Fairy Tales? I don't think so.

What comes to your mind when I say, "fairy tales"?

Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, etc. Right?

Well, right now I'm reading The Complete Illustrated Fairy Tales of The Brothers Grimm (also juggling Twilight, HP Prisoner of Azkaban, and HP Deathly Hallows). If you dunno who the Brothers Grimm were, well...simply put that they were two German siblings who collected and published folk tales and fairy tales. Anyway...there are loads of stories in here, two hundred and ten in total!

I've been skipping from one story to another -- because where's the fun in reading in an orderly manner? -- and I must say...I don't think I'll read ALL of those stories to my kids (if I have any, lolz) and I most certainly won't let them read the book before they're mature enough. Seriously, some of the stories are just...plain...creepy. O_o

But I read them, anyway. Because it's creepy and interesting.

O_____________O

One of the stories is called The Juniper Tree.

The Juniper Tree

There was once a married couple who always wanted a child. The wife knew that she was about to die, so she requested his husband to bury her under the juniper tree that they had outside their house. The wife then gave birth to a boy, and died.

The husband remarried, and his new wife gave birth to a girl named Marlinchen.

The stepmother didn't like the boy, because if her husband died, the boy would inherit all the fortune. She wanted Marlinchen to get the fortune instead. (Cue Evil-Step-Mom Theme Song!)

So one day, when the boy was at school, Marlinchen said to her mother, "Mother, can I have an apple?"

Her mother took out an apple from a chest and gave it to her. Then she asked:

"Will you not give an apple to my brother too?"

Her mother became angry, took the apple and keep it in the chest again. "I will, when he comes back from school."

So when the boy came home, the stepmother asked, "Do you want an apple?"

"Yes, please."

The stepmother opened the chest and pointed at the apple. "Take it from the chest."

The boy leaned down to take the apple, and the stepmother quickly slammed the chest close so that the boy's head, err, got cut off. Yeah.

After that the stepmother became scared and did not want the father to know that she did it. So she took out a handkerchief, tied the boy's head to the neck, placed the boy's body outside on a chair and put an apple in his dead hand.

Marlinchen then came to her mother and said, "Brother is sitting outside with an apple in his hand, but he wouldn't speak a word."

"Go and ask him for the apple," said the mother, "and if he doesn't reply, box/punch his ear."

Marlinchen did what her mother told her, and when her brother didn't reply, she boxed his ear and his head fell off! Scared, she ran back to her mother and cried and cried.

"What have you done, Marlinchen?" said the mother. "Quick, bring the body into the kitchen."

And so the stepmother, err, cut him up into pieces and cooked him. Yep. She made some black pudding out of him.

=..=ll

When the father came back home, he asked where his son was. And being the stupid -- err -- and because he trusted his new wife, he believed her when she said his son was out visiting his great uncle and would stay there for a few days. The father then asked why Marlinchen was crying non-stop, but she did not reply, so he began to eat the -- eww -- black pudding and said that it was, err, delicious. So he ate and ate all of it. Yep. Him alone.

The father threw the bones from the black pudding under the table and Marlinchen collected them, wrapped them in a silk handkerchief, and burried it under the juniper tree outside. Then she cried some more.

Quite suddenly, a bird flew from the tree and began to sing before it flew away. When Marlinchen looked again, she found that the handkerchief was not there anymore, and happy at the thought of his brother being sorta...well...resurrected, I guess... (...) she went back into the house.

The bird, however, flew to the town and sang to several people:

'My mother she killed me,
My father he ate me,
My sister, little Marlinchen,
Gathered together all my bones,
Tied them in a silken handkerchief,
Laid them beneath the juniper tree,
Kywitt, kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!'

After listening this, those people wanted to listen to it again because it was such a nice song (and perhaps they really didn't mind the disturbing lyrics...at all.). The bird requested some stuff from each of them, and then it sang the song again.

The goldsmith gave it a gold chain, the shoe maker gave it a pair of red shoes, and the millers gave it a millerstone.

Then the red-and-green bird flew back to the father's house and began to sing the song again.

'My mother she killed me,
My father he ate me,
My sister, little Marlinchen,
Gathered together all my bones,
Tied them in a silken handkerchief,
Laid them beneath the juniper tree,
Kywitt, kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!'

The father said it was such a nice song, but the stepmother hated it. She began to close her eyes and ears. The father then went out to look at the bird, and the bird dropped the goldchain and it fell around the father's neck nicely, and he was happy.

The bird sang the song again and Marlinchen went out to look at the bird, but the stepmother said she felt like the house was shaking and was on fire. The bird then dropped the red shoes and Marlinchen was happy.

At last the stepmother went out to look at the bird, too, and the bird dropped the millstone on her and crushed her flat to death. When the father and Marlinchen turned to look, all they saw was a burst of flame, and when it went out, the boy was standing there. He took his father and Marlinchen by the hand, and took them inside to eat dinner.

THE END!

I know, sick, right?

When I read the part where the boy's head got cut off, I was like, "... O_O."

There's another creepy story that could've been in Criminal Minds -- seriously! -- it's called The Robber Bridegroom. Sounds interesting, right? What's more interesting is this:

'Turn back, turn back, young maiden dear,
This a murderer's house you enter here!'

Just to make stuff creepier, add in a creepy old lady in the creepy old house in the middle of a creepy forest into the story. XD

Definitely not the type of stories I'd tell my children before they go to bed...

But it's definitely better than a story about some sparkling vampire, a Mary Sue, and their forbidden love, eh? 8D