- Children's stories, we were all told them
when we were young, and they were meant to teach us lessons
and maybe even make us feel good,
but as it turns out, some of the most popular
children's tales have very dark origins.
(thunder cracks) (screaming)
Here are 10 terrifying origins of children's stories.
Number 10 is the Frog Prince.
The Frog Prince is a happy tale in which a kiss
from a lonely princess breaks an evil witch's curse
and transforms a frog into the prince
that he'd previously been.
However, this is not the original story.
In the original tale, which often appears
as the initial tale in the Brothers Grimm collection,
the prince, whose name is Heinrich, is rude
and uncaring and is cursed because of his awfulness.
As a frog, he takes advantage of Princess Anika's
trusting nature and desire to not lose the ball
that she was playing with.
He makes a deal to fetch her lost toy
in exchange for accommodations at her castle
so that he can live lavishly like he did before the curse.
But while he's laying on the princess's pillow
and demanding a kiss, Anika is disgusted
and tries to kill him, throwing him at a wall,
or in some versions, cutting off his head.
Not exactly a tale you'd want to tell your children.
Number nine is Snow White.
Snow White is already pretty dark,
with an evil witch trying to murder an innocent young girl,
but the original 1812 story by the Brothers Grimm
is actually even darker.
Instead of an evil stepmother, the villain is actually
Snow White's own biological mother
and she intends to eat the girl's liver and lungs
to enhance her own beauty.
Disturbingly, the queen meets her end when she's captured,
put into red hot iron shoes,
and forced to dance in them until she collapses dead,
but perhaps the most disturbing part of the original tale
is the curing of the poison.
Originally, the apple becomes lodged in Snow White's throat,
choking her to death.
When the prince passes by her in her coffin,
he decides he wants her, even though she's already dead.
Necrophilia in a children's story,
not exactly for the kiddies.
Number eight is Mulan.
When Disney took on Mulan, the tale of a female soldier
who hides her gender to protect her father,
they crossed into some controversial territory
in many people's eyes,
but had they stayed true to the original story,
they would have done a lot more
than just raise some eyebrows.
In the original version, after Mulan helps the emperor's
army become victorious, she reveals herself to be a woman.
She rides home, hoping to find her family
relieved that she's safe, but what she finds
is much darker and far from happy.
She discovers that her father is actually dead
and her mother remarried.
The Khan calls on her, demanding that she become
his concubine, which pushes her to realize
that she's survived impossible odds, especially for a woman,
so she decides that she'd rather be with her father.
The terrible story ends with Mulan killing herself
in order to join him in the afterlife.
Number seven is Cinderella.
While the modern takes on the classic story Cinderella
are closer than many other tales, there are many dark
and gory details that are usually left out.
In the Brothers Grimm original version,
Cinderella visits the palace multiple times,
dancing with the prince before fleeing
before midnight each time.
However, tired of her running off, the prince tries
to catch her by putting tar on the steps,
but winds up only catching her shoe.
He goes looking for the foot that perfectly fits
inside of it and finds Cinderella's evil stepsisters,
who actually cut off chunks of their feet and toes
to try to make the slipper fit.
What's even more disturbing is that the enchanted birds
realize what's happened and point out the fresh blood
in both sisters' stockings.
However, the story's not over.
As punishment, the birds then peck out both sisters' eyes
as Cinderella rides off with her new fiance.
Number six is Peter Pan.
With a story so full of magic and adventure,
who would have ever though that Peter Pan's origins
were so dark?
The author of this beloved story, J. M. Barrie,
was the second youngest of 10 children
and spent much of his youth pretending to be someone else.
That someone was his older brother David,
who drowned after falling through ice on a frozen pond
when Barrie was just six years old.
To keep David alive in the family's minds,
Barrie would often dress in his brother's clothes
and even learned to whistle like him
so his mother would see her lost son
as someone who would be forever young.
Later in life, Barrie found himself wanting kids,
but was trapped in a bitter, childless marriage.
So in a twisted turn of events,
he began spending time with another family's children
whom he told of the boy who would never grow up.
Number five is Pocahontas.
Released by Disney in 1995, Pocahontas presented a tale
of overcoming diversity in race and culture.
However, this was far from the real story.
Historically, John Smith wasn't nearly executed
and saved by Pocahontas.
In fact, the Powhatans were kind to him.
At the time, the young girl was only 10 years old,
far too young to be Smith's romantic interest.
In 1613, English colonists, with the help of a rival tribe,
captured Pocahontas and murdered her husband, Kucoum.
She was then presented to the English public
as a native princess who converted to Christianity.
This sad and true tale of Pocahontas's life
came to an end in March of 1617
when she collapsed on her way back to America
at only 21 years old.
Number four is The Little Mermaid.
The Little Mermaid is a fun tale
about going the distance for love.
However, in Hans Christian Anderson's original tale,
everything was not so happy under the sea.
The mermaid is never given a name,
and while she does trade her tongue for legs,
her reason for it isn't just to be with the prince.
It's actually to go to heaven, as mermaids don't have souls.
The catch, though, is if the prince marries anyone else,
she'll die and become sea foam.
Additionally, every step she takes on land
is excruciatingly painful,
as if knives were stabbing her feet.
She dances on what feels like knives, despite the pain,
so that the prince will like her,
but he goes and marries another woman anyway.
The mermaid is given a chance to take it all back
and become a mermaid again if she kills the prince
and lets his blood drip on her feet,
but she can't do it, so she dies and becomes foam.
Quite different from the original tale.
Number three is The Wind in the Willows.
You'd likely expect the characters
in The Wind in the Willows tales to be based on
bright and fanciful individuals, but that's not the case.
Creator Kenneth Graham based the Mr. Toad character
on his son, Alistair, and while that may appear
to be a proud father writing of his son's merits,
Mr. Toad is actually a flighty and petty individual
who's more focused on having fun and wasting money
than doing anything of substance or being mature,
no matter what the consequences are.
The character didn't seem to ever care about
what his father had given him, not unlike Graham's own son.
Alistair was a nuisance, often laying down in the street
and making cars stop suddenly when they saw him.
However, the most terrifying part of the story
is that he wound up taking his own life
by laying across tracks on which a train ran him over,
decapitating him instantly.
Number two is Sleeping Beauty.
Though elements of Sleeping Beauty date back to the 1300s,
an Italian version from 1634 was the base
for the more modern iterations.
The story Sun, Moon, and Talia by Giambattista Basile
tells of a young girl named Talia,
the daughter of a lord who falls under a sleeping spell
from a sliver of flax under her fingernail.
She's laid to rest on a bed in one of the lord's estates.
That is, until a king hunting in the woods
comes upon the house and, disgustingly,
impregnates her before he travels back to his kingdom.
Talia manages to give birth to twins
while still asleep, one of which manages
to suck the flax out of her finger
and break the spell, waking her up.
But it gets worse, because she then meets up
with the rapist king, the queen attempts to kill her kids,
the king burns the queen to death,
and all of them live happily ever after.
And number one is The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Disney's version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame
can only be described as loosely based
on Victor Hugo's original tale.
In that original version, Quasimodo is so ugly
that a group of women think he's a demon
and try to burn him alive.
However, he's saved by Frolo, who years later
begins lusting over a 15-year-old girl named Esmeralda.
He has Quasimodo kidnap her, but the hunchback
is caught and publicly tortured.
Then Frolo frames the young woman for attempted murder.
After Esmeralda herself is tortured,
Quasimodo rescues her from the noose
and then Frolo assaults her, but she's given back
to the hangman and executed.
Enraged, the hunchback throws Frolo from Notre Dame tower
and then crawls into a crypt and wraps himself
around Esmeralda's dead corpse, where he also dies.
So, that was 10 terrifying origins of children's stories,
and if you enjoyed this, remember to give it a thumbs up.
Also be sure to subscribe and turn on notifications
by clicking the bell beside the subscribe button
so that you never miss a thing
because I release new videos all the time,
and I will see you in the next video, sweet dreams.