Fairy tales. It is one of my favorite things. Neither of my children had the patience to listen to the stories, but as a child, I can remember sitting with my mother while she read me stories from our collection. We had Russian Fairy Tales, Chinese Fairy Tales, Grimms Fairy Tales and a seriously large collection of Golden Books. We also had Aesop's Fables, Mother Goose, and southern tales like Brer Rabbit. I loved them all, and I still do. I have a passion for the unusual stories that were in the Russian and Chinese tales, but I have a special place in my heart for the brothers Grimm.
Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm were born in a town called Hanau about 3.5 to 4 hours north of us. They lived in the countryside, and their father had a secure job with the Prince of Hesse (a region of Germany like one of our states). Sadly, though, their father died when the oldest, Jacob, was just 11, and their lives changed dramatically in the next two years to a rather impoverished existence. Both brothers were able, however, to succeed in life, going to Gymnasium and then on to University where they studied law and history.
Although they are most famous for their collected works of the fairy tales (they didn't actually write the tales, they just collected them from various sources and edited them to suit their style), they also were very important in their research on linguistics (the study of language). They came up with a set of rules known as Grimms Law that shows the changes in language over time and how it evolves. For example, in a really old language called Latin, where a lot of English words come from, the original word for foot was "pedis". Over time, this evolved in other languages that had Latin roots to resemble foot when the "P" over time changed to an "F". Look at the Latin and Greek for foot, and then at the following languages for foot: Latin: pedis, Greek: pūs, Danish: fod, Swedish: fot, German: fuß, and English: foot. There are a lot of similarities. Particularly, between English and German, there are many similarities and minor changes like this because a lot of our language has the same background as German does. As you get older, learning the meaning of Latin roots, such as pedis will help you figure out words you don't know. Think about "pedestrian" - it means a person walking (on their feet).
But the reason I went into all of this is that the collection of stories we know and love today as Grimms Fairy Tales was directly related to their research in language. In going to different regions to hear people tell stories and looking at literature from other countries, they put these stories together and then gave it a style mostly suitable for children, leading to its tremendous popularity.
Eventually, the two brothers became professors. After some disagreements with the regional thinking, they two brothers finally settled in Berlin where they continued their work until they died. Over their lifetime, they contributed heavily to the understanding of language, an extensive German dictionary (that was only complete to the letter F at their passing, and was finally completed in its entirety in the mid 1900's), an extensive German grammar book, and a unification of the Germanic speaking regions of the area through the fairy tale, folklore writings and legends that they published.
My favorite Grimms Fairy Tale is Rapunzel, followed closely by Rumpelstilzchen. Which one is yours? Do you know other Fairy Tales from other regions of the world? Have you ever written a Fairy Tale? Take some time to read one of these wonderful stories and think about what enchanted place you can create. (I heartily recommend this for the adults reading this as well. It really is a wonderful break from the big scary world out there!) I hope while we are here to get a chance to travel some or all of the Fairy Tale Road that runs from Hanau to Bremmen, near Frankfurt, 600 km to the north.
Thanks goes to Wikipedia, the University of Pittsburgh's Grimm Brothers site, The National Geographic magazine that did an article on the brothers by Thomas O'Neill, and of course my mother, who read me night after night those wonderful tales. Thanks, Mom!
Just one last note, it is very interesting to read about the political use of these tales over time. Adults and older children reading this, I recommend you do some research - start with Red Riding Hood. You may just be surprised!
My question for today is "What is a föhn?"
My word for today is Fairy Tale - Märchen (pronounced Mehr chen with the ch making that cat sound.)
Auf Weidersehen,
Frau Spitzer
