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Most decidedly not the Disney version.

No fairy godmother.
No pumpkins, no coaches, no mice.
The ball was a three-night gala.
No clock chiming at midnight.

The glass slipper was made of gold.
Cinderella's step-sisters each cut off parts of their feet in order to fit the slipper.

All these things that just get left behind in all the retellings, all this wonderful and weird and rich detail!

I cannot tell you how many times a week I see girls go straight to the princess books, many of them are under the age of five, all of them able to name the Disney princesses on sight. I think there ought to be a law that says you cannot buy young girls any books about princesses until after you've read the source material to them. Aloud. Fully explained.

Yes, tell them that when her rich father went on a trip that his stepdaughters requested he bring them back pearls and dresses but that Cinderella requested only a twig from a far-away tree that she would plant on her dead mother's grave where it will grow into a tree (explain how roots work, dearies) and how the tree grew and housed a bird that granted her wishes and prayers.

Read these small girls the story and point out that her father is rich -- she didn't need to dress in rags -- and that her self-sacrifices and obedience to her stepmother and stepsisters are what gave her strength of character. Remind them of these traits when these little princesses throw tantrums because their mothers will only buy them one or two princess books and not all of them. Point out that Cinderella only became a princess after a lengthy indentured servitude with a cruel stepmother who would make her pick out lentils thrown into the ashes of the fireplace. Maybe suggest that if these little princesses would like some more princess books they could volunteer to pick out a bowl of lentils themselves so that they know what it means to become a princess.

And here's a nice detail: In order to prevent Cinderella from running away after the third night of the gala festivities he has his servants coat the stairs with tar. This is how she loses her gold (not glass) slipper. Be sure to pause thoughtfully when relating the part about the stepsisters chopping off parts of their feet to fit the slipper they know isn't theirs. And for their wickedness and malice these stepsisters have their eyes pecked out by pigeons before and after the wedding ceremony.

Underscoring the ghastly behavior of the stepsisters equal to the story of Cinderella herself. Cinderella cannot be who she is (or becomes) without the adversity presented to her, and it is her reward, her cosmic justice if you will, that she not only gets the prince but that her sisters are deformed and mutilated for their actions without her wishing it upon them. These are not small lessons and if all a girl knows is that Cinder's stepsisters were ugly brats then there is little to learn from the tale other than "in the end she gets to wear pretty clothes all the time and dance" as one little girl I heard summarized it.

Yeah, that's what that story is all about.

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Another classic tale, another Grimm story first introduced to me via the magic of the "Fractured Fairy Tales" feature on the Rocky and Bullwinkle program.

I'm sure the memory I have of it being three wishes instead of the six demands the wife makes comes from that cartoon's warped telescoping of the story, but the odd little message at the end of the Grimm version gives pause.

To recap: Fisherman finds an enchanted flounder who once was a prince in the sea. Or was he a talking flounder who was once an enchanted prince? Either way, he's a flounder, a prince, he talks, and he's enchanted. Makes me wonder about his backstory, but maybe we'll get to that tale in time. Fisherman sets the flounder free then tells his wife who upbraids him for not knowing the rules of Fairytale Land and insists he go back and demand his reward. Oh, and in case we weren't clued in that she married a dullard, wifey tells him what to ask for: a better cottage to live in. He does, and he does, returns home to find the wish granted, but it's not enough. Now she wants a castle so the fisherman returns and makes another request on behalf of his wife, and then another. After the castle she wants to be king (Not queen? Hmmm.), and after she's queen she wants to be emperor (really?) and then she wants to be pope (Pope Joan, perhaps?) finally to be like a god.

Like a god. Not god, but an incredible simulation.

This is not insignificant, because what the flounder says in the end is Go back home. She's sitting in your hovel again. For a woman who wasn't satisfied with fine homes and refined titles she got a little lesson in happiness; she and her fisherman husband aren't punished though they may believe they have been. The flounder has shown them the way of the Buddha, to live simply and humbly and not want beyond their needs. That the story is about a fisherman carries its own religious symbology and that he asks for nothing himself underscores that because the wife demanded the granting of wishes that she was in need of the lesson, which the wise, enchanted prince of a flounder was more than willing to provide.

I must confess, one of the things that comes to mind with this story is the Hope-Crosby vehicle The Road to Utopia. There's a scene where the boys are ice fishing and Bing keeps pulling out fish after fish while Bob gets nothing. After Bing leaves Bob looks down and there's a fish looking up out of the hole. Fish: Hey, where'd your buddy go? Bob: Oh, he just took off with Dorothy. Fish: Well, tell him number sixteen was here. Bob double-takes. The fish slips away. I love just love talking animals, they always seem to be smarter than humans, even when they seem to be throwing their own lives away in the process. At least in this Grimm tale the fish stays a fish and lives.

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Once upon a time there was a poor man who could no longer provide enough food for his only son...

Yes, more famine. Only this time the boy goes out into the world on his own so as not to be a burden. But let's leave this part of the story aside for this next little juicy tidbit:

The king had a daughter who was very beautiful but also very strange, for she had made a vow that she would accept as her lord and master only a man who would let himself be buried alive with her if she should die first.

Very strange indeed.

The lesson is going to fall to the king's daughter because obviously the boy is going to meet her, get buried with her alive, and somehow survive to show that such unusual and cruel demands are met with a fitting rejoinder. Yes, the boy agrees, and the princess dies, and it's while entombed that the boy sees a snake. He cuts the snake to pieces only to be amazed when another snake comes and lays three leaves on the chopped up snake to heal it and bring it back to life. The boy takes the leaves and revives his wife and -- huzzah! -- she is alive and they are released from the tomb!

And how does she repay her hubby? Well, one day they are on a voyage and she becomes enamored with the ship's captain. But what's to stop her from killing her faithful hubby and tossing him into the sea? Nothing, but the boy/husband's servant has the ability to go overboard and save him, reviving him with those snake leaves. And then they row ashore and tell the king, the strange princess's father. He cannot believe such a thing and hides his son-in-law when the princess returns.

She tells such a tale of woe, about how her husband died at sea, and has as her witness the ship's captain. King Daddy asks why she did not honor her husband the way he honored her and thrown herself overboard and then -- oops -- out pops her restored hubby.

Dad's decision is swift: she and the ship captain must sail out to sea in a boat with holes drilled into it. A long, slow, sinking death at sea, lots of time to contemplate how she ended up in that predicament and no way out.

Despite the eye-for-an-eye ending on this, I do find myself liking this tale because it speaks directly to the idea of children being demanding, ungrateful and cruel and calls them to task for it. Indulgent parents don't come off smelling so sweet either when you think of it. I come and go with my feelings about morals in fables but something about this one feels contemporary.

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Whenever you reread a familiar story it's the details that tend to stand out. On first brush the details are part of the fabric of the whole, the bits and pieces you put together to make a whole image in your head. Later you see that the things you forgot add an interesting flavor to the memories.

Famine would have been a very realy fear for people and here runs front and center. Famine has forced Hansel and Gretel's parents to a drastic plan: lead the children into the woods and ditch them. Of course, whenever parents consider such dastardly things it means one parent is a step-parent. Guess which, or should I say witch because by now we know that step-mothers are secretly witches (but not true witches as we'll see).

Having heard the plan the children decide they will find a way home. Hansel leaves small pebbles along the road the first time and the parents (well, the step-witch at least) is dismayed at their return. Second time's the charm as they lead the children deeper into the woods and Hansel switches to bread which is eaten by birds. Now truly lost in the woods they stumble upon a house made of bread and cake with sugar glass for windows. Nibble-nibble-nibble and out pops a true witch. How do we know? Because

...witches have red eyes and can't see very far, but they have a keen sense of smell, like animals, and can detect when human beings are near them.

which sounds an awful lot like an albino to me. Seems folk in those days were fearful of things they didn't understand and woe to any child born to be labeled a witch. (And for a more detailed look at the idea behind while albinos are cast as villians in popular culture, check out this article fromPenn State.)

So this particular witch was smart enough to know that during a famine people would be shoving their children into the woods the way some people flush goldfish down the toilet when they tire of them. And she had the resources (being a witch, no doubt, she could conjure them) to build edible houses much like the gingerbread treats children can't resist during the holiday season.

Once lured to the house the witch throws Hansel into a pen for fattening while Gretel has to help with the household duties. The detail here that gets me is that while Hansel feasts and seems unable to use his strength to break out Gretel is fed crab shells. Crab shells. In the middle of the forest. Crab.

How Gretel fools the witch and gains her freedom owes much to the old Punch and Judy plays (that were themselves adapted from the humorous bits of lazzi performed by harlequin, or Arlequino, in 17th century Comedia del Arte). To fool the Hangman, Punch pretends not to understand what he's supposed to do. The Hangman informs him to stick his head in the noose but Punch can't seem to manage until out of frustration the Hangman sticks his head in the noose where Punch kicks the box out from under him and cheats death. Here, Gretel is asking the witch for a demonstration on how Hansel is going into the oven until the witch finally shows here to where Gretel can shove her in and bake her.

The witch dead, Hansel and Gretel ransack the witches house of gems and jewels, find their way home, and return home to their joyful father who, once again, is a widower since the step-mother died.

As a reminder that the Grimm tales came from the oral tradition this one ends with the storyteller's little tag:

My tale is done. See the mouse run. Catch it, whoever can, and then you can make a great big cap out of it's fur.

Not quite Hickory Dickory Dock, but about as meaningful.

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