The Juniper Tree

In this tale by Grimm, It is an understatement to say that this tale needs some justice and revenge. In my opinion, this tale has the most wicked and the most evil stepmother of all, to the point of where it angers me!

In this tale, the stepmother marries a man who had once had a wife who died, but gave him a beautiful son, red as blood and white as snow. The stepmother had a daughter of her own and hated her husband’s son. One day she tells her daughter to grab an apple, and the daughter asks if the son can have one. The stepmother agrees, tells the boy to  come to the chest where the apples are, and to pick one.

The boy leans over into the chest, and BOOM! The viscous stepmother slams it down onto his head and his head pops off into the chest. The boy is dead. This is evil act number one.

Evil act number two: After the stepmother  breaks his head off into the chest, she takes the head out and ties it back onto the boy’s body.

Evil act number 3: The daughter does not know he is dead, and the stepmother tells her to slap him since he is not answering. She slaps him and the head falls off, and the stepmother lets her own daughter believe that she killed him

Evil act number 4: The stepmother then proceeds to cook the boy into a stew, and feed it to the family!

This stepmother is so evil and disgusting, that she deserves a punishment and this boy deserves some justice!

Here is a little glimpse of the revenge before I get into further detail:

“The ground catches fire and the boy rises from the ashes as a beautiful bird. The bird goes about singing to various tradesman and acquires a gold chain for his father, some shoes for his step sister and a millstone to drop on his evil step mothers head” (Baker 2013).

To get into more depth with the revenge, the dead boy then turned into a bird, and came back to haunt his killer stepmother. All of a sudden, the bird started to mess with the stepmother’s feelings. She started to feel frightened, her eyes started to burn, and she was weeping with pain. She went outside to the bird because she thought the air would make her feel better, and BAM! The bird, aka the dead boy, drops a millstone right on her head cursing her to death!

Thank god this stepmother got what she deserved, but in my opinion, she could of had a more torturous death because of all the evil acts she committed, however, at least justice was served.

Baker, Jon M. “The Juniper Tree and a Murdered Boy’s Revenge | Jon Milet Baker.” JonMiletBaker.com. Dec. 2013. Web. 07 Dec. 2016

Snow White

Here we are with another classic fairy tale, and also another one of my favorites, Snow White! Yet again, here we are with another revenge and justice story, which in my opinion is very original and interesting.

Of course, this is Grimms’ version of Snow White. Who else do we really know of who gives us the best justice at the end? I even found a quote on http://www.sarahghoshal.com stating,

“The fairy tales of the Grimm Brothers are ironic fairy tales in that they are actually quite grim and violent.  Although they include the obvious fairy tale elements of vengeance for the wronged, true love, and of course, the underlying lesson always reminiscent of Aesop, they are gory, dark and just plain scary at times” (Ghoshal, 2007).

Indeed, Grimms’ version of fairytales can be very violent, especially in this version of snow white. Here’s how it goes:

As we know it starts off with a jealous stepmother/queen who wants to be the fairest in the land, but when she asks her magic mirror, the mirror states that Snow White is more fair. The queen does not like this, and wants Snow White dead so she can be the fairest in the land. She sends a huntsman to kill Snow White, but he ends up sparing her life and she runs away into the woods to find the seven dwarf’s little cottage. The dwarfs take her in as long as she cooks and cleans. The queen finds out she is alive, and tries to kill her three different times–What an evil witch!

Not only does the queen try to kill snow white in this story, but she attempts to do it THREE different times! The first time with a corset, the second time with a posionous hair brush, and the third time with a poisonous apple! I think justice is certainly in order for this Queen.

In short, here is the revenge to the queen as told by Daddu.net.

“Forget the innocence you probably think of when reading about Snow White. The Grimms’ version shows a more vengeful side. The evil queen is forced to wear a pair of iron shoes heated on burning coals, in which she must dance until she dies” (Klein, 2014).

To explain this violent but awesome revenge/justice in more depth, the queen ended up killing Snow White with the apple. She laid dead in a clear coffin at the top of a mountain. A prince strolls along, see’s Snow White laying dead, and wants to take her so he can admire her beauty. The coffin get’s dropped, Snow White falls out, and spits up the poison apple and meets the prince. They fall in love and have a wedding. The queen could not stay away from the wedding, so she goes, and her punishment is to put on a pair of iron slippers that have been heated with hot coals, and forced to dance in them all night until she drops dead, and this is exactly what she did! It’s never a true happily ever after without some justice, am I right?

“The Gothic and the Fairy Tale: The Unified Genre.” Sarah Ghoshal.com, 2007. Web. 07 Dec. 2016

Klein, A.J. “The Gruesome Side of Grimms’ Fairy Tales.” Daddu.net 2 Aug. 2014. Web. 07 Dec. 2016

Little Red Cap (Little Red Riding Hood)

Little Red Cap, by the Grimms’ Brothers, is another fairytale where we see justice in the end.

If you’re wondering why this version of Little Red Riding Hood is called Little Red Cap, it’s because in this version, little Red’s grandmother made her a beautiful red velvet cap. Little Red wanted to wear it all of the time, that she practically never took it off! Hence the name, Little Red Cap! To sum up this story, little Red goes into the forrest to bring her grandmother some goodies (cake and wine), when she meets a bad wolf who distracts her so he can go eat her grandmother.

The wolf eats the grandmother, poses as the grandmother so little Red does not suspect anything when she gets there, and lays in the grandmother’s bed. Little Red gets there, does not notice it was the wolf, until he jumps out of bed and gobbles her up! At this point I am not satisfied because this did not seem like a happily ever after, and the wolf did not get any punishment… Until I kept reading and came upon the justice of this story!

A quote I read on Daddu.net pretty much sums this up!

“In a very similar ending, some versions of the Little Red Cap story also end with a wolf’s stomach being cut open. In this case it is a huntsman who finds the wolf and cuts his stomach open to rescue the girl and her grandmother (who were also swallowed whole). And again, they fill the stomach of the wolf with rocks, which kills him” (Klein, 2014)

Yup… You read that right! Right when the wolf ate the grandmother and little Red, he fell asleep, and was snoring so loudly that a huntsman had to check on him. The huntsman had noticed the wolf had eaten little Red and her grandmother, so he cuts open his stomach, and out comes little Red and her grandmother, alive and well! Here comes even more satisfying justice/revenge!

Even after the huntsman cut open the wolf’s stomach, little Red decides to fill it up with heavy stones! The wolf wakes up, tries to walk, but the stones were so heavy that he collapses and dies. Hooray for justice! But, it gets even better. Even after the wolf drops dead, the huntsman continues to skin him. After reading this I really felt like that wolf got what he deserved!

Klein, A.J. “The Gruesome Side of Grimms’ Fairy Tales.” Daddu.net 2 Aug. 2014. Web. 07 Dec. 2016

Grimm’s Cinderella

Oh how I love the Grimms’ Brothers! Their fairy tales are always so awesome because they  have a sense of religion and have such interesting fates of the wrong-doers. To me, Grimms’ fairy tales are timeless and classic, and this version of Cinderella is my absolute favorite version!

“Grimms’ Fairy Tales have a strange sense of justice. Sure, the wicked get punished—except for when they don’t. Cannibals and incestuous fathers often go free, while wicked stepmothers and stepsisters almost always die horrible, gory deaths” (Shmoop Editorial Team, 2008).

This quote from the Shmoop website is so true. Grimms’ fairy tales always do have some sort of fate and revenge, but this fate and revenge is sometimes taken to the next level, with gruesome details, which is not something you would particularly expect from Cinderella!

Let’s start with a short summary of this story. Basically this version of cinderella contains three different grand balls. Cinderella wants to go to these balls, but it seems impossible for her to go with all of the chores her mother has her complete before she leaves. Let’s be honest here, if her stepmother was to actually let her go to the ball at the end of the day, these tasks would not have been impossible to complete. It is suggested that in this version, the mother knows Cinderella will not be able to complete these tasks on time.

To her stepmother’s dismay, little birds come and help Cinderella complete her chores so she can go to the ball. Although Cinderella does complete her chores with the help of these birds, her stepmother still does not let her attend the grand ball– Shocker! At this point I am thinking oh how evil the stepmother is, but as I keep reading, I find out there is revenge for this evil stepmother, and also her evil stepsisters who also did not treat her right.

At the end of the story, Cinderella ends up going to the ball, meeting the Prince, and getting married. On the day of the wedding, Cinderella’s evil stepmother and stepsisters show up to the wedding to share in Cinderella’s fortune… such guts they have! Have no fear… Cinderella’s pigeon friends who have been helping her throughout the story notice the step-people, and swoop down and end up pecking out the stepmother and stepsisters eyes! For all of their wrong doings and mistreatment of Cinderella, they had to endure pain and blindness for the rest of their life. I think it is safe to say that justice was served, and they got what they deserved! WooHoo!

Shmoop Editorial Team. “Grimms’ Fairy Tales Theme of Justice and Judgment.” Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 6 Dec. 2016.

Yeh- Hsien (Cinderella)

This has got to be a lot of fairy tale lovers favorite tale. There is a beautiful girl, evil step sisters, a ball, a prince, and fairy godmother. Although this is what we think of the typical Cinderella, a lot of people do not know that supposedly, one of the earliest versions of Cinderella is called  Yeh-Hsien. This is the Chinese version of Cinderella, and this version serves justice to the villains in a way that I love!

In Yeh- Hsien, The villain was, of course, the step mother! The step mother sends poor little Yeh- Hsien to the woods to gather supplies, and she makes a friend with the fish in the pond, who will only come out and swim for her.

Yeh-Hsein looks forward to seeing her fish friend every single day. Her evil stepmother must of saw that Yeh-Hsien was happy… she couldn’t have that! One day her evil stepmother borrows Yeh-Hsien’s clothes and wears them to act as her, since the fish only comes out for her. She goes to the pond, captures the fish, and feeds it to Yeh-Hsein without her knowledge! I know what we are all thinking… what an evil witch! But, have no fear. This is where my theme, Justice, comes into play. After the stepmother did this horrible deed, she ended up getting struck by flying stones and died! She was buried in a stone pit. I don’t know about you, but this was an awesome thing to read in my opinion!