photo via Foxtongue

Did you know that fairy tales used to be pretty X-rated? But then the Brothers Grimm et al deleted all the dirty parts — the party poopers! — to make them more family-friendly. Not unlike Anne Rice’s late ’80’s Sleeping Beauty trilogy,  the new book In Sleeping Beauty’s Bed: Erotic Fairy Tales retells 15 stories with all the missing naughty bits filled in by author Mitzi Szereto’s imagination (and yes, Cinderella is about foot fetishism, natch). Each of the tales is prefaced with an introduction detailing its history and the sexual culture in which it was first written. (Now we just want to know which scholar is going to take it upon him- or herself to dig up the dirty originals…) It’s the perfect holiday gift for someone who’s been naughty and nice this year. Here’s an excerpt from Szereto’s retelling of “The Turnip” tale — we guarantee you’ll never look at this root vegetable in the same way again…

Farming was hard and, indeed, hungry work, and the aspiring farmer liked to chew a few of the seeds as he hoed and sowed, since many an hour remained before he could sit down to partake of his own supper. Despite the many hardships he endured, the impoverished brother believed that all his long hours of sweat and toil would one day prove worthwhile. And his dedication to the soil served him well. As the seed took hold, turnip leaves began to display themselves in abundance along his modest parcel, their thick roots burrowing happily downward into the dark rich earth. Only the farmer would have far more success than he had originally bargained for. There was one turnip in particular that grew and grew until it looked as if it would never stop growing. Although this should have provoked great joy in the poorer of the two brothers, it instead provoked great dismay. For this most vigorous of vegetables did not sprout from the ground as had its leafy companions, but from the farmer himself.

Indeed, it surged aggressively forth from beneath the pale paunch of his belly, its stout base surrounded by a dense cluster of leaves that shaded the equally pale flesh of his thighs. The turnip would become so heavy that this devoted tiller of the soil eventually found it difficult to walk, let alone hoe his plantings or climb a ladder or perform any of the normal tasks of daily life. Each time he sat down for a meal, it bumped the underside of the table, upsetting the weathered rectangle of pine along with everything that had been placed upon it. It got so that the farmer had to slide his chair so far back that he could barely reach his plate. Soon the wearing of trousers became an impossibility. He would be forced to either cut away the buttoned flaps at the front or go about trouserless, the latter option proving most distressing whenever a chill wind blew.

Read the rest of this post on SUNfiltered