The Oldest Disney Adapted Fairy Tale

It's surprising that some people find it surprising that a lot of Disney films aren’t original stories. As we learned after Saving Mr. Banks was released, the story about how Walt acquired the tale of Mary Poppins from author P.L Travers, a lot of the stories he needed to buy the rights to. Most of Disney’s early shorts were based on Brothers Grimm fairytales, while some of his feature-length films were stories written by Hans Christian Andersen. This got me thinking… what is the oldest fairytale in existence that was adapted into a Disney movie? Let’s break it down.

According to Wikipedia, there are 16 Disney feature films based on fairytales. These films include Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, Ducktales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Mulan, The Emperor’s New Groove, The Princess and the Frog, Tangled, Frozen, and Frozen 2. For the sake of organization, I’ll stick to this list. Here are the newest to oldest fairy tales in existence that were made into Disney movies.

The Little White Bird - Peter Pan (1902)

The Little White Bird was a series of tales written by J.M Barrie, including adventures in Kensington Garden, where Peter went after he was born. This was the first mention of Peter Pan in history.

The Adventures of Pinocchio (1883)

Italian author Carlo Collodi is the original storywriter for Pinocchio, and his work was published in 1883. The original tale includes a more mischievous puppet, and a more morbid ending for our beloved Jiminy Cricket.

Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland (1865)

The original author of Alice in Wonderland is one of the most well known, as it is Lewis Carroll. He wrote the story after his encounter with a girl named Alice Liddell, and Macmillan and Co. published the book for him.

The Snow Queen - Frozen & Frozen II (1844)

Hans Christian Andersen published The Snow Queen in 1844. It was a 7 section story about 2 neighbors named Kay and Gerda, whose lives get turned upside down when the Snow Queen freezes Kay’s heart. This story heavily influenced Frozen, and has some of the same characters in it.

The Little Mermaid & The Emperor’s New Clothes (1837)

One of Hans Christian Andersen’s most famous pieces of work was The Little Mermaid, in which he wrote about a much darker version of the mermaid we know. This original version includes torture, an awful prince, and a life ultimatum. The Emperor’s New Groove was loosely based off of Andersen’s The Emperor’s New Clothes, which was published with The Little Mermaid.

Little Snow-White (1812)

In the early 1800s, The Brothers Grimm brought a collection of 49 original folk-lore tales to Clemens Brentano, an established folk song writer who was looking to create folk tales. By 1812, the Brothers Grimm had published Grimm’s Fairy Tales, and Little Snow-White was tale #53.

The Frog Prince (1812)

The idea of magical animals, including frogs, had existed as early as the 13th century. There were pieces of a manuscript found about a frog prince in 1548, but there hasn’t been something closer to our The Princess and the Frog until the Brothers Grimm published The Frog Prince in 1812.

La Belle et La Bête - Beauty and the Beast (1740)

Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot wrote a series of French fairytales, including the original telling of Beauty and the Beast. This version has a lot more of disturbing elements in terms of both Belle and Beast’s backstories, including seduction, evil fairies, rejection, death, war, among other things. Belle also was originally the daughter of a king, not a man like Maurice.

The Arabian Nights - Aladdin/DuckTales (1704)

Since the DuckTales movie was about the treasure of the lost lamp, it applies to this origin story as well. In the Middle East, there was a collection of fairytales written called The Arabian Nights or One Thousand and One Nights. Antoine Galland translated these stories to French and published them in 1704, adding stories such as Aladdin and his Magic Lamp, and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. These stories are where we see the Aladdin Disney pulled together come from. According to Pookpress, Aladdin was originally Chinese and the setting was in China.

Cinderella (1634)

The absolute earliest known version of Cinderella is traced back to a Greek ancient tale titled Rhodopis. This original version is about a Greek slave whom marries the King of Egypt, and it was written around 6th century BC. However, the earliest known version of Cinderella that is more similar to the story we know now, was by Giambattista Basile in 1634, where he also published the stories of Rapunzel and Sleeping Beauty. In 1697, Charles Perrault wrote his version and titled it Cendrillon. Charles is best known for adding the famous elements of the glass slipper, the pumpkin carriage, and the fairy god-mother.

The Sun, the Moon, and Talia - Sleeping Beauty (1634)

This version was published alongside Cinderella by Giambattista Basile in 1634. The beginning of the story follows a similar plot to the Disney version, including the spindle and the protagonist falling to “sleep”. But the story goes on to be quite dark and complicated.

Petrosinella - Tangled (1634)

There have been many retellings of the story of Rapunzel over the last few centuries, but the earliest known version of this story Giambattista Basile’s Petrosinella. There are many differences from this version to the fairy tale version published by the Brothers Grimm in 1812, after another version titled Persinette was translated into German in 1790.

The Ballad of Mulan (400 AD)

The oldest tale that Disney has told thus far, is the story of Mulan. It began as an oral story passed down through generations, but was later written. A surviving printed version of it was from the 12th century, but people have theorized that the story came from the era of Northern Wei. It was a poem, and followed the foundation of the story of Mulan Disney told. I wrote more about the Ballad of Mulan here.