Wicked Stepmother in Fairy Tales

Read this bit: "The greedy brother, we are told, had an old stepmother, and he killed her outright, taking the body to market hoping for a similarly high price." Read this and other stories.

"The wedding festivities were no sooner over than the stepmother began to show herself in her true colours." Read the story of Cinderella and her evil stepmother...

"A stepmother is the mother of one bereaved of his mother by death."

Euripides (480-406 BC) is quoted: "Better a serpent than a stepmother!"

"No one theory listed below has been proved true; probably all of them have some points of validity." Read about fairies, good children and evil stepmothers.

The term is defined: "The wife of one's father and not one's natural mother."

"Cymbeline was twice married: his second wife was a wicked, plotting woman, and a cruel stepmother to Imogen, Cymbeline’s daughter by his first wife."

Read more about the character of the Wicked Stepmother in Russian Fairy Tales.

Read this tale from India, where the stepchildren get "stronger and stronger." And, the stepmother "was surprised to see them getting so fat and strong while she was giving them so little food."