TT#4: Fun Facts about Fairy Tales

My TT this week is 13 fun facts about fairy tales, and I made the TT graphic above to match. =) Without further ado, here's my Thursday Thirteen: Fun Facts about Fairy Tales.

1. In the original fairy tale, the prince renamed Thumbelina "Maia". The bird who rescued her dropped her into a field of flowers, and she landed on the flower that was occupied by the prince. He fell in love when he saw her, and said "Thumbelina" wasn't a name beautiful enough for a princess, so he renamed her "Maia".
2. The literal meaning of the name "Rumplestiltskin" is "little rattle stilt", rattle stilt being a type of goblin.
3. In the original version of "Sleeping Beauty", the prince's mother was an ogress and loved to eat children.
4. The prince didn't introduce his new bride to his parents until they had already had 2 children. The ogress almost got them, but her plan was thwarted and she hurled herself into a pit of serpents that ate her alive.
5. In the original Snow White, the queen eats the heart she believed belonged to Snow White.
6. The queen was punished by being forced to wear red-hot iron shoes that she had to dance in until she fell down dead.
7. The Brothers Grimm have written exactly 211 fairy tales.
8. They were not only renowned for their fairy tales, they were also scholars in the area of linguistics. Grimm's Law, which relates to how word sounds can change over time, is attributed to them.
9. It is a popular Arab myth that anyone who reads all of The 1001 Arabian Nights will go mad. This myth is similar to the legendary condition known as ‘the motif of harmful sensation’ which states that a person can be harmed by experiencing extreme sensations, this probably comes from Greek mythology in stories such as “Medusa” and “The Basilisk.”
10. The flying carpet in one of the most enduring images in The 1001 Arabian Nights and it is affiliated with many stories, but contrary to popular belief, Aladdin never flew on the magic carpet. Prince Housain in “The Three Brothers” is the only person to fly on the magic carpet.
11. The 1001 Arabian Nights inspired Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, who is most famed for composing “The Flight of the Bumblebee,” to write the nationalistic symphonic suite “Scheherazade”.
12. 2 roses, 2 pearls, 2 diamonds came out of the good girl's mouth in 'The Fairy Gifts' when she said 'I beg your pardon for having loitered so long, Mother'. When the bad girl came home, the things that came out of her mouth were a viper and two toads!
13. The oldest surviving manuscript of "Beowulf" was written by an Anglo-Saxon in 1000 A.D. The owner of the manuscript, Robert Cotton, gave it to a British museum after a fire came close to destroying it in 1731. However, some scholars believe that the poem could have been written as early as the seventh or eighth century.