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The dark origins of Disney fairy tales - Claudia Schwabe

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An evil stepmother demands a maiden’s lungs and liver; a girl is ripped from a wolf’s stomach; and sisters mutilate their feet to squeeze into a gold slipper. During the early 1800s, brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm gathered these unflinchingly gory details from stories circulating around what’s now Germany. Claudia Schwabe explores how these now-infamous tales evolved as they spread worldwide.

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Additional Resources for you to Explore

The Brothers Grimm were folklorists and linguists who are most famous for their collection of stories, known in English as Grimm's Fairy Tales. The collection led to the modern study of folklore and the cohesive nationalist ideal of the German state. Read more here on the history of the brothers, and here for a more in depth survey of the more sinister themes found in their stories.

For TED-Ed videos on fairy tales, check out The Tale of the Boy who Tricked the Devil, or one of these Myths from Around the World. For a TED Talk on fairy tales, watch Anne Dugan's talk here.
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Meet The Creators

Educator
Claudia Schwabe
Director
Skirmanta Jakaitė
Narrator
Jack Cutmore-Scott
Composer
Cem Misirlioglu, Brooks Ball
Sound Designer
Cem Misirlioglu, Brooks Ball
Director of Production
Gerta Xhelo
Produced by
Sazia Afrin
Editorial Director
Alex Rosenthal
Editorial Producer
Cella Wright
Script Editor
Iseult Gillespie