Fairytale Crime Museum Trivia Quiz

The fairy tale "Snow White" was part of "Grimms' Fairy Tales" and first published in 1857. It is the well-known story of a stepmother who wants to kill her stepdaughter because she is more beautiful than herself. A hunter is asked to kill the stepdaughter, but he shows pity on her; she runs away and finds shelter with seven dwarfs. The queen detects this and tries to kill her three more times (including the use of an apple). Everything ends well, and the girl ends up with a prince.

Museum Guide Commentary:
"This is a reconstruction of the bewitched apple. You remember that the victim choked on it? It was the most successful attempt of the queen to kill Snow White, but thankfully the prince saved her."

Another Grimm tale. First the sons are evicted from home, because the father believes the goat's report that the sons don't feed her well. When he finds out the truth, he kicks her out of the house. Alas, the sons have left him. Each learns a trade and gets paid with stuff for it. The first receives a table, which decks itself with delicious food; the second one gets a ass, which emits gold coins from the two major openings. They are swindled by an innkeeper on their way home. The last son gets a cudgel, hidden in a bag until needed. Then it thrashes everyone on command. And that is the way they get both table and ass back.

Museum Guide Commentary:
"Yes, we are still looking for the goat. It is still lost. The father said that he himself has evicted the goat. His three sons could not tell about her whereabouts, they were away learning trades and had to deal with that scoundrel. The innkeeper now complained against them because of excessive violence."

The Grimm brothers published this story in the 1810s. In the story, a foolish princess loses her golden ball in a well, an enchanted frog gets it back and wants to eat with her and sleep in her bed. She tries to avoid this, but the king, her father, forces her to fulfil her promises. In the end, the princess loses her temper and throws the amphibian against the wall and it is transformed in a prince. In more modern interpretation she only kisses him to transform him.

Museum Guide Commentary:
"I guess the golden ball is a bit out of proportion in comparison to the frog, what do you think? The frog is still reported missing since he jumped to the castle, to demand his payment from the princess for lifting the ball. I don't trust the princess, and the so-called prince telling everyone HE was the frog before getting disenchanted. Something sinister happened in the princess's bedroom."

The story is an old one; people were afraid of wolves for a long, long time. Perrault told his story in France, the Brothers Grimm in Germany. In France the savior was a woodcutter. An innocent girl is tricked by a vicious animal, she and her grandma are eaten. They are saved by a hunter, who cuts them out of the stomach of the animal, they are still alive.

Museum Guide Commentary:
"Looks a bit vicious, that wolf, does it. How Little Red Riding Hood could blab out that she was on her way to grandma is beyond my imagination. How a wolf could swallow two persons, well..."

One of the best known fairy tales, it deals with the story of two children abandoned by their parents in the wood. They were lured into the house of a witch who planned to eat the children. The clever girl killed the witch, and they left the wood and went home to their father, loaded with a treasure.

Museum Guide Commentary:
"Don't think that the "Pfefferkuchenhaus" (Gingerbread house) looked that nice after suffering from the weather and hungry animals. But the children were famished after being lost for some time, so they might have seen it like this. I wonder where the old lady, called a witch by the kids, is now? They won't have burnt her really alive, I honestly hope so. But the children had a bad upbringing."

This fairy tale might be based on the martyrdom of the Irish St. Dymphna who was desired by her own father, Damon. She was killed by him in Belgium. The girl in the fairy tale had more luck: she was able to escape and found a better husband.

The guide tells you more details:"This is the fur coat and the golden ring. Imagine: the poor girl was nearly forced into an incestuous wedding by her own father. In her despair she asked for three special dresses and a fur made from the fur of every animal in the kingdom. When her father was able to provide her with this, she decided to flee her dastardly father; she also took with her a golden spindle, a golden reel, and that golden ring. She did wear the furs as a disguise and got work in our palace kitchen. Our king was able to unmask her. They will marry now. And no: her father will not be invited!"

There is more than one version of what happened to a large group of real children who went missing in the Middle Ages in the northern German town of Hamelin, maybe victims of one of the religious sects, maybe some migration to another place lured by tall stories or perhaps the children went with a crusade to the Holy Land? Or maybe something like the Black Death and the piper is death himself, playing the dance of death? A fact is real: the town earns many Euros due to tourism nowadays, because the piper was not paid.

Museum Guide Commentary:
"That's just one of many rats. A stuffed, fat one. They swarmed in the whole town of Hamelin. Then a piper came and offered to free us from them, just playing with his pipe. The vermin followed him out of the town. They were drowned in the local river, the Weser. When he wasn't paid, he returned and lured the children out of the town. They haven't been seen since, only two returned, but couldn't help to find the others."

The wish to eat as much as you want, and every time, seems a wonderful dream at a time when hunger is always knocking at the door. So when a good old lady gifts a poor little girl a magic pot, which is able to cook sweet porridge (which was a staple at that times) whenever it is wanted, this was very welcome. As it is with such presents: in wrong hands they turn to the opposite, which is in this case involved a village filled with porridge.

Museum Guide Commentary:
"Quite some damage on several buildings and infrastructure from that sweet, sticky stuff. The daughter got a magical pot that would cook sweet millet porridge. But you did need to know the right words to stop or start it. But guess what? One day, the mother wanted some porridge; the child was out. Mum thought she could do it alone. She erred, she forgot how to stop. It took the daughter to do this, but only after the whole village was covered in porridge. And it was very sticky, and you had to eat your way through it."

Another Grimm/Perrault fairy tale, best known in its Disney version. It is the story of a princess who pricks herself on a spindle, then falls asleep together with everyone in the castle. The whole castle is overgrown with roses until, after 100 years of sleep (it is shorter in the Disney movie), a prince hacks through the roses and kisses her. Everything awakes, they are happy ever after.

Museum Guide Commentary:
"One prince went rampaging with his sword amongst the ramble roses, just because he thought a princess was asleep behind them. Just this one rose survived. And the princess was not pleased seeing him next to her bed. She claims she just overslept."

Perrault wrote about the helpful cat who looked after his master and made him rich - he even arranged a good marriage, but Giovanni Francesco Straparola first told about the purring helper.

Guide (at the end of the tour):
"Looks cute, that white cat. We call her Winnie. The miller's son told us she wanted to wear boots. No cat would want to wear boots. Why should they? They need their claws. So we arrested him because of cruelty against animals, and that lovely cat now works in the castle as vermin control."