by Jacob Grimm
Some of these tales in the first edition were printed in the following six editions of Kinder- und Hausmärchen, but in much different versions and often with different titles. Others were deleted or were placed in the scholarly notes. It is difficult to explain why the Grimms made all these deletions and changes because the reasons were different or unknown. For instance, tales like “How Children Played at Slaughtering” and “The Children of Famine” were omitted because they were gruesome. “Bluebeard,” “Puss in Boots,” and “Okerlo” were not reprinted because they stemmed from the French literary tradition. The same is true for “Simple Hans” because of its Italian origins. Some tales like “Good Bowling and Card Playing,” “Herr Fix-It-Up,” “Prince Swan,” and “The Devil in the Green Coat” among many others were simply replaced by other stories in later editions because the Grimms found versions that they preferred or combined different versions. The changes made by the Grimms indicated their ideological and artistic preferences. For instance, in the 1812/1815 edition of “Little Snow White” and “Hansel and Gretel” the wicked stepmother is actually a biological mother, and these characters were changed to become stepmothers in 1819 clearly because the Grimms held motherhood sacred. In the first edition “Rapunzel” is a very short provocative tale in which the young girl gets pregnant. The 1819 version is longer, much more sentimental, and without a hint of pregnancy. Here are two examples of how Wilhelm changed the tales to accord with middle-class notions of taste, decorum, and style. The contrasts between the different versions are clear. The second version of “The Frog King,” which was called “The Frog Prince,” was deleted in all the following editions.
THE FROG KING, OR IRON HENRY (1812)
Once upon a time there was a princess who went out into the forest and sat down at the edge of a cool well. She had a golden ball that was her favorite plaything. She threw it up high and caught it in the air and was delighted by all this. One time the ball flew up very high, and as she stretched out her hand and bent her fingers to catch it again, the ball hit the ground near her and rolled and rolled until it fell right into the water.
The princess was horrified, and when she went to look for the ball, she found the well was so deep that she couldn’t see the bottom. So she began to weep miserably and to lament: “Oh, if only I had my ball again! I’d give anything—my clothes, my jewels, my pearls and anything else in the world—to get my ball back!”
As she sat there grieving, a frog stuck its head out of the water and said: “Why are you weeping so miserably?”
THE FROG PRINCE (1815)
Once upon a time there was a king who had three daughters, and in his courtyard there was a well with beautiful clear water. On a hot summer’s day the eldest daughter went down to the well and scooped out a glass full of water. However, when she looked at it and held it up to the sun, she saw that the water was murky. She found this very unusual and wanted to scoop out another glass when a frog stirred in the water, stuck its head up high, and finally jumped on to the edge of the well, where he spoke:
“If you’ll be my sweetheart, my dear,
I’ll give you water clearer than clear.”
“Oh, who’d ever want to be a nasty frog’s sweetheart?” she cried out and ran away.
Then she told her sisters that there was an odd frog down at the well that made the water murky. The second sister became curious, and so she went down to the well and scooped a glass of water for herself, but it was just as murky as her sister’s glass so that she wasn’t able to drink it. Once again, however, the frog was on the edge of the well and said:
“If you’ll be my sweetheart, my dear,
I’ll give you water clearer than clear.”
“Do you think that would suit me?” the princess replied and ran away.
Finally, the third sister went, and things were no better. But when the frog spoke,
“If you’ll be my sweetheart, my dear,
I’ll give you water clearer than clear,”
she replied, “Yes, why not? I’ll be your sweetheart. Get me some clean water.”
However, she thought, “That won’t do any harm. I can speak to him just as I please. A dumb frog can never become my sweetheart.”
THE FROG KING, OR IRON HENRY (1857)
In olden times, when wishing still helped, there lived a king whose daughters were all beautiful, but the youngest was so beautiful that the sun itself, which had seen many things, was always filled with amazement each time it cast its rays upon her face. Now, there was a great dark forest near the king’s castle, and in this forest, beneath an old linden tree, was a well. Whenever the days were very hot, the king’s daughter would go into this forest and sit down by the edge of the cool well. If she became bored, she would take her golden ball, throw it into the air, and catch it. More than anything else she loved playing with this ball.
One day it so happened that the ball did not fall back into the princess’s little hand as she reached out to catch it. Instead, it bounced right by her and rolled straight into the water. The princess followed it with her eyes, but the ball disappeared, and the well was deep, so very deep that she could not see the bottom. She began to cry, and she cried louder and louder, for there was nothing that could comfort her. As she sat there, grieving over her loss, a voice called out to her, “What’s the matter, princess? Your eyes could move even a stone to pity.”
RAPUNZEL (1812)
One day, a young prince went riding through the forest and came upon the tower. He looked up and saw beautiful Rapunzel at the window. When he heard her singing with such a sweet voice, he fell completely in love with her. However, since there were no doors in the tower and no ladder could ever reach her high window, he fell into despair. Nevertheless, he went into the forest every day until one time he saw the fairy who called out:
“Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
let down your hair.”
As a result, he now knew what kind of ladder he needed to climb up into the tower. He took careful note of the words he had to say, and the next day at dusk, he went to the tower and called out:
“Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
let down your hair.”
So she let her hair drop, and when her braids were at the bottom of the tower, he tied them around him, and she pulled him up. At first, Rapunzel was terribly afraid, but soon the young prince pleased her so much that she agreed to see him every day and pull him up into the tower. Thus, for a while they had a merry time and enjoyed each other’s company. The fairy didn’t become aware of this until, one day, Rapunzel began talking and said to her, “Tell me, Mother Gothel, why are my clothes becoming too tight? They don’t fit me anymore.”
“Oh, you godless child!” the fairy replied. “What’s this I hear?”
RAPUNZEL (1857)
A few years later a king’s son happened to be riding through the forest and passed by the tower. Suddenly, he heard a song so lovely that he stopped to listen. It was Rapunzel, who passed the time in her solitude by letting her sweet voice resound in the forest. The prince wanted to climb up to her, and he looked for a door but could not find one. So he rode home. However, the song had touched his heart so deeply that he rode out into the forest every day and listened. One time, as he was standing behind a tree, he saw the sorceress approach and heard her call out:
“Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
let down your hair.”
Then Rapunzel let down her braids, and the sorceress climbed up to her.
“If that’s the ladder one needs to get up there, I’m also going to try my luck,” the prince declared.
The next day, as it began to get dark, he went to the tower and called out:
“Rapunzel, Rapunzel,
let down your hair.”
All at once the hair dropped down, and the prince climbed up. When he entered the tower, Rapunzel was at first terribly afraid, for she had never laid eyes on a man before. However, the prince began to talk to her in a friendly way and told her that her song had tou
ched his heart so deeply that he had not been able to rest until he had seen her. Rapunzel then lost her fear, and when he asked her whether she would have him for her husband, and she saw that he was young and handsome, she thought, “He’ll certainly love me better than old Mother Gothel.” So she said yes and placed her hand in his.
“I want to go with you very much,” she said, “but I don’t know how I can get down. Every time you come, you must bring a skein of silk with you, and I’ll weave it into a ladder. When it’s finished, then I’ll climb down, and you can take me away on your horse.”
They agreed that until then he would come to her every evening, for the old woman came during the day. Meanwhile, the sorceress did not notice anything until one day Rapunzel blurted out, “Mother Gothel, how is it that you’re much heavier than the prince? When I pull him up, he’s here in a second.”
“Ah, you godless child!” exclaimed the corceress. “What’s this I hear? I thought I had made sure that you had no contact with the outside world, but you’ve deceived me.”
The florid descriptions, smooth transitions, and explanations are characteristic of most of the tales in the 1857 edition. Wilhelm embellished and elaborated the tales with good intentions—to enhance their value as part of an educational primer. So, in the case of “Rapunzel,” he demonized a fairy by changing her into a sorceress and minimized gender and class struggle. Though the Grimms were politically “liberal” for their times, they shied away from printing tales that were too radical in depicting resistance to patriarchal authority and opposition to monarchs. This may be the reason why they eliminated tales like “The Tablecloth, the Knapsack, the Cannon, and the Horn,” in which a common man defeats a king and takes his daughter for his wife. On the other hand, the Grimms were very much disposed toward presenting the underdog in positive ways and toward publishing animal tales in which the weak almost always triumph over the strong who abuse their power. This can be seen in a major group of animal tales in the first edition, such as “The Wolf and the Seven Kids,” “The Sparrow and His Four Children,” “Old Sultan,” “Loyal Godfather Sparrow,” “The Fox and the Geese,” “The Wren and the Bear,” and “The Faithful Animals.” In many tales the protagonists who respect animals, birds, and fish and are kind to them are later helped by them. There is a strong bond between humans and talking animals in the Grimms’ collection. In general the Brothers show a predilection for collecting tales that focus on the cooperation of brothers, brothers and sisters, and humans and animals who work to overcome evil. It is striking how much this theme of cooperation among underdogs who work together to attain justice is central to the narratives in the first edition and often reinforced in the later editions of Kinder- und Hausmärchen. Unfortunately, many of the best tales in the first edition were excluded or shunned in later editions.
In many respects the unknown original tales in the present republication of the first edition read like startling “new” tales that are closer to traditional oral storytelling than the final collection of 210 tales in the 1857 edition. This is not to minimize or discredit the changes that the Grimms made but to insist that the history of the Grimms’ tales needs to be known to fully comprehend the accomplishments of the Grimms as folklorists. In every edition of their tales, they began with “The Frog King,” also known as “The Frog Prince,” and ended with “The Golden Key.” The reason they did this is, in my opinion, because “The Frog King”—and there are two different versions in the first edition—is an optimistic tale about miraculous regeneration, love, and loyalty and signals to readers that the tales in the collection will bring hope to readers and listeners despite the conflicts filled with blood and gore. The final tale, “The Golden Key,” is highly significant because it leaves readers in suspense and indicates that tales are mysterious treasures. We just need the right key to discover and appreciate them. In this respect, however, the tales that are to be rediscovered and will become known are never the end of our quest to understand the mysteries of life, only the beginning. And so it is with the unknown original tales of the Brothers Grimm. They are only the beginning.
Notes
1. See Franz Schultz, Die Märchen der Brüder Grimm in der Urform (Frankfurt am Main: Frankfurter Bibliophilen-Gesellschaft, 1924); Joseph Lefftz, “Die Märchenhandschrift der Brüder Grimm im Kloster Ölenberg,” Elsassland 4 (1924): 361–65; Joseph Lefftz, ed., Märchen der Brüder Grimm. Urfassung nach der Originalhandschrift der Abtei Ölenberg im Elsaß (Heidelberg: Schriften der Elsaß-Lothringischen Wissenschaft, 1927); and Heinz Rölleke, ed., Die älteste Märchensammlung der Brüder Grimm. Synopse der handschriftlichen Urfassung von 1810 und der Erstdrucke von 1812 (Cologny-Geneva: Fondation Martin Bodmer, 1975).
2. Reinhold Steig and Herman Grimm, eds., Achim von Arnim und die ihm nahe standen, vol. 3 (Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta’schen Buchhandlung, 1904): 237.
3. Ibid., 269.
4. Kinder- und Hausmärchen gesammelt durch die Brüder Grimm [1812/1815, Erstausgabe], ed. Ulrike Marquardt and Heinz Rölleke, vol. 2. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986): viii–ix.
5. André Jolles, Einfache Formen: Legende/Sage/Mythe/Spruch Kasus/Memorabile, Märchen/Witz. (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1958): 243. Reprint of the 1930 edition.
6. See Heinz Rölleke, ed., Es war einmal . . . Die wahren Märchen der Brüder Grimm und wer sie ihnen erzählte, illustr. Albert Schindehütte (Frankfurt am Main: Eichorn, 2011).
NOTE ON THE TEXT AND TRANSLATION
The present translation is based on Kinder- und Haus-Märchen. Gesammelt durch die Brüder Grimm, 2 vols., Berlin: Realschulbuchandlung, 1812/15. With the exception of the commentary on children’s beliefs, the evidence for the Kindermärchen, and the scholarly notes, my translation is the first complete English translation of the Grimms’ first edition. Those readers who know German and are interested in the complete German commentary and notes can readily obtain them in any reliable German reprint of the first edition. As for the scholarly notes to the tales, I have provided a thorough summary of each note to indicate sources, and I have also translated the variants of tales that I thought were important. These notes reveal, in my opinion, how knowledgeable and erudite the Grimms were at a very young age.
I have endeavored to capture the tone and style of the different tales by translating them into a basic contemporary American idiom. My main objective was to render the frank and blunt qualities of the tales in a succinct American English. Eleven of the tales were published in different German dialects, and since it is practically impossible to match these dialects in American English, I did my best to reproduce the brusque manner of the narratives. As I have emphasized in my introduction, the Grimms’ tales, though diverse and not their own, share an innocent and naïve morality that pervades their works. It is this quality that I have tried to communicate in my translation.
VOLUME I
PREFACE TO VOLUME I
When a storm, or some other catastrophe sent from the heavens, levels an entire crop, we are relieved to find that a small patch, protected by tiny hedges or bushes, has been spared and that some solitary stalks remain standing. When the sun shines once again and favors them, they will continue to grow alone and unnoticed. No sickle will cut them down too early so they can be stashed in a large silo, but late in the summer, when they are ripe and fully grown, some poor and pious hands will come searching for them. Ear upon ear will be carefully bound in bundles, inspected, and attended to as whole sheaths. Then they will be brought home and serve as the staple food for the entire winter. Perhaps they will be the only seed for the future.
This is how it seemed to us when we began examining the richness of German literature in earlier times and then saw that nothing much had been preserved from that richness. Even the recollection of that treasure had been lost, and only folk songs and those innocent household tales are all that has remained. The places by the stove, the hearth in the kitchen, stone stairs leading to the attic, holidays still celebrated, pastures and
woods in quiet seclusion, and above all the undisturbed imagination have been the hedges that have protected the tales and have allowed them to be transmitted from one generation to another.
Now that we have reexamined our collection of tales, we’d like to offer our present reflections. In the beginning we thought that a great deal had perished, and only the tales that we knew already were the ones that had remained, and that variants, as is usually the case, were also told by other people. But on the lookout for everything that really was still there from these poetic stories (Poesie), we also wanted to get to know these other versions, and it turned out, however, that there was much more new material than we had realized. Even though we were not able to make inquiries at places very far from us, our collection grew from year to year, so that, after approximately six years have flown by, it now seems rich to us. At the same time we realize that we may be missing a great deal, but we are pleased by the thought that we possess the most and the best tales. Aside from a few exceptions that we have noted, almost everything has been collected from oral traditions in Hesse and Main and in the Kinzig regions of the Duchy of Hanau, where we grew up, and that is why pleasant memories are attached to each and every tale. Few books like ours have originated with such pleasure, and we would like to express our gratitude publicly once again to everyone who has participated in our work.
It was perhaps just the right time to record these tales since those people who should be preserving them are becoming more and more scarce. (Of course, those who still know them know a great deal, but people die away, while the tales persist.) Indeed, the custom of storytelling is on the wane just like all the familiar places in homes and gardens are succumbing to an empty splendor that resembles that smile when one speaks of these tales, a smile that appears lavish and yet does not cost very much. Wherever the tales still exist, they continue to live in such a way that nobody ponders whether they are good or bad, poetic or crude. People know them and love them because they have simply absorbed them in a habitual way. And they take pleasure in them without having any reason. This is exactly why the custom of storytelling is so marvelous, and it is just what this poetic art has in common with everything eternal: people are obliged to be disposed toward it despite the objections of others. Incidentally, it is easy to observe that the custom of storytelling has stuck only where poetry has enjoyed a lively reception and where the imagination has not yet been obliterated by the perversities of life. In that same regard we don’t want to praise the tales or even defend them against a contrary opinion: their mere existence suffices to protect them. That which has managed to provide so much pleasure time and again and has moved people and taught them something carries its own necessity in itself and has certainly emanated from that eternal source that moistens all life, and even if it were only a single drop that a folded leaf embraces, it will nevertheless glitter in the early dawn.