Today marks the 200th anniversary of the first edition of ‘Grimm’s Fairy Tales’, a collection of stories which I learned as a little girl – I am sure along with all of you! I really didn’t know much about who the Brothers Grimm were besides the fact that they wrote fairy tales.
photo credit: sofi01 via photopin cc
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were, in fact, brothers who shared a love of folklore. They would collect the different stories from around the world, establishing a methodology that shaped the basis of folklore studies. They felt that folklore was a true representation of culture and literature.
In my kids’ eyes, Cinderella, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Sleeping Beauty are all Disney movies. They are really so much more! Starting in 1807, the Grimm guys added over 200 stories to their collection. There was concern that some of the tales were a bit too violent for children (i.e. the child in the story getting eaten by a monster or something along those lines) so the Grimm brothers would put a disclaimer of sorts at the beginning of a story like that, to inform the reader that there may be parts that are not appropriate for little children – kind of like our movie rating system today, LOL.
Which of Grimm tales do you like best – Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretel, The Frog Prince… ? I also highly recommend, if you have not already, to check out Google today – it’s very cool 🙂
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