Sumiko Saulson

Ah, fairy tales. You know, like The Little Mermaid and its happily ever-after ending, where the doe-eyed mermaid gets her legs and singing voice back just in time to marry the equally doe-eyed prince. Or Snow White, where the evil queen gets her just desserts from an unfortunate lightning strike.

Pure and utter bullshit.

No, I’m not on some kind of feminist rant, I simply read fairy tales, and not the sanitized, consumer friendly versions offered by Disney and other purveyors of suburban childhood. I grew up with original, original fairy tales, like the Andrew Lang Fairy Books, a collection of stories and fairy folklore spanning the late 1800’s to early 1900’s, Grimm’s Fairy Tales published in 1812, and Fairy tales from Hans Christian Andersen, first published in 1899.

These versions were a bit more…horrific. Granted, they were designed to be told around some kind of rustic…