Once upon a time, in a faraway land, two intellectual brothers, seeking to keep alive their folklore and traditions, started to transcribe folk's legends into a large compilation of stories, who would later become our beloved fairy tales.

Yes. You read correctly.

The Grimm brothers aren't really the authors of fairy tales.

Shocking. I know.

I had to absorb this little piece of information for a moment, too.

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were, in reality, German academics, philologists, cultural researchers and a bunch of other important degrees from the time. They specialized in collecting and publishing popular folklore stories. Key on the folklore stories.

The fairy tales were part of an oral tradition passed from generation to generation until these two took the time to listen to them and started to transcribe them for publication.

The thing is that all these stories about Cinderella, or the Frog Prince or Snow White, weren't as sweet as we know them now. 

No.

Grimm real stories are filled with blood, sex and lots of violence.

I'll give you a little example. In Cinderella, the evil stepsisters cut off their toes and heels to try to fit into the slipper, but the Prince realizes because he sees blood. In Rapunzel, the girl is pregnant with the King's son and the enchantress take out his eyes.

Here's another example, taken from the article from The Guardian, where Jack Zipes, a professor at the University of Minnesota, talks about the first unedited English translation of the Grimm Brother's fairytales.

How the Children Played at Slaughtering, for example, stays true to its title, seeing a group of children playing at being a butcher and a pig. It ends direly: a boy cuts the throat of his little brother, only to be stabbed in the heart by his enraged mother. Unfortunately, the stabbing meant she left her other child alone in the bath, where he drowned. Unable to be cheered up by the neighbors, she hangs herself; when her husband gets home, "he became so despondent that he died soon thereafter".

(https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/nov/12/grimm-brothers-fairytales-horror-new-translation)

Huh. So much for happily ever afters.

The brothers polished the stories to make them more child-like. Their seventh edition is the one that holds the stories as we know them now.

Wait.

So, what on earth is a folklore story?

Well, it's like an urban legend.

And here's the scary part.

Urban legends or folklore stories are meant to explain strange things that happened in a certain place or a certain time, with specific details.

For example, I'm pretty sure you've heard of this couple who checks in in a hotel and has to put up with a horrible stinking smell all night. The next morning, they complain to the staff and when they do an intense clean up the room, they find a girl's dead body hidden inside the mattress.

This is actually true, and it has happened several times in different cities and hotels in the USA. I can give you actual facts that corroborate it.

Which is scary and creepy as hell!

My point is, that most urban legends might be based on true stories. Which makes me wonder, could Grimm's fairytales be based on real facts?

Can the evil Queen from Snow White be an actual mother plotting to kill her own daughter? (in Grimm's original stories, the Queen was the biological Mother, just like in Hansel and Gretel).

It could be.

I've heard some really awful stories about parents hiding their children for ages in the basement; sadly, an evil queen plotting murder doesn't sound too unlikely after hearing that.

I don't know about you, but I'll tread more carefully whenever I find myself exploring a forest. I'll run like hell if I find a trail of crumbles on a dirt path. Or going into a hotel room, I'll definitely check my bed for any weird smells.

Happy Halloween!