This is something I wish was brought up more. It is almost a meme that “the originals were darker,” but really the famous tales of the Grimms and Perrault et al are just local snapshots of a living tradition of the common people telling stories. I suppose the focus on the older recorded versions is a reaction against Disney and modified versions of stories marketed to children (e.g. Lang perhaps). And to be clear, I think all these, including Disney, are important culturally and present fine variants of the stories. Still, I don’t want us to forget the others.
Digging a little deeper, you find tons of variants of stories, and discover all sorts of new ones, hybrids, seemingly incomplete ones, different levels of embellishment, darker and lighter. And some do have morals, but a lot of them are just things happening. Some motifs just seem to stick. And folk tales were not primarily meant for children either—we tell kids campfire ghost stories all the time, and don’t think so much on what they teach. We just like them.
Digging a little deeper, you find tons of variants of stories, and discover all sorts of new ones, hybrids, seemingly incomplete ones, different levels of embellishment, darker and lighter. And some do have morals, but a lot of them are just things happening. Some motifs just seem to stick. And folk tales were not primarily meant for children either—we tell kids campfire ghost stories all the time, and don’t think so much on what they teach. We just like them.