
Tolstoy’s Children’s Stories - smiljo
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/leo-tolstoys-childrens-stories-will-devastate-your-children-and-make-you-want-to-die/
======
goto11
Important point many are missing: Folktales were not originally for children.
They were told among adults after children had gone to sleep. But when
folklorists (like the Grimm brothers) started collecting and publishing folk
tales, it became a trend to publish sanitized edition for children.

Read something like the Arabian Nights tales in an uncensored version - these
were clearly not intended for children anymore than 50 Shades of Grey are for
children. The children's editions are _heavily_ sanitized.

I suspect their change into children literature was because of cultural
changes - educated 19th century adults couldn't take folktales serious anymore
(except as anthropological studies) and found them childish. The same way that
19th century popular literature like Dumas and Verne became children's books
in the 20th century.

Walt Disney is often criticized in this context, but both Snow White and
Cinderella are actually pretty faithful to the source material. Cinderella is
just based on the Charles Perrault version of the story, not the Grimm version
which contain a lot more maiming.

~~~
dannygarcia
> Folktales were not originally for children.

I learned this the hard way. I purchased a beautifully made "Grimm's Complete
Fairy Tales" to read to my then toddler. There are some particularly
disturbing stories but I was surprised by how many were flat out nonsensical
or silly (like The Story of a Boy Who Went Forth to Learn Fear [0]). It's
fascinating to read these in their (translated) original form. Not your
typical bedtime story.

[0]
[https://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm004.html](https://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm004.html)

~~~
taneq
Even the 'sanitized' versions of them haven't aged well and are often pretty
silly IMO. Maybe it's just because we tend to see them as morality plays these
days and try to infer a lesson, while the originals seem to just have been
local stories from various villages. Terrible people do well for themselves,
lots of people die to no real gain or purpose, etc.

~~~
vharuck
I recently got this surprise when practicing Japanese by translating a folk
tale [0]. Even revenge I was able to understand quickly turned into outright
sadism. Maybe it was the morals of another time, maybe the tellers didn't care
if all the characters were unlikable.

[0]:
[http://life.ou.edu/stories/sarukani.html](http://life.ou.edu/stories/sarukani.html)

~~~
forgotmypw16
I think it's an effective and impressive warning, which makes one think about
the tale at length. And the warning is that if you piss someone off by being
greedy, you might accidentally get much worse punishment than you actually
deserve for a small mischief.

The tale wouldn't make nearly as much of an impression if, let's say, the
crabs just roughed the monkey up a little bit and then they all made up and
lived happily ever after.

Nor would it be a realistic or helpful lesson, because that is not now reality
works: sometimes actions have serious consequences.

------
ivanhoe
Those books shouldn't be judged by today's norms. They were not written for
the children (nor parents... especially not parents) of today, but for
children back then who lived in a completely different world.

For instance, in the version of Cinderella by Charles Perrault - the version
that we all know - one of the evil stepsisters was advised by her mother to
cut off her toes in order to fit the slipper. She almost fools the prince, but
doves warn him about blood dripping from her foot. He then goes back again and
tries the slipper on the other sister. She cut off part of her heel in order
to get her foot in the slipper, and again the prince is fooled. While riding
with her to the king's castle, the doves alert him again about the blood on
her foot.

How about that for a good night story?

~~~
copperx
Aren't we and our children exposed to much more violence, blood, and plain
evilness in media nowadays?

I don't understand how people in those times would be less sensitive to such
themes.

~~~
riazrizvi
In older societies, people see a lot more violence/blood toward animals. In
old-fashioned societies, when you need a chicken, the butcher grabs a live
one, wrestles it's wriggling body, wrings its neck, and skins it in front of
you. You grab the meat and it's still warm. Butchers killing larger livestock
is likely a show you can see near the market, you may even have participated
in some such act yourself because of customs. It would be a common thing and
it's so visceral. You smell it. You can see the animal's struggle, fear and
pain. After you are habituated to that, a story is not so bad.

~~~
barry-cotter
> In older societies, people see a lot more violence/blood toward animals.

Older societies? Every farming family in Western Europe would have been
familiar with how to slaughter and process their own animals until the 60s at
the earliest. There are very few people more than three generations removed
from agriculture, and most of those would have seen animals slaughtered up
until the rise of industrial cold chains in the early 1900s.

------
rosstex

        Rock-a-bye baby, on the treetop.
        When the wind blows, the cradle will rock.
        When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall.
        And down will come Baby, cradle and all.
    

or

    
    
        It’s raining, it’s pouring,
        The old man’s snoring.
        He went to bed
        And he bumped his head
        And he couldn’t get up in the morning.
    

Tell me these ain't dark.

~~~
telesilla
And relevant today:

Ring-a-ring o'roses

A pocket full of posies

A-tissue, a-tissue

We all fall down

(actually this is not at all related to the plague but it makes a more scary
story if we say it does)

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
There have been lots of comments about how dark children’a books were. But,
back then, children’s lives were pretty dark. With the high infant and
childhood mortality, a good proportion of children had lost a brother or
sister. Given maternal mortality, many children had probably lost a mother in
childbirth. Given the nature of farmwork and the primitive nature of medicine,
many children probably had a father, uncle, etc who was killed or main in an
accident. And that is before you consider the frequent wars in which soldiers
roamed across the land raping, pillaging, and killing. Death would have been
all around children.

~~~
mhb
Nowadays everyone's wrong on the internet, but that doesn't mean I want to
read a book about it.

------
ginko
This seems to be pretty much par for the course for 19th century children's
books. Compare them to the original versions of H.C. Andersen's fairy tales or
Hoffmann's Struwwelpeter[1].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struwwelpeter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struwwelpeter)

~~~
brummm
My gandma used to read the Struwwelpeter stories to me as a child. I would
actually disagree with the premise of the article that they make children want
to die. They actually are supposed to frighten children into behaving
properly.

~~~
alpaca128
I actually enjoyed the stories back then and they didn't really work when it
came to changing my behaviour. Probably mostly because I just didn't grasp the
seriousness of the bloodier parts.

~~~
derefr
> Probably mostly because I just didn't grasp the seriousness of the bloodier
> parts.

And this is why the original folktales emphasize the gore. You can basically
chop off the last quarter of any folktale and replace it with a direction to
the story-teller, i.e. "[and now you shall carry on about bad things happening
to the child protagonist, in as visceral a manner as you have the mind and
words to render, until the children listening have been thoroughly traumatized
as to the consequences of their misbehavior.]"

------
dan-robertson
In case you skimmed the article after the first few paragraphs, note that the
point is not that the stories are sad or grim but that they are only sad or
grim. There is no moral or hate that leads to things happening. The characters
just lives who’ve are sad.

I also read the article as lighthearted and humorous and so assumed some
things may have been exaggerated it embellished slightly for effect.

~~~
ginko
Knowing Tolstoy's other writings I get the feeling that these one paragraph
summaries don't do his prose justice.

~~~
romwell
I read the original story for "The Lion and the Puppy", and indeed, the
summary doesn't do the story justice.

The story is _more_ grim and heart-wrecking.

And there is no obvious take-away, everything just sucks.

But it's a story of a loss that one can relate to. Depressed people are known
to listen to sad songs, and get relief from that.

I'm not in a very good place now, and reading the Lion and the Puppy story in
Russian somehow was a relief. It melted the numbness away.

And that's what Tolstoy was going for, perhaps. No ham-fisted morals. Just
carefully crafted vignettes of grim life.

I do think that Tolstoy never had an appreciation of the many dimensions of
human happiness. "Every happy family is alike, but unhappy families are
miserable in their own ways", he wrote. I disagree; I see commonality in
misery, and it's the path to happiness that has to be crafted and often ends
up unique. But I digress.

~~~
harryf
> And that's what Tolstoy was going for, perhaps. No ham-fisted morals. Just
> carefully crafted vignettes of grim life.

Which is great and a meaning in itself. Much of what’s grim in life happens
without deeper meaning. Terrible things happen to those that don’t deserve it
and terrible people don’t get what they deserve. The only thing is to accept
that that’s how it often is. Which is not a bad thing to expose children to
IMO

------
galaxyLogic
Check out the Mioomins, good for children and adults alike.

The series starts with books that are allegories for World War II like "The
Moomins and the Great Flood" and "Comet in Moominland". Good reading in these
pandemic times not gory but all about seriousnes of the world we live in and
how small humans and families can cope with that.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moomins](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moomins)

------
crazygringo
> _Tolstoy’s tales are unusual in that they lack the depth of relationships —
> and even hatred — that the old folk tales have. There are no stories of
> wicked stepparents or lurking dangers in the woods. Instead, there is a kind
> of dead-end romanticism: bad thing happens; a person is sad; end of story.
> There isn’t even that much to talk to your children about: trees are nice,
> don’t cut them down so much? People are not all that happy?_

Wow. The author seems to be missing the morals _entirely_. Just from browsing
their story descriptions, the lessons seem to be about, respectively:

\- The overwhelming power of grief, which you may wind up suffering when you
choose to love

\- Don't be tricked by people trying to get you to enjoy yourself in a
dangerous situation

\- The feeling that makes you uncomfortable destroying beauty is a kind of
conscience, so listen to it, for there is an intrinsic connection between
beauty and life

\- Happiness is misunderstood by nearly all -- it doesn't come from material
possessions, it comes from within

\- People are supported by those around them, not diminished, so don't treat
those who surround you as unimportant or take them for granted

\- If you tame an animal, you're responsible for their well-being. You can't
"go back" or shirk your responsibilities, so think twice before you take on a
personal commitment or you may generate suffering you never intended

Writers for the LA Review of Books are generally... supposed to be literary
and really good at finding meaning in texts, heck even way more meaning than
the author sometimes intended.

This author seems to be being deliberately obtuse about these stories. I'm not
sure why. But these stories seem incredibly stimulating food-for-thought to
talk with your children about.

------
darkerside
> But frequently those stories are redeemed by a depth which feels archetypal:
> when Rapunzel’s prince falls from her tower and blinds himself in the rose
> bushes below, his blindness appears to have a meaning — it’s not just
> gratuitous bloodshed.

If I doubted my dismissal of this article, I felt vindicated by this line. Is
the author really so blind as to believe that popular fairy tale endings are
archetypal for any reason beyond the fact that they became popular? They were
just as nasty and surprising back then, and it's only repeated listenings and
social acceptance that has made them appear to be any more child-appropriate
than a screaming, dying tree.

FWIW, I generally believe kids are way more resilient to any of these things
than we think they are. Like the poplar tree, in trying to protect them, we
lead them to their own downfall.

------
riazrizvi
I think classic folk tales were more macabre, but since consumers today are
not interested in them so much it's somewhat lost to us. We have Grimm's Fairy
Stories, but as the author points out, in most modern editions they edit out
the darker ones. We have this Tolstoy collection because he is a famous author
and people are interested in his stories. And guess what, they are super dark.
Is that because Tolstoy was dark? No, it's because the traditional stories of
the time were much darker. Here's an example of a Yiddish Folktale:

 _Moyshele and Sheyndele_

Once upon a time there was a poor woodcutter who had a wife and two small
children, a boy and a girl. The boy was called Moyshele, the girl Sheyndele.
The woodcutter’s wife died and he married a second wife who was a very wicked
woman and a cruel stepmother to the children. One day the woodcutter left the
house to chop wood in the forest, and the stepmother got ready to go to market
to do the Sabbath shopping. Before she left, she gave the children some food,
putting Moyshele’s in a pot and Sheyndele’s on a plate. She said, “Moyshele,
if you break the pot I’ll chop off your head, So you’d better not.” She told
Sheyndele, “Sheyndele, Sheyndele, just you wait, I’ll chop off your legs if
you break this plate.” Then she slammed the door and went to market. The
children were afraid to eat lest they break something, but the rooster
suddenly flew up on the table and knocked over the pot. It fell to the ground
and broke into teeny-tiny pieces. Moyshele, seeing them, was terrified and
began to cry. Sheyndele comforted him, saying, “Hush, Moyshele.Don’t cry.” And
she took the shards of the pot and pushed them into a corner of the room. When
the stepmother came home, she couldn’t find the pot. “Where is the pot?” she
asked Moyshele. “The rooster broke it,” he said. The stepmother was very
angry, but she pretended that nothing was the matter. Later she said to
Moyshele, “Come with me and I’ll wash your hair.” So Moyshele went with her.
She took him into another room and cut off his head, after which she cooked it
for supper. When the woodcutter came back from the forest he said, “Where is
Moyshele?” “I don’t know,” said the stepmother. Then they sat down at the
table and ate the soup and the meat. Sheyndele, unaware of what she was
eating, sucked the marrow from the bones and threw them out the window. A
little mound of earth covered the bones and when the glad summer came again, a
new Moyshele grew up out of it. Moyshele stood there on his little mound
until, seeing a tailor pass by, he called, “Tailor, tailor, make me a pair of
trousers and I’ll sing you a song:

    
    
        Murdered by my mother, 
        Eaten by my father, 
        and Sheyndele, when they were done, 
        Sucked the marrow from my bones 
        And threw them out the window.” 
      

The tailor, hearing the song, pitied him and made him a pair of trousers.
Moyshele put them on, and then a shoemaker went by. Moyshele called,
“Shoemaker, shoemaker, make me a pair of boots and I’ll sing you a song:

    
    
        Murdered by my mother, 
        Eaten by my father, 
        and Sheyndele, when they were done, 
        Sucked the marrow from my bones 
        And threw them out the window.” 
      

The shoemaker, hearing the song, pitied him and made him a pair of boots.
Moyshele put them on, and then a hatmaker went by. Moyshele called, “Hatmaker,
hatmaker, make me a hat and I’ll sing you a song:

    
    
        Murdered by my mother, 
        Eaten by my father, 
        and Sheyndele,
        when they were done,
        Sucked the marrow from my bones
        And threw them out the window.
      

The hatmaker, hearing the song, pitied him and made him a hat. And Moyshele
put it on and ran off to school.

    
    
        One log there, 
        One log gone. 
        As for my tale— 
        My tale is done.
    

\- Weinreich, Beatrice. Yiddish Folktales

> I’m all for showing your kids reality, and bringing them to the hospital or
> the wake or the funeral. But Tolstoy’s tales read more like an undigested
> rage at the world, unfortunately misdirected at children.

Yeah no. What's the point of such a teaching story as the one above? Perhaps
it's a story to teach resilience; _Even if the world treats you so badly, that
it sort of chews you up and spits you out, you can still make your way, though
perhaps it might just be by telling your sad story and playing on people 's
sympathies_.

~~~
krick
> in most modern editions they edit out the darker ones

Yeah, it's disgusting. It's incredibly hard to find actual stories now, they
are always screwed up by talentless editors. Reminds me of drawing fig leaves
over Renaissance pictures when protestantism took over.

------
superimposition
Here's free collection of Tolstoy's Fables for Children

[https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/leo-tolstoys-
fable...](https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/leo-tolstoys-fables-for-
children-1904)

------
pmontra
> The publicists of the most recent edition issued by Simon & Schuster, who
> seemingly did not read it, write of this book, “children will be able to
> take away important lessons, as well as laugh at silly mishaps and
> characters, from this timeless collection.”

This is possible but unfortunately the author of the article decided not to
answer his children:

> “Daddy,” my stunned four-year-old son asked, “why did the lion die?”

> “Daddy Daddy,” my daughter asked, still wondering about the now-dead lion’s
> lifestyle, “why did the people feed the lion puppies?”

Instead he "took the book away and hid it from" them. Not good parenting IHMO.
Don't read from that book again, OK, but find an answer to those questions.

~~~
aaronharnly
I happen to be a close personal friend of the author, and happen to know that
he answers deep and difficult questions from his children very directly and
well; and that he allows them to see all facets of life (an eagle eating a
mouse; a deer not surviving the winter) as a matter of course. Perhaps the
paragraph is simply lighthearted :)

------
ken
> I’m all for showing your kids reality

I really don't think that's why children's stories used to be macabre. Nobody
ever claimed these were accurate representations of reality.

------
wwwwewwww
I'm not sure why people compare these stories to folktales. These are not
folktales, they are short stories Tolstoy wrote for his school for peasant
children, where he also taught.

They are not meant to be read at bedtimeto small children, but thoughtful
reading material for kids of all ages who are learning to read. The kids who
are old enough to read the stories would be old enough to appreciate the
(often very sad) stories.

------
utopkara
A lot of the children's stories I heard growing up included violence of sorts.
Not saying it was necessarily good, but it is very common, hence perhaps is
either harmless or maybe beneficial in a convoluted way. fwiw, the stories
kept me from wandering into abandoned old houses, tall thick bushes, or too
far away from home; we were pretty much on our own when I was a kid.

------
billfruit
Not directly related, but many Soviet era children's stories, by Sergei
Mikalkhov, et al are very good and brilliantly illustrated.

------
hy56
> _If you do this, be sure to read something lighter afterward, like perhaps
> Anna Karenina’s suicide scene, or a biography of Sylvia Plath_

Nobody, including the author, seems to have mentioned the cultural aspect in
all this. Allow me:

Q: What is the difference between a Russian optimist and a Russian pessimist?

A: A Russian pessmist thinks that things can't get any worse. A Russian
optimist thinks they not only can, but will.

~~~
blankton
Im currently reading Archipel Gulag from Alexander Solschenitzyn and that joke
sounds quite familliar. The reality of the past century in Russia really
proved optimists wrong. Devestating to read that book. It literally puts me on
breaks to just sit and think. Sad that humans are capable of such cruelty.

~~~
coribuci
Keep in mind that this book was written in USA

~~~
lostinroutine
Actually, Solzhenitsyn was still residing in the USSR at the time of
completion of the book.

------
downerending
I'm still vaguely haunted by _Never Tease a Weasel_. Seen through children's
eyes, probably a lot of books targeting them are rather creepy.

~~~
ertian
But it's never what you'd expect. The stuff that bothers parents skips right
past the kids a lot of the time, but strange little things will freak a kid
right out. My son refuses to read some books (going so far as to hide one of
them), but I have no idea why; at the same time there are stories I find
downright creepy that he'll request over and over.

------
Igelau
I'll have to check it out. I've always liked the unsanitized endings. The wolf
fell upon Red and ate her -- the end. The wolf fell down the chimney and into
the stew, and the smartest pig ate him... probably along with a few pieces of
his brothers.

There's one in the Grimm Brothers called "The Knapsack, the Hat, and the Horn"
that's an incredibly bleak fable about power and corruption.

------
ConanRus
Actually, as Russian i know that most of classic Russian literature (before
revolution of 1917) is highly depressing. I was attending a school while USSR
was still alive, and even with relatively small number of classic russian
books passed thru Soviet censorship, it was always like this: sad and
depressing. Tolstoy, Nekrasov, Dostoevsky, Chekhov - no difference.

------
skylarchunk
For children or for adults, the fatalist style of Tolstoy is what lends him
the unmistakable charm. A part of our being, I think, will always desire to be
liberated from the norm of not discussing pity or death without any moral
undertone. Life and violence can be sad and violent, Tolstoy reminds us.

------
recursivedoubts
The Gigantic Turnip is an delightful children's book. I wore that thing to the
spine with my kids:

[https://www.amazon.com/Gigantic-Turnip-Aleksei-
Tolstoy/dp/19...](https://www.amazon.com/Gigantic-Turnip-Aleksei-
Tolstoy/dp/1905236581)

------
lihaciudaniel
>Anna Karenina’s suicide scene spoilers on side note, isn't Tolstoy famous for
being a Schopenhaeur influenced writers why did he had 13 children? He is a
great writer nontheless

------
smiljo
Did we break their site? :(

Edit: seems to be back up with everything in order.

------
yters
"Ring around the rosy" is about the plague.

"12 days of Christmas" and other tales and sings have hidden Christian
symbolism due to persecution.

------
ertian
I don't really agree with the author at all. His examples all seem like
meaningful stories.

The lion in the zoo? He lives off other animals, but when he stops to get to
know one he becomes so attached he can't live without it. Could be a simple
message about animal cruelty (IIRC, Tolstoy was vegetarian?). Could be a
parable about aristocrats & peasants, or capitalists and workers.

Escape of the Dancing Bear? The bear was recaptured because he fell into old
habits. Be careful not to do the same.

Death of the Cherry Tree? Could just be a message that all things are living,
stop and consider the damage you're causing. The blasé attitude of the
woodcutter is shocking: people can get used to anything. Possibly an analogy
for war or other cruelty which we casually accept.

The King and the Shirt: money doesn't buy happiness. It's not sad, the poor
man is legitimately happy. Possessions and worldly ties can bring unhappiness.
And it's ironic and thought-provoking, for kids.

The Old Poplar: obvious lessons about family ties. Don't send grandpa to a
home. And a neat lesson on systems: the obvious, common sense approach
backfired because things were more complex and interdependent than they looked
at first sight.

The Little Bird: some things are meant to be wild. Some things, when done,
can't be undone.

I honestly kinda like these stories. Not sure I'd read them to my 4-year-old,
though.

------
neonate
[https://archive.md/yBlli](https://archive.md/yBlli)

------
wallstprog
I much preferred the original title of the post -- why change it?

------
quotha
Those stories sound awesome, my kids would love them!

------
yters
The author knows old kids tales are violent, but there is a meaning to thr
tragedy. Tolstoy's stories are just meaninglessly violent and tragic.

~~~
xabotage
Assuming "meaningless" truly is an apt description for them, I actually think
this makes Tolstoy's stories seem all the more intriguing. Most violence and
tragedy in life is meaningless, we humans ascribe meaning to it. It's
sometimes fun to read a fictional piece and contemplate why the themes
resonate with me, without having a ham-handed, prefabricated meaning shoved
down my throat. Modernized fairy tales (and almost all modern fiction) are not
intended to confront the consumer with these kinds of emotional/intellectual
obstacles without a moralistic guide. This often makes it suitable for
children, but I wonder if we underestimate children's ability to confront this
kind of ambiguity (but that doesn't necessarily mean we should read Tolstoy's
stories to them, or only ever offer ambiguity as a moral socialization
strategy).

~~~
yters
Meaningless violence is too easy, so is ham fisted moralizing. True classics
find some kind of meaning, even in the meaninless tragedy of life, like the
Iliad.

~~~
xabotage
Agreed, I think the secret is often a kind of subtlety that can often be
confused with meaninglessness. For example, the first time I read "Of Mice and
Men", I found the "meaningless" suffering to be infuriating - how could this
book possibly be considered a classic? - until I later understood more context
around the novel's time period and message, and realized it was only my
juvenile tastes and expectations that made it seem meaningless (no happy
ending? What is this tripe?)

I doubt Tolstoy wrote his stories without some kind of purpose, but I agree it
would be a mistake to try too hard looking for meaning in case he just felt
like writing up some sad shit.

~~~
yters
The Iliad is an example of a classic with a bunch of meaningless suffering.
But, the story is much deeper than 'bad stuff happens, the end' or 'bad stuff
happens, that's just life'. I can write that kind of story all day, and I
appeared deep to myself as a kid because I could 'see through' the meaning. At
the end of the day, that sort of story is just boring. A real artist is the
one who does get to some kind of coherent meaning to the whole thing. E.g.
Iliad is a commentary on the Hellenist virtue ethic, and questioning why an
ideally virtuous man like Hector is pulverized by a rage controlled tyrant
like Achilles, without merely amounting to the juvenile 'virtue is
meaningless' that passes as intellectualism these days. The same question is
asked in the Psalms by the writer wondering at the fact that so many good
people are oppressed and the wicked flourish. The Iliad began a conversation
that echoes deep throughout history even to our present day. 'Bad stuff
happens' just doesn't have that kind of staying power. People intuitively know
there is more to our reality than that. That's why we are so bothered by
sociopaths running our companies and governments. If 'bad stuff happens' is
all there is to the story, then we would not be bothered.

------
1f60c
Is the site down?

------
rectang
> * Tolstoy wrote them; they couldn’t be that bad. Now I sincerely wish I had
> never touched them.*

The reviewer is Disney's useful idiot. Gotta stay away from Tolstoy — it's not
just disturbing, it's actually dangerous!

Only Bowdlerized and Disneyfied happy happy joy joy for your kids!

And if you aren't perpetually happy all your life, it's not not that the
universe is indifferent to human suffering, it's that there's something wrong
with _you_.

> _There isn’t even that much to talk to your children about: trees are nice,
> don’t cut them down so much? People are not all that happy?_

Yeah. Maybe "People are not all that happy" would be a good thing for kids to
learn.

~~~
notyourday
Old Disney stuff was dark. The fluffy versions are relatively recent.

~~~
ken
How far do I have to go back? I know Sleeping Beauty (1959) is definitely much
sanitized from the stories it's based on.

~~~
notyourday
Thirties and forties.

~~~
coribuci
Snow white is dark ???

Disney is brainwash for children.

