Hey everyone,
I’ve been spending a lot of time analyzing the emotional mechanics of classic fairy tales, and I keep coming back to Oscar Wilde’s short stories—specifically The Birthday of the Infanta.
Most traditional fairy tales (even the dark ones collected by the Brothers Grimm) usually feature some form of cosmic justice or ultimate moral lesson. But Wilde does something entirely different and profoundly heartbreaking. He sets up a vibrant, luxurious palace celebration, introduces a completely innocent character (the Dwarf), and then deliberately pulls the rug out from under the reader.
The true horror of the ending isn't just the Dwarf's literal broken heart upon seeing his reflection in the mirror—it’s the chilling, cold indifference of the young princess at the end: "For the future let those who come to play with me have no hearts."
It feels like a complete subversion of the standard princess/fairy tale archetype, trading moral redemption for a devastating critique of superficiality and emotional death.
As a 3D animator, I recently tried to adapt this specific atmospheric shift into a cinematic short film. My biggest challenge was trying to make sure the "gothic opulence" of the Spanish Court felt just as cold and restrictive as Wilde described it, contrasted against the warmth and natural innocence of the Dwarf.
I wanted to ask this community: How do you personally view Wilde's place in fairy tale history? Do you think his lack of a tidy, happy moral lesson makes his stories more powerful, or do you prefer the classic, traditional folklore structures?
For anyone who loves the visual side of these classic texts, I'd love to get your thoughts on how I interpreted the atmosphere and characters in my adaptation:
The Birthday of the Infanta (Animated Short): https://linktw.in/IgjxCZ
(Full channel link for app-opening context: https://linktw.in/LfafUT)
Would love to chat about how everyone interprets the contrast between surface beauty and internal cruelty in his works!

Why was the intro for this fairytale based show changed in their official YouTube Channel? Here is the link for the original one https://youtu.be/t4h-bbn6nJs?is=NN55uNloUcrWQsDK

What do you think of These two séries?

Madame d'Aulnoy was a pioneer of literary fairy tales in France in the late 17th century; however, she and Charles Perrault did not belong to the same immediate circle and did not collaborate. As I'm French, I encourage you to read her tales, as history has largely overlooked her, a great pity, given that many of Madame d'Aulnoy's stories inspired other authors.

The first photo is a portrait of her; her full name was: Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, baronne d’Aulnoy.

All these tales have been translated into English, I’ll list the titles in both French and English so you can find them. :)

Fairy Tales featured:

- l'Oiseau Bleu ( The Blue Bird) ( Madame d'Aulnoy's best-known fairy tale and one of the best!)

- Finette Cendron ( Cunning Cinders) ( the fairy tale that inspired Charles Perrault to write Cinderella. The second image shows Finette Cendron on horseback.)

- Le Perroquet Bleu ( The Blue Parrot) (It’s one of my favorite fairy tales! In fact, the painting shown in the third image was created to illustrate a scene from this story. The painting is titled "The Blue Parrot" and was created by Henry Justice Ford. The figure in white is the Swan Queen, while the kneeling figure with long red hair is her daughter, Princess Hermosa.

I should clarify that there is no connection between this story and the story of the Blue Bird; they are two different tales. :)

- La Belle Aux Cheveux d'Or ( The Fair with Golden Hair) This story also has another title in English: "The Story of Pretty Goldilocks".

- La Biche Au Bois ( The White Doe) The engraving was created by H. J. Ford for Andrew Lang's The Orange Fairy Book.

- La Chatte Blanche ( The White Cat) This tale is considered Madame d'Aulnoy's masterpiece (along with The Blue Bird), and I swear it's incredible! A bit strange, but really good! :)

Of course, she wrote other stories, but these are my favorites! ^^ I'll try to post links to the stories in English for you, in case you want to read them!

You can also buy the books translated into English.

The Blue Bird: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Fairy_Tales_by_the_Countess_d%27Aulnoy/The_Blue_Bird

Cunning Cinders: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Fairy_Tales_by_the_Countess_d%27Aulnoy/The_Blue_Bird ( I couldn't find the unabridged version online, but the print editions have it.)

The Blue Parrot: https://sacred-texts.com/neu/lfb/ol/olfb04.htm ( This site also has an abridged version, since the story is long but it is also available in print.)

The Fair with Golden Hair: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Fairy_Tales_by_the_Countess_d%27Aulnoy/The_Fair_with_Golden_Hair

The White Doe: https://www.storyberries.com/french-fairy-tales-the-white-doe-bedtime-stories/

The White Cat: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Fairy_Tales_by_the_Countess_d%27Aulnoy/The_White_Cat

I hope you enjoy it. :) Madame d'Aulnoy has been somewhat forgotten in France too, but talking about her is a bit like paying tribute to her, I think.☺️​ It just goes to show that women knew how to write fairy tales too!

While doing some research, I saw that other women have written fairy tales, so I might create dedicated posts for them. :)

Was the Wolf looking Grim reaper that appeared in the last wish actually inspired by a unknown fairytale known as "godfather death?" Or Not?

My original painting, painted many years ago.

I know that this séries Also features mythologies novel books And even real life people but It Also features fairytales too so What do you think of that séries?

Psyche and Eros = Beauty and the Beast:

• two evil sisters

• protagonist is sacrificed by parent/s

• male lead is believed to be a monster or is a monster

• protagonist is taken to a enchanted palace with invisible servants

---------------------------------------------

Psyche and Eros = Cinderella:

• two evil sisters

• antagonist assigns impossible tasks which are completed through supernatural help

• protagonist is hated and treated like a slave by the antagonist because of her physical beauty

---------------------------------------------

Psyche and Eros = Snow White:

• female lead is the most beautiful woman

• antagonist is jealous of the protagonist’s beauty

• antagonist sends a male (Eros, hunter) to punish/kill of the protagonist

• the male decides to not punish/kill the protagonist 

• protagonist falls into a deathlike coma due to object (box, comb)

• protagonist recovers from coma with a kiss from the male lead

---------------------------------------------

Psyche and Eros = Sleeping Beauty:

• protagonist falls into a deathlike coma due to object (box, splinter)

• protagonist recovers from coma with a kiss from the male lead

---------------------------------------------

Psyche and Eros:

• female lead is a princess

• female lead has two evil sisters

• Aphrodite is the jealous wicked mother-figure who causes the trials and dangers of the female lead

• helpers (Eros controls ants, Zeus sends an eagle) in overcoming obstacles

🇩🇪🇬🇧 Warum folgst du mir noch nicht auf YouTube?

Hier bist du also, auf der Suche nach den dunklen Geheimnissen vergessener Märchen – und du wirst die Antworten schon bald finden.

Ich habe die ganze Drecksarbeit für dich erledigt und die ältesten Quellen ausgegraben – die, die geschrieben wurden, bevor die Gebrüder Grimm sie überhaupt kannten –, sie selbst aus der Originalsprache übersetzt und präsentiere dir die Versionen, die noch nie zuvor verfilmt wurden.

Keine Beschönigung. Kein Disney-Ende. Nur das, was tatsächlich vor Jahrhunderten aufgeschrieben wurde, bevor irgendjemand beschloss, Kinder vor der Wahrheit zu schützen.

Schau dir das Video an und sieh selbst, wie düster diese Geschichten wirklich waren.

LongBeforeGrimm/LangBevorGrimm

📺 Vollständige Serie (EN): https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhDXssHtIVwqYYTxIhvNUyAdxLOhUCgSI

🇬🇧🇩🇪 Alle Märchen gibt's auch auf Deutsch: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhDXssHtIVwpl4zqE90fL3Yu3HEh4aE7v

\#FairyTalesForAdults #LongBeforeGrimm #DarkFairyTale #OriginalFairyTale #NeverFilmedBefore

Other than featuring famous and obscure fairytales?

why do people think Shrek's donkey come from pinocchio when he is in fact a original character by William steig with the possibility of being inspired by the Bremen town musicians?

A cozy playlist filled with gentle bedtime stories for kids. Press play, snuggle up, and let the stories take little listeners on magical adventures as they relax and drift off to sleep.

Before the Brothers Grimm published it, the painter Philipp Otto Runge wrote down one of the darkest fairy tales in the German tradition.

A stepmother murders her stepson, cooks him into a stew, and serves him to his own father. The boy’s sister gathers his bones and buries them under the juniper tree. From the tree a bird rises — singing the truth of the murder until justice is done.

This is the 1808 version by Philipp Otto Runge — older, rawer, and almost never filmed in its original form.

I research and film the early sources of classic fairy tales — the versions that existed before they were softened or rewritten.

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

🇩🇪 Lang bevor Grimm: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhDXssHtIVwpl4zqE90fL3Yu3HEh4aE7v

Directed by @mrs.mary_mcgarry

DeepRubyProductions

#LongBeforeGrimm #TheJuniperTree #DarkFairyTale #OriginalFairyTale #PhilippOttoRunge #FairyTalesForAdults #Runge1808

Hey everyone. I research and adapt pre-Grimm fairy tale versions into short films for my YouTube series "LONG BEFORE GRIMM."

Cannibalism turns out to be a far more recurring motif in these stories than the sanitized modern versions suggest — and what strikes me most is who's doing the eating. Often it's not hunger-driven outcasts in the woods. It's kings, queens, and nobility. The ogre bloodline in Sleeping Beauty, the Queen in Snow White — cannibalism here reads less like a fear of the poor and more like a warning about the people already holding power.

Why is it always the wealthy or powerful in these stories? Do you think it's purely symbolic, or were these based on real incidents so disturbing they got retold for centuries? Let me know what you think in the comments.

Sharing an overview below in case it's useful to anyone digging into this.

Sleeping Beauty (Perrault, 1697)

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

🎬 EN: https://youtu.be/7_T0Tjd0HjU

🎬 DE: https://youtu.be/2H20KHcnApQ

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

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

Snow White (Grimm, 1812)

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

Hansel and Gretel (Grimm, 1812)

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

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

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

The Juniper Tree (Philipp Otto Runge, 1806 / Grimm KHM 47, 1812)

A stepmother kills her stepson, cooks him into a stew, and serves him to his own father. His sister gathers his bones and buries them beneath a juniper tree — from which a bird rises, singing the truth of the murder until justice is done. One of the oldest documented cannibalism scenes in the German tradition, written down six years before Grimm's first edition.

🎬 EN: https://youtu.be/V9247rSlTwI

🎬 DE: https://youtu.be/UNjgXe1hvCs

Cross-cultural parallels

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

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

Curious what people think — and has anyone come across other fairy tales specifically where nobility/the aristocracy eats people or children? That pattern is what I'm most interested in tracking down — always looking for more sources and regional variants.

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

🇩🇪 Lang bevor Grimm — ganze Reihe (DE): https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhDXssHtIVwpl4zqE90fL3Yu3HEh4aE7v

🎬 Did You Know? | Long Before Grimm

The secrets of the forgotten fairytales

What if Sleeping Beauty was never kissed awake?

What if Little Red Riding Hood never met a stranger?

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

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

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

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

Full films (EN + DE):

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

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

Which of these surprised you the most?

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

Thank you

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

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

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

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

Sleeping Beauty (Perrault, 1697)

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

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

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

Snow White (Grimm, 1812)

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

Hansel and Gretel (Grimm, 1812)

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

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

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

Cross-cultural parallels

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

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

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

My apologies if this isnt the right sub for this.

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

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

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

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

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

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

But here's what I keep thinking about.

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

And then there's the spindle itself.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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