J. and W. Grimm Part I

"Little Snow White and Other Stories" by the Brothers Grimm

Just a note about the authors because there are several films about them that have no basis in truth. Jacab Ludwig Grimm (Also Carl) was born on January 4, 1785 and died September 20, 1863. Wilhelm Karl Grimm was born February 24, 1786 and died on December 16, 1859. They were both born in Hanau, Germany. They lost their father and grandfather at an early age and their mother had to struggle to support her children.

Both brothers graduated from the university and became collectors of tales but not the authors. Their tales were immensely popular at the time but were essentially a by-product of the linguistic research which was the brothers' primary goal.

The Brothers Grimm held several academic positions among them professors, librarians, court librarians, head librarians while doing linguistic research. They got along very well together even when one of them married and all lived in one house.

Their research in linguistics is well known. For instance, the relationships between words became known as Grimm's Law. Their last years were spent writing a definitive dictionary , The Deutsches Worterbuch, the first volume being published in 1854. The work was carried out by future generations. (Source Wikipedia)

"Little Snow White and Other Stories", a thin red book, has both Korean and English in it. I bought it from Home Plus and it is not the stories one associates with Walt Disney. The vocabulary is in Korean and the story is taken directly from the Brothers Grimm although there is no mention in English who translated it from German.

The stories in this book are "Little Snow-White", "The Twelve Dancing Princesses", "Little Red Cap", and "Hansel and Gretel". When I was a child, I was allowed to go to the library unaccompanied as often as I wanted. My Aunt Sonia taught me how to use the library and when my own children were growing up, I took them to the library as often as they wanted which was not as often as I wanted. I still marvel at the long distance I was allowed to walk alone along a busy street. Still, I remember reading all of the fairy tales that were in that library and many of them were of the Brothers Grimm. It was a pleasure to read them in this book.

I have other red books that I will report on but this one is of the Brothers Grimm and the stories in it are well known to me. I mentioned that this book is not the version that Walt Disney filmed in movie. It is different.

Snow White was a young child when she was taken to the woods by the woodsman. She stayed with the seven dwarfs for a while before her step-mother found her. After she was poisoned by a deadly apple and placed in a glass coffin above ground, a passing prince fell in love with her and did not wake her up with a kiss but convinced the dwarfs to let him have the glass enclosed Snow White to take back to his castle but he dropped her and the glass broke and the poisoned apple fell out of her mouth. Heavens knows what he was going to do with her once he got her back to the castle so I could see why the Disney people changed that part of the story. The queen is just as evil in both stories but she goes to the wedding of the prince and finds out that the new bride is her own step-daughter. Bummer. I am glad they kept the magic mirror. Good touch.

"The Twelve Dancing Princesses" is a story about a king who had 12 daughters who went somewhere at night and would not tell him where. They wore out their slippers and he was very frustrated. He let it be known that if any prince would find out where they went, then they could have any of the princesses for a bride and his kingdom after his death. However, if they failed in three days, off with the prince's head. Well, I guess there was a surplus of princes and not enough kingdoms so a bunch tried and none of them mysteriously could not stay awake and lost their heads. It came to be that a soldier, enlisted not an officer, was very kind and tired, decided that he would give it a try since he was unable to get a job doing anything else; so up to the castle he went but an old lady, they are very kind and trusting to soldiers, told him not to swallow the wine he is given and gave him a cloak like Harry Potter's that would make him invisible. He was very grateful and went to the castle and did as instructed. He was astonished to see that the princess's beds opened up and they all went below and danced all night. He grabbed some proof and did it for three nights. The princesses all thought he was sleeping and that he would lose his head, but they did not think about his being a peasant with common sense. He went to the king and told them what they were up to. Since the soldier was no longer young, he chose the oldest princess and married her and became king after the old one died. I wondered how he could marry a woman who was perfectly willing to see him separated from his head, but he did get a kingdom and that is a very good job.

"The Little Red Cap" is in reality "Little Red Riding Hood" and I am sorry to say both her grandmother and her got eaten by the wolf but the story teller did offer an alternative ending in which the grandmother and girl outwitted the fox. No one listening to this tale is fooled. The fox got a tasty meal. What is ironic here is that the girl who told the Brothers Grimm ended up marrying one of them. The other Grimm never married. Maybe she told him the alternative ending so his feelings would not get hurt.

"Hansel and Gretel" is about two loving brother and sister who live with their father and step-mother. Step-mothers do not do well in fairy tales and many people would complain about the Brothers Grimm that they hated women. They just collected the stories and recorded them faithfully. They did not change them. In the stories of domestic bliss in today's world, step-fathers do not do well in the police courts. In the stories of fairy tales, it was the step-mothers who wanted to get rid of the children of the dead first wife. This one wanted Hansel and Gretel to be taken into the forest where they would be eaten by wild animals and they would not have to feed them anymore. The brother and sister got lost and came to a witch's house and of course another subspecies of villain ,the witch. This witch was a cannibal. She lived in an eatable house which drew in children. While this pedophile serial killer witch was waiting for the boy to get fat, the girl gave him a bone to give to the witch since she could not see worth a damn. Then when the witch asked the girl to get in the oven, the girl tricked the witch to show her how and shoved her in and locked the oven door. They found some jewels in the witch's house and got home and everyone now had enough money to buy some food.

I loved fairy tales because women won. I didn't like what they won, but at least they won. They were the heroines in their own tales. When everyone was out to get them, they endured. I also liked magic because I was in a childhood that was full of dysfunctional adults. I wanted to believe that somehow I was going to survive. That there were some magic beans or some magical castle that would be real and would be a safe place for me. I could draw up the draw bridge and there would be enough food and clothes for me.

I used to think I was the only one reading the fairy tales. Now, as I read the stories that the kids read, I realize that other children were just like me and sneaking into the library and reading them as well. The stories that the Brothers Grimm collected were popular then and certainly still popular now.