What Happened To The Mouse / Fairy Tales

• In Jack and the Beanstalk, it’s never explained what happened to the man who sold Jack his magic beans. He just disappears from the story.

• In The Brothers Grimm story "Maid Maleen", she is imprisoned with a servant. They break free, and get a job. After that, Maleen ends up marrying the prince, with no more mention of the servant.
• In Rapunzel, the woman who took and raised Rapunzel does not appear again after throwing Rapunzel and her lover into the wilderness. Certainly she is never punished.
• In Sleeping Beauty, the evil fairy curses the princess, and sometimes she's the old woman who gets her to prick her finger, but she never appears after that. Certainly she is never punished. Disney rectified both of the above examples, of course.
• In Madame d'Aulnoy's tales:
  • In "The Benevolent Frog", the Lion Fairy does not appear again after her encounter with the king when she imprisons his wife and daughter in the castle.
  • In "The Bee and the Orange Tree", when Aimée stings Tourmentine, the ogress and her husband disappear from the story.
• In "The Gold Mountain", we are told at the beginning that the merchant has a son and daughter. The daughter never appears again.
• In The Six Swans, a witch married to a king turns her six stepsons into swans. After six years, their sister manages to bring them back to normal and they all live happily ever after but the Wicked Stepmother never appears again and neither does the king who doesn't know what his wife has done.
• In "The Golden-Bearded Man," the titular man promises to repay the prince who freed him a thousand-fold and vanishes. He never appears in the story again, and the prince is helped by various animals.
• "Thumbelina"'s adoptive mother is never referred to again after the titular girl's first kidnapping.
• "Hans the Hedgehog": Hans' mother is quite visible at the beginning of the story but is not mentioned at all after his first departure from the village. At the end, when Hans returns transformed from a half-hedgehog into a handsome and socially ascended young man to take his father to live with him in the kingdom which he has inherited, there is no mention of his mother coming with them.
• In "The Three Snake Leaves", the main character's father disappears from the story after his son leaves their home looking for fortune.
• In "The Nix in the Mill-Pond", the main character's parents are dropped from the story as soon he is married. The Nixie herself disappears after flooding the valley out of spite.
• In "The Elf Maiden", neither the main character's original love interest nor his romantic rival are mentioned again after the hero gets stranded in a deserted island by said rival.
• In "The Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heugh", the protagonists' father drops out of the story completely after marrying the Wicked Stepmother.
• In several versions of "Donkeyskin", the princess' incestuous father completely disappears from the plot after she manages to escape him.
• In "The Golden Goose", the eponymous goose and the seven persons who became stuck to it are dropped from the story when Dummling wins the princess' hand.
• "The Three Little Men in the Wood":
  • The main character's father vanishes completely from the story after marrying his second wife.
  • The titular little men are not mentioned again after casting a curse upon the stepdaughter.
• "Tattercoats":
  • The old nurse who raised Tattercoats is dropped from the story after the scene where she fails to persuade the old lord to take his granddaughter to the ball.
  • The gooseherd vanishes after transforming Tattercoats' rags into a ball gown, and nobody ever finds out what happened to him.
• "The Devil With the Three Golden Hairs": The main character's beloved adoptive parents are not mentioned again after he takes the letter to the queen.
• In Franz Xaver von Schönwerth's "The Turnip Princess", the prince meets a witch, a bear and a dog after spending the night in a cave. After the initial meeting, the dog disappears from the tale entirely. Likewise, the monster who chases the prince out of a turnip field will not be mentioned again.
• In Asbjørnsen and Moe's "The Old Dame and her Hen", the titular hen goes missing at the beginning of the tale, and nobody is able to find it (but they are caught by a troll as looking for it).
• "The Enchanted Quill": The main character's brother is the first character to appear in the story, and the first to completely disappear after getting his sister engaged to a cursed prince. Her sisters also vanish after accidentally botching an attempt to undo the curse.

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