More than 200 years, that’s how old the stories from the brothers Grimm already are. You might know them from popular stories you have read before or from the movies that were inspired by them. In Germany, we know them as the “Gebrueder Grimm” and most of us grew up with them and their words. Because they had such a big impact on my childhood I wanted to use the chance and spread some information about them. In the following article, you will find some facts about the lives of the brothers Grimm and afterwards, I will share some of my favourite stories of theirs!
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were born in 1785 and 1786 in Hanau in Hesse. After finishing school they went to Marburg to study law, where their interest in the German language and literature grew. They started to collect and write stories during their studies and in 1812 the collection of their work was published. Since then they were translated into more than 170 languages. In 1829 the brothers attended the University of Goettingen and in 1840 they transferred to the Academy of Sciences in Berlin. Wilhelm died 19 years later, in 1859 and Jacob died in 1863. Because they didn’t want to be separated from one another they were buried side by side in Berlin.
My favourite story: “The Star Talers”
The story is about a girl that lost her parents and didn’t have any money which led to her being homeless. The only thing she had were the clothes on her body and a piece of bread. On her journey, she meets a man who is poor and hungry and asks for her bread. She gave him her entire piece and continued walking. Then she met a child that asked for her hat, so she gave it to them to warm their head. Later she met another child who was freezing, so she also gave away her jacket and sometime later her dress too. When she walked through the forest it was already dark, so when another freezing child asked for her undershirt she gave it away thinking that no one could see her anyway. With nothing left, the girl stood in the forest when suddenly the stars began falling from the sky. They were landing on the ground as gold talers and the girl was dressed in an undershirt of the finest fabric. The girl was rich for the rest of her life.
Summary of “Mother Holly”
The story is about a widow who has a lazy daughter, Pechmarie, and a hard-working stepdaughter, Goldmarie. The widow favours her ‘real’ daughter and forces Goldmarie to work all day. She spends most days spinning wool until her fingers are bleeding. When she tries to rinse out the spindle, it falls into the fountain she is sitting by. Her stepmother, who clearly doesn’t like her, tells her to jump in after it. Goldmarie does so and then wakes up in the middle of a beautiful field of flowers. She meets Frau Holle who invites her to live with her as long as she helps with the chores around the house. Marie stays and helps Frau Holle where she can until she misses her home so much that she asks to go back. Before bringing her back, Frau Holle rewards Marie with a shower of gold. When she returns, her greedy step-sister and –mother are already waiting for her and her gold. Because the mother wants her real daughter to have the same fortune, she sends Pechmarie into the fountain as well. Since Pechmarie is very lazy she doesn’t do any work for Frau Holle, even with the gold in mind. After some days, Frau Holle gets annoyed by her and sends her back home. Instead of gold, Pechmarie returns covered in tear which she will wear forever.
Other stories you might know are Hansel and Gretel, about the two siblings who get lost in the woods, Cinderella, about the prince who falls in love with the maid, and actually stepsister, of the woman he is supposed to marry, and Little Red Riding Hood, the girl visiting her grandmother in the woods.
There are many more stories from the brothers Grimm to discover. I hope you learned something new about the brothers Grimm or got to know them through this article!
Sources:
https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm153.html
http://www.grimms.de/de/content/wer-waren-die-br%C3%BCder-grimm
https://www.grimmstories.com/language.php?grimm=026&l=de&r=en
https://owlcation.com/humanities/hansel_and_gretel
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0172467/plotsummary