by Jacob Grimm
The same purity runs through these tales that brings out the wonderful and blessed qualities of children. The tales have the same sky blue, flawless, shining eyes (in which small children love so much to see themselves1) that no longer grow while the other parts of their bodies are still tender, weak, and too awkward to be put to use on the earth. Most of the situations in the tales are so ordinary that many readers will have encountered them, but like all actual things in life, they continually appear new and moving. Parents have no more food, and, in desperation, they must cast their children from their home. Or a harsh stepmother lets her stepchildren suffer2 and would like to see them perish. Then there are some siblings abandoned in the desolate forest. The wind terrifies them, and they are afraid of the wild animals; yet, they faithfully support each other. The little brother knows how to find his way back home, or if he is transformed into an animal through magic, the little sister guides him in the forest and gathers foliage and moss for his bed, or she silently sits and sews a shirt for him made out of star flowers that destroy the magic spell. The entire cast of characters in this world is precisely determined: kings, princes, faithful servants, and honest tradesmen—especially fishermen, millers, colliers, and herdsmen, who are closest to nature—make their appearance. All other things are alien and unknown to this world. Also, similar to the myths that speak about a golden age, all of nature in these tales is vibrant; sun, moon, and stars are approachable; they give gifts and let themselves be woven into gowns. Dwarfs work in the mountains and search for metals. Mermaids sleep in the water. Birds (the doves are the most beloved and the most helpful), plants, and stones, speak and know how to express their sympathy. Even blood cries out and says things, and this is how the tales already exercise their rights where later storytelling strives to speak through metaphors. This innocent familiarity of the greatest and the smallest has an indescribable endearing quality to it, and we tend to prefer the conversation of the stars with a poor deserted child in the forest than the sound of the music in the spheres. Everything beautiful is golden and strewn with pearls. Even golden people live here. But misfortune is a dark power, a monstrous, cannibalistic giant, who is, however, vanquished, because a good woman, who happily knows how to avert disaster, stands ready to help. And this type of narrative always ends by opening the possibility for enduring happiness. Evil is also not anything small or close to home, and not the worst; otherwise one could grow accustomed to it. Rather it is something terrible, dark, and absolutely separate so that one cannot get near it. The punishment of evil is equally dreadful: snakes and poisonous reptiles devour their victims, or an evil individual must dance to death in red-hot iron shoes. There is much that also carries its own meaning within itself: a mother gets her real child back in her arms after she manages to cause the changeling, which the elves had substituted for own child, to laugh. Similarly, the life of a child begins with a smile and continues in joy, and as the child smiles in its sleep, angels talk to the baby. A quarter of an hour each day is exempt from the power of magic when the human form steps forth freely as though no power can completely enshroud us. Every day affords individual people moments when they can shake off everything that is false and can view things from their perspective. On the other hand, the magic spell is also never completely vanquished. A swan’s wing remains instead of an arm, and when a tear is shed, an eye is lost with it. Or worldly intelligence is humbled, and the fool, mocked and neglected by everyone, gains happiness only because of his pure heart. These features form the basis that enables the tales to readily provide a good lesson or a use for the present. It was neither their purpose to instruct nor were they invented for that reason, but a lesson grows out of them just as a good fruit grows from a healthy blossom without the involvement of mankind. It is in this that all genuine poetry proves its worth because it can never be without some connection to life. It rises from life and returns to it just as clouds return to their place of birth after they have watered the earth.
This is how the essence of these tales seems to us—naturally they resemble all folk tales and legends in their outward appearance. They are never set and change from region to region and from one teller to another; they faithfully preserve the same source. In this regard they distinguish themselves from the original local folk legends, which are tied to real places or heroes of history, and which we have not included here, even though we have collected many and are thinking of publishing them some other time. We have sometimes provided several versions of one and the same tale because of their pleasant and unique variations. Those tales that are less important have been included in the notes. In general, however, we have collected the tales as faithfully as we could. It is also clear that these tales were constantly reproduced anew as time went on. This is exactly the reason why their origins must be very old. Some of them have left traces in Fischart and Rollenhagen3 that we have noted and that prove and indicate the tales are almost three hundred years old, but it is beyond any doubt that they are even older than that even if lack of evidence makes direct proof impossible. The only, but certain, evidence can be derived from the connection with the great heroic epics and the indigenous animal fables, but this is naturally not the place to go into detail, and anyway, we have said some things about this in the notes.
Given that these tales are so close to the earliest and simplest forms of life, this closeness can account for its general dissemination, for there is not a single group of people that can completely do without such Poesie. Even the Negroes of West Africa delight their children with stories, and Strabo4 expressly says the same thing about the Greeks. (Similar attestation can be found among others at the end, and this proves how highly such tales were esteemed by those who understood the value of a voice speaking directly to the heart.) There is another highly remarkable phenomenon that can be explained from all this, and it pertains to the great diffusion of the German tales. In this case they don’t merely equal the heroic stories of Siegfried the dragon slayer, but they even surpass them because we find these tales and exactly the same kinds spread throughout Europe, thus revealing an affinity among the noblest peoples. In the north we are familiar only with the Danish heroic ballads that contain much relevant material primarily in songs that are not entirely appropriate for children because they are meant to be sung. However, here, too, the boundary can hardly be designated with exactitude when it comes to the more serious historical legend, and there are to be sure points of overlap. England possesses the Tabart collection of tales,5 which is not very rich, but what treasures of oral tales must still exist in Wales, Scotland, and Ireland! Just in its Mabinogion6 (now in print) Wales has a true treasure. In a similar way, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark have remained rich sources. Much less so, perhaps, the southern countries. We know nothing about Spain, but a passage from Cervantes leaves no doubt about the existence and telling of tales.7 France has certainly much more now than what Charles Perrault provided.8 But he treated them still as children’s tales (not like his inferior imitators Aulnoy and Murat9). He produced only nine. Of course, they belong to the best known tales, which are also among the most beautiful. His merit consists in his decision not to add anything to the tales and to leave the tales unchanged, discounting some small details. His style of depiction deserves only praise for being as simple as possible. Indeed, the French language in its present state of cultivation curls together almost by itself into epigrammatic remarks and finely honed dialogue, and this makes it nothing but more difficult to be naïve and direct—that is, in fact to be without any pretentiousness—while telling children’s tales. (Just see the conversations between Riquet à la houpe and the dumb princess as well as the end of Petit Poucet.) In addition they are sometimes unnecessarily long and wordy. An analysis that is about to be published maintains that Perrault (born 1633, died 1703) was the first one to invent these tales, and it was through him they first reached the people. This study even asserts that Perrault’s “Tom Thumb” is an intentional imitation of Homer that wants to make Ul
ysses’ predicament when threatened by Polyphemus understandable to children. Johanneau had a better view of this matter.10 Older Italian collections are richer than all the others. First in Straparola’s Nights,11 which contains many good things, then especially in Basile’s Pentamerone,12 a collection that is as well known and beloved in Italy as it is seldom and unknown in Germany. Written in Neapolitan dialect, it is in every regard a superb book. The contents are almost perfect and without false additions. The style is overflowing with good words and sayings. To translate it in a lively manner would require someone like Fischart13 and others from his era. Meanwhile, we have been thinking about translating it into German in the second volume of the present collection in which everything else that is provided by foreign sources will find a place.
We have tried to grasp and interpret these tales as purely as possible. In many of them one will find that the narrative is interrupted by rhymes and verses that even possess clear alliteration at times but are never sung during the telling of a tale, and these are precisely the oldest and best tales. No incident has been added or embellished and changed, for we would have shied away from expanding tales already so rich in and of themselves with their own analogies and similarities. They cannot be invented. In this regard no collection like this one has yet to appear in Germany. The tales have almost always been used as stuff to create longer stories, which have been arbitrarily expanded and changed depending on their value. They have always been ripped from the hands of children even though they belonged to them, and nothing was given back to them in return. Even those people who thought about the children could not restrain themselves from mixing in mannerisms of contemporary writing. Diligence in collecting has almost always been lacking. Just a few, noted by chance, were immediately published.14 Had we been so fortunate to be able to tell the tales in a very particular dialect, they would have undoubtedly gained a great deal. Here we have a case where all the accomplishments of education, refinement, and artistic command of language ruin everything, and where one feels that a purified literary language, as elegant as it may be for everything else, brighter and more transparent, has here, however, become more tasteless and cannot get to the heart of the matter.
We offer this book to well-meaning hands and thereby think chiefly of the blessed power that lies in these hands. We wish they will not allow these tiny morsels of poetry to be kept entirely hidden from poor and modest readers.
Kassel, October 18, 1812
Notes
1. Fischart, Gargantua 129b, 131b. (The Grimms cite Johann Baptist Fischart’s translation of François Rabelais’s Gargantua, which was published in German under the title Affentheurlich Naupengeheurliche Geschichtklitterung, 1575. JZ)
2. This kind of relationship occurs often here and is no doubt the first cloud that appears on the blue skies of a child and squeezes out the first tears that adults don’t see, but that the angels count. Even flowers have received their names from this relationship. The tricolored violet is called “Little Stepmother” because there is a slender little green leaf beneath each yellow leaf that supports it. They are the chairs that the mother gives to her own cheerful children. The two stepchildren must stand above, mournful in dark violet, and they have no chairs.
3. The references are to Johann Baptist Fischart (ca. 1546–91), author of Affentheurlich Naupengeheurliche Geschichtklitterung (1575), and Georg Rollenhagen (1542–1609), author of Foschmeuseler (1595). JZ
4. Strabo (64 BC–AD 24), Greek philosopher, historian, and geographer. JZ
5. Benjamin Tabart (ca. 1767–1833) published an important series of fairy tales called Popular Tales (1804) in four volumes as well as inexpensive chapbooks. JZ
6. The Mabinogion is a collection of eleven medieval Welsh tales with folk-tale and fairy-tale motifs. They are connected to the Arthurian legends and became available to the Grimms at the beginning of the nineteenth century. JZ
7. —y aquellas (cosas) que à ti te deven parecer profecias, non son sino palabras de consejas, ocuentos de viejas, como acquellos des cavallo sin cabeça, y de la varilla de virtudes, con que se entretienen al fuego las diltatadas noches del invierno. Colloq. Entre cip. Y Berg. (Mistakes in the Spanish appear in the original. JZ)
8. Charles Perrault (1628–1703), author of the famous collection of fairy tales Histoires ou Contes du temps passé (1697). JZ
9. The references are to Mme Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy (ca. 1650–1705), who published several books of fairy tales including two volumes, Contes de fées (1698), and Henriette Julie de Murat (1670–1716), author of Contes de fées (1698). JZ
10. The reference is to the French philologist Éloi Johanneau (1770–1851). JZ
11. Giovan Francesco Straparola (ca. 1480–1558), author of Le piacevoli notti, 2 vols. (1550–53). JZ
12. Giambattista Basile (1575–1632), author of Il Pentamerone (1634–36), also known as Lo cunto de li cunti (The Tale of Tales). JZ
13. Given the language of his day and his admirable memory, what a much better book of folk tales he could have produced if he had recognized the value of a true, unadulterated recording in a different way.
14. Musäus und Naubert made use of what we have called local legends. The much more esteemed Otmar made use only of those kinds of legends. An Efurt collection of 1787 is poor; only half of a Leipzig collection of 1799 belongs here, even though it is not all that bad. Among all these collections, the one from Braunschweig of 1801 is the richest, although its tone is wrong. There was nothing for us to take from the latest Büsching collection, and it should be expressly noted that a collection called Kindermärchen (Children’s Tales) was published a few years ago by A. L. Grimm in Heidelberg with whom we are related by name only; it was not done very well and has absolutely nothing in common with us and with our work.
The recently published Wintermärchen (Winter Tales) by Father Jahn (Jena at Voigt 1813) only has a new title and actually appeared ten years ago.
There is also a Leipzig collection with tales written by someone with the name Peter Kling and all in the same manner. Only the sixth tale and part of the fifth are of value; the others have no substance and, apart from a few details, are hollow inventions.
We ask those who possibly have the opportunity and the inclination to help us to improve particular parts of this book to amend the fragments, and especially to collect new and unusual animal tales. We would be most grateful to receive such information, which would be best sent to the publisher or to bookstores in Göttingen, Kassel, and Marburg.
[The authors and books referred to by the Grimms are
Büsching, Johann Gustav Gottlieb. Volks-Sagen, Märchen und Legenden. Leipzig: 1812.
Feen-Mährchen zur Unterhaltung der Freunde und Freundinnen der Feenwelt. Braunschweig: 1801.
Gottschalck, Kaspar Friedrich (Otmar). Die Sagen und Volksmährchen der Deutschen. Halle: Hemmerde und Schwetschke, 1814.
Grimm, Albert Ludwig. Kindermährchen. Heidelberg: Morhr und Zimmer, 1808.
Kling, Peter. Das Mährleinbuch für meine lieben Nachbarsleute. 2 vols. Leipzig: Weygand, 1799.
Musäus, Johann Karl August. Volksmährchen der Deutschen. 5 vols. Gotha: 1782–87.
Naubert, Benedikte. Neue Volksmährchen der Deutschen. Leipzig: Weygand, 1789–92.
JZ]
1
THE FROG KING, OR IRON HENRY
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?”
“Oh,” she said, “you nasty frog, you can’t help me! My golden ball has fallen into the water.”
“Well, I don’t want your pearls, your jewels, and your clothes,” the frog responded. “But if you will accept me as your companion and let me sit next to you and let me eat from your little golden plate and sleep in your little bed and promise to love and cherish me, I’ll fetch your ball for you.”
The princess thought, “what nonsense the simple-minded frog is blabbering! He’s got to remain in his water. But perhaps he can get me my ball. So I’ll say yes to him.” And she said, “Yes, fair enough, but first fetch me the golden ball. I promise you everything.”