The Grimmest story

The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm by Jacob Grimm

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Once upon a time there were two brothers named Grimm. They were thieves and they would visit the homes of poor people throughout the land and steal their stories and their tales. These evil brothers would make the stories their own rewriting and embellishing the tales in ways that were never meant to be and then they sold them and made themselves rich and famous. So rich and famous that many years later (102 to be precise) still other men of letters and merchants of words are cashing in on the tales of the poor villagers who are long since dead. But, I'm pleased to say no one lived happily ever after.”

It’s, of course, easy to forget that the Grimm brothers did in fact rape and pillage the folklore of the surrounding regions but not through traveling about as is commonly believed. They took them from already printed sources and as this book referrers to them (rather oddly) “informants” making the tales themselves feel like crimes.

Though, it has to be said that I’m glad they ‘collected' the tales or I wouldn’t be able to read the original version of – for example – Hansel and Gretel where it’s the mother that forces a wimpy father to abandon his children in the woods because they haven’t enough food – rather than a wicked stepmother – The Grimm’s have a lot to answer for in creating the evil step parent trope. The children burn the old woman (witch) to death in an oven and steal her gems returning home to find the mother dead they and the father live happily ever after as rich folk. It also gives pause for thought about the German fixation with burning people to death – what’s with that?

The book contains a fair few grim (pun intended) tales such as “How some children played at slaughtering” which does what the title states except that the children after watching a pig being slaughtered then slaughter each other. It make Steven King read like Enid Blyton. I very much prefer these less sanitised and edited stories they are sparse and abrupt and so delightfully distant from Disney.




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