Not All Fairy Tales Are True – Part Two
In a previous essay, we discussed just a few of the old fairy tales when we pulled back the curtains to reveal what really happened with those old tales which may have been altered for children. Today we have a few more revelations that can be correctly adjusted to the true story. Any children who might be easily shocked or dismayed by this discussion, is hereby warned to stop reading at this point and return to their televisions for some of the moronic cartoons that reside therein.
We will first tackle the story that relates the tale of the big bad wolf and the three pigs. The reality here is not as much fun as what was related in the story books or cartoons. The three pigs were a group of young hooligans. They had all come into a nice inheritance when an uncle Arnie Pig passed on and being childless, left the dough to his three nephews. (In just about all the fairy tales and cartoon characters, everyone seems to have nephews, but never kids.) Anyway. The pigs, Eddie, Freddie and Skip, were not the brightest porkers in the pot and dissipated their funds pretty quickly. Freddie only had enough cash to build a straw house, Eddie did manage a small wooden house and Skip, who was a tiny bit brighter than the other two, worked out a deal to buy a brick house on an interest only loan.
So there you have the house situation. As previously mentioned, the pig brothers were a group of callow miscreants, looking for action in all their idle time. The wolf in this tale, Herkimer T. Wolf, was getting pretty old and had basically retired from all his previous activities. Sure, he still liked to have the odd pork loin if available, but most days he dined on a basic vegetarian diet. He wasn’t as fast as he used to be, and the years of smoking cheap cigars had impacted his wind power. He lived in a small hovel at the edge of the woods. Although there were rumors that he did have money. which he had earned when he took a flyer on investing in pork bellies a few years back, the presence of wealth was not reflected in his residence.
The pigs were always looking for new things to occupy their time. One day Freddie suggested that they hike on out to the woods and see if they could have some fun at the expense of Mr. Wolf. So they trotted their little tails one sunny day and proceeded to serenade Wolf with a few sarcastic songs. He eventually came out of his abode and told them to take off. This, of course, had no effect on the pig brothers and they continued to heap abuse on the poor wolf. Losing his patience, he ran out after them and chased them back to Eddie’s straw house. Assuming that the wolf was out of breath, they continued their assault on his good name. They had not noticed that Mr. Wolf had brought his cordless leaf blower with him. He turned that baby on at full strength and the straw house was soon a windy memory. The pigs took themselves to Freddie’s stick built shack and hid out there. As the flow of insults from the pigs versus the wolf did not recede, the wolf knew he needed to take another tack to eject them from this house. He looked in his tool kit and saw that he had his wood cutting axe, which had just been sharpened. So he went to the wood house and warned the pigs to stop bothering him or he would tear down this house as well. The pigs did not give a fig or a care about the wolf’s threats. Seeing that they would not relent, the wolf began to hack away at the cheap foundation of that wood house. Before you could say: “bacon and sausage for breakfast…” that little wooden house was soon coming down onto the pigs. Now, they were finally feeling a little less reckless and becoming fearful, ran with the greatest alacrity available to them, to Skip’s brick house.
Once they were safely ensconced in that well built brick edifice, they felt that they could continue to annoy and tease the old wolf to their little heart’s content. They began to make a series of prank telephone calls to his house. They would order pizza and have it sent to the wolf. They even were brave enough, to ride their little scooter one evening out to the woods and proceeded to hurl eggs at the windows and doors of the wolf’s humble home. The next day, the wolf came down to Skip’s cottage. He came to the door and warned them, that if they did not cease and desist from their behavior to him, he would leave them homeless, permanently. The silly pigs, just laughed and laughed and continued to mock the wolf and even used some bad swear words too. The wolf had had enough of this and decided it was time for action. He stormed off into the night, chased by the insults and laughter of the pigs.
A few days later, as the pigs were eating a leisurely breakfast and planning their evil activities of the day, there was a loud knocking at the front door. They looked out the little peephole and were shocked to see the sheriff and a couple of his deputies on the porch. The sheriff informed the pigs that they were being evicted from the home and had ten minutes to evacuate the premises. Freddie and Eddie turned to Skip and asked them how could this be? Skip admitted that he did have a pile of unopened mail from the bank and the finance company, but had been too busy to take a look at it. It turned out that the wolf had been doing his homework on this. The house was already subject to a short sale as Skip was upside down on his mortgage in a big way. The bank accepted the Wolf’s offer and he was the new owner of the brick house. The pigs were escorted out of the house with their belongings. Much to their supreme dismay, they watched as a moving van was being unloaded and Mr. Herkimer T. Wolf was now moving into the house. He was heard to be humming a little ditty that sounded like, Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Wolf etc etc etc, and he had a big smile on his old wolf face.
So you can see, that this story was much simpler when it was just told as a little story about the innocent three little pigs getting attacked by the big, bad wolf. But when you get to the bottom of the real story, truth indeed, is stranger than fiction.
In order to do justice to one other old fairy tale, we should look into the case of Hansel and Gretel. We all know the story about these two poor kids with the evil step-mother, getting lost in the woods, eating the old witch’s house and the shoving into the oven. All in all it was a violent tale with a happy ending for the kids. It has been repeated so many times, that you will never hear anywhere, except in this time and place, what the real story was of this supposed Fairy Tale.
To begin with, the names of the kids were kind of hyped to make them sound better. The real names were just plain, Hans and Greta. They did have a step-mother. Their real mother left the family abode when the kids were younger. She always wanted to be in the circus, and so the next time the circus came through town, she fled in the middle of the night along with it. She eventually became part of an act with the elephant Mambo. It was known as Mambo and Betty the Dancing Queens. In order to perform with no inhibitions, Betty would always quaff a number of flagons of beer before each show. Some nights she would give one mug to Mambo as a treat. Well, one hot and steamy night, Betty felt sorry for Mambo and gave her a couple of buckets of beer before the act. That night, during the encore, Mambo, instead of doing one-two-three step up, did one-two-three step back and that was that for the act and poor Betty. So the kids would not see mother again.
The step-mother was really a decent soul, but had a hard time cooking, cleaning and taking care of the two brats. They were not cooperative and always tried to aggravate their new mother. One morning, after an ugly scene over the breakfast table, Hans and Greta stormed out of the house, supposedly on their way to school. Instead, they made their way off into the neighboring woods to seek adventure and hide out from the truant officer. While walking through the woods, they came across a beautiful, rushing stream. Looking to find their way across, they stumbled in the underbrush onto a quaint wooden, footbridge. They ran across the bridge and eventually came to a small clearing. They began to smell these wonderful waves of sweet chocolate and baked goods. At the far edge of the clearing, they saw a little cottage tucked into woods. They were drawn to the place by the aromatic scent of the goodies which must reside within. Hans looked through the window and did not see anyone inside. They knocked at the door. When no one answered they walked inside and were astonished by the pile of fudge, candies, and brownies on the tables in the kitchen. Not in any way being shy, they both began to assault the plates with gusto. They ate the fudge, they demolished the candy and had their way with most of the cookies. They looked around for something to drink, but only spied a jug of hard cider. Throwing caution to the wind, they washed the goodies down with the cider. Before you knew it, they were both passed out on the cottage floor.
A short time later, into the door came the owner and baker, Fannie, with a basket of cooking supplies that she needed for her next batch. She viewed the wreckage and bodies with some dismay. She had a big order that needed to be sent out the next day. As she had a very successful mail order business, Fannie’s Goodies, and this was a very unpleasant turn of events. She remembered that in her haste that morning, she had forgotten to cover up the entrance to her secret bridge, and this was the result of that error. She quickly formulated a plan to resolve the issue. She went into her bedroom and pulled out her old Colt .45 out of her socks drawer and found her fly swatter and a small blackjack. Armed for the occasion, she returned to the kitchen and threw a couple of buckets of water on the tykes. They awoke in a terrible mood and made to attack old Fannie, but came to their senses when confronted with the pistol and blackjack. She let them know in short order what she wanted them to do. They would have to bake and cook and sweat and work, under her close directions and recipes, until they had completely replaced everything that they had consumed, and another batch the same size as punishment for what they had done. The two hooligans, hooted and crowed and swore so bad that it would curl the hair on a drunken sailor. Fannie would have none of it. She slapped them around with the fly swatter and set them to work. No matter how much they cried, they would not leave until the work was done.
Seeing that resistance would be of no use, they heaved their way into the tasks at hand. In a surprisingly short time, Fannie had the little knuckleheads hard at work and getting the assembly line filled with goodies. They labored longer that day, then they had at any time in their short, unfortunate lives. It was hard work, and no breaks were given. Eventually, as the sun was setting in the west, they had filled the tables and tins and shelves with the required treats. Fannie had sampled each batch as it was out of the oven or bowls, and if it was not to her liking, they had to start over again. So, they finally had completed the task to her satisfaction. They had no interest in sampling any of the snacks themselves, as they were sick of the whole enterprise. They wearily asked Fannie if they could now go home. Fannie made them stand by the front door, with their backs to her. They might have thought she was going to shoot them, since they quivered and moaned as they stood there. She tied a rag around the eyes of both of them and pushed them through the door. It was now getting quite dark and Hans and Greta were terrified about what might happen next. Fannie led them through the woods to the bridge and guided them over it, and made them walk a little while longer with the blindfolds in place. She then told them to lie down and start counting. When they reached 500 they could take off their blindfolds and they would be able to make their way safely home from there. Fannie withdrew and made sure that the entrance to her hidden bridge would not be found again.
Hans and Greta, stayed quivering on the ground a little while longer, as they could barely count to forty and had no idea how to arrive at 500, so they just waited till they thought it was safe. They then jumped up, with no glance behind them, and ran as if their pants were on fire, all the way home. You know the rest. When they got home, they made up the whole story about the bread crumbs, the ginger bread house and the wicked witch, the oven etc etc. Their father and step-mother, took pity on them and offered them each a large glass of cold milk with a stack of hot cookies. They were stunned, when Hans and Greta, declined the proffered treats and just toddled off to bed. After these events, the family, basically lived happily ever after. Fannie and her Fannie’s Farm Treats, eventually became a successful entrepreneur and she also lived happily ever after.
the end
copyright 2018