In the original, unedited Snow White, the Evil Queen is the heroine's biological mother, she demands her daughter's lungs and liver to eat, and she is forced to dance to death in red-hot iron shoes. The Brothers Grimm were not quaint, grandfatherly figures. They were impoverished academics, fierce linguists, and political rebels.

This episode strips away the Disney veneer to examine the real source material and the men behind it. It matters because these stories function like open-source code, patched by every generation to reflect its own fears, and understanding the originals reveals how folklore truly works.

• How the death of their father plunged a comfortable family into extreme poverty, with the brothers eating one meal a day at university
• The myth-busting truth that their tales came from middle-class women of French  ...