If you look on Google today you’ll find
they’ve changed their logo (as they do for all geeky/awesome anniversaries and
events). It features a little girl in a red riding cloak and if you scroll
through the images on the logo you’ll get her complete story. It’s the story of
little red riding cap, a French tale that can be traced as far back as 1697
that was included in the original first edition of Children’s and Household
Tales by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. Today (December 20th 2012) marks
the 200th anniversary of the Brothers Grimm publishing their first
collection of fairytales. The first of many. Over the years the tales they collected have
been warped and twisted so that you can barely see where it began but like any
good story, there is a beginning to the tale of the Brothers Grimm.
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were born in Hanau,
German in 1785 and 1786 respectively to Philipp and Dorothea Grimm who together
had nine children (Jacob and Wilhelm being the second and third child) though
only six survived: eight boys and one girl. By 1796 the boys had lost three of
their brothers as well as their father, leaving the rest of the family in
poverty – and Wilhelm with severe asthma. The boys moved in with their aunt in Kassel
and attended secondary school there before moving on to attend the University
of Marburg to study law.
This compared to This? Hmm...
It was a law professor who first ignited
the boy’s passion for folklore by opening his private library to the students
and presenting them with a world of literature. It seemed their love of books could have been the only thing they had in common as the boys couldn’t have been
more opposite in nature: Jacob was very much the introverted bookworm, choosing
to spend his free time reading and immersing himself in literature over taking a
stroll in the park with a lady on his arm as his brother did. He would live and
die a confirmed bachelor. They both had a love of folklore and fairytales but
it was Jacob who had a dedication and passion that rivaled none and it was he
who was constantly learning and collecting fairytales.
After their mother died in 1808, Jacob
began working at King Jerome’s private library after the French had invaded
Kassel in order to support his siblings while Wilhelm remained at school, still
struggling with asthma and a weak heart – though he did eventually join his
brother at the library after the French withdrew from Germany. A writer,
Clemens Brentano, asked the brothers to help him gather a collection of
folklore for publication but it was never published and so the brothers began
collecting tales on their own. They were gathered mostly from books and oral
narrations from locals, one of them being an old family friend Dortchen Wild
who would later marry Wilhelm.
Both boys were against the French invasion of Germany and the Napoleonic Wars and supported German unification so when the French withdrew in 1813 they celebrated. But no matter their political views they still faced many social hardships because of their lower status and middle-lower class background. This became abundantly clear when Jacob was passed over for head librarian because of his poor connections and lower standing and so the boys both resigned in 1829, moving to Göttingen where they both became professors and librarians at the University there.
During the sixteen years between the war
and the resignation, the brothers published two more editions of the Fairytale
collection as well as five other fairytale collections and such works as German
Grammar, Ancient German Law (both under just Jacob’s name) and German Heroic
Legends (under Wilhelm’s name). While they taught, they continued to write and
Jacob notably released a study called German Mythology but there was still
political unrest and the 1830s saw many riots, particularly by a group of
intellectuals known as ‘Young Germany’. While the brothers didn’t support the
group, they supported the cause and so when King Ernest Augustus took power in 1937 in Germany and required all officeholders (including professors at Göttingen
University) to renew their vow to the king, they – along with five others –
refused. The king had them removed from their positions and Jacob was expelled
for his hand in the protest.
The boys returned to Kassel and began
working on a massive project: the German Dictionary; to occupy their time since
their political affiliations made it difficult to procure another teaching
position. They were both eventually offered teaching positions at the University of Berlin
and began teaching there in 1841 but the revolution of 1848 caused Jacob to
resign from his teach position because of his hand in the political uprising and
his brother followed in 1852.
The brothers spent the rest of their lives
devoted to completing the Dictionary but only got as far as the letter ‘F’
before Wilhelm died of an infection in 1859, leaving Jacob devastated and even
more of a recluse until his own death in 1863 at the age of 78.
Jacob and Wilhelm never considered their
works to be fairytales for children but rather a collection of history, fables
and folklore to be studied and appreciated. Many of the tales they wrote down were
rather dark and twisted and are definitely not suited for children (there's a story about a child who watches his father gut a pig and then practices on his brother, causing his mother to drown her other child and hang herself) but with
Walt Disney’s presentation of Snow White in 1937, the retelling of Grimm’s
Fairytales has taken on a sanitized, family-friendly approach.
Not to be forgotten, their last fairytale certainly
didn’t have a happy ending – for the readers at least: it was never completed. ‘The
Golden Key’ sits unfinished to this day except in the minds of readers the world
over.
(That’s where it ends, I swear.)In the winter time, when deep snow lay on the ground, a poor boy
was forced to go out on a sledge to fetch wood. When he had
gathered it together, and packed it, he wished, as he was so
frozen with cold, not to go home at once, but to light a fire and
warm himself a little. So he scraped away the snow, and as he
was thus clearing the ground, he found a tiny golden key.
Hereupon he thought that where the key was, the lock must be
also, and dug in the ground and found an iron chest. "If the
key does but fit it!" thought he; "no doubt there are precious
things in that little box." He searched, but no keyhole was
there. At last he discovered one, but so small that it was
hardly visible. He tried it, and the key fitted it exactly.
Then he turned it once round, and now we must wait until he has
quite unlocked it and opened the lid, and then we shall learn
what wonderful things were lying in that box.
The Brothers Grimm have become an icon of
literature and history, providing Germany and the world with countless written
treasures collected and worshipped as the ultimate anthology of over 200 fairytales
written in their words for everyone to enjoy.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
So now I want to know: what is your
favourite Grimm fairytale? Can’t decide? Here you can read all 210 fairytales
from the Children’s and Household Tales collection: http://www.worldoftales.com/fairy_tales/Grimm_fairy_tales_Margaret_Hunt.html
A favourite of mine (though certainly not
my only favourite) is the Princess and the Frog. Remember that sweet, romantic
scene in the Disney movie where she kisses him and they fall in love etcetera,
etcetera? In the original tale told by the brothers Grimm, she threw the frog –
hard – against a wall and he awoke a
Prince. How awesome is that?
Let me know in the comments section what your
favourites are.
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