Religious Subjects in Fairytales Quiz

Answer: Cinderella

There is a "Cinderella" type story in almost every culture, but the Grimm version seems to be Christian based. The angelic behavior of Cinderella and her mother is emphasize​d, such as in the quote in the question. No matter how cruel her stepmother and stepsisters were to her, Cinderella remained sweet and obedient. Charles Perrault's version likewise references her good behavior and Perrault states that her birth mother was the best creature in the whole world.

Despite her mother telling​ her that she will watch over her from Heaven, there is a sense that she somehow communicated with Cinderella through the grave. Cinderella planted a tree on her mother's grave and it was that tree, along with some birds, that acted as a helper to her. In other words, the tree and birds in the Grimm version are equivalent to the fairy godmother in Perrault's version. From my perspective, the spirit of her dead mother is both in Heaven and in the tree--not exactly Biblical, but makes for a cute storyline.

Answer: Sleeping Beauty

A christening, in religious traditions such as Catholicism and Anglicanism, is both a baby naming ceremony and a baptism. The basic idea is that the baby will be cleansed from original sins, given a Christian name, and dedicated to the congregation. Interestingly, the main definition of a godmother is a lady who sponsors a child at his or her baptism.

Charles Perrault's​ "Sleeping Beauty" is about a king and queen who desperately wanted a child for years, but the queen had been barren. When a princess was finally born, a grand christening was held for her. As the quote explains, they invited fairy godmothers to the celebration, but they forgot to invite an old fairy. The wicked old fairy took her vengeance out on the infant, by cursing her to prick her hand on a spinning wheel and die. A younger fairy declared that she wouldn't die, but sleep for a hundred years.

Answer: Genie

Islam includes the concept of genies. According to the Wikipedia article on the spiritual beings, the Quran frequently mentions genies and states that Allah created jinn (Arabic for genies) from a smokeless fire. Muslims believe that genies can be good, satanic, or neutral. Wikipedia also states that there is evidence that people worshipped genies in pre-Islamic times, in the Bedouin religion.

The setting of the original "Aladdin" story is apparently China, but it includes many Islamic themes, which has led some people to conclude that the author's "China" is fictionalized or that the author thought China was more Muslim than it really was. The story could just as easily take place in Arabia or Persia.

Answer: The Virgin Mary adopts a young girl from a poor family.

I actually was unfamiliar with this fairytale until I started researching more for this quiz. Judging by the title, I thought it was going to be about Mary and Jesus in some way, but it has nothing to do with Jesus, except for the fact that she introduces herself as "Virgin Mary, mother of Baby Jesus".

The plot centers around Mary appearing to a poor woodcutter, who had a little daughter. Seeing how poor he was, Mary offered to adopt the girl and give her a better life. She then took her to Heaven and raised her there. Long story short, her "child" disobeyed Mary. The child opened a door that she told her not to open, so Mary made the girl return to Earth. Mary continually appeared to her daughter, who was not a girl anymore, but a grown queen with children of her own, and Mary tried to convince the queen that she should confess her sins, which included​ not just disobedience, but dishonesty​ as well. Finally, at the end, she yelled, "Yes, Mary, I did it!" and Mary forgave her.

This tale seems to portray some doctrines or beliefs of Roman Catholicism. Catholics believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary, which claims that she remained a virgin after Christ's birth. "Mary's Child" definitely calls her the Virgin Mary. Another example is how she often descends from Heaven and appears to people in the story, and similarly, some Catholics believe in Marian apparitions.

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were apparently Protestant Calvinists, but it is important to know or remember that the Grimm Brothers didn't exactly write the fairytales they collected. Many fairytales came from oral traditions.

Answer: Greater love hath no man than this

"The Loveliest Rose in the World" begins with a queen who had a beautiful garden. One day she became bedridden and the doctors couldn't cure her. However, one man said that the loveliest rose in the world could still save and heal her. The people in the kingdom kept trying to find the rose for the queen, but they looked​ for physical roses because they didn't understand that the man was using a metaphor for Jesus. Eventually, the queen's own son, a small child, came to her and read her "Greater love hath no man than this", a reference to Christ's death. The queen then seems to see a spiritual rose shine through the Bible's pages.

The verse is John 15:13, which in its entirety states, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."

Answer: The Little Mermaid

The little mermaid had a discussion with her grandmother about human beings. She told her that human beings have eternal souls, while mermaids become sea foam after they die. The little mermaid asked her grandmother what she could do to get an immortal soul and the grandmother responded with this:

" . . . unless a man were to love you so much that you were more to him than his father or mother . . . and the priest placed his right hand in yours, and he promised to be true to you here and hereafter, then his soul would glide into your body and you would obtain a share in the future happiness of mankind. He would give a soul to you and retain his own as well . . ."

The grandmother went on to explain to her that this could never happen unless the mermaid could become a human, which the grandmother herself thought was impossible. Genesis 2:24 states that a man will leave his father and mother, cleave to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. "The Little Mermaid" takes this a little farther and suggests that they will become one soul too.

Answer: False

This is false, although its title sounds like it could be true. "The Twelve Brothers" is about an evil king who had twelve sons, but wanted to murder them, basically because he favored his only daughter, the youngest of the thirteen children. The mother warned Benjamin, named after Jacob's youngest son, of the father's plan. She told the boys to go hide in the woods, so they found a house in the forest and lived there for years. One day, their sister went out looking for them (and she found them) but she gave them flowers, trying to be nice. The flowers were bewitched and transformed the men into twelve ravens. The princess sought for ways she could try and transform them into humans again.

The story itself states that Benjamin was named after the Bible's Benjamin. It is ironic that the king had twelve sons and a daughter, just like Jacob (Israel) did, and that the youngest son was Benjamin, just like in Jacob's case. However, the fairytale doesn't name any of the other brothers.

Answer: Godless

The end of the Grimm Brothers' "Little Snow White" has the wicked Queen invited to Snow White's wedding, even though she didn't really want to. She is described as "godless" as she is invited to that feast. She decided to go just so she could see Snow White, but the implication is that she wanted to see just how beautiful Snow White was in her wedding gown. The stepmother had tried to kill her multiple times and failed, but she was certain that she had killed her the final time. Yet the mirror once again told her that Snow White was alive and more beautiful than she was!

The tale states that when she saw Snow White, she was terrified, but not repentant. Maybe if she was repentant, they (exactly who "they" are is unclear) wouldn't have forced her to wear fire-hot shoes and dance until she dropped dead!

Answer: Her stepsisters, for years of mistreatment

This is one of several elements that separate Charles Perrault's "Cinderella" from the Grimm Brothers' "Cinderella". Both versions include stepsisters who ridicule Cinderella and force her to be their slave, but in Perrault's, the stepsisters ask for forgiveness at the end, and she does forgive them. Not only that, but she embraces them and sets them up to marry lords in the castle, so they got to share Cinderella's home and royalty. In the Grimm version, birds peck out the stepsisters' eyes, and instead of receiving husbands, the only thing they receive is life-long blindness. Ironically, neither version mentions what happened to Cinderella's stepmother.

Joseph forgave his brothers for selling him into horrible Egyptian slavery.

Answer: God

In this story, a fisherman and his wife lived in a filthy, tiny shack. The fisherman found a flounder who claimed to be an enchanted prince. The wife asked for a pretty cottage and the flounder granted her it. She wasn't happy with the cottage, so she asked for a palace. After she got the castle, she wanted to be a king (which is strange, considering her gender). Then she wanted to be an emperor and the pope. None of that was good enough, so she asked to be like God. Not only did the flounder not grant her wish, but he took away everything that he had already given her, so she was back living in the filthy shack!

Things never went well for those who wanted to be like God in the Bible; Satan fell from Heaven and Eve got kicked out of the garden.