OK just thinking about nursery rhymes - well it makes you think doesn't it?

According to Bruno Bettelheim in 'The Uses of Enchantment' (New York Knopf 1976) the fairytale proves as the unconscious proving ground with a young child's struggles with the great developmental tasks, which if not mastered, leave ineradicable scars upon the future adult

Goldilocks goes to sleep in a stranger's bed (in some versions she is eaten), a rebellious and individualistic girl - the kind that could easily be drawn into trouble by her natural inclinations - walks through a wild forest her individualism leading her into trouble, although, in later versions where women 'know their place', she can be resurrected as a reformed, more obedient girl, the powerful male woodcutter/policeman having destroyed the seducing wolf.

As for Snow White well……she has to fall asleep after she bites into the apple, otherwise her lack of personal responsibility would 'wreak sexual havoc on the kingdom, not too dissimilar from the evil Eve of biblical fame'.

Just goes to show there really is nothing new under the sun is there?