Brothers Grimm: the men behind the standards of Western civilization

1. Jakob (also Jacob) and Wilhelm (William) were born less than one and a half years apart. They were oldest surviving brothers in a family with eight boys and one girl (three of boys died before they reached the age of two). The pattern of many brothers and only one sister can be found in several of their fairy tales. They even rewrote some of the fairy tales to meet that criteria!

2. Their father died of pneumonia when Jakob was only eleven years old. Jakob and Wilhelm soon took responsibilities of adult persons. They were brilliant students but felt excluded from many activities because of their relative poverty. So instead of partying they studied more and harder. They developed strong working ethic and sensitivity for weak, poor and excluded from society.

3. Jakob and Wilhelm were not the only artists in the family. Their younger brother Ludwig was engraver and painter and professor at art school. He also illustrated first edition of now famous Children's and Household Tales, more known simply as Grimm's Fairy Tales.

4. Brothers Grimm at first studied to become lawyers, like their father. Under above mentioned circumstances and inspired from one of their professors they begun exploring cultural inheritance of not fully integrated Germany. Most countries in Europe in 18th century still didn't develop national awareness and Germany was no exception.

The invisible glue with great potential of connecting different people with different dialects, different backgrounds and different interests under one state, were legends and fairy tales. People from East, West, South and North parts of Germany barely shared their language but they certainly shared numerous folk stories. Only few of them were written and young brothers started to collect them.

5. Legends and fairy tales were not the only occupation of Jakob and Wilhelm who soon became respected researchers of cultural past of German culture. They also started writing first dictionary of German language. Of course this was tremendous job and none of them never saw the final result: complete dictionary with impressive weight of more than 80 (!) kilograms.

6. First edition of Children and Household Tales with 86 stories in first volume and 70 stories in second volume was meant for scientists and researchers only. Soon they realized the potential of the stories loaded with morals. It seemed just right to present them to children in new society. Old feudal system was retreating to new order of bourgeois society. With fairy tales children could easier understand what is right and what is wrong.

Of course brothers Grimm had their own system of values developed on reformed Calvinistic doctrine. They believed in hard work and modest life, so they favored stories which featured perseverance, honesty and fairness. Some fairy tales already fitted in this model, others have been rewritten.

7. Brothers Grimm collected many fairy tales but some of them never managed to get in their collection and other were thrown out when they discovered they don't belong to German literary tradition. Puss in Boots and Blue Beard were for instance thrown out and Sleeping Beauty (aka Briar Rose) was included only after they found relation with tale of Brynhild in German folklore.

8. They were collecting stories for several years and rewriting them for the rest of the life. Because fairy tales were aimed for children brothers Grimm felt every insinuation of sexual activity should be erased. So children of Sleeping Beauty (yep, in earlier version she gave illegitimate birth to twins) vanished from Grimm's Fairy Tales, Rapunzel wasn't pregnant in later versions and even the mentioning of bed in Frog Prince was erased!

9. Jakob and Wilhelm also believed in strong family values, so they changed roles for many villains in the classic fairy tales. In older versions mother (not step mother) tried to kill the Snow White, father (not step mother) of Hansel and Gretel wanted to leave the children in the woods and Cinderella killed her biological mother (and got away with the murder!).

10. By today's standards Grimm's fairy tales are far too brutal and stereotypical. But we should know they were written in different times with different values in Jakob's and Wilhelm's minds. Objection about helpless heroine passively waiting for her prince is only partly true. Many female characters in Grimm's collection show courage, enterprise and a lot of imagination in their pursuits.

Grimm's fairy tales are of course not perfect for every occasion but most of the values they are promoting (be nice, work hard, take responsibilities) are values of today's society too. So with proper approach we should present them to our children to educate and enjoy. After all Grimm's Fairy Tales are not on UNESCO World Document Heritage list without reason, right?

Brata Grimm (Brothers Grimm)
Short biography of brothers Grimm, most known collectors of fairy tales who inspired many other collectors, writers, folklorists and even psychologists.

Pravljice bratov Grimm (Fairy Tales of brothers Grimm)
The most famous and influential collection of fairy tales in the world. How they were collected and rewritten to fit into value system of brothers Grimm.

Brothers Grimm
Short story about famous collectors of fairy tales with some more amazing facts about their life, work and fairy tales.

Public Domain Pictures of Fairy Tales

All the illustrations presented above (and many more) are available on this blog where you can find some additional info about the artists and more interesting resources.