Often a Death Trope, so expect to see unmarked spoilers ahead.
Fairy Tales often have the guy who's violated the daily Aesop be his own undoing.
- In many Fairy Tales, someone describes the crimes to the villain without using any names and asks what a suitable punishment would be; the villain, who has performed the crimes in question but believes them undetected, then (often gleefully) prescribes a horrible punishment — sometimes to appear particularly fervent against the crime — and is subjected to it. These include:
- In The Cat on the Dovrefell, the bear does not rouse to drive off the trolls until a troll starts to bait it.
- In The Discreet Princess, Rich-Craft captures Finette and intends to kill her by putting her in a barrel filled with blades and rolling it off a mountain. She acts so calm that he loses all caution in anger, allowing her to push him in instead. He survives... for a few months, at least.
- In The Grateful Beasts, the king keeps devising Impossible Tasks so he can execute Ferko. His last is to round up all the wolves in the kingdom. This is to say, he asks a man known to perform Impossible Tasks to bring a lot of dangerous, carnivorous beasts to court.
- In the fairy tale Hansel and Gretel, the witch instructs Gretel to stick her head in the oven to see if it is hot enough (with the intention of pushing her in to be cooked). Gretel feigns ignorance, causing the exasperated witch to stick her own head in the oven to show Gretel how it is done... and she is inevitably subjected to the same fate she had planned for the two siblings.
- In Prunella, one witch's servants refuse to hurt Prunella because she gave them nice things and the witch never did.
- The Stag and His Antlers
: The titular stag complains that his legs are far less impressive than his crown. When trying to flee for his life, his antlers get tangled in the branches overhead, preventing the very same legs he scorned from carrying him to safety. - In Vasilissa the Beautiful, Vasilissa's Wicked Stepmother and stepsisters put out the fires in order to have an excuse to send her to Baba Yaga. Afterwards, they are unable to light any fire whatsoever. The fire Vasilissa brings back does last... long enough to burn the three into ash.
