Cannibalism

Cannibalism is a recurring theme in classic fairy tales. In some cases it's a leading theme, in others we often overlook it. Here are a few examples of this gory element which is very rarely present in newer versions and rewritings but can be quite popular in young adult TV series and shows aimed at grown-up audiences.

Hansel and Gretel

The cannibalistic witch who has a gingerbread house to lure careless children just to catch and eat them is probably the first thought when we think about cannibalism in fairy tales. She is not 'just' eating them. As we can see in the case of Hansel she is willing to fatten him a bit to make a more tasty roast.

Luckily for Hans, his sister Gretel helps him to delay his death sentence by giving him a chicken bone to convince the witch about being too thin and even tricks the witch into ending in the owen instead of her victims.

credit: Franz Muller-Munster (1867-1936)

Juniper Tree

Juniper Tree is the most gory fairy tale in the collection of the Grimm Brothers. The main character is the evil stepmother who kills her stepson, blames her own daughter for that, and makes a stew out of his remains to serve the dish to his father. Yes, he eats it.

Her punishment is fast, effective, and merciless.

credit: Otto Ubbelohde (1867-1922)

Jack and the Beanstalk

Jack and the Beanstalk belongs to English folklore. It's a story about a boy who steals treasures from a man-eating giant. He escapes bloody death several times and kills the giant in the final scene where both main characters are descending down the beanstalk.

credit: Richard Andre (1834-1907)

Sinbad

Sinbad (sometimes Sinbad's Seven Voyages or Sinbad the Sailor) is a fairy tale with many elements borrowed from mythology and other older works. The cannibalistic scene appears in his third voyage, where a ship crew is caught in the cave where a man-eating giant lives.

Sinbad is smart and tricks the giant so he can escape his sade fate but many members of his crew die. The giant doesn't live long either.

credit: Henry Justice Ford (1860-1941)

Sleeping Beauty in the Woods

Most of us are familiar with Sleeping Beauty (Briar Rose) by the Grimm Brothers where the title character is cursed by a one-hundred-year-long sleep. But an older version (not the oldest!) from which Grimms took the plot is actually made of two parts.

The second part starts with the prince marrying the princess. They soon got two kids as well. The problem is that his mother who belongs to man-eating ogres wants to eat his wife and children! Luckily, the cook doesn't collaborate as expected, and the prince returns to the castle soon enough to prevent the end of his family. His mother is punished by being thrown in a pit full of toads and snakes.

credit: Emile Auguste Renault aka Malo-Renault (1870-1938)

Snow White

When we talk about Snow White everybody thinks about the apple. The cannibalistic moment occurs before - when the evil queen demands that the hunter take the girl into the woods and kill her. She wants proof as well: her heart and liver which she intends to eat.

The hunter shows enough mercy to spare Snow White's life but not enough to rebel against the queen. When she finds about about her stepdaughter living at the dwarf, she tries to kill her by herself. She almost succeeds at her third attempt but is cruelly punished at the end of the story. She has to dance in hot iron shoes until she dies.

credit: Gertrud Caspari (1873-1948)

Thumbling aka Hop-o'-My-Thumb aka Seven League Boots

This story is Charles Perrault's version of Hansel and Gretel. Well, actually it was vice versa because it was written more than a century before. Instead of brother and sister, we are dealing with seven boys lost in the woods. Instead of the witch, they find a man-eating ogre who has a wife and seven daughters.

The youngest boy (Hop-o'-My-Thumb) outsmarts him so the monster kills his own daughters instead of the boys. Later he steals from him seven league boots and makes a fortune by delivering all kinds of goods in the kigdom. Maneating ogre isn't explicitly punished in this version (in some other variations he drops in the abyss) but losing his offspring and the most precious possession seems good enough.

credit: Oskar Herrfurth (1862-1934)

As we can see, cannibalism in classic fairy tales is always punished rigorously which is just another proof that fairy tales as a literary genre present an important step from wilderness to civilization with new rules in the society.

We could also include some other fairy tales, like Red Riding Hood or Wolf and Seven Kids where the wolves are derived from werewolves who were cannibals too and as such banished from the society to wilderness. There they eventually became extinct.