Two German brothers, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, sparked their inspiration for fairytale writing in the early 1800s. While attending university, Jacob and Wilhelm began collecting folktales after being inspired by Clemens Brentano and Achim von Arnim’s folk poetry collection, Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Boy’s Magic Horn). After their mother passed away in 1808, they took on jobs as librarians to support their younger siblings, eventually leading them to publish their first book. In 1812, Kinder-und Hausmärchen (Children's and Household Tales) made its debut and the Grimms’ Fairy Tales was born.
From 1812 to 1857, Jacob and Wilhelm published and shared over 200 fairytales that would over time be revised and retold by large corporations like Disney. Thanks to these retellings, tales like Rapunzel and Cinderella have been adapted into books and movies we have all grown to love as childhood classics. But before they became child friendly tales, they were stories filled with graphic details to fuel fear. Below are a few synopses of some the most well know stories.
Little Red Cap
The Grimm's telling of "Little Red Riding Hood", originally named Little Red Cap, follows the story of a little girl going to visit her grandmother who is sick. On her way there, she encounters a wolf who tricks her into detouring in the woods to pick flowers for her grandmother. While she does so, the wolf eats the grandmother and when Little Red Cap gets to her grandmother’s house, the wolf eats her as well. After eating the grandmother and little girl, the wolf naps and snores loudly, alerting a huntsman nearby to go and check on the house. He saves them both by tearing open the wolf’s belly and pulling them out. They then filled the wolf’s stomach with stones so when he awoke, he couldn’t move, and he died.
Hansel & Gretel
Like Little Red Cap, Hansel and Gretel tell a tale made to warn children of the dangers of wandering in dangerous places and trusting strangers. Popular adaptations have told their story as two children
becoming lost in the woods, leaving out details of the true reasons why they ended up lost in the woods in the first place. Details told from Grimm’s original version of their tale mention that Hansel and Gretel were children who came from a poor family who couldn’t provide enough food for everyone to survive. At night, Hansel and Gretel’s parents lay awake discussing their dire situation; their mother eventually was able to convince their father to abandon their children in the woods to cut down on mouths to feed. Too hungry to sleep, Hansel and Gretel overheard their parents' whole conversation and decided to make a plan to use shiny pebbles to trace their way back. After leaving the children to “gather wood” Hansel and Gretel were still able to find their way back home. Both parents rejoiced, although the mother was secretly angry.
Food became scarce once more and again the parents decided to try and abandon their children. This time, Hansel used breadcrumbs to keep track of their way home. When the moon lit their path and Hansel went to search for the crumbs, he discovered that the birds had eaten them, leaving them to search for their way back with no guide. They wandered for hours and became extremely hungry. Eventually, they came across a house made of bread and sweets, tempting them in where a witch was living. Once they were trapped, the witch forced Gretel to help her fatten up Hansel who she locked in a cage. The witch checked periodically to see if Hansel was ready to cook by checking how fat his finger was. Each day he tricked the witch by sticking out a chicken bone until she became impatient and decided to cook him anyways. While filling the cooking pot with water, Gretel pushed the witch in and she died. Hansel and Gretel stole all the riches that filled the witch’s house and they never lived in poverty again.
The Children of Famine
If I had a nickel for every time the Grimm brothers wrote a story about a poor mother who tries to get rid of her children in order to survive starvation, I would have at least 2 nickels. "The Children of Famine" is one of their shorter fairytales that follows a similar plot of "Hansel and Gretel" where a mother and her two children struggle to survive with little money to pay for food. Desperate to survive, the mother threatens to eat her children if they are unable to come by food. After coming back with a single piece of bread, the mother threatens to eat the children. The children beg to be spared and choose to fall into a deep sleep until Judgement Day so the mother would not have to worry to feed them. Once Judgment Day arrived, they were unable to be awakened, and the mother was never found again.
Rapunzel
When it comes to classic stories of princesses in distress, the Grimm brothers do not shy away from detailing their suffering. Rapunzel’s story begins with a couple who struggled to bear children, and when the woman finally became pregnant, she fell ill. Her illness was caused by a desperate craving to taste the rapunzel growing in the fairy garden near their home. Worried for his wife, the husband began stealing rapunzel from the garden until he was caught by the fairy and forced to make a deal to hand over their baby when it was born. The fairy named the child Rapunzel, and when she turned twelve, she locked her in a tower with no way to enter other than a small window through which Rapunzel would toss her hair for the fairy to climb.
One day, a young prince came across the tower and fell in love with Rapunzel’s beauty. After discovering how the fairy was able to summon Rapunzel, the prince called out for her to let down her hair, and they began spending more time together. The fairy was unaware of their visits with each other until Rapunzel came to her asking why her clothes fit tightly. The fairy then realized that Rapunzel had become pregnant. Feeling angry and deceived, she cut off all of Rapunzel’s hair and banished her to a secluded land, where she gave birth to twins and was forced to raise them alone in misery.
With Rapunzel’s braided hair she kept, the fairy allowed the prince to ascend once more, only to confront him on what he had caused her to do to Rapunzel for his actions. Overwhelmed by grief, he jumped from the tower and, despite losing both of his eyes, managed to survive. After years of wandering in despair, he was reunited with Rapunzel, whose voice led him to her. The tears she shed with joy fell upon his eyes, restoring his vision, and they were happy once again.
Ashputtel
Ashputtel translated from German means “ash girl” and is the nickname given to a girl by her brutal two stepsisters who made her life difficult; English translations of her story have made her name to be better known today as Cinderella. Her story told from Grimm’s earlier version has not been changed too much over the years. Ashputtel’s mother passed away when she was young and before she died, promised to continue to look over her as she grew. Her father remarried a cruel woman with daughters who would command Ashputtel around to care for the chores. They gave her the nickname Ashputtel to mock her raggedy dirty clothes caused by all the cleaning they made her do.
One night while Ashputtel was tending to chores and somberly thinking about the ball she couldn’t attend, two white pigeons came and offered her help. The second night they came to help, they told Ashputtel to go to the tree where her mother’s grave was and ask for nice clothes to go to the ball that would last only until midnight. Upon her arrival, Ashputtel immediately caught the attention of the prince, and they danced all night until she left in a rush to return the clothes. During her second visit to the ball, the prince once again begged her to stay longer passed midnight but again she left in a rush, leaving behind her slipper.
The prince kept the slipper and proclaimed that any maiden who could fit into the slipper would be his wife. When it was Ashputtel’s stepsisters' turn, her stepmother handed them knives to cut pieces from their feet so they could fit into the slipper. The eldest went first and cut down the back of her foot to make it fit, but she was exposed by the two white pigeons, who drew the prince's attention to the blood on the slipper. The second daughter went next and cut off one of her toes, but once again, the pigeons revealed her attempt to deceive the prince. Ashputtel was finally able to try on the slipper and prove to the prince that it was a perfect fit, thus making her his bride-to-be.
There are hundreds of stories from the Grimm brothers to explore that tell tales of curiosity, corruption, despair, mystery, and more. During this spooky season, I highly encourage you to read these stories mentioned and others written by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. You might find that there’s more to the stories you once thought you knew hearing about as a child.
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