The Grimm Brothers' Fairy Tales

by Jacob Grimm

Jacob Grimm (1785-1863) and his brother Wilhelm (1786-1859) were philologists and folklorists. The brothers rediscovered a host of fairy tales, telling of princes and princesses in their castles, witches in their towers and forests, of giants and dwarfs, of fabulous animals and dark deeds. Together with the well-known tales of 'Rapunzel', 'The Goose Girl', Sleeping Beauty', 'Hansel and Gretel' and 'Snow White', there are the darker tales such as 'Death's Messengers' which deserve to be better known, and which will appeal not only to all who are interested in the history of folklore, but also to all those who simply love good story-telling.

Genres: Classics, Fantasy, Fairy Tales, Fiction

318 pages, Paperback

Published August 16, 2002

About the author

German philologist and folklorist Jakob Ludwig Karl Grimm in 1822 formulated Grimm's Law, the basis for much of modern comparative linguistics. With his brother Wilhelm Karl Grimm (1786-1859), he collected Germanic folk tales and published them as Grimm's Fairy Tales (1812-1815).

Indo-European stop consonants, represented in Germanic, underwent the regular changes that Grimm's Law describes; this law essentially states that Indo-European p shifted to Germanic f, t shifted to th, and k shifted to h. Indo-European b shifted to Germanic p, d shifted to t, and g shifted to k. Indo-European bh shifted to Germanic b, dh shifted to d, and gh shifted to g.

This jurist and mythologist also authored the monumental German Dictionary and his Deutsche Mythologie .

Adapted from Wikipedia.

Reviews

[Iuli · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting read, although at times quite disturbing. I would honestly read about maybe 50% of these stories to children, as most exhibit strange ideas and remarks of violence that in my opinion aren't suited for young ones. Nevertheless, as an adult it was quite entertaining to read the stories I grew up with (Snow-white, Cinderella, Rumpelstilskin, The golden goose etc) although the original versions have changed significantly.