Grimm's Fairy Stories
1812
Grimm's Fairy Stories
1812
The Grimm brothers were not writers of children's books. They were nineteenth-century scholars who traveled rural Germany transcribing tales told by peasants, and what they collected was far darker than anything Disney would later sanitize. These are stories where children are abandoned in forests, where stepmothers are literally witches, where the wicked are flung into cauldrons of boiling oil. The violence is not incidental; it is the moral engine. Beauty and cruelty travel together here, and virtue is tested through suffering before it is rewarded. Sixty-two stories anchor this collection: Hansel and Gretel lost among the thorns, Cinderella weeping among the ashes, Snow White in her glass coffin, Rapunzel in her tower, Rumpelstiltskin spinning straw into gold. Animals speak. Princes remain frogs until kissed. The poor and humble are rewarded; the proud and powerful are destroyed. What makes these tales endure is their brutal clarity: the world is dangerous, but goodness, cunning, and patience can outlast even the worst odds.
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“Mirror, mirror, here I stand. Who is the fairest in the land?””
— Jacob Grimm
“He who helped you when you were in trouble ought not afterwards be despised by you””
— Jacob Grimm
“They were indeed great rascals, and belonged to that class of people who find things before they are lost.””
— Jacob Grimm
“He who is too well off is always longing for something new.””
— Jacob Grimm
“In the olden days, when wishing still worked, there lived a king whose daughters were all beautiful, but the youngest daughter was so lovely that even the sun... was struck with wonder.””
— Jacob Grimm
“Lina said to Fundevogel: 'Never leave me, and I will never leave you.' Fundevogel said: 'Neither now, nor ever.' Then said Lina: 'Do you become a rose-tree, and I the rose upon it.””
— Jacob Grimm
“Some men are born to good luck: all they do or try to do comes right”
— Jacob Grimm
“A certain king had a beautiful garden, and in the garden stood a tree which bore golden apples. These apples were always counted, and about the time when they began to grow ripe it was found that every night one of them was gone. The king became very angry at this, and ordered the gardener to keep watch all night under the tree. The gardener set his eldest son to watch; but about twelve o'clock he fell asleep, and in the morning another of the apples was missing. Then the second son was ordered to watch; and at midnight he too fell asleep, and in the morning another apple was gone. Then the third son offered to keep watch; but the gardener at first would not let him, for fear some harm should come to him: however, at last he consented, and the young man laid himself under the tree to watch. As the clock struck twelve he heard a rustling noise in the air, and a bird came flying that was of pure gold; and as it was snapping at one of the apples with its beak, the gardener's son jumped up and shot an arrow at it. But the arrow did the bird no harm; only it dropped a golden feather from its tail, and then flew away. The golden feather was brought to the king in the morning, and all the council was called together. Everyone agreed that it was worth more than all the wealth of the kingdom: but the king said, 'One feather is of no use to me, I must have the whole bird.””
— Jacob Grimm
“Then her envious heart had peace, as much as an envious heart can have.””
— Jacob Grimm
