The True Stories Behind Classic Fairy Tales | Valerie

Ogden
Fairy tales, gripping, magical and inspiring, are master narratives. Children subconsciously recall
their messages as they grow older, and are forced to cope with real injustices and contradictions in
their lives. Some fairy tales are based on legends that incorporated a spiritual belief of the culture in
which they originated, and were meant to emulate truth.
Numerous fairy tales, and the legends behind them, are actually watered-down versions of
uncomfortable historical events. These darker stories might be too terrifying for today's little
lambkins, as well as some adults! Their horrific origins, which often involve rape, incest, torture,
cannibalism and other hideous occurrences, are brimming with sophisticated and brutal morality.
Their images cannot be dispelled easily and their lessons are more powerful than the present-day,
innocuous fables they resemble.
In the early 1800's Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm collected stories that depicted the unpredictable and
often unforgiving life experienced by central Europeans. These brothers, determined to preserve the
Germanic oral story telling that was vanishing, poured over the folklore of the region. Their first
collection of stories was based on actual, gruesome events. However, they had to provide lighter
interpretations of these factual incidents in order to sell books. Consequently they paid attention to
previously printed fairytales, particularly those of Charles Perrault. As early as the 17th century, this
Frenchman who is thought to be the father of fairy tales, created some of the most imaginative and
delightful stories ever told. His confabulations of a pumpkin carriage and Fairy Godmother in
Cinderella, for example, are magnificently enchanting. His original Cinderella, based on a true story,
contains violent elements as well, since the wicked stepsisters butcher their own feet while trying to
get into the slipper that the Prince had found.
Perrault's tales, albeit charming, were unsentimental; for they were intended for adults, because no
children's literature existed at the time. His suspense story, BLUEBEARD, reads like a crime thriller,
with the bloody knives and curious dead wives, his moral, that women should be less nosy, apparent.
Perrault based his fairy tale on two accounts of dark depravity in Brittany, France. The earlier of the
two accounts dealt with a savage, 6th century ruler. The second detailed the acts of a nobleman,
named Gilles de Rais, who tortured, mutilated, raped and murdered hundreds of innocent children.
My book explores the life and crimes of this tragic, historic figure.
The almost barbaric episodes that follow are just a smattering of fairy tales, as we know them today,
derived from spoken legends which were based on facts. The morals these stories convey are far
more important than the events themselves, the circumstances of which are often forgotten. These
cautionary tales, where good conquers evil, the wicked get punished, the righteous live happily ever
after, offer hope that one can do something positive about changing oneself and the world.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

The fairy tale is based on the tragic life of Margarete von Waldeck, a 16th century Bavarian
noblewoman. Margarete grew up in Bad Wildungen, where her brother used small children to work
his copper mine. Severely deformed because of the physical labor mining required, they were
despairingly referred to as dwarfs. The poison apple is also rooted in fact; an old man would offer
tainted fruits to the workers, and other children he believed stole from him.
Margarete's stepmother, despising her, sent the beauty, to the Brussels court to get rid of her. There
Prince Philip II of Spain became her steamy lover. His father, the king of Spain, opposing the
romance, dispatched Spanish agents to murder Margarete. They surreptitiously poisoned her.

Rapunzel
Rapunzel draws upon an early Christian story. In the third century Fairy Tail Manga A.D. a
prosperous pagan merchant, living in Asia Minor, so adored his beautiful daughter he forbade her to
have suitors. Accordingly he locked her in a tower when he traveled. There is no mention how hair
became important, but she converted to Christianity, praying so loudly when the merchant left, her
devotions reverberated throughout town. The merchant, informed of her actions, dragged her before
the Roman pro-consul who insisted the father behead her or forfeit his fortune if she should refuse to
give up her newfound religion. The father decapitated her but was killed by a lightning strike soon
after. She became the martyr, Saint Barbara, revered by the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Bluebeard

Perrault wove his story around Conomor the Cursed, the Breton chief who had been forewarned he
would be slain by his own son. As soon as one of his wives became pregnant, he murdered her. But
Perrault was more fascinated by Gilles de Rais, a wealthy 15th century nobleman, a hero of the
Hundred Years' War, Joan of Arc's protector on the battlefield. After he left the military he became a
notorious serial killer of children. He was given the nickname, Bluebeard, because his horse's sleek
fur looked blue in the daylight. At his shocking trial, he described in detail how he had preyed upon
and tortured innocent children. Perrault drew upon these facts to conjure up his own nightmarish
character.

Hansel and Gretel

The tale of Hansel and Gretel could have been told to keep children from wandering off. But during
the great famine of 1315-1317 A. D. that crushed most of continental Europe and England, disease,
mass death, infanticide and cannibalism increased exponentially. Seeking relief, some desperate
parents deserted their children and slaughtered their draft animals.
Or Hansel and Gretel might have stumbled upon the home of the successful baker, Katharina
Schraderin. In the 1600s, she concocted such a scrumptious ginger bread cookie that a jealous male
baker accused her of being a witch. After being driven from town, a posse of angry neighbors hunted
her down, brought her back to her home, and burned her to death in her own oven.
Little Jack Horner
This story matches events in the life of Bishop Richard Whiting of Glastonbury and his steward, who
was perhaps named Jack Horner. When King Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic Church and
dissolved its Monasteries in England, Glastonbury remained the sole religious home in Somerset.
Whiting, trying to keep the abbey, bribed the King by offering him twelve Catholic manorial estates.
To thwart potential thieves, he hid the deeds to the estates in a pie crust. But the seventy-nine-yer-old Bishop, convicted of treason for serving Rome, was drawn, quartered and hung at Glastonbury
Tor overlooking the town. His "good" steward absconded with the plum deed to the Manor of Mells,
and Horner's descendants lived there until the 20th century.
The Pied Piper of Hamelin
In 1264, a pied piper had offered to get rid of the numerous rats in the Germanic village of Hamelin,
as long as the town elders gave him a considerable amount of money upon the completion of this
task. After he disposed of the rats, the elders reneged on their promise. Furious, the piper enticed
the children of the village to follow him. They never returned.

Some believe the Piper led the innocents to the Mediterranean to join the Children's Crusade leaving
for the Holy Land. Presumably children would peacefully convert Moslems to Christianity after the
Mediterranean rolled back, allowing their safe passage to Jerusalem. The Sea did not oblige, and
many children starved to death waiting for the miracle to occur.

Cinderella
That blond, fair-complexioned, but mistreated beauty in Perrault's tale loosely relates to the history
of Rhodopis, a Greek woman, whose name means "rosy-cheeked." When she was a young girl, she
was captured in Thrace, sold into slavery around 500 BC, and taken to Egypt.
Her unusual looks made her a treasured commodity, and her master showered her with gifts,
including a pair of golden shoes. These shoes and Rhodopis were noticed by the Pharaoh, Ahmose II.
He insisted she become one of his wives. While not his principal, revered partner, born of royal
blood, she would still perform ceremonial functions and...mainly be readily available to gratify
Ahmose sexually. Did her new found status offer her perpetual happiness? Probably not.
Valerie Ogden is the author of Bluebeard: Brave Warrior. Brutal Psychopath.
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Martha Canary or Canary, the woman most often cited as Calamity Jane. In one story of her birth she
was the daughter of an army man who was struck and killed by lightning riding to get help for his
dying wife.

Calamity Jane was taken at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo. Seeing Geronimo made to
perform his defeat and performing her own adventures proved too much for her on this day and
Buffalo Bill kindly gave her train fair to return to Deadwood where she promptly died.

European settlers saw tornados for the first time in North America. Stories of whole towns picked up
and dropped somewhere else stand beside myths of tornados Read Fairy Tail For Free in the shape
of horses or women. One story tells of a wagon train of terrified settlers watching a group of
indigenous people line up and smoke pipes, enticing an approaching tornado to smoke with them.
The tornado respected this gesture and turned away from the camp.

Born into slavery, sold and sold again, Aunt Sally came to Deadwood working as a cook for General
Custer (pictured here). She was the first woman to own a mining claim and is said to have become
very rich, an economic force, prospecting seven lots and operating a private club all the while
working as a midwife birthing new American citizens.

Sissieretta Jones, also known as Black Patti in reference to a famous Italian singer of the time,
Adelina Patti. Jones crossed the color barrier and broke the heart of a president when she sang in
the White House by private invitation for President Harrison. Jones sang for four consecutive
presidents and the British royal family. She inspired Symphony Number 9 by Antonin Dvo?k.

The White Buffalo is regarded by many indigenous cultures as a spiritual sign. According to Hopi
culture the white buffalo is a sign that the time of prophecy is upon us, the time of the ending of the
Fourth World and the beginning of moving into the Fifth Sun or Fifth World, the Earthquake World.
Other prophecies say that the white buffalo is a sign of peace and prayer and when the great
numbers of buffalo return and the white buffalo are among them world peace will come.

Crowfoot was the heroic chief of the Siksika nation. He was a warrior who fought in 19 battles.
Wounded many times he continued to fight although he simultaneously tried to work towards peace
with the armies. He negotiated Treaty number 7 signed at Blackfoot Crossing in Alberta. He is
regarded as a visionary for working to save the lives of his people and to preserve the culture of
Blackfoot tribes in Canada (called Blackfeet in the US) for a future when the buffalo will return in
great numbers and the people will live free on the land.

Belle Star, The Bandit Queen, was a peer of Calamity Jane. As a child she was given a classical
education and taught piano. As an adult she was called the female Jesse James. She assisted Jesse
James and the Youngers and may have been married to Cole Younger for three weeks. She was very
stylish in long velvet gowns and feather plumed hats, riding sidesaddle, shooting at her pursuers
with two pistols drawn from her leather belt. Her last name Starr comes from her marriage to a
Cherokee man named Sam Starr who she lived with in Indian Territory where she organized planned
and fenced for rustlers and bootleggers.

Poker Alice was born in Devon England and retained a strong British accent. She was seldom seen
without a long black cigar hanging from her mouth. She was known to drink hard but never when

she gambled and she never gambled on a Sunday. She is said to have held cheaters at gunpoint and
demanded their confessions. She had a long career as a gambler and once won 250,000 dollars at
poker (close to a million today). She would have died in jail for bootlegging and being a madam, but
the Governor pardoned her because he did not think it was right for an old lady to suffer indignity.

Bear Lake Monster in Utah is said to be a long snakelike monster with legs that climbs ashore at
night. Pecos Bill is said to have wrestled the monster in a fight that lasted for days and whipped up a
hurricane around the banks of the lake. Sightings of the monster continue to this day.

Giant grizzly bears and giant bison are said to have existed in great numbers on the Plains prior to
the arrival of settlers. The bears are said to have stood 15 feet tall, to have weighed 2000 pounds
and to have ranged from Alaska to Mexico. Some believe these giant bears and bison were Gods.