I only knew about the letting the hair
down part, but I didn't know therest of that story,
Alex (19:35):
yeah. Well, and then, of course, the Disney version, I
think in the in the there's amovie called tangled, oh, yeah,
yeah. There's very little ofthat, you know, yeah. If the I,
you know, I don't know if it'sbetter or worse, it's just
different, yeah, Disney, yeah,and you're right. Maybe don't
want Disney doing the originalversion. That's
Kelly (19:58):
it's no, no. Probably not the right. Demographic.
Alex (20:01):
All right, so now we got Cinderella, Snow White, Hansel
and Gretel, Little Red RidingHood and Rumpelstiltskin.
Kelly (20:09):
Well, I remember Little Red Riding Hood. She she was
going to her grandmother's inthe forest and and there was a
big bad wolf that chased her ortalked to her, and then she ends
up killing the wolf somehow,right, and putting it in, or
maybe the wolf ate hergrandmother, and he dresses up
(20:30):
like, am I getting this mixedup? No, you got it. He dresses
up like her grandmother, and shegoes in and says, Oh, what big
eyes you have, all the better tosee you with, what big nose you
have, all the better to smellyou with, what a big teeth you
have, all the better to eat youwith. I
Alex (20:47):
got a treat for you. Okay, I mentioned these are short
stories. I've got the originalLittle Red Riding Hood. I'm
going to read it to you.
Kelly (20:55):
Okay, I'd love to hear it.
Alex (21:01):
This is the 1812 version, called Little Red Cap. Once upon
a time, there was a sweet littlegirl who was loved by everyone
who looked at her, but most ofall, by her grandmother, who
would have given her anything.
Once she gave her a little capof Red Velvet, which suited her
so well that she would neverwear anything else from then on,
she was called Little Red Cap.
(21:24):
One day, her mother said to her,come little red cap. Here's a
piece of cake and a bottle ofwine. Take these to your
grandmother, who is ill andweak, and they will do her good.
Set out before it gets hot, andwalk nicely and quietly. Don't
stray from the path, or youmight fall and break the bottle,
and when you get to her house,don't forget to say good morning
(21:45):
and don't go peeping into everycorner. I'll do everything just
as you say. Promised little redcap and gave her hand on it. Her
grandmother lived out in thewoods, half a league from the
village, and as little red capentered the forest, she met a
wolf. She didn't know what awicked creature he was, so she
wasn't afraid of him. Good day.
Little Red Cap said, The Wolf.
(22:08):
Thank you, kindly Wolf. Shereplied, where are you going? So
early little red cap to mygrandmother's house. She said,
she's sick and weak, and I'mbringing her cake and wine. And
where does your grandmother livea good quarter hour from here in
the woods under the three bigoak trees, you'll know it by the
Hazel bushes nearby. The wolfthought to himself, that young
(22:31):
thing is a tender morsel betterthan the old woman. I must be
clever and catch them both. Hewalked a while beside her and
said, Little Red Cap, look atthe lovely flowers around you.
Why don't you look around a bitand listen to the birds, how
sweetly they sing. You'rewalking along as if you were
going to school, and it's sobeautiful here in the forest.
(22:55):
Little Red Cap looked up, andwhen she saw the sunbeams
dancing through the trees andthe flowers blooming all around.
She thought grandmother wouldlike a bouquet too. It's still
early and I'll be on time. Soshe left the path and wandered
into the woods, picking flowers.
Each time she picked one, shesaw a prettier one further on,
and kept going deeper anddeeper. Meanwhile, the wolf took
the direct path to thegrandmother's house and knocked
(23:17):
on the door. Who's there? Calledthe grandmother. Little Red Cap
said the wolf, disguising hisvoice, I've brought you cake and
wine. Open the door, lift thelatch. Called the grandmother.
I'm too weak to get up. The wolflifted the latch, walked in and
(23:37):
without a word, swallowed thegrandmother whole, then he put
on her clothes, laid himself inher bed and drew the curtains.
Later, Little Red Cap arrived.
She was surprised to find thedoor open and called Good
morning, no answer. She steppedinside and felt uneasy, dear me.
(23:58):
She said, Why do I feel sostrange today, when I usually
love visiting grandmother. Shepulled back the bed curtains and
there lay grandmother who lookedvery odd. Grandmother, what big
ears you have, all the better tohear you with my dear
grandmother. What big eyes youhave, all the better to see you
(24:20):
with my dear grandmother. Whatbig hands you have, all the
butter better to hug you with mydear grandmother. What a
terribly big mouth you have, allthe better to eat you with and
with that, the wolf leapt out ofbed and swallowed Little Red Cap
(24:41):
too. Now the wolf, having eatenhis fill, lay back down in the
bed and fell asleep, snoringloudly. A Huntsman happened to
be passing by the house. Hethought it odd to hear such loud
snoring, and said, I'll see ifsomething's wrong. He went in
and saw the wolf lying in bed,so he. Here you are, old sinner,
(25:01):
said the Huntsman, I've beenlooking for you. He raised his
gun, but then stopped. What ifhe swallowed the old woman
whole? Maybe I can save her. Sohe took a knife and cut open the
sleeping Wolf's belly. After afew snips, he saw something red,
and out popped Little Red Capcrying how dark it was inside,
(25:21):
he cut further, and out camegrandmother, still alive, but
weak. Little Red Cap fetchedsome large stones, and they
filled the wolf's belly withthem. When he woke up and tried
to run, the stones were so heavythat He collapsed and fell down
dead. All three were happy. TheHuntsman took the wolf's skin
the grandmother ate the cake anddrank the wine and felt much
(25:43):
better, and Little Red Cappromised herself she would never
stray from the path again. Theend, wow,
Kelly (25:51):
moral, moral, um, don't stray path. That's That's good.
I don't know that I've heardthat
Alex (25:57):
story in many years. Super violent, yeah, cutting the wolf
open, and then the grandmotheris a big ass Wolf. First of all,
Kelly (26:06):
yeah, yeah. Well, wolves, wolves are like that, sure, and
Alex (26:10):
talked. Not all wolves are bad. And they don't know talk
either.
Kelly (26:14):
Dances with Wolves. Wolf of Wall Street. I mean, there's
some good ones, but
Alex (26:18):
those were the predators in the forest that you had to
watch for back then. Yeah, yeah.
So that tells you that, like,yeah, there's a definite moral,
very short story, but it's allabout, like, if you do this,
there will be consequences, andmaybe someone will come and
rescue you, but it's going to begrizzly. It's going to be grim.
(26:39):
Yeah, grim word. But, you know,you have to be rescued at that
point.
Kelly (26:47):
Nice job on the voices, by the way. I really liked the I
liked the wolf doing theimpression of Little
Alex (26:54):
Red riot. Yeah, it's hard.
It's like a character inside acharacter.
Kelly (26:57):
Yeah, you've got to get meta on that.
Alex (27:01):
Cinderella. You know the story of Cinderella?
Kelly (27:06):
Let's see. Dressed in yellow, went upstairs, kiss a
fellow, made a mistake, kissed asnake. How many doctors did it
take? I think she's the one thatwent to the ball. She had a
wicked stepmother, and she hadsisters, wicked stepsisters, and
she couldn't go to the ball, butthen she met her fairy
godmother, who turned a pumpkininto a coach, and she went to
(27:31):
the ball, and she dropped herglass slipper, and the prince
found it.
Alex (27:36):
Yeah, that's the Disney version. In the 1812, version,
there wasn't any fairygodmother. It kind of is a cool
beginning. She plants a magicalHazel tree on her well, her
first her mother. A lot of thesestories begin with like, the
mother's not, you know, themother's dead, or the father's
dead, or whatever. She plants amagical Hazel tree on her
(27:58):
mother's grave. Waters it withher tears and birds drop silver
and gold dresses from the tree.
That's really a cool
Kelly (28:07):
like, start to the story cool nature, nature and nurture
together.
Alex (28:11):
And it wasn't Yeah, and back then, the animals in the
stories were there to, like,sometimes help you, sometimes
hurt you, but they were neverjust like singing sidekicks,
like Disney made it right,right? It wasn't just one ball,
either. It was a three nightfestival. Oh, that she would go
out every night and try to dothis, and she danced with the
(28:33):
Prince and all that. And then,in the original version, when
the prince tries to find herusing that glass slipper,
remember, it was the slipper,and he was everyone's trying it
on. One of the sisters, one ofthe wicked stepsisters, cut off
her toe to make the shoe fit.
Kelly (28:50):
If the shoe fits, you must have quit.
Alex (28:53):
And that nasty she'd cut off her toe to make sure it fit.
The other one cut off her heel.
I think that's worse thancolors. Yeah. And the birds,
though, were watching that, andthey warned the prince, and
they'd say, rookie to do, rookieto do, blood is in the shoe.
Blood is in the shoe.
Kelly (29:12):
Wow, that's the rocket to do.
Alex (29:16):
And then, and then, when Cinderella finally gets married
at the end, the birds, who knewthat she was they were trouble,
They pecked out the stepsister'seyes as punishment. Of course,
the other common theme to allthese stories is there's
justice, whether it's divinejustice or karmic justice. You
(29:38):
get yours in the end, butpatience also is a lot of a lot
of patience is a virtue, and alot of these characters have to
wait, sometimes entire lifetime,but several years, decades,
until somebody gets theircomeuppance. But patience is
usually rewarded, but ithappens, yeah, but there and
there's punishment to those whodeserve. Deserve it.
Kelly (30:01):
So, so. But you know, foundation of good lessons, I
guess, foundation of things thatare useful for people to know,
children to learn,
Alex (30:11):
German children back then were taught about patience was a
big thing, that if you're ifyou're nice and you're patient,
that magic and marriage willsave you if you're a girl,
right? That was kind of the themessage the second edition got
softened a little bit later, andthen Disney introduced the whole
idea of the fairy godmother, andthat animals were kind of cute
(30:35):
sidekicks, and a whole, wholedifferent deal of the What about
Snow White. You remember SnowWhite?
Kelly (30:42):
So I seven dwarves, right? And she went to live in
the forest. I actually reallythink that is one of the it was
one of the original Disney handdrawn animations. So
Alex (30:57):
it was Disney's first foray into feature length. It
was for Disney's first featurelength animated film, and it was
the first of the brothers Grimmsto stories to be made into a
movie. 1937
Kelly (31:13):
hard to think about that as a book or a story, because
the movie is so prevalent in ourculture and and I think it's a
beautiful movie. I mean, it's,it's just the the animation, the
style of it, the music,everything. And then I think
there was a Snow White donerecently in like, the 2000s 2024
2023 something like that.
Alex (31:35):
It just came out, yeah, a few months ago. And I've heard,
I haven't seen it, but I'veheard they kind of missed the
mark on everything like they'vereally doesn't. It doesn't
satisfy the the originalBrothers Grimm version, but it
also doesn't. It tries tomodernize it and loses a lot of
the messages I again, this isonly what I've I've heard read
some pretty critical pieces onon it. I haven't read any good,
(31:59):
anything good about it,
Kelly (32:00):
yeah, the first one was, again, just, just a very, I
don't know, it kind of, there'san optimism to it. There's,
there's a beauty to it. There'san innocence to it. The way that
she looks in, the way that sheis in the forest. I mean, I, you
know, I recall, she goes tosleep, she eats the apple, you
know, which I guess is a, sortof an allegory of almost like a
(32:21):
Christian theme, and the princebrings her back to life by
kissing her, kind of theshortcut.
Alex (32:28):
That's the Disney version, for sure. And the tough part
about modernizing these things,you know, for a 2025 audience,
is a lot of these are, you know,pretty sexist, like, like I
said, you know, I mean the ideathat a woman has to be rescued.
So a lot of times, what they'lltry to do to modernize them is
make the hero, make the girl inthe story kind of self
(32:51):
sufficient. Well, then you'remessing with the whole the
structure, the wholearchitecture of the story and
Kelly (32:58):
the motivations. Like, if she's so independent, why does
she even need this guy
Alex (33:02):
Exactly, exactly? So once you start doing that, the whole
thing may fall apart. Yeah, um,in the original version, the
like I mentioned, the evil queenwas Snow White's biological
mother, and she was, she knows,remember, she has the magic
mirror, and she would say, Ohyeah, the fairest of them all.
And for forever, the the mirrorwould always say, Well, of
course, it's you queen. You'rethe most beautiful. And then one
(33:25):
day, when the snow white kind ofgets older, she says, Well, Snow
White's the prettiest. And thatwas her daughter, and she was so
jealous of that she hired ahuntsman to kill Snow White and
bring back her lung and liver asproof that she killed her like
that is not a Disney right?
Kelly (33:45):
Because that's how you can really tell a person who a
person is, but, oh yeah, that'sAlex's lung,
Alex (33:51):
but it's her daughter too.
Yeah, so the huntsman finds SnowWhite, and he's so like, creeped
out by this that he tells SnowWhite to run away. He kills an
animal instead, brings it to theQueen, and she eats the lung and
eat liver of that animal. SnowWhite, in the meantime, hides
(34:14):
with seven dwarfs, who, in theoriginal story were they didn't
have individual personalities ornames or anything like that.
Wasn't like, sleepy and Dopey.
No, that was the Disney version,the original. The Queen tries to
kill her three times, once by acorset that she pulls too tight
(34:37):
and tries to, like, suffocateher the second time with a
poison comb, and then finally,the third time with the poison
apple. Okay, when in theoriginal When the prince tries
to find her, when the princefinally finds her and the
dwarfs, uh, late, uh, likehiding out, he doesn't kiss her.
(34:58):
He His servants just. Little thecoffin, and the apple dislodges
from her throat, and she shecomes back to life. There was no
kiss or anything, and then inthe original at at her wedding.
So the the Evil Queen goes tothe wedding. She didn't know it
was her daughter that wasgetting married, and the prince,
(35:21):
uh, once she gets there, shediscovers that, and the Prince
and Snow White force the Queento wear red hot iron. They take
shoes and they put them in thefire. They're made of iron. They
put them in the fire untilthey're red hot, and make her
dance until she dies again. It'sall about comeuppance, like if
(35:45):
you are mean, you will get yoursin the end. It might be a long
time before you get yours, butyou will get yours 100 times
worse than you gave and theymade her dance on with these red
hot iron shoes until she died.
Kelly (35:58):
That was the original version of the Abba song, right?
No. I mean,
Alex (36:03):
now you in the second edition, all they did was change
it to her stepmother, andinstantly it becomes a more
morally acceptable story, yeah,I suppose, because nobody would
do that to their real daughterbut a stepmother. I guess
anything goes right, yeah. Andthen in the Disney version, they
made the dwarfs havepersonalities, and the prince
(36:24):
kisses her, and it becomes muchmore of a kind of love at first,
Kelly (36:29):
yeah? And love conquers all kind of thing, yeah,
Alex (36:33):
that's good. Now, what about Hansel and Gretel?
Kelly (36:37):
I don't know much about them, so they fetch a pail of
water. Is that
Alex (36:43):
them? That was Jack and Jill. Oh, all they did was go up
a hill and then roll down.
That's a real short story. Yeah,Hansel and Gretel were the ones
that were in the forest and dropbreadcrumbs, remember? And then
the witch caught them. Oh, yeah.
So Hansel and Gretel, in theoriginal version, a couple is
starving, and they have twokids, Hansel umbrell And the
(37:06):
wife says, we don't have enoughto eat. Let's leave our kids
here in the woods so we don'thave as many mouths to feed. So
it's just going to be you andme. And then Hansel, the boy,
overhears the plan and dropspebbles on on his way, so they
can find his way back. So hegets back, so the wife says,
(37:26):
let's try it again. Let's try itagain. Let's try to lose these
guys again. This time, he dropsbread crumbs, and the birds eat
the bread crumbs. I rememberthat then they found a house
made of gingerbread where awitch lived, and the witch put
Hansel in a cage to fatten himup so she could eat him, and she
made Gretel do chores. The witchdecided to eat Hansel, and
(37:51):
Gretel shoves the witch into theoven. They steal her gold, and
then they go back home, and theyfind the mother had died, and
the father's alive, and he washe didn't want to go along with
this. Anyways, he welcomes themback, and they live happily ever
after. In subsequent versions,the mother becomes a stepmother,
(38:12):
and again, it's the stepmotherthat doesn't want the kids. The
father is in an impossiblesituation, but he welcomes them,
and then all three of them livehappily ever after, okay? And
these constant themes though. Imean, imagine if you had a book
of, you know, we're just talkingabout some of these stories, but
if there were 86 stories aftertime after time after time, it's
(38:33):
an evil stepmother and evilstepsisters, and,
Kelly (38:37):
yeah, they get a little repetitious, but that
Alex (38:41):
was probably very common back then to have step sisters
and brothers and parents,because people were, you know,
didn't live very long back then.
Kelly (38:49):
And as we got melded together, it's like the Brady
Bunch, I don't
Alex (38:54):
even know about, melted together. But women died in
childbirth a lot, so there wouldbe another woman that would take
the place I usually a youngerwoman, probably, probably, you
know, if you go by like Henrythe eighth times, you know,
every wife is a little bityounger, right? True, true. Um,
I could see how somebody wouldresent them, maybe, and, but,
like I say, didn't do stepparents. Any
Kelly (39:17):
face? No, no. Step parents got a bad rap.
Alex (39:20):
What about Rumpelstiltskin? No idea.
Kelly (39:24):
Nothing, isn't that? No, I'm thinking of Pinocchio, nope,
no idea.
Alex (39:30):
So a Miller, and there were lots of Millers in these
stores. You know what a Milleris?
Kelly (39:35):
They make flour.
Alex (39:37):
They would take like straw, yeah, yeah, they would
mill. They would mill, likeflour from like straw and barley
and things like that. Okay? Andit would have these wheels,
right? Spinning wheels. Yeah, dothat mill. So Miller wanted to
impress a king, so he lies tohim and says, My daughter can
(39:58):
spin straw into gold.
Kelly (40:01):
Oh yeah, I've heard that saying before.
Alex (40:04):
So first of all, what like that doesn't mean that sentence
doesn't make any sense. Butokay, so the greedy King brings
the daughter to the castle,locks her in a room with straw,
gives her a spinning wheel, andsays, All right, I heard that
you can make this into gold. Butif you have so, I'm skeptical,
(40:25):
if you haven't spun this strawinto gold by the morning you
die, as kings do, right? Yeah,yeah, there's always subject
consequences. So all of asudden, a little man appears out
of nowhere, and he says, I canhelp you. I can spin that into
gold. He does. He spins it intogold and and she says, Oh my
(40:48):
gosh, thank you. Saved my life.
And he says, Well, I'll takeyour necklace, though. So she
gives him her necklace. Nextnight. He does the same thing.
And he says, I'll take yourring, took his took the ring
next night. He says the samething. And this time she doesn't
have anything they give him. Hesays, Well, promise me your
first born child,
Kelly (41:06):
of course.
Alex (41:08):
So the king is so impressed by all this gold that
he marries the girl. She becomesthe queen. Year later, she has a
baby. And all of a sudden, thelittle man comes back and he
says, You promised? She says,Please, can I keep this child?
He's the heir to the throne.
Please, let me keep him. Hesays, all right, but on one
(41:29):
condition, you could keep thebaby if you can guess my name
within three days from now. Now,his name was rumble stiltskin,
right? Yeah. So she guesses, andshe guesses some names like
Casper. No, it's not Casper. Isit Melchior? No, is it Schnoodle
(41:49):
puff. Now this is a great storyto tell your kids. You could
just, at this point, just makeup names, right? Yeah, yeah. So
then she overhears him one day.
He's out back singing, and he'ssinging a song, today, I bake.
Tomorrow, I brew. The next I'llhave the young Queen's child,
(42:12):
probably Ryan's in German. Oh,how glad I am that no one knows
that my name is Rumpelstiltskin.
He's singing out loud. Yeah,Robo stiltskin, in German, means
noisy little goblin. Okay, knowthat. I think that might knowing
that, though I might haveguessed that right away.
Kelly (42:33):
Yeah, it's, it's very descriptive. Like, if
Alex (42:36):
he is a noisy little Goblin, and he says, I bet you
can't guess my name, I'd belike, is it noisy little goblin?
And it seems
Kelly (42:42):
like being overheard is, is such a big like, several
times over here, somebodyoverhearing something changes
the plot
Alex (42:49):
dramatically. Well, you know, yeah, yeah, and that's the
gods. But even in Shakespeare,that's how it happens, right?
Like, that's, you know? So sheconfronts him, she goes, Ah,
your name is Rumpelstiltskin,and he screams in rage and runs
away. And that's the end. Insubsequent versions, he
(43:09):
literally tears himself intotwo, like he runs away, and he
splits in half, right down, downthe middle. I don't
Kelly (43:17):
know why. Strange amoeba or Yeah, yeah, that's
Alex (43:21):
so those. Those were the popular ones. I told you.
There's, there's other ones thatare just downright weird.
There's one about a girl whoends up marrying like a serial
killer and sets them up for, youknow, and there's fingers being
chopped off and salting the meatand all that kind of stuff. I
(43:42):
mean, it's just, but we'vetalked about before, when, when
we talked about at Christmas,yeah, we talked about those,
those, it's very common to havestories where people are eaten
and boiled and salted. And thatwas a thing that genuinely
scared people
Kelly (43:58):
back. Yeah, that was, that was a horror film. You
know, they didn't have specialeffects, so they had to pick a
topic that was very visceral,but
Alex (44:05):
it's just funny, because we would never tell little kids
the stories today, and that wasand I think kids dug it like, I
think kids are into that kind ofstuff. That's why they were
tougher than us. Yeah, I guessso. Now a 1785 kid could beat
the crap out of a 1985
Kelly (44:21):
kid.
Alex (44:23):
So we have these common tropes of wicked stepmothers,
abandoned children, talkinganimals, making a deal with the
devil, making a deal with thegoblin. Rules of three like
three wishes, three tests, Threebrothers, gruesome karmic
justice, right? I shouldprobably though a podcast about
(44:45):
the Brothers Grimm probablywould be incomplete if I didn't
talk about kind of the antisemitic tropes. I I talked about
only some of the stories that weknow. There were other stories
that were very, very antisemitic. You know, when they
when those guys lived? In the inthe 1800s this anti semitism was
starting, just starting to risein Germany, Jews were often the
(45:09):
villains in these stories. Theywere repeated from times where
they blamed everything on theJews. And unfortunately, that
got even worse, you know, overthe next 100 years, well,
Brothers Grimm weren't like Isaid. They were not they were
scholars. They weren't fascists,they weren't propagandists. They
weren't trying to propagatethese stories. They were
(45:31):
collecting stories from racistfolks, bigoted people, right?
Um, unfortunately, 100 years ornot, quite 100 years later, when
the Nazis were in charge, theydeliberately use these brothers
Grimm stories as propagandatools.
Kelly (45:49):
People had grown up on them, right? So this was
something that's easy to do,yes,
Alex (45:53):
very easy to do, because they've grown up with these
stories and they used them, andthey really doubled down on
using these brothers Grimmstories in school. Hitler youth
groups use these. They wouldhave radio plays. They really
got a second, like Ray's wave ofpopularity in the 30s and 1930s
(46:15):
and 40s. They were German to thecore these stories, you know,
they were part and a countrythat was becoming more and more
nationalistic, these storieswere very comforting to Nazis
and really used as tools theyyou know, a lot of these stories
have to do with an eviloutsider. Well, you know, the
(46:37):
immigrants and Jews were seen asevil outsiders and and there
were also these stories. I thinkthe most destructive thing was
these stories were all about youbetter be obedient as a child,
or there's going to beconsequences if you don't listen
to what your parent if you youknow you don't stop on the way
home and don't do this, oryou'll get eaten by a witch. So
(46:59):
they were really teaching kidsto be super obedient. Well, part
of when imagine the end game ofNazis teaching you to be
obedient is to the pretty fear.
Yeah, it's, it's prettychilling, right? Also, there was
a glorification of suffering,right in these and these
stories, and that was a veryNazi thing, too. Little Red
Riding Hood, the Nazis, rightaway were like, the wolf is the
(47:22):
Jews. And they would spell thisout to little kids. Snow White
was all about racial purity. Youknow, they were kind of taking
what Brothers Grimm did and andperverting it a little bit to
make something that was alreadykind of really weird and strange
and scary and gruesome even intosomething more horrific and
(47:46):
monstrous, right and and Hanseland Gretel was all about
defeating evil through beingresource.
Oh, hello, everybody.
Welcome to another episode ofdirt nap city, the show about
interesting dead people. I'mAlex. I'm here with my friend
Kelly. Kelly, How you been, man,
Kelly (00:24):
I'm doing very well, Alex. I'm on a little bit of a
vacation at the moment, which isnice. It's been a busy summer so
far. So nice to unplug. But youknow, I always got time to talk
with you about interesting deadpeople and dead
Alex (00:39):
ends. Oh yeah, I got a couple of interesting guys
today. Two, it's, I'm doing atwo for today, two for Tuesday.
Kelly (00:46):
Those are always interesting because, you know,
it's double your pleasure,double your fun.
Alex (00:51):
So some of the doubles ones where I think we started
with Siskel and Ebert, yeah,most recently, the Wright
Brothers, right? And like theWright Brothers, these dudes
were brothers.
Kelly (01:05):
Oh, okay, okay.
Alex (01:07):
And like, Hanna Barbera, kind of, and the Wright
Brothers, kind of, you can'ttalk about one without the
other. They were kind of, youdon't even really, there's
nothing that I really learnedthat distinguishes one from the
other too much. They kind of dideverything together.
Kelly (01:26):
And are they known as?
Are they known as the somethingbrothers?
Alex (01:30):
Kind of, yeah, kind of, yeah, okay, but it's not the
Chemical Brothers. It's not thebrothers Johnson,
Kelly (01:37):
oh, man, you've just just taken away my guesses,
Alex (01:41):
but they were German. What were some of the Germans we've
had on here? We've had Einstein,yeah. We had diesel, yeah,
diesel, Rudolph, diesel, andrudol, Harvey, Zeppelin. What
was his name? What was
Kelly (01:53):
Zeppelin's name? Count, Baron von
Alex (01:56):
Veron von these weren't Baron Vons, but these were
German brothers born a yearapart, 1785 Jakob was born in
1785 and Wilhelm was born in1786 and I like doing Germans
because you have such a commandof the German language, having
(02:18):
lived there for A LITTLE WHILEvacation there a few times.
Yeah, Jakob died in 1863 vitalhelm died in 1859 and they were
born in Hana Hesse Castle, whichis now just castle. It Back then
it was part of the Roman Empire.
Now it's Germany, but now if youwanted to go visit their grave,
(02:44):
it would be in Castle, Germany.
Kelly (02:49):
Castle. Okay. Is that northern or southern? Do
Alex (02:52):
you know this was Southern Germany?
Kelly (02:57):
Okay. Bavaria, yes, yes,
Alex (03:01):
yes. And were they? And, more importantly, kind of by the
Black Forest, I think
Kelly (03:06):
sports fault, were they?
Oh, wait a minute, wait aminute, were they authors
Alex (03:15):
of a sorts, yes, a little Is this the brothers? Grimm?
Brothers, Grimm, let's go. Let'stalk about the brothers. As
Kelly (03:22):
soon as you said, Black Forest, that kind of, that kind
of gave it away. Or
Alex (03:26):
as they were known, they brutal, grim, the Bruder grim,
the Bruder grim. So, like Isaid, they kind of did
everything together, and theyweren't as much authors as they
were. They were they were bothprofessors. They were scholars,
(03:47):
podcast hosts. Yes, their areaof expertise was folklore,
folklore. So some of the mostpopular stories that we know
came from the Brothers Grimm,but they didn't write them.
Kelly (04:03):
These were, these were folklore stories,
Alex (04:05):
right? So there's really not a lot of background about
these guys that's veryinteresting. I'll tell you a
little bit. I want to dive rightinto basically what they
collected and kind of what itsaid about the time that the so
we there's not too much you knowabout them being ambulance
drivers or hating school oranything like that, their father
(04:27):
died in 1796 when Jakob was 11and Wilhelm was 10. And you
know, as we've talked about fromsome of these other folks that
lived back then, that when yourfather dies, that really puts
you in a bad situation, becausethen you're kind of losing
income, right? Yeah, yeah.
Stability puts the family inpoverty, which was the case this
(04:50):
family was, you know, you kindof go down a social class. And
when you think about it, when westart talking. About some of
these fairy tales or folkstories. Fathers in these
stories are idealized and almostwell, and all the villains are
females in these in thesestories, you have all the really
(05:13):
other wicked witches,stepsisters and stepmothers and
witches and and frowes and allthis, this, it's a lot of
villains, a lot of femalevillains, which I think, for two
guys that lost their father whenthey were very young. You know,
you can't now, again, theydidn't write these stories, but
(05:33):
those are the ones that kind ofspoke to them. Okay, they grew
up very close. Obviously, createexperiencing such a trauma at
such a young age, you'd becomeclose, and they were both at the
top of their classes. I thinkthey both graduated like number
one in their class. They went tothe University of Marburg, and
they both were interested inGerman folklore. They even lived
(05:56):
together, like even afterWilhelm got married, they Jakob,
you know, lived in the housewith them. They shared a desk
their whole life, and they wereburied side by side. So really,
I don't have anything to sayabout one that I'm not going to
also say about the other. Ithink one of them was more of a
linguist, and the other was moreof a storyteller, but it doesn't
(06:21):
really matter for for what Iwant to talk about today. Yeah,
Kelly (06:28):
no, I didn't even know they were real people. I always
kind of thought it was afictionalized I don't know. I
never knew. I've heard of them,but didn't know much about them.
So have
Alex (06:37):
you? Have you ever heard of the literary period? Called
Kelly (06:43):
romanticism. Romanticism, yeah, I think I've heard of it.
I don't know much about it.
Alex (06:48):
So romanticism was the end of the 18th century in Europe.
It was kind of a response to theindustrial revolution. So
romanticism and stories and artthat was from the Romantic
period was all about likeappreciation of nature and
(07:09):
imagination. And in German, inGermany, that would be a lot
about the forest and the forestbeing kind of a dark place to
avoid. But that was the naturein nature in Germany. Was the
forest, right? Okay, there wasalso romanticism. Was was all
about individualism and passionand intuition, and that the
(07:34):
learning about yourself and thebeauty that the world, that if
you look around the world's abeautiful place, and it evokes
these emotional responses. And alot of the stories had to do
with the of nature, but also thesupernatural and the fascination
with mysterious things andtrolls and witches, and, like
(07:56):
you said, and and particularlyin Germany, uh, people love to
talk about the Middle Ages with,you know, castles and forests
and witches and knights andthese stories. I mean, we're
talking about the 1800s here,but those stories really
resonated. I think they still dotoday. I think if you look at
(08:18):
like, Game of Thrones, peopleare still interested in Harry
Potter. People are stillinterested in that kind of
magic, kind of stuff. But theBrothers Grimm were interested
in preserving the stories of thedifferent cultures inside
Germany, and that they believedthat folk tales were kind of a
reflection of the soul of theGerman people. So they wanted to
(08:41):
to find that. So they wouldtheir methodology was pretty
cool. They would go aroundcollecting stories from people.
Now, when they wrote theirbooks, they made it sound like
they were collecting storiesfrom like peasants and, you
know, towns folk. They weremostly middle class women, and
(09:02):
they would ask questions like,Do you remember any stories your
nanny told you when you weregrowing
Kelly (09:06):
up? I love to ask that question. That's, that's a great
that's a great sort oficebreaker, but
Alex (09:11):
it wasn't exactly like campfire stories or anything
like that. But they would goaround and ask different, mostly
women, about the stories thatwere passed to them. And a lot
of these were stories that hadbeen passed around for kind of
centuries, and they had neverbeen written down. And they
found that the culture reallyhad a rich tapestry, I suppose,
(09:34):
of of stories that kind ofpeople knew, but it had never
been really written down before.
So what they would do is theywould take these stories, they
would gather them, they wouldfind commonalities, they would
edit them, they would embellishthem, and they would put out,
like um, a book with acollection of stories, pretty
short. Each one was like 1000 to2000 words. Um. And they wrote
(09:57):
80 edited 86 stories from 1812,to 1857, and every year, every
few years, they put out a newedition. There were seven total
editions. That's all they reallydid, though. Put out seven
books. There was a collection ofthese fairy tales. I'm gonna
(10:18):
call them fairy tales. I'm notsure if they ever knew that
word. And the very firstedition, though, the 1812
version, was the one that I wantto focus on, because that was
the version that wasn't meantfor kids. I think once the books
came out, people started readingthem as families, and then the
kids really got into him. Sothey responded by every edition
(10:41):
after 1812 they they sanitizedit made it a little more
friendly. And the versions weknow today were the DIS are the
Disney versions, right? Itstarted with, like Snow White in
1937 100 years later, that werereally, really sanitized. But
like I said, the first editionwas not meant for kids. They
(11:02):
added a lot of, like, Christianelements and maybe more
archetypes. You know, you seethese archetypes, the same kind
of tropes over and over there.
We know them as tropes now, butthey didn't really, you know,
they invented those things,right? There was a lot more
sexual content in the 1812version, but so they softened a
(11:26):
lot of the sexual stuff, butthen ramped up the violence. The
violence was not something thatthey thought kids shouldn't hear
about. In fact, discipline wasabout fear, so the more violent
you could make a story. And ifyou could throw in a a moral to
that story, of you better not dothis, or somebody's gonna boil
(11:49):
you right, or poison you, or eatyou or burn you alive you made
into pickled brine, or a lot ofabandonment, kind of things.
They were all about that. Nowthe word grim already meant,
like dark. They didn't, we don'tsay things are grim because of
the Brothers Grimm, like grimwith 1m was always a word, yeah,
(12:12):
but I think they really leanedinto that like, I think maybe
because their name was grim,they knew they could go as dark
as possible. Yeah. Really leaninto that name. Yeah,
Kelly (12:22):
the the brothers, the brother Smith, or the brothers
Jones, doesn't have that muchcache as the Brothers Grimm,
Alex (12:29):
I think they did lean into that. They also got rid of
anything that was too French. Alot of these stories, their
their origin is kind of moreFrench. So, you know, something
that might have originally takenplace in a chateau is now taking
place in a castle, yeah. Butthere were other little changes,
like, you know, Snow White inthe original Snow White, the
(12:52):
evil queen was her birth motherin the original version, and
they changed it to thestepmother. Later on, they found
that changing things tostepmothers made them a lot more
morally okay to have that personmess with the kid if they were
not related to them, right?
Kelly (13:11):
Not their blood mother, not their Yeah, which really for
200 for
Alex (13:15):
the next 200 years, made it probably really difficult to
be a step parent. Yeah, yeah,yeah. But, like I said, the
Brothers Grimm were looking forsomething they called
volksgeist.
Kelly (13:29):
Oh, that's people's ghosts. People's spirit, yeah,
Alex (13:32):
yeah. Spirit, the kind of to get, the spirit of authentic
Germans and, like I said, andnot French because of Napoleon,
who was kind of running thingsat the time. They were very anti
French.
Kelly (13:46):
I see our episode about Napoleon, right? So
Alex (13:50):
let's talk about some of the stories. One of them is
called um ashen puto.
Kelly (13:57):
Ashen puto black like ashen
Alex (14:03):
ash Pluto is ash fool or ash girl, which is Cinderella.
Okay, Cinderella, cinders wouldbe, you know, like
Kelly (14:16):
Cinder yeah, oh yeah, dressed in yellow, went upstairs
to kiss a fella. What aboutschneevich in? Schneevich and
Schnee? Schnee is Snow White.
Oh, snow witch, no, Snow White.
Snow White. White is Vice but
Alex (14:36):
schneevich In, I mean, loosely translated to see it
snow though Hansel and Gretel,hmm,
Kelly (14:45):
yeah, two kids, brother and sister
Alex (14:48):
wrote caption.
Kelly (14:50):
Red Rapunzel, no, wrote what?
Alex (14:57):
Wrote caption, you?
Kelly (15:00):
Yeah, well, cop is head but, or Cap, cap, oh, red cap.
Who is that Little Red RidingHood
Alex (15:12):
wrote caption, but it was little red cap girl or
something, yeah, rumpus did skin
Kelly (15:20):
well, I mean, that was a name, but,
Alex (15:23):
yeah, that's it's, right, it's Rumplestiltskin, and then
Rapunzel was the other one. Wow.
So I can talk about any and allof those. Those are the ones
we're going to talk about today,but I'm going to let you pick
which one to talk about first.
Kelly (15:38):
Well, let's say Rapunzel.
Let down your hair. So
Alex (15:43):
in the 1812 version of Rapunzel. So do you know the
story of Rapunzel? Do you knowit like off the top of your
head? She
Kelly (15:50):
has long hair. She's trapped in a tower, and she lets
her hair down so that she can berescued. The guy can climb up
using her hair.
Alex (15:58):
The guy, yeah, the prince, yeah, right. There's always a
prince involved, right? It'salways damsels in distress, and
some guy rescues them. And we'vetalked about what rescue means
in previous episodes, right,right, so in the original
Rapunzel, it was very sexual. Infact, she asked him, she asked
(16:26):
the prince, you know, he goes upto visit her a lot, and at one
point she asked him, Why are myclothes getting so tight?
Because she's pregnant and so inthe you know, so a man. And his
wife live by a walled gardenowned by a witch named Frau
(16:48):
goto, and the wife becomespregnant and craves Rapunzel.
And Rapunzel is a salad green inGermany, it's like, okay,
watercress or something, or kaleor something. So the man sneaks
into the garden to steal theRapunzel. And then the second
(17:09):
time he does it, the Witchcatches him and she spares him.
He says, oh, please spare me.
This is a very common thing. Shesays, I'll do it on one
condition that's also verycommon. You must give me the
baby when it's born, otherwiseI'll kill you. That's really
cool. So he agrees. And whenit's born, the Witch names the
baby Rapunzel, and takes heraway. And then when Rapunzel
(17:33):
turns 12, got the locks her in atower with no doors or no
stairs, and whenever the witchwants to visit, she says,
Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let downyour hair so I may climb the
golden stair. And then she wouldput down her hair that she had
never got cut, and the witchwould climb up, and that's how
(17:53):
she would see her. Well, aprince overhears this one day,
and because, you know, princesare always just walking around,
Kelly (18:01):
yeah, they're just like listening here to the ground.
Well,
Alex (18:05):
he's enchanted, and he sneaks up, climbs her hair, and
they begin a secretrelationship. He gets her
pregnant. This is again, in theoriginal version. Then frog got
the finds out that she'spregnant. She cuts off her hair
and banishes her to the desert,and then the prince. And she
(18:27):
tricks the Prince by lettingdown her hair. He climbs up. She
reveals herself. The Princejumps off from the tower in
horror and lands in thorns,lands in thorns, blinding
himself. Then he wanders thedesert for years looking for a
Rapunzel, until he finallyfounds her and the the baby his
(18:51):
tears of joy heal his eyes, andthey return to the kingdom and
live happily ever after. Wow,crazy, huh? Now, and she, she
gave birth to twins, actually,and they reunited. Now, in
subsequent versions, they tookout the teen pregnancy part,
they made it more violent. Theybut big morals, like they added
(19:18):
a lot of morals and the ideathat, you know, discipline
through fear, these stories keptkids in line. You know, you
better not, you know, go out onyour own or this stuff might,
might happen to you.
Kelly (19:29):
Wow. No, I guess I only knew about the letting the hair
down part, but I didn't know therest of that story,
Alex (19:35):
yeah. Well, and then, of course, the Disney version, I
think in the in the there's amovie called tangled, oh, yeah,
yeah. There's very little ofthat, you know, yeah. If the I,
you know, I don't know if it'sbetter or worse, it's just
different, yeah, Disney, yeah,and you're right. Maybe don't
want Disney doing the originalversion. That's
Kelly (19:58):
it's no, no. Probably not the right. Demographic.
Alex (20:01):
All right, so now we got Cinderella, Snow White, Hansel
and Gretel, Little Red RidingHood and Rumpelstiltskin.
Kelly (20:09):
Well, I remember Little Red Riding Hood. She she was
going to her grandmother's inthe forest and and there was a
big bad wolf that chased her ortalked to her, and then she ends
up killing the wolf somehow,right, and putting it in, or
maybe the wolf ate hergrandmother, and he dresses up
(20:30):
like, am I getting this mixedup? No, you got it. He dresses
up like her grandmother, and shegoes in and says, Oh, what big
eyes you have, all the better tosee you with, what big nose you
have, all the better to smellyou with, what a big teeth you
have, all the better to eat youwith. I
Alex (20:47):
got a treat for you. Okay, I mentioned these are short
stories. I've got the originalLittle Red Riding Hood. I'm
going to read it to you.
Kelly (20:55):
Okay, I'd love to hear it.
Alex (21:01):
This is the 1812 version, called Little Red Cap. Once upon
a time, there was a sweet littlegirl who was loved by everyone
who looked at her, but most ofall, by her grandmother, who
would have given her anything.
Once she gave her a little capof Red Velvet, which suited her
so well that she would neverwear anything else from then on,
she was called Little Red Cap.
(21:24):
One day, her mother said to her,come little red cap. Here's a
piece of cake and a bottle ofwine. Take these to your
grandmother, who is ill andweak, and they will do her good.
Set out before it gets hot, andwalk nicely and quietly. Don't
stray from the path, or youmight fall and break the bottle,
and when you get to her house,don't forget to say good morning
(21:45):
and don't go peeping into everycorner. I'll do everything just
as you say. Promised little redcap and gave her hand on it. Her
grandmother lived out in thewoods, half a league from the
village, and as little red capentered the forest, she met a
wolf. She didn't know what awicked creature he was, so she
wasn't afraid of him. Good day.
Little Red Cap said, The Wolf.
(22:08):
Thank you, kindly Wolf. Shereplied, where are you going? So
early little red cap to mygrandmother's house. She said,
she's sick and weak, and I'mbringing her cake and wine. And
where does your grandmother livea good quarter hour from here in
the woods under the three bigoak trees, you'll know it by the
Hazel bushes nearby. The wolfthought to himself, that young
(22:31):
thing is a tender morsel betterthan the old woman. I must be
clever and catch them both. Hewalked a while beside her and
said, Little Red Cap, look atthe lovely flowers around you.
Why don't you look around a bitand listen to the birds, how
sweetly they sing. You'rewalking along as if you were
going to school, and it's sobeautiful here in the forest.
(22:55):
Little Red Cap looked up, andwhen she saw the sunbeams
dancing through the trees andthe flowers blooming all around.
She thought grandmother wouldlike a bouquet too. It's still
early and I'll be on time. Soshe left the path and wandered
into the woods, picking flowers.
Each time she picked one, shesaw a prettier one further on,
and kept going deeper anddeeper. Meanwhile, the wolf took
the direct path to thegrandmother's house and knocked
(23:17):
on the door. Who's there? Calledthe grandmother. Little Red Cap
said the wolf, disguising hisvoice, I've brought you cake and
wine. Open the door, lift thelatch. Called the grandmother.
I'm too weak to get up. The wolflifted the latch, walked in and
(23:37):
without a word, swallowed thegrandmother whole, then he put
on her clothes, laid himself inher bed and drew the curtains.
Later, Little Red Cap arrived.
She was surprised to find thedoor open and called Good
morning, no answer. She steppedinside and felt uneasy, dear me.
(23:58):
She said, Why do I feel sostrange today, when I usually
love visiting grandmother. Shepulled back the bed curtains and
there lay grandmother who lookedvery odd. Grandmother, what big
ears you have, all the better tohear you with my dear
grandmother. What big eyes youhave, all the better to see you
(24:20):
with my dear grandmother. Whatbig hands you have, all the
butter better to hug you with mydear grandmother. What a
terribly big mouth you have, allthe better to eat you with and
with that, the wolf leapt out ofbed and swallowed Little Red Cap
(24:41):
too. Now the wolf, having eatenhis fill, lay back down in the
bed and fell asleep, snoringloudly. A Huntsman happened to
be passing by the house. Hethought it odd to hear such loud
snoring, and said, I'll see ifsomething's wrong. He went in
and saw the wolf lying in bed,so he. Here you are, old sinner,
(25:01):
said the Huntsman, I've beenlooking for you. He raised his
gun, but then stopped. What ifhe swallowed the old woman
whole? Maybe I can save her. Sohe took a knife and cut open the
sleeping Wolf's belly. After afew snips, he saw something red,
and out popped Little Red Capcrying how dark it was inside,
(25:21):
he cut further, and out camegrandmother, still alive, but
weak. Little Red Cap fetchedsome large stones, and they
filled the wolf's belly withthem. When he woke up and tried
to run, the stones were so heavythat He collapsed and fell down
dead. All three were happy. TheHuntsman took the wolf's skin
the grandmother ate the cake anddrank the wine and felt much
(25:43):
better, and Little Red Cappromised herself she would never
stray from the path again. Theend, wow,
Kelly (25:51):
moral, moral, um, don't stray path. That's That's good.
I don't know that I've heardthat
Alex (25:57):
story in many years. Super violent, yeah, cutting the wolf
open, and then the grandmotheris a big ass Wolf. First of all,
Kelly (26:06):
yeah, yeah. Well, wolves, wolves are like that, sure, and
Alex (26:10):
talked. Not all wolves are bad. And they don't know talk
either.
Kelly (26:14):
Dances with Wolves. Wolf of Wall Street. I mean, there's
some good ones, but
Alex (26:18):
those were the predators in the forest that you had to
watch for back then. Yeah, yeah.
So that tells you that, like,yeah, there's a definite moral,
very short story, but it's allabout, like, if you do this,
there will be consequences, andmaybe someone will come and
rescue you, but it's going to begrizzly. It's going to be grim.
(26:39):
Yeah, grim word. But, you know,you have to be rescued at that
point.
Kelly (26:47):
Nice job on the voices, by the way. I really liked the I
liked the wolf doing theimpression of Little
Alex (26:54):
Red riot. Yeah, it's hard.
It's like a character inside acharacter.
Kelly (26:57):
Yeah, you've got to get meta on that.
Alex (27:01):
Cinderella. You know the story of Cinderella?
Kelly (27:06):
Let's see. Dressed in yellow, went upstairs, kiss a
fellow, made a mistake, kissed asnake. How many doctors did it
take? I think she's the one thatwent to the ball. She had a
wicked stepmother, and she hadsisters, wicked stepsisters, and
she couldn't go to the ball, butthen she met her fairy
godmother, who turned a pumpkininto a coach, and she went to
(27:31):
the ball, and she dropped herglass slipper, and the prince
found it.
Alex (27:36):
Yeah, that's the Disney version. In the 1812, version,
there wasn't any fairygodmother. It kind of is a cool
beginning. She plants a magicalHazel tree on her well, her
first her mother. A lot of thesestories begin with like, the
mother's not, you know, themother's dead, or the father's
dead, or whatever. She plants amagical Hazel tree on her
(27:58):
mother's grave. Waters it withher tears and birds drop silver
and gold dresses from the tree.
That's really a cool
Kelly (28:07):
like, start to the story cool nature, nature and nurture
together.
Alex (28:11):
And it wasn't Yeah, and back then, the animals in the
stories were there to, like,sometimes help you, sometimes
hurt you, but they were neverjust like singing sidekicks,
like Disney made it right,right? It wasn't just one ball,
either. It was a three nightfestival. Oh, that she would go
out every night and try to dothis, and she danced with the
(28:33):
Prince and all that. And then,in the original version, when
the prince tries to find herusing that glass slipper,
remember, it was the slipper,and he was everyone's trying it
on. One of the sisters, one ofthe wicked stepsisters, cut off
her toe to make the shoe fit.
Kelly (28:50):
If the shoe fits, you must have quit.
Alex (28:53):
And that nasty she'd cut off her toe to make sure it fit.
The other one cut off her heel.
I think that's worse thancolors. Yeah. And the birds,
though, were watching that, andthey warned the prince, and
they'd say, rookie to do, rookieto do, blood is in the shoe.
Blood is in the shoe.
Kelly (29:12):
Wow, that's the rocket to do.
Alex (29:16):
And then, and then, when Cinderella finally gets married
at the end, the birds, who knewthat she was they were trouble,
They pecked out the stepsister'seyes as punishment. Of course,
the other common theme to allthese stories is there's
justice, whether it's divinejustice or karmic justice. You
(29:38):
get yours in the end, butpatience also is a lot of a lot
of patience is a virtue, and alot of these characters have to
wait, sometimes entire lifetime,but several years, decades,
until somebody gets theircomeuppance. But patience is
usually rewarded, but ithappens, yeah, but there and
there's punishment to those whodeserve. Deserve it.
Kelly (30:01):
So, so. But you know, foundation of good lessons, I
guess, foundation of things thatare useful for people to know,
children to learn,
Alex (30:11):
German children back then were taught about patience was a
big thing, that if you're ifyou're nice and you're patient,
that magic and marriage willsave you if you're a girl,
right? That was kind of the themessage the second edition got
softened a little bit later, andthen Disney introduced the whole
idea of the fairy godmother, andthat animals were kind of cute
(30:35):
sidekicks, and a whole, wholedifferent deal of the What about
Snow White. You remember SnowWhite?
Kelly (30:42):
So I seven dwarves, right? And she went to live in
the forest. I actually reallythink that is one of the it was
one of the original Disney handdrawn animations. So
Alex (30:57):
it was Disney's first foray into feature length. It
was for Disney's first featurelength animated film, and it was
the first of the brothers Grimmsto stories to be made into a
movie. 1937
Kelly (31:13):
hard to think about that as a book or a story, because
the movie is so prevalent in ourculture and and I think it's a
beautiful movie. I mean, it's,it's just the the animation, the
style of it, the music,everything. And then I think
there was a Snow White donerecently in like, the 2000s 2024
2023 something like that.
Alex (31:35):
It just came out, yeah, a few months ago. And I've heard,
I haven't seen it, but I'veheard they kind of missed the
mark on everything like they'vereally doesn't. It doesn't
satisfy the the originalBrothers Grimm version, but it
also doesn't. It tries tomodernize it and loses a lot of
the messages I again, this isonly what I've I've heard read
some pretty critical pieces onon it. I haven't read any good,
(31:59):
anything good about it,
Kelly (32:00):
yeah, the first one was, again, just, just a very, I
don't know, it kind of, there'san optimism to it. There's,
there's a beauty to it. There'san innocence to it. The way that
she looks in, the way that sheis in the forest. I mean, I, you
know, I recall, she goes tosleep, she eats the apple, you
know, which I guess is a, sortof an allegory of almost like a
(32:21):
Christian theme, and the princebrings her back to life by
kissing her, kind of theshortcut.
Alex (32:28):
That's the Disney version, for sure. And the tough part
about modernizing these things,you know, for a 2025 audience,
is a lot of these are, you know,pretty sexist, like, like I
said, you know, I mean the ideathat a woman has to be rescued.
So a lot of times, what they'lltry to do to modernize them is
make the hero, make the girl inthe story kind of self
(32:51):
sufficient. Well, then you'remessing with the whole the
structure, the wholearchitecture of the story and
Kelly (32:58):
the motivations. Like, if she's so independent, why does
she even need this guy
Alex (33:02):
Exactly, exactly? So once you start doing that, the whole
thing may fall apart. Yeah, um,in the original version, the
like I mentioned, the evil queenwas Snow White's biological
mother, and she was, she knows,remember, she has the magic
mirror, and she would say, Ohyeah, the fairest of them all.
And for forever, the the mirrorwould always say, Well, of
course, it's you queen. You'rethe most beautiful. And then one
(33:25):
day, when the snow white kind ofgets older, she says, Well, Snow
White's the prettiest. And thatwas her daughter, and she was so
jealous of that she hired ahuntsman to kill Snow White and
bring back her lung and liver asproof that she killed her like
that is not a Disney right?
Kelly (33:45):
Because that's how you can really tell a person who a
person is, but, oh yeah, that'sAlex's lung,
Alex (33:51):
but it's her daughter too.
Yeah, so the huntsman finds SnowWhite, and he's so like, creeped
out by this that he tells SnowWhite to run away. He kills an
animal instead, brings it to theQueen, and she eats the lung and
eat liver of that animal. SnowWhite, in the meantime, hides
(34:14):
with seven dwarfs, who, in theoriginal story were they didn't
have individual personalities ornames or anything like that.
Wasn't like, sleepy and Dopey.
No, that was the Disney version,the original. The Queen tries to
kill her three times, once by acorset that she pulls too tight
(34:37):
and tries to, like, suffocateher the second time with a
poison comb, and then finally,the third time with the poison
apple. Okay, when in theoriginal When the prince tries
to find her, when the princefinally finds her and the
dwarfs, uh, late, uh, likehiding out, he doesn't kiss her.
(34:58):
He His servants just. Little thecoffin, and the apple dislodges
from her throat, and she shecomes back to life. There was no
kiss or anything, and then inthe original at at her wedding.
So the the Evil Queen goes tothe wedding. She didn't know it
was her daughter that wasgetting married, and the prince,
(35:21):
uh, once she gets there, shediscovers that, and the Prince
and Snow White force the Queento wear red hot iron. They take
shoes and they put them in thefire. They're made of iron. They
put them in the fire untilthey're red hot, and make her
dance until she dies again. It'sall about comeuppance, like if
(35:45):
you are mean, you will get yoursin the end. It might be a long
time before you get yours, butyou will get yours 100 times
worse than you gave and theymade her dance on with these red
hot iron shoes until she died.
Kelly (35:58):
That was the original version of the Abba song, right?
No. I mean,
Alex (36:03):
now you in the second edition, all they did was change
it to her stepmother, andinstantly it becomes a more
morally acceptable story, yeah,I suppose, because nobody would
do that to their real daughterbut a stepmother. I guess
anything goes right, yeah. Andthen in the Disney version, they
made the dwarfs havepersonalities, and the prince
(36:24):
kisses her, and it becomes muchmore of a kind of love at first,
Kelly (36:29):
yeah? And love conquers all kind of thing, yeah,
Alex (36:33):
that's good. Now, what about Hansel and Gretel?
Kelly (36:37):
I don't know much about them, so they fetch a pail of
water. Is that
Alex (36:43):
them? That was Jack and Jill. Oh, all they did was go up
a hill and then roll down.
That's a real short story. Yeah,Hansel and Gretel were the ones
that were in the forest and dropbreadcrumbs, remember? And then
the witch caught them. Oh, yeah.
So Hansel and Gretel, in theoriginal version, a couple is
starving, and they have twokids, Hansel umbrell And the
(37:06):
wife says, we don't have enoughto eat. Let's leave our kids
here in the woods so we don'thave as many mouths to feed. So
it's just going to be you andme. And then Hansel, the boy,
overhears the plan and dropspebbles on on his way, so they
can find his way back. So hegets back, so the wife says,
(37:26):
let's try it again. Let's try itagain. Let's try to lose these
guys again. This time, he dropsbread crumbs, and the birds eat
the bread crumbs. I rememberthat then they found a house
made of gingerbread where awitch lived, and the witch put
Hansel in a cage to fatten himup so she could eat him, and she
made Gretel do chores. The witchdecided to eat Hansel, and
(37:51):
Gretel shoves the witch into theoven. They steal her gold, and
then they go back home, and theyfind the mother had died, and
the father's alive, and he washe didn't want to go along with
this. Anyways, he welcomes themback, and they live happily ever
after. In subsequent versions,the mother becomes a stepmother,
(38:12):
and again, it's the stepmotherthat doesn't want the kids. The
father is in an impossiblesituation, but he welcomes them,
and then all three of them livehappily ever after, okay? And
these constant themes though. Imean, imagine if you had a book
of, you know, we're just talkingabout some of these stories, but
if there were 86 stories aftertime after time after time, it's
(38:33):
an evil stepmother and evilstepsisters, and,
Kelly (38:37):
yeah, they get a little repetitious, but that
Alex (38:41):
was probably very common back then to have step sisters
and brothers and parents,because people were, you know,
didn't live very long back then.
Kelly (38:49):
And as we got melded together, it's like the Brady
Bunch, I don't
Alex (38:54):
even know about, melted together. But women died in
childbirth a lot, so there wouldbe another woman that would take
the place I usually a youngerwoman, probably, probably, you
know, if you go by like Henrythe eighth times, you know,
every wife is a little bityounger, right? True, true. Um,
I could see how somebody wouldresent them, maybe, and, but,
like I say, didn't do stepparents. Any
Kelly (39:17):
face? No, no. Step parents got a bad rap.
Alex (39:20):
What about Rumpelstiltskin? No idea.
Kelly (39:24):
Nothing, isn't that? No, I'm thinking of Pinocchio, nope,
no idea.
Alex (39:30):
So a Miller, and there were lots of Millers in these
stores. You know what a Milleris?
Kelly (39:35):
They make flour.
Alex (39:37):
They would take like straw, yeah, yeah, they would
mill. They would mill, likeflour from like straw and barley
and things like that. Okay? Andit would have these wheels,
right? Spinning wheels. Yeah, dothat mill. So Miller wanted to
impress a king, so he lies tohim and says, My daughter can
(39:58):
spin straw into gold.
Kelly (40:01):
Oh yeah, I've heard that saying before.
Alex (40:04):
So first of all, what like that doesn't mean that sentence
doesn't make any sense. Butokay, so the greedy King brings
the daughter to the castle,locks her in a room with straw,
gives her a spinning wheel, andsays, All right, I heard that
you can make this into gold. Butif you have so, I'm skeptical,
(40:25):
if you haven't spun this strawinto gold by the morning you
die, as kings do, right? Yeah,yeah, there's always subject
consequences. So all of asudden, a little man appears out
of nowhere, and he says, I canhelp you. I can spin that into
gold. He does. He spins it intogold and and she says, Oh my
(40:48):
gosh, thank you. Saved my life.
And he says, Well, I'll takeyour necklace, though. So she
gives him her necklace. Nextnight. He does the same thing.
And he says, I'll take yourring, took his took the ring
next night. He says the samething. And this time she doesn't
have anything they give him. Hesays, Well, promise me your
first born child,
Kelly (41:06):
of course.
Alex (41:08):
So the king is so impressed by all this gold that
he marries the girl. She becomesthe queen. Year later, she has a
baby. And all of a sudden, thelittle man comes back and he
says, You promised? She says,Please, can I keep this child?
He's the heir to the throne.
Please, let me keep him. Hesays, all right, but on one
(41:29):
condition, you could keep thebaby if you can guess my name
within three days from now. Now,his name was rumble stiltskin,
right? Yeah. So she guesses, andshe guesses some names like
Casper. No, it's not Casper. Isit Melchior? No, is it Schnoodle
(41:49):
puff. Now this is a great storyto tell your kids. You could
just, at this point, just makeup names, right? Yeah, yeah. So
then she overhears him one day.
He's out back singing, and he'ssinging a song, today, I bake.
Tomorrow, I brew. The next I'llhave the young Queen's child,
(42:12):
probably Ryan's in German. Oh,how glad I am that no one knows
that my name is Rumpelstiltskin.
He's singing out loud. Yeah,Robo stiltskin, in German, means
noisy little goblin. Okay, knowthat. I think that might knowing
that, though I might haveguessed that right away.
Kelly (42:33):
Yeah, it's, it's very descriptive. Like, if
Alex (42:36):
he is a noisy little Goblin, and he says, I bet you
can't guess my name, I'd belike, is it noisy little goblin?
And it seems
Kelly (42:42):
like being overheard is, is such a big like, several
times over here, somebodyoverhearing something changes
the plot
Alex (42:49):
dramatically. Well, you know, yeah, yeah, and that's the
gods. But even in Shakespeare,that's how it happens, right?
Like, that's, you know? So sheconfronts him, she goes, Ah,
your name is Rumpelstiltskin,and he screams in rage and runs
away. And that's the end. Insubsequent versions, he
(43:09):
literally tears himself intotwo, like he runs away, and he
splits in half, right down, downthe middle. I don't
Kelly (43:17):
know why. Strange amoeba or Yeah, yeah, that's
Alex (43:21):
so those. Those were the popular ones. I told you.
There's, there's other ones thatare just downright weird.
There's one about a girl whoends up marrying like a serial
killer and sets them up for, youknow, and there's fingers being
chopped off and salting the meatand all that kind of stuff. I
(43:42):
mean, it's just, but we'vetalked about before, when, when
we talked about at Christmas,yeah, we talked about those,
those, it's very common to havestories where people are eaten
and boiled and salted. And thatwas a thing that genuinely
scared people
Kelly (43:58):
back. Yeah, that was, that was a horror film. You
know, they didn't have specialeffects, so they had to pick a
topic that was very visceral,but
Alex (44:05):
it's just funny, because we would never tell little kids
the stories today, and that wasand I think kids dug it like, I
think kids are into that kind ofstuff. That's why they were
tougher than us. Yeah, I guessso. Now a 1785 kid could beat
the crap out of a 1985
Kelly (44:21):
kid.
Alex (44:23):
So we have these common tropes of wicked stepmothers,
abandoned children, talkinganimals, making a deal with the
devil, making a deal with thegoblin. Rules of three like
three wishes, three tests, Threebrothers, gruesome karmic
justice, right? I shouldprobably though a podcast about
(44:45):
the Brothers Grimm probablywould be incomplete if I didn't
talk about kind of the antisemitic tropes. I I talked about
only some of the stories that weknow. There were other stories
that were very, very antisemitic. You know, when they
when those guys lived? In the inthe 1800s this anti semitism was
starting, just starting to risein Germany, Jews were often the
(45:09):
villains in these stories. Theywere repeated from times where
they blamed everything on theJews. And unfortunately, that
got even worse, you know, overthe next 100 years, well,
Brothers Grimm weren't like Isaid. They were not they were
scholars. They weren't fascists,they weren't propagandists. They
weren't trying to propagatethese stories. They were
(45:31):
collecting stories from racistfolks, bigoted people, right?
Um, unfortunately, 100 years ornot, quite 100 years later, when
the Nazis were in charge, theydeliberately use these brothers
Grimm stories as propagandatools.
Kelly (45:49):
People had grown up on them, right? So this was
something that's easy to do,yes,
Alex (45:53):
very easy to do, because they've grown up with these
stories and they used them, andthey really doubled down on
using these brothers Grimmstories in school. Hitler youth
groups use these. They wouldhave radio plays. They really
got a second, like Ray's wave ofpopularity in the 30s and 1930s
(46:15):
and 40s. They were German to thecore these stories, you know,
they were part and a countrythat was becoming more and more
nationalistic, these storieswere very comforting to Nazis
and really used as tools theyyou know, a lot of these stories
have to do with an eviloutsider. Well, you know, the
(46:37):
immigrants and Jews were seen asevil outsiders and and there
were also these stories. I thinkthe most destructive thing was
these stories were all about youbetter be obedient as a child,
or there's going to beconsequences if you don't listen
to what your parent if you youknow you don't stop on the way
home and don't do this, oryou'll get eaten by a witch. So
(46:59):
they were really teaching kidsto be super obedient. Well, part
of when imagine the end game ofNazis teaching you to be
obedient is to the pretty fear.
Yeah, it's, it's prettychilling, right? Also, there was
a glorification of suffering,right in these and these
stories, and that was a veryNazi thing, too. Little Red
Riding Hood, the Nazis, rightaway were like, the wolf is the
(47:22):
Jews. And they would spell thisout to little kids. Snow White
was all about racial purity. Youknow, they were kind of taking
what Brothers Grimm did and andperverting it a little bit to
make something that was alreadykind of really weird and strange
and scary and gruesome even intosomething more horrific and
(47:46):
monstrous, right and and Hanseland Gretel was all about
defeating evil through beingresource.
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