Grimms’ Fairy Tales are known throughout the world. But at that time, those dealing with storytelling in the German space were quite controversial. Much of their work could be described today as academic fraud.
On December 21, 1812, the books from the printing press arrived. The lucky Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, 27 and 26, respectively, could finally contemplate the 900 copies of their debut work, the Kinder-und Hausmärchen collection (Children’s and Household Tales). It was the culmination of a work that had lasted for years. Now they just had to wait for people’s reactions. The two brothers were always praised for their intelligence by teachers and mentors, which is why they were not at all prepared for the harsh criticism that would follow. Sales went well from the start, but the criticism…
The texts are at least unreadable, said a journalist. The collection has only pigs in it, wrote another. And everyone was wondering: to whom are these stories addressed, to children or adults? Which child would feel good listening to stories of such brutality, not to mention the many sexual elements, some of which are very offensive?
What the Grimm brothers wrote was, in other words, really challenging for the newly formed bourgeoisie of the 19th century. In the story about Rapunzel, the beautiful young woman is locked in a tower by the evil witch and lowers her long hair to help the prince climb. However, the two immediately have intimate relationships and the princess gets pregnant, without understanding exactly what happened. In Snow White, her very mother ordered her huntsman to take Snow White into the woods to be killed. Eventually, the princess ends her revenge and forces her mother to dance to death dressed in hot iron boots. In Cinderella, his step-sisters are so desperate to convince the prince, that they cut their fingers to fit in the shoe. In another story, a girl decapitates her stepson and chops his corpse into small pieces and feeds it to the father.
As if the macabre content were not enough, neither was the style of the story beautiful, but rather dull and monotonous. In addition, the entire collection was filled with footnotes. The Grimm brothers tried to satisfy both researchers and ordinary readers, but no one seemed to be pleased.
Jacob and Wilhelm came from a family with many children. Most of their childhood was spent in the small town of Steinau, where their father was an influential lawyer. In retrospect, they talk about those times as part of an idyllic time. They loved nature and walked endlessly through the forests around the city. The mirage ceased when Jacob was 11 years old. Then their father died of pneumonia and it was the responsibility of the two older brothers to support the family. They took their duties very seriously and began to study hard. Thus they had the chance to enter a prestigious high school in Kassel.
There, the two shared a room and became more inseparable than ever. Being relatively poor, they felt full social inequality. They had a lower status and they often were on the brink of starvation. And on top of that, their wealthier colleagues were the ones who got all the scholarships. The Grimm brothers, who really needed something like that, were not lucky. Later they would confess the usefulness of these shortcomings, which motivated them to work even harder.
They both ranked first in their classes, continuing their education at the University of Marburg. There was a turning point in the lives of the two brothers, when they were taken under the wing of law professor Friederich von Savigny. He stimulated them to study medieval German literature. At that time, Germany consisted of nearly 200 different duchies. Through Savigny, the Grimm brothers became part of the movement that aimed to unify the German nation. To build a German identity, it was believed that the researchers were required to investigate the roots of the people, the original language and literature.
The Grimm brothers dedicated themselves to that work with passion and enthusiasm. Soon they would specialize in folklore collection, which they regarded as an authentic expression of the German soul. A spirit that was threatened, according to public opinion, by the French culture, which was the more evident as there was the era of Napoleon (The Napoleonic era), whose army dominated Europe. Probing the depths of folklore had become an action of national resistance.
When their story collection was published in 1812, the mother of the Grimm brothers had died. This meant that the two were fully responsible for the maintenance of the family. Perhaps that is why his younger brother, Wilhem, immediately began to process the stories in depth, obviously influenced by the negative criticisms caused by the first edition. In particular, sexual allusions were softened, and the narrative style became more fluent and attractive.
The language became more melodious, more appropriate to the story, and the dialogue has become a constant. Words like ‘prince’ or ‘fairy’, which showed a French influence, were eliminated, being replaced by others that sounded more German, such as ’emperor’ or ‘witch’. However, violence remained prevalent in fairy tales. Moreover, in some cases the brutality has even increased.
In order to increase the attractiveness of the fairy tales, they began to be illustrated, which had a major impact. In 1825 a special version was published, with the 50 most known fairy tales, addressed to children. Soon the fairy tales of the Grimm brothers conquered the whole world, despite their local origin. They have become a very popular read in the UK and beyond.
Charles Dickens recounted how captivating he was about memorable, dramatic, and ultimately brutal, tales. He almost fell in love with the Little Red Riding Hood… If initially the Grimm brothers wanted to do some research, they eventually abandoned the idea in order to meld as much as the possible on public’s preferences. In addition, the stories that were meant to be quintessentially German and popular were, in many cases, French in origin. Some of their sources were aristocrats or bourgeois, which the Grimm brothers masked in their quotes.
Jacob and Wilhem Grimm died at the age of 78 and 73, respectively. They have ended their days in celebrity, which has lasted until today, when we find their fairy tales translated into more than 160 languages.
