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Fairy Tale Quiz!

My recent poll about fairy tale princesses has brought to my attention the fact that most people know the Disneyfied versions of tales and have never heard the original versions. Think you know (or can guess?) the way these classic stories went before Disney added the cute singing animals?

First a couple demographic questions, then the quiz! Unless specified, the questions refer to the most famous version of the tale: The Grimm Brothers, Charles Perrault, or Hans Christian Andersen. Answers will be provided at the end. Try to do your best without consulting Google! (Santa's watching!)

[Poll #1678596]

ANSWERS: Highlight to read!

Q: "What does the Little Mermaid give to the Sea Witch as payment for a potion that will give her legs?"
A: "Her tongue." The Disney version got one thing right: the Sea Witch did covet her beautiful voice!

Q: "How is Snow White woken from the poison apple coma?"
A: "One of the servants carrying her coffin trips, and dislodges the apple from her throat." The prince 'buys' the comatose Snow White in her coffin. When his servants are hauling it off, one of them trips on a tree branch, and the bit of poison apple stuck in her throat is dislodged. Saved by clumsy pallbearers! Romantic, eh?

Q: "What happens to Cinderella's stepsisters at the end of the tale?"
A: "They marry rich Lords and live at the palace." In a rare move for a fairy tale, the wicked go unpunished: Cinderella forgives her wicked stepsisters, lets them move in to the palace with her, and sets them up with rich husbands. No comeuppance? How unsatisfying!

Q: "Why is Rapunzel imprisoned in the tower?"
A: "Her parents stole radishes from a witch's garden." Rapunzel's pregnant mother had a craving for the radishes that grew in their enchantress neighbor's garden, and her husband stole them for her. Child abduction: yeah, that seems a fitting punishment for produce theft!

Q: "How do Hansel and Gretel find their way home the first time their parents try to abandon them?"
A: "Hansel leaves a trail of white stones." When the moon comes up, they're able to follow the glowing stones home. Then Hansel suffers a head injury or something, because his next choice of trail marker is bread crumbs, which are quickly eaten by birds. Oops.

Q: "What happens to Little Red Riding Hood in Perrault's version of the tale?"
A: "She's eaten." Happy ending, CRAPPY ENDING! Don't talk to strangers, kids!

Q: "Why does Jack steal the giant's treasure?"
A: "To avenge his father--that giant killed his pa!" Jack's father was rich and generous, which made the giant jealous. So he killed Jack's dad and took all his stuff. You know: like you do! Therefore, Jack is TOTES justified in murdering the giant and taking his treasure!

And if that's not enough: what are your favorite and least favorite fairy tales?

My favorite: I LOVE the story of The Little Mermaid, but Andersen's writing itself is a little TL;DR. So I have to go with: The Robber Bridegroom. I won't spoil it for you, but there's an awesome reveal at the end! (And two genuine heroines! Hooray!)

Least favorite: Thumbelina. I don't know how much I've been influenced by an animated version I saw as a child, but a story where a tiny little woman is constantly fending off molestation by toads, beetles, and moles is just all kinds of icky. *shudders*

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Damn, I was close! I don't really know the classic Jack and the Beanstalk very well, just the more kid-y version, I guess?

As for version preference...I said Disney simply because that's what I was raised on and know better and love with all my heart, but really it's more of a tie. I don't know, somehow I really distinguish between 'Disney' and 'fairy tales' - the latter to me are the classic Grimm and Andersen tales exclusively, and then Disney's its own thing.

And favorites! My favorite Disney is far and away The Lion King. I sometimes love Pocahontas and The Little Mermaid more, but TLK will always be my childhood movie. In terms of fairy tales, my fave might be the Twelve Dancing Princesses, except I get annoyed at the ending. So I thiiink I might have to go with The Snow Queen. I shipped Kai/Gerda before I knew what shipping was :)

Least favorite...That's tough. I don't love The Steadfast Tin Soldier, because it used to scare me.

I just didn't have a very 'Disney' childhood. Unlike most of my friends, I didn't have any of the movies on video, my parents didn't buy me any of the books/merchandise, and I've never been to Disney World. Also: going to the movies was a rare treat! I think I went to see The Lion King with a friend, and so for that reason, it's a special childhood memory for me! (It was also just a great movie!)

Thumbs up to The Snow Queen and The Twelve Dancing Princesses, but I'm not familiar with The Steadfast Tin Soldier! I'll have to look it up.

I haven't read nearly enough of them and this makes that thinking all the more distinct! I keep going back to that library aisle and trying to remember to read them, and then I get into the scifi and mythic fantasy and completely forget. :D

It took me ages to distinguish between folklore / fairy tales and myth, because they're both this weird recurring fiction thing.

I am addicted to Borders bargain books, and purchased a hardbound collection of The Grimm Brothers and Hans Christian Andersen tales. It's one of the books I pull out when I'm in between reading.

There's a lot of similarity between folk tales and myths--they often served the same function in a culture! I'm most fascinated about what these stories said about the cultures that created them. It's eye-opening when you consider how commonplace and accepted the brutality of these stories was.

And my semester of Children's Lit pays off!

Favourite fairytale has to come in at a tie between Beauty and the Beast and Little Red Riding Hood. The first because I like it and it's basically my idea of romance (let me keep my Disney version for this one, I like Lumiere and Cogsworth and Mrs. Pots and Chip too much to give them up. I'm going to be humming 'Be Our Guest' for the rest of the day).

I like Little Red Riding Hood because it's the best example of what a fairy tale is for. It serves as a dire warning against either talking to strangers and/or rape, depending on *which* classic version you're reading.

The Ugly Duckling inexplicably pisses me off. Possibly because signets don't look that different from ducklings and whether or not a swan is attractive to a given person is probably directly related to how many times you've been chased by one. Also because it does seem to heavily imply that being bullied will somehow make you pretty.

Hey, there's a reason why Beauty and the Beast is the only animated movie to win the Oscar for Best Picture! That was a great movie.

TOTALLY with you on Little Red Riding Hood! I've read so many contemporary re-tellings of the tale, it's hard to remember which details were original to the story, and which are later innovations. Also, it's mostly devoid of the prim and prudish moralizing that Andersen is so fond of in his tales: nothing about immortal souls, or patience and virtue, just a quick and dirty warning: BEWARE OF STRANGERS!

The Ugly Duckling is stupid! Even as a child I didn't buy it. And even if I know better than to try and apply modern ethics to classic tales, the message: "Don't fret if you're ugly and teased, maybe someday you'll be pretty!" just totally misses the point.

Arse, I did pretty badly there, but it's more likely to be from Ladybird Book versions than Disney versions.

My favourite stories along these lines when I was a kid were in Old Peter's Russian Tales by Arthur Ransome, which are based on traditional Russian fairy tales. Baba Yaga, the witch with iron teeth! The Fool Of The World and the Flying Ship! But I think my favourite might be The Firebird, The Horse of Power And the Princess Vasilissa - 'the trouble is not yet; the trouble is to come'.

Yeah, I wouldn't fret if you couldn't pick out the right answers! These stories have been told and re-told so many times (first orally, and then on the page) that to pick out a 'definitive' version is pretty close to impossible! Even the Grimm Brothers changed the details of the stories they helped to define between early and late printings of their works.

Baba Yaga! I haven't read that one in ages. I remember her iron teeth, and how they terrified me as a child. The others I'm going to have to look up.

I love the violent horribleness of many fairy tales! I'm pretty interested in how fairy tales originated, because of course the brothers Grimm and especially Perrault tidy them up a lot. For instance, I like Andersen's The Wild Swans, which probably comes to Andersen via Grimm, but I've read a Middle English story called The Swan Knight which has quite a lot of similarities with this, so it's probably a very old legend.

As a kid I always enjoyed stories of transformation such as the Norweigan fairytale East of the Sun, West of the Moon and variations on the English folktale Catskin (this is an archetypal story; versions exist in several languages with local variations). Because my mother is Irish I was also exposed to quite a few Irish fairytales, such as the incredibly depressing Children of Lir.

Least favourite... Hm. Rumplestiltskin bothered me, because why does the girl want to marry a prince/duke who locks her up and threatens her?! (I wrote my own version addressing this issue.) Jack and the Beanstalk I find kinda boring.

Oh yes, these stories were told over and over again for hundreds of years before the Grimms, Perrault, and Andersen got to them! It's fascinating to watch the details of the story change as cultures and storytelling traditions change.

There are many details about Rumplestiltskin: her agreeing to give up her firstborn child to begin with, for starters. And then how stupid he was: singing his name around a fire! The motivations of the story just seem all wrong: you never understand why anyone in the story does anything, and so it always seemed especially fake to me.

There's some stuff in Rumplestiltskin that has deeper resonances - the power of names, for instance, and the sacrifice of newborns, but yeah, it's a weird story.

Speaking of weird stories, have you read Angela Carter's collection of fairy tales from around the world? The Icelandic ones are particularly O___o (my favourite is a woman whose boyfriend dies and so she makes a copy of his face out of blubber... and uses it to masturbate. I kid you not).

I haven't read that collection! Oh God, that story sounds...wow. Does Carter re-write the tales, or merely collect them?

I've read The Bloody Chamber, her interpretations of several fairy tales. It's excellent! I especially like the title story, and "Wolf Alice".

This was really interesting! I think most of my knowledge comes from Ladybird books :) I did have a big book of Hans Christian Andersen though, can't really remember what was in it. I've alwasy found the alternative or "real" versions intriguing, like I remember reading somewhere that Sleeping Beauty was about childbirth?? Do you have any recs for books that have those versions or research about them??

Like most of these tales, Sleeping Beauty existed in many, many versions before the Grimm brothers collected it for their definitive collection of fairy tales in the 18th century. In one of those earlier versions that originated in the 13th century, the princess is raped and gives birth to twins, all while still asleep! Even the pain of childbirth doesn't wake her up. She's woken when one of her newborn children sucks the splinter from her finger by mistake. (YIKES!)

There's a TON of books out there discussing the evolution of fairy tales. One that I own is called The Hard Facts of the Brothers Grimm by Maria Tatar; it gives a good overview of their life and career, and discusses what these stories meant to the people that read them. You can also buy books about individual tales! One of my favorites is Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Morality, and the Evolution of a Fairy Tale. It provides a good template for how classic folk tales grow and evolve over time as cultural values and storytelling traditions change.

Finally, my favorite way to learn about fairy tales is to read the contemporary re-tellings of them by modern authors. There's a three book (I believe?) anthology edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. The first in the series is called Snow White, Blood Red. The collection contains some fantastic authors (Tanith Lee! Joyce Carol Oates! Neil Gaiman!). The authors who write them have studied the original tales, and their re-tellings pick up on the dark undertones that are present in the classic versions.

HAHA! I got most of those wrong, but I did know about the radishes.

That is one of my favorite details from a classic tale! It's just so incredibly random...

I knew them all except for Cinderella... damn, is it really that cheesy at the ending?
My favourite story is probably The Little Mermaid, the most educational is definitely Little Red Riding Hood (in the original version), and well, Sleeping Beauty is also fun and gruesome and maybe I've been influed by Anne Rice too *ahem*

I'm especially bothered by the Disney version of the tales. Ok, let's pretend a true love kiss cures all. What kind of luck do these princesses have in finding the first PRINCE that comes by to be their true love? And are those princes GAY? They kiss unconscious and abandoned princesses, yeah, I believe that!

They kiss unconscious and abandoned princesses, yeah, I believe that!

If you really want to hear something sick, read my reply to

katyscarlett76 re: an older version of Sleeping Beauty!

I always wonder why all these princes have such a hard time finding wives! These stories always make it seem like you can't swing a dead cat without hitting some form of royalty, and yet they're so desperate they buy comatose women in coffins and scour the land for grubby maidservants with glass footware. *shrugs*

And yes: Cinderella forgives her stepsisters. Another reason why that's one of my least favorite tales!

I knew that version of Sleeping Beauty (at least it's realistic. Oh gosh, does it remind anyone else of Penthesilea?) Even the one (Victorian maybe?) which ends with the prince's mother being a troll and trying to eat the twins.

I love how Little Red RIding Hood is a metaphor for virginity and... well most of the original fairy tales are dark and gruesome, and the new Disney version are maybe too padded on account of the erroneous assumption that children are not to be exposed to violence of any kind.

My favourite collection of stories when I was a child were Greek myths and a book of arabian fairy tales that I passed on to a cousin when she turned 10.

Looks like I need to brush up on my Hansel and Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood.

Favorite tale: It's a tie between the 12 dancing princesses and King Thrushbeard, which to me is very Taming of the Shrew.

Least favorite: Pinocchio. Gah.

Good call on Pinocchio! I have a near-universal dislike for puppets. *shudders*

King Thrushbeard! A good tale--very Taming of the Shrew, indeed! (Though I'm not, generally, a fan of the Know-It-All King trope!)

I've read a lot of Anderson and some Grim.

Once in another fandom I wrote a character reading Rapunzel to his daughter and being all offended by it and getting all GIRL POWER! Less because of the radish thing which was kind of harsh and more because the guy was a bloomin idiot and who wants to deal with that crap?

Fairy tales are full of bloomin' idiots! Good call.

Though I adore a lot of Andersen's tales, I find his christian moralizing to be a bit much to take in places.

My grandmother was particularly enamored with the Princess and the Pea although I can never figure out why. Everytime she read me that story I thought, if the girl can't handle a pea underneath 20 mattresses how exactly is she going to produce heirs? And really nice people take you in for the night complaining about the accommodations is really really really rude!

But my grandmother really bought into the betterness of royalty. Sigh.

Anderson had it rough though because when he didn't put in the Christian morals he was panned for it and when he did the stories don't hold up as well.

But my mother and grandmother read them all the time to me as a bit of Scandanavian pride and I suspect I will do the same with my theoretical children.

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Fairy Tale Quiz!

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