When I was in college, I took an international folklore class. It ended up being one of my favorite classes because all we ever did was read the original versions of various fairy tales and compare them to how we know them today.

In most original fairy tale versions, there is no happy ending for the main character, and if there is, you can sure bet that there is another character that meets some horrific fate. The original versions were written or told to teach a lesson to children, to scare them into not misbehaving. For example, in the original version of Little Red Riding Hood, the little girl stops to talk to the wolf, after being warn by her parents not to talk to strangers. Little Red Riding Hood tells the wolf all about her grandmother and how she's going there and where she lives, and therefore the wolf is able to find the grandmother's house, eat her, disguise himself as the grandmother, and eat Little Red Ridng Hood. Everyone dies because Little Red Riding Hood talked to a stranger. This taught children not to talk to strangers.

However, these days, when we tell a child that story, we include the brave woodcutter who rescues Little Red Riding Hood before the wolf eats her and cuts the undigested grandmother out of the wolf, saving her as well.

This type of alteration of the original version also occurs in The Three Little Pigs. The original version calls for the first two pigs' to be eaten by the big bad wolf and die... However, most of us tell little kids that the first two pigs ran to their brother's brick house for protection, saving them from death.

This is more prevalent than you think. Here are some examples of Disney's alterations of the classic versions of famous fairy tales:

Cinderella

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Cinderella is probably the most famous of all classic Disney fairy-tales (next to maybe Snow White). In most every classic version of Cinderella, she ends up with the Prince, just as she does in the Disney version. However, the fate for evil stepsisters is very different...

In the Disney version, as you can recall, the two stepsisters attempt to squeeze their big, ugly feet into a tiny, dainty glass slipper. They try and try to no avail. Finally, Cinderella is revealed. The shoe fits Cinderella, the Prince marries her, and the two stepsisters have to live the rest of their lives knowing that their servant was chosen by the prince and not them.

In the classic version, the two stepsisters do not merely try to squeeze their big, ugly feet into the shoe. They in fact cut their feet to fit. One sister cuts of some toes, another her heel. The Prince believes the shoe fits only until he sees the blood and realizes what the women have done. After Cinderella is revealed and the prince marries her, birds come and attack the two sisters and peck out their eyes. They are left with no eyes and therefore and can no longer be obsessed with beauty.

Pocohontas

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Probably my most favorite of all Disney movies is Pocohontas. After seeing it, I became obsessed with finding out as much as I could about the real American-Indian girl the movie was based on.

In the film version, Indian princess Pocohontas saves her love, British voyager John Smith, from death by jumping in front of him when her people were going to kill him for accidentally killing on their own. At the end, John Smith goes back to England, and Pocohontas stays back to help her people.

There was a sequal version of the film in which Pocohontas leaves her land and people to go to England (I believe she wants to find medicine and come back).

In the real story, Pocohontas was like 11-years-old and John Smith was around 30. She did jump in front of him, but they did not fall in love. Eventually, when she got older, she met a British man who took her back over to England. She married him and changed her name to Elizabeth and then caught the plague and died.

The Little Mermaid

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This is my favorite variation of a fairy tale. In the movie version, we all know Ariel gives up her beautiful voice in order to change herself from a mermaid to a human in order to meet the prince and experience real human life. The prince is put under a spell by an evil octopus, Ursulla, who has transformed herself in a beautiful human girl with Ariel's beautiful voice. Just before the prince marries this other girl, Ariel is revealed to be his true love and in the end they all live happily ever after.

In the real version, the mermaid transforms herself into a human. She falls in love with the prince, but he falls in love with another woman and marries her. The mermaid feels that if she can't have the prince, no one will, and she decides to kill him. However, she realizes she loves him too much to take his life and in turn, she turns the knife on herself and stabs herself to death.

Sleeping Beauty

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This is probably one of the least popular classic Disney cartoons, but it's still interested to see the differences between Disney's version and the original version.

In the Disney film, the princess pricks her finger on a spindle that has been cursed by  an evil witch, which casts a spell on her entire kingdom causing them to all fall into a deep sleep. The spell can only be broken when the princess receives a kiss from a handsome prince. The prince comes and rescues the princess, kissing her and breaking the spell. Everyone lives happily ever after.

In the real version, the princess also pricks her finger on a cursed spindle, which causes her to fall into a deep sleep, which again, can only be broken by the kiss of a prince. However, hundreds of years go by and everyone dies. A new prince hears about the story of the sleeping beauty, finds her and kisses her, breaking the spell. The princess marries the prince and they live happily ever after.

So, why do we change the original versions of the fairy tales into not-so-gruesome versions? Why do we not have the characters die or experience extreme misfortune? Is the original moral lost with these changes? Is Disney, the most influential alterers of the original versions, to blame? Which versions do you prefer?