We all grew up with the stories: Little Red Riding Hood. Beauty and the Beast. Sleeping Beauty. Most of us were weaned on the animated, sanitized versions. But most fairy tales were much darker stories for reasons, like warnings, cultural training, or designed to get little children to behave and fear evil.
The Grimm Brothers traveled around Germany collecting the stories told by the village crones. They didn’t credit the women, of course. But they started the sanitization, removing the violence, and mainly the sex, that led to the singing birds and delightful dwarves of our childhoods. But some of the tales still have a bit of grit left in them. Tales like The Maiden with No Hands, about a girl whose father accidentally sells her to the devil, still have plenty of violence and sex. The family outwits the devil, but it requires dear old dad to chop off his daughter’s hands. The story goes on, and she gets knocked up by the king but shunned from the castle before she gives birth while the king is away at war.
In some ways, my MMF version is a kindler, gentler tale. Dear old dad has lost the orchard, but he didn’t cut off his daughter’s hands. The devil and the king live across the hall and they are temptation personified. It sure doesn’t take seven years for Abigail to get her happy ending, either.
Out of Hand is the current Recommended Read. See what you think about giving a fairy tale a smut-up.
