Match Up Fairy Tale Characters Quiz

Answer: Snow White

First published by the Brothers Grimm in 1812, "Snow White" tells the story of a beautiful princess, with a wicked and jealous stepmother who orders the girl killed. Only the gentle heart of the huntsman who takes her into the woods to do the deed saves her, and she flees for her life, finally landing at the cottage of seven dwarfs, diamond miners who befriend her. When the queen, via her magic mirror, eventually realises that Snow White is still alive, she attempts to murder her by several means, succeeding - as she thinks - on the third time with that famous poisoned apple, the bite of which sends Snow White into a deathlike sleep.

Does Snow White get saved? Is the queen punished for her wicked deeds? Does the story have a happy ending? Yes indeed. Once the wicked queen has been dispatched - far more brutally than in the much later movie - and with Snow White far too beautiful to bury in the ground, the dwarfs enclose her body in a glass casket in the woods, where one day a handsome prince, riding by, espies it. This kinky fellow promptly falls in love with the corpse, and reluctantly the dwarfs agree to let him have it. When he moves the casket however, the piece of poisoned apple in Snow White's throat falls out and she comes back to life. Love soon follows and the obligatory happy ever after ending ensues.

Answer: Rumpelstiltskin

"Rumpelstiltskin" was one of the tales published by the Brothers Grimm in their 1812 "Children's and Household Tales". This story relates the tale of a miller's foolishness when he brags that his daughter can spin straw into gold. Unfortunately he brags to the wrong person - the king - who promptly locks the girl in a straw filled room in his castle, telling her to spin it into gold or else lose her life. As she weeps and wails at her approaching doom, an ugly gnome like creature appears and, in exchange for her necklace, does the miraculous spinning for her. This is repeated again, with the girl losing her ring on the second day to him. On the third day, however, when the king demands the same impossible task from the girl, he once again says she will die if she fails, but that he will marry her if she succeeds. Obviously this was Henry VIII. With nothing left to give the gnome, he again surprisingly spins the straw into gold for the girl, but announces afterwards, to her horror, that the price this time is her first born child.

When he returns months later to claim that baby, the new queen manages to fob him off by agreeing that if she can guess his name correctly within three days, she will be released from her debt. Failing on the first two days to guess his name, the queen follows him on the third and hears him laughing and talking to himself in glee at the prospect of taking her child, during which he reveals that he is called Rumpelstiltskin. The story has a more or less happy ending whereby this villain accidentally kills himself out of rage when his name is subsequently guessed. Other versions have him running away in rage, never to be seen again. The moral of this story is that girls with foolish fathers and avaricious husbands should flee for their lives, babies in tow, before their ever so romantic husbands run out of straw money.

Answer: Goldilocks

The most popular version of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears", written by Robert Southey in 1837, was simply called "The Story of the Three Bears". The three bears in question were all bachelors, and the first "Goldilocks" was an old woman who invaded their premises. She was described by Southey as being "bad, foul-mouthed, ugly, dirty, and a vagrant deserving of a stint in the House of Correction". This poor old lady had been abandoned by her family in the woods - dumped in other words - and was possibly suffering from onset dementia. Probably ravenous with hunger, she enters the home of the bears, eats their porridge and then falls asleep in the smallest bear's bed. When the bears return and find her she jumps out of the window to escape and breaks her poor old neck. As you all know, this tale has undergo several major changes since then, with the heroine becoming a delightful young blonde, and the bears a respectable, suitably gender oriented family.

Another version of this woeful tale, written by Eleanor Mure in 1831, sees the porridge substituted with milk, and the still wicked old woman finally being impaled on the steeple of St Paul's Cathedral for her crimes. One modern psychologist, Bruno Bettelheim, in his 1976 work "The Uses of Enchantment" states that Goldilocks had Oedipal issues and fails to "confront adolescent identity problems", while Elms, another person from la-la land, focuses on the "anal aspect of the tale". They got all that from a bowl of porridge??

Answer: Hansel and Gretel

"Hansel and Gretel", published by the Brothers Grimm in 1812, once again features a murderous ugly old woman. In this sorry tale, which probably scared children out of their wits for many generations, we have a disturbed female parent and her weak-willed husband who abandon their children in the woods to fend for themselves because they have no food left in the house. Although the children cleverly find their way back home after the first desertion, a second attempt sees them lost, tired and hungry, and unable to find their way back home again. One wonders why on earth they would want to?

Obviously delirious from hunger, they finally stumble deep in the woods upon a cottage made out of all kinds of good food and proceed to nibble some of it, when - oh my goodness - the door springs open and a hideously ugly old woman with cannibalistic intentions is revealed! She tricks them into coming inside and then, over a period of days, fattens Hansel up ready to be eaten, while Gretel is forced to do the housework. Typical stereotyping at work. These aren't any ordinary children however, and eventually the wicked woman is tricked into seeing how hot the oven is - preparatory to eating both children - and Gretel pushes her in. There she screams and screams in agony until she dies. The two children then discover a cache of precious stones in the house, take them, and make their way back home to their father who is mourning for them. Their evil mother has mysteriously died in the meantime. One suspects there was more than one cannibal in this tale of horror. In later versions of "Hansel and Gretel", the wicked mother is presented as a wicked step-mother instead.

Just as a side note, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, following the death of their father and grandfather, were often very hungry as children as well. The family was completely impoverished and often starving. Jacob, as soon as he could, had to abandon his studies to take on the responsibilities of bread winner for his mother, brother (who was in constant ill health) and two younger siblings, but even then they could only manage to have one meal a day. The extra stress they placed on hungry children in many of their later tales is thus completely understandable. Not so perhaps their obsession with wicked old women and evil stepmothers.

Answer: Cinderella

The most popular of the many versions of Cinderella was published by Giambattista Basile in 1634, with two other equally popular version published by the Grimm Brothers in 1812 and Charles Perrault in 1697. Perrault's version is perhaps the one with which we are most familiar. Again featuring a wicked stepmother, with a disgraceful, uncaring father thrown in for good measure, Cinderella, the daughter of his first wife, is left to the tender mercies and that stepmother and her two mean and ugly step-sisters, with all three treating the lovely Cinderella abominably. With the aid of a fairy godmother, Cinderella is miraculously twice allowed to go a famous ball given by the young prince of the land, during which he hopes to find his future bride. They dance and fall in love on both occasions, but at the stroke of midnight on the second night, Cinderella, who must be back in her ashes on both nights, is so smitten with her prince that she almost forgets that stricture. When the clock begins to strike the ominous hour, she comes to her senses, and flees the ballroom, leaving behind one of her beautiful glass slippers.

Her prince then travels throughout his kingdom searching for the owner of this charming footwear, but finding none whose foot fits perfectly into it, before finally making it to Cinderella's home. Initially taunted by her stepsisters when she begs to try it on, she is eventually allowed to - and voila, it fits! So they all live happily ever after, with Cinderella forgiving her family for their woeful mistreatment of her. She even organises for her two ugly, mean step-sisters to marry handsome gentlemen in the prince's court, thus improving the gene pool of the family line. The apparent lesson to be learned from this tale is that while a good hairdresser is a delight and a good dressmaker is a gem, what a gal really needs if she wishes to marry well in life (snort!) is a superb shoemaker who can turn out perfectly customised footwear.

Answer: Pinocchio

Pinocchio, Geppetto's little carved wooden boy, who goes through many of life's trials, errors and temptations before finally turning into a real live boy at last, is the main character in "The Adventures of Pinocchio", written by Carlo Collodi in 1883. He comes complete with a wooden nose that grows longer every time he tells a fib. This has been replaced in the modern age with an electric lie detector which isn't nearly as efficient. Pinocchio's journey through life is a little like Mark Twain's "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (1884), but whereas Pinocchio embraces civilisation and family life at the close of his tale, Huck plans to flee to Indian territory to avoid being adopted and civilised.

Oh, this is too hilarious for words! Because Collodi was an ardent supporter of Italian unification, some analysts see Pinocchio's ultimate realisation of responsibility and moral strength at the conclusion of the story, as playing a large part in the formation in the modern country of Italy, which finally took place in 1871. I've heard everything now. The inclusion of the growing nose every time Pinocchio tells a fib in this story is also comical. Our little wooden puppet is so distressed at that large wooden schnoz jutting out from his face, and growing longer by the minute, that the Blue Fairy (who turned him into a boy at last) relents and has woodpeckers peck it back to normal size each time. Downright painful, not to mention disconcerting. One can only imagine what psychiatrists make of that troublesome nose.

Answer: Twelve Dancing Princesses

"The Twelve Dancing Princesses" is one of the many stories appearing in the Grimm's collection of fairy stories published in 1812. With each one more beautiful than the next, the princesses are locked in by their father every night so they can't go out and get into mischief - but every morning, without fail, it is found that their dancing shoes have been worn clear through. As they refuse to tell their father what they've been doing, the king promises his kingdom and EACH daughter to any man who can solve this mystery. That's disgusting. The catch is that if that sturdy soul can't discover the secret within three days, he will be put to death. What an incentive.

Many try, many fail, many perish. Then one old returned soldier steps up to the plate. He has a secret helper in a convenient old woman he stumbled across in a wood. She gives him an invisibility cloak and warns him not to eat any food or drink the princesses give him in the evening. That evening the eldest princess comes to his room and offers him a glass of wine, the clever hussy, but the soldier tosses it out when she isn't looking and the pretends to fall asleep, snoring loudly for effect. Then he follows them as they sneak out through a trap door in the floor, through a riches laden wood, on their way to meet twelve princes waiting with boats to row them to a castle where they dance the night away.

On the third day, having collected evidence, the old soldier presents his story - and proof - to the king, and the princesses confess, with all but one of them put under a temporary curse as punishment. Then the king makes the old soldier his heir. He only chooses the reluctant eldest princess as his bride however because he feels he's too old to keep up with all the younger ones. Don't you just love the inference there? Puff, puff. Later versions of this story have various amendments made to the plot so that it ends on a somewhat happier note than this one.

Answer: Rapunzel

Also included in Grimms' 1812 "Children's and Household Tales", "Rapunzel" tells the story of a long childless couple who are finally expecting their first child. Unfortunately, and fifty per cent of the world has probably experienced this, the wife begins to experience food cravings. The food for which she yearns, known as rapunzel, only grows in the garden of the evil witch who lives next door. Foolishly the husband, instead of politely knocking and asking if he can buy some, scales the wall between their properties and steals some of the plant instead - only to be caught on the second attempt by the witch. He is saved from certain death by promising to give the baby, when it is born, to her. When this eventuates, the witch takes the child, and, in a fine piece of dramatic irony, she names it Rapunzel. When the child grows to be more and more beautiful every day, the witch finally locks her up in a tower to which there is no entry, except by climbing up Rapunzel's long golden tresses which she is ordered to let down as a form of golden ladder.

One day a handsome prince hears Rapunzel singing and is entranced. He locates the tower, but when he realises he cannot access this chastity belt-like structure, he hides and watches to see how the beautiful girl within can be reached. After the witch has been and gone again, and he has discovered that secret, he strides over to the tower and calls for Rapunzel to let down her golden hair. Up he scrambles, into the tower, and the pair promptly fall in love, and yes, he impregnates her. Rapunzel, one should add, is only twelve at the time. Disgraceful! When the evil witch finds this out, she cuts off Rapunzel's hair and tosses her out into the wilderness to fend for herself. When the prince returns that night, only to find the witch there, he leaps from the tower in horror, falling into the thorns below and blinding himself.

For months he wanders the wilderness, until one day he hears beautiful singing once more. It is the very self-sufficient Rapunzel, who is now living there with the twin boy and girl to whom she has given birth. They fall into each other's arms and Rapunzel's tears of joy land on the prince's eyes and miraculously restore his vision and they all live happily ever after. Perhaps Rapunzel had even named her children Fiddle and Sticks.

Answer: The Boy Who Cried Wolf

"The Boy Who Cried Wolf" was one of the tales created by a slave and storyteller named Aesop, who lived, it is thought, between the years of 620-564 BC. These stories weren't collected and compiled into the work "Aesop's Fables" until poor old Aesop had been dead for three centuries, so who knows how many were added to, or omitted from, his originals. The naughty boy who shouted out "Wolf!" kept doing so because he thought it was very funny to see all the villagers rushing out to save his sheep. There is something just the tiniest bit smile-evoking about a kid full of mischief pulling a trick like this on adults, but this little fellow wasn't content to stop after the first time. He pulls this trick several more times until disaster strikes. When a wolf finally does appear, and he screams out "Wolf!" in terror, the ruffled and annoyed villagers ignore his cries for help - and he AND his sheep are eaten by the hairy beast.

It's usual for many fairy tales to become a little less violent with later re-writes, but in this particular one, only the sheep are eaten in the first version. The later version has the boy being gobbled up as well. Poor little imp. I bet he was tow-haired, had freckles, with his front teeth missing and was just adorable. And that's the wonderful thing about the written word. The reader gets to create all the images in his or her head as the story unfolds. Later film or television versions never quite live up to that.

Answer: Red Riding Hood

"Red Riding Hood" has had so many versions written that it's a little difficult to know when it first originated. It is generally believed, however, that it sprang from an assortment of folk tales in the 10th century, with later adaptations by Italo Calvino, Charles Perrault and the grim Grimm Brothers. A combined telling of this tale gives us a little girl named after the red cloak she often wears, who is sent by her mother to take some food to her sick grandmother, but with the instructions not to wander from the known path to that abode, and to never, ever talk to strangers. Spied upon and stalked by a wicked wolf, that hairy beast finally approaches the girl who has wandered off the path to pick some flowers, to find out her destination and she innocently tells him. He then races ahead to the grandmother's house, and either gobbles that old lady down or locks her up in a cupboard (depending on the version), and then, donning the old lady clothes, waits in bed for Red Riding Hood to appear. Psychiatrists everywhere again rub their hands together with glee at these additions to the tale.

What follows next is a somewhat comical dialogue between the little girl and the wolf. "Oh grandma, what big eyes you have" and "All the better to see you with, my dear" replies the wolf in a falsetto voice. Then the big ears etc follow with the same castrati voice reply, before finally "Oh grandma, what big TEETH you have!" cries Red Riding Hood. At that, the wolf leaps out of bed, crying in his normal voice "All the better to EAT you with, my dear!" and it is here that this tale has the most variety of endings. Red Riding Hood is either eaten by the wolf or not, she is either saved at the last minute by either her father, or a woodcutter, or a hunter at the last minute, or not, and, if indeed eaten, the wolf's stomach is cut open to reveal both her and her grandmother still alive inside. It's very confusing and most unsatisfactory. Safe to say, though, is that both the girl and her grandma survive this traumatic experience, the wolf suffers a suitably violent punishment (cheers from the Bring Back Capital Punishment movement) and Red Riding Hood never ever disobeyed her mother's orders again. Obviously this tale is the one most favoured by Mamas everywhere.