About Grimm's Fairy-Tales

The first thing we think of when we think about the collection activities of the Brothers Grimm, is that they draw over the country and wrote down the fairy tales they heard. But today we know that it is not how it happened. The Brothers Grimm also published announcements, in response to which people brought their stories or told the fairy tales to the brothers. Many of them probably wanted to remain anonymous, which is confirmed by the fact that there are notes in the manuscripts about people who told the fairy tales, but some tales are without such references. Tales were told in the circles of intellectuals and that explains the birth of the initiative to collect fairy tales in order to preserve them from oblivion.

1812 in 900 copies, the first collection of Children's and Household Tales was released, but it was not successful much. 1825, another smaller and illustrated edition of the Children’s and Household Tales was released, and this time the third of the brothers Grimm was also engaged and responsible for the illustrations: Ludwig Emil Grimm, Academy Professor (few years after the publication of the English version of the illustrated collection of fairy tales). From 1812 - the first edition to 1825 and later the fairy tales have suffered certain changes: They were stylized, some things were omitted, in order to avoid critics that the tales were "contradictory, fragmentary, rudimentary, somehow drastic and unsuitable for children.”

 2011 the book of Professor Heinz Rölleke, whose special subject are Grimm's Fairy Tale, with title "Once upon a time ... - The True Tales of the Brothers Grimm, and who told them" was published, where it is described how it had come to the Grimms collection of fairytales. In a brief interview in the Germany radio dradiowissen.de professor Rölleke said that there were information about persons who told the brothers fairy tales, as well as such information that lead us to the conclusion that regarding the origin of the people who told their fairy tales to the Grimm’s, most of the tales were of French origin . 

 It is interesting to know that - although constantly followed by the concern over the potential negative impact on young people - the tales spread very quickly all over the world even before the television era. On the accusation that they could have a negative influence on young people, Erhadt Holger, a professor at the University of Kassel of specialized in the subject Work and impact of the Brothers Grimm says: "Of course, there could some man be sometimes eaten, or some belly could be cut open - but that's been told in a poetic area. And every child knows how to decode and classify those things correctly. I can not imagine that someone could somehow have psychological damage of it. And I find this discussion in the face of a media landscape that is more than catastrophic, completely unnecessary. "