Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm
By Brothers Grimm
In a short time, he reached the brook, filled his pitcher full of water, and turned back again. About halfway home, however, he was overcome with weariness, and setting down his pitcher, he lay down on the ground to sleep. But to awaken soon again by not lying too soft, he took a horse’s skull, which lay near it, and placed it under his head for a pillow. Meanwhile, the king’s daughter, who was a good runner, good enough to beat an ordinary man, had reached the brook, filled her pitcher, and was hastening with it again when she saw the runner lying asleep.
“The day is mine,” she said with much joy, emptying his pitcher and hastened on. And now all had been lost but for the huntsman standing on the castle wall, who, with his keen eyes, saw all that had happened.
“The king’s daughter must not outdo us,” said he, and he loaded his rifle and took so good an aim that he shot the horse’s skull from under the runner’s head without doing him any harm. The runner awoke, jumped up, and saw his pitcher standing empty and the king’s daughter far on her way home. But, not losing courage, he ran swiftly to the brook, filled it again with water, and for all that, he got home ten minutes before the king’s daughter.
“Look you,” said he. This is the first time I have stretched my legs; before, it was not worth the name of running.”
The king was vexed, and his daughter yet more so, that a discharged common soldier should beat her, and they took counsel together on how they might rid themselves of him and his companions simultaneously.
“I have a plan,” said the king; “do not fear, but that we shall be quit of them forever.” Then he went out to the men and bade them to feast, be merry, eat, and drink. He led them into a room with an iron floor, iron doors, and iron windows with iron frames and bolts. In the room was a table set out with costly food.
“Now, go in there and make yourselves comfortable,” said the king.
And when they had gone in, he locked the door and bolted. Then he called the cook and told him to make a big fire underneath the room so the iron floor would be red hot. The cook did so, and the six men began to feel the room growing hot, by reason, as they thought at first, of the excellent dinner, but as the heat grew greater and greater, they found the doors and windows fastened, they began to believe it was an evil plan of the king’s to suffocate them.
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Brothers Grimm
The Brothers Grimm, Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm (1786–1859) were German academics who collected and published folklore together.
Biography.
The brothers are among the best-known storytellers of folktales, popularizing stories such as “Cinderella” (“Aschenputtel”), “The Frog Prince” (“Der Froschkönig”), “Hansel and Gretel” (“Hänsel und Gretel”), “Little Red Riding Hood” (“Rotkäppchen”), “Rapunzel”, “Rumpelstiltskin” (“Rumpelstilzchen”), “Sleeping Beauty” (“Dornröschen”), and “Snow White” (“Schneewittchen”). Their first collection of folktales, Children’s and Household Tales (Kinder- und Hausmärchen), began publication in 1812.
The Brothers Grimm spent their formative years in Hanau in the Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel. Their father’s death in 1796 (when Jacob was 11 and Wilhelm was 10) caused great poverty for the family and affected the brothers many years after. Both brothers attended the University of Marburg, where they became curious about German folklore, which grew into a lifelong dedication to collecting German folktales.
The rise of Romanticism in 19th-century Europe revived interest in traditional folk stories, which, to the Brothers Grimm, represented a pure form of national literature and culture. To research a scholarly treatise on folktales, they established a methodology for collecting and recording folk stories that became the basis for folklore studies. Between 1812 and 1857, their first collection was revised and republished many times, growing from 86 stories to more than 200. In addition to writing and modifying folktales, the brothers wrote collections of well-respected Germanic and Scandinavian mythologies. In 1838, they began writing a definitive German dictionary (Deutsches Wörterbuch), which they could not finish.
The popularity of the Grimms’ collected folktales has endured. They are available in more than 100 translations and have been adapted by renowned filmmakers, including Lotte Reiniger and Walt Disney, in films such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. In the mid-20th century, Nazi Germany used the tales as propaganda; later in the 20th century, psychologists such as Bruno Bettelheim reaffirmed the work’s value despite the cruelty and violence in some of the tales’ original versions, which the Grimms themselves eventually sanitized.
Brothers Grimm
