(reposted with editing)
I was searching for something else when I stumbled upon the Grimm Brothers.
Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm (1786–1859), were German academics. They are among the best-known storytellers of folktales, popularizing stories such as Cinderella, The Frog Prince, Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Rumpstiltskin, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White.
Their collection of folktales was first published in 1812.
When both brothers attended the small University of Marburg, in central Germany, they developed a curiosity for German folklore. They collected tales from peasants, middle-class, and aristocratic acquaintances. 20th-century educators debated the value and influence of teaching stories that include brutality and violence, and some of the more gruesome details were sanitized.* Nazi Germany weaponized the tales for propaganda using them to foster nationalism and antisemitic sentiments.
According to author Elizabeth Dalton, “Nazi ideologues enshrined the Kinder- und Hausmärchen** as sacred text.” W.H. Auden praised the collection, during WWII, as one of the founding works of Western culture. The Nazi Party decreed that every household should own a copy of Kinder- und Hausmärchen; later, officials of Allied-occupied Germany banned the book for a period.
Kinder- und Hausmärchen– 1812.
The stories in Kinder- und Hausmärchen include scenes of violence that have since been sanitized. For example, in the Grimms’ original version of Snow White, the Queen is Little Snow White’s mother, not her stepmother, yet she orders her Huntsman to kill Snow White-her biological daughter-and bring home the child’s lungs and liver so that she can eat them. The story ends with the Queen dancing at Snow White’s wedding, wearing a pair of red -hot iron shoes that kill her.
As well, the first edition Rapunzel clearly shows a sexual relationship between the prince and the girl in the tower, which they edited out in subsequent editions.
The children’s version went through ten editions between 1825 and 1858.
The brothers believed that the tales reflected innate cultural qualities. The popularity of the folktales has endured. They are available in more than 100 translations. The university library at Humboldt University holds a large portion of the Grimms’ private library. The collection includes almost 6.000 volumes. ***
* In Sleeping Beauty, for example, the princess is raped in her sleep; in Cinderella, the step-sisters cut off parts of their own feet in order to fit them into the glass slipper.
**Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children and Household Tales) is listed by UNESCO in its Memory of the World Registry.
***Less well known in the English-speaking world is the Grimms’ pioneering scholarly work on a German dictionary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brothers_Grimm
https://pookpress.co.uk/project/brothers-grimm-biography/
