Loreplay

Think fairy tales were written for children? Think again. In this episode of Loreplay, Dayna Pereira dives deep into the dark, disturbing, and wildly misunderstood origins of classic fairy tales like Cinderella, Snow White, and The Juniper Tree. Long before Disney softened the edges, these stories were filled with mutilation, cannibalism, eye-pecking birds, and stepmothers who absolutely chose violence. We explore how fairy tales began as oral folklore told among adults, and how these stories functioned as psychological survival manuals in a brutal pre-modern world.

From blood-soaked slippers to baked-into-a-pie revenge plots, this episode unpacks the historical, psychological, and cultural roots of the stories we thought we knew. Spoiler: They were never about the prince. They were about survival.
If you love folklore, dark history, fairy tale origins, mythology, cultural psychology, and the real stories behind Disney classics — this one’s for you.

Sources:
Zipes, Jack. The Irresistible Fairy Tale: The Cultural and Social History of a Genre. Princeton University Press, 2012.
Zipes, Jack. The Brothers Grimm: From Enchanted Forests to the Modern World. Routledge, 1988.
Tatar, Maria. The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales. Princeton University Press, 1987.
Bettelheim, Bruno. The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. 1976.
Jung, Carl. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. 1959.
Bottigheimer, Ruth B. Fairy Tales: A New History. SUNY Press, 2009.
Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm. Kinder- und Hausmärchen. 1812–1857 editions.
Perrault, Charles. Histoires ou contes du temps passé. 1697.

Creators and Guests

Host
Dayna Pereira
Show Host of Multiple Chart Hitting Podcasts. French Fry and Wine Enthusiast

What is Loreplay?

Hey there, My Fellow Lore Lovers. Welcome to Loreplay. The show where we dig up haunted history, creepy folklore, and paranormal weirdness and poke it with a stick. I tell you the legend, then I tell you what the actual sources say.. and then we sit together in the gap between the two, because that’s where the good stuff lives. Loreplay is skeptic-meets-believer. I love a ghost story as much as anyone, but I love digging into if we were fed some bullshit, or if the sources check out more. If a “fact” has been passed around for 150 years without a single receipt, we’re going to talk about it. We also don’t pretend history was some charming olde timey costume party. A lot of what gets packaged as spooky folklore was really people in power hurting people with none... women burned as witches, the poor locked away, the “different” made into monsters. Loreplay calls that out. Loudly. With jokes. So, to be clear about where this show stands: we’re pro human rights, pro truth, and deeply anti historical bullshit. If that bothers you, the door’s right there. Bye Girl.. If you love learning about all the fucked up ways history has historied, and you're ready to use that knowledge as your feral superpower, then welcome! We ride at dawn.