A Literary Approach to the Brothers Grimm Author(s): Alfred David and Mary Elizabeth David Reviewed work(s): Source:

Journal of the Folklore Institute, Vol. 1, No. 3 (Dec., 1964), pp. 180-196 Published by: Indiana University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3813902 . Accessed: 20/06/2012 05:51
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ALFRED AND MARY ELIZABETH DAVID

A
G1

Literary
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Approach

to

the

Brothers

anniversary of the deathof JacobGrimm,folklorists Upon the hundredth the worldover have unitedto pay tributeto the memoryof the Brothers Grsmm.* The Institute for Central European Folklife Research at Ntarburg has broughtout a memorialvo]umeof essays entitledBrinder not simplyof the closenessof the Grimm Gedenken 19631-a reminder and that their lives represent brothersbut of the ideals of brotherhood that their works have done much to promote The astonishingthing about Jacoband WilhelmGrimmis the sweepof theirlearningin many to the study relatedfields. Althoughthey madeenormouscontributions the boundaries history,theytranscend of folkloreS philology,andliterary as a whole,S' wrote literature of academic disciplines."To see European greatGerman scholaron themodelof the GrimmsS ErnstCurtius, another in everyperiodfrom citizenship "is possibleonly afterone has acquired Homer to Goethe."2 The brothers achieved this difficultcitizenship as a whole that has left its mark on and a view of Europeanliterature all of their achievements.It is fitting,then, to approachthe most universal of their works-the Kinder-und Hausmarchen as a great literature. monumentof European KinderundHausentitled theircollectionof folktales WhentheGrimms
* Parts of this essay are taken from The Frog King and OtherTales of the Brothew Grimm by Alfredand MaryElizabethDavid (New York, 1964). Publishedby arrangement with the New ArnericanLibraryof World Literature,Inc., New York. zur hundertstenWiederkehrdes Bruder Grimm Gedenken1963: Gedenkschrift LIV), ed. Gerhard Todestagsron Jacob Grimm(-HessiscSle Blatterfur Volkskunde, Heilfurth, Ludwig Denecke, and Ina-Maria Greverus. 2 EaropeanLiteratureand the Latin Middle Ages, tr. Willard Trask (New York, 1953),p. 12.

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marchen, they did not meanto implythat they had compileda volumeof storiesfor the nursery. It was in part theirpurposethat, as has actually happened,generationsof childrenshould read their book and that it shouldbecomea llouseholdwork. But the title impliesprimarily an idea of the fairytale, not an audiencefor whichfairytales are destined. For the Grimmsit meant that the storiespreserved the simplicityand innocence that their generation-the firstgenerationof romanticwriters associatedwith childhoodand the familyhearth. In the forewordto the firstvolume WilhelmGrimmwrote: "Thesestoriesare pervadedby the samepuritythat makeschildrenappearso marvelous and blessedto US."3 In otherwords,it is not that the storiesare primarilyfor children(thougll most childrenenjoy them), but the stories are like children,have lived amongchildren, and havebeentreasured and preserved withinthe family. Thischildlikesenseof wonderandthe moralsimplicity thatthe Grimms saw in fairy tales were also qualitiesthat they attributedto the earlier literature of the Germanic peoples,andit was primarily for whatremained in them of the spiritualheritageof the past that the Grimmscollected folktales. In the study and preservation of the literature of the past the Grimmshad a culturaland moral aim: they were strivingto make their own generation and futuregenerations consciousof the nationalsoul that, so they believed,had lived on subconsciously in the traditionalstoriesof the folk. The Grimmscame to folklorethroughliterature,specifically through the literatureof the Middle Ages. Beforethey had publishedtheir first volume of fairy tales in 1812, the brothershad already brought out, individuallyor together, Uber den altdeutschen Meistergesang (1811), Altdanische Heldenlieder, Balladen undMarchen (1811),and an editionof the Old High GermanHildebrandtslied (1812). Theirinterestwas drawn to folk literature by the poets Achim von Arnimand ClemensBrentano withwhomthey collaborated on the thirdvolumeof Des KnabenWunderhorn(1808). In the course of this collaborationand in their subsequent correspondence with von Arnim4they beganto developtheir own ideas about folk literature,which diSeredessentiallyfrom those of Brentano

Kleinere Schriften, ed. Gustav Hinrichs (Berlin, 1881), In 322. Translations of a]l quotations from German texts are our own unless otherwise indicated. 4 See Reinhold Steig, Achim von Arnim und Jacob und WilhelmGrimm(Stuttgart and Berlin, 1904), pp. 213-273,passim.
o

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and von Arnim,who looked upon folk songs and balladschieflyas raw materialfor originalpoetry. The Grimms' interestin fairytaleswas,therefore, literary andhistorical and was just one aspect of their broaderinterestin ancient Germanic languages andliterature.In orderto understand whytheybegancollecting folktales and how they went about recordingand, in many instances, reworking the storiesthey had collected,it is necessary to see the marchen as partof theirlife work the restoration of the Germanliterarypast. Althoughthe Grimmswerethe firstto collectfolktalesat all systematically and to make some effortto preservethe storiesin their oral form, they also reworked theirmaterial considerably.The finalresultis a subtle blendingof folkloreand literarycraftsmanship, and it is of interestboth to the folklorist and to the student of literaryhistory to obtain some insightinto the growthand development of the Kinder-und Hausmarchen into theirpresentform.5 The Grimmspublishedsevenmajoreditionsin theirlifetime. The first edition consists of two volumes(1812 and 1815),each with a short foreword by WilhelmGrimm. Thesewererevisedand combinedas the foreword to the secondedition(1819),whichalso containstwo longeressays, "Uber das Wesender Marchen"and "Kinderwesen und Kindersitten." All but the last of thesecontainimportantstatements about the Grimms' concept of the folktale and all, with the exception of the revised 1819 foreword, arereprinted in WilhelmGrimm's Kleinere Schriften. The 1819 forewordis availablein most modern editions of the so-called Grosse Ausgabe,6 and it is from this that MargaretHunt translatedseveral excerptsin the prefaceto her translationof 1884.7 Unfortunately these excerpts,unlessthey are readvery carefully,are apt to give a misleading impressionof the Grimms'method of collecting. They would seem to have misledMrs.Hunt, for she comments:

5 The story of the circumstances surrounding the publication of the numerous editions of the mairchen is told in a series of very informativearticles by T. F. Crane, "The External History of the Grimm Fairy Tales," ModernPhilology, XIV (1917), 577-610, XV (1917), 65-77, 355-383. 6 See Crane, XIV, 601 and XV, 75. An attractive edition published by WinklerVerlag (Munich, 1955) contains the 1819 foreword, a memoir by Herman Grimm, drawings by Ludwig Grimm, and an afterword by Herta Klepl. 7 Grimm'sHouseholdTales, tr. and ed. by MargaretHunt with an introduction by Andrew Lang (London 1884).

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They wrote down every story exactlyas they heardit, and if some of its details chanced to be somewhatworse, or if sacred persons were occasionallyintroduced with a daringfamiliarity,which to us seems almost to amount to profanity, they did not soften or omit these passages, for with them fidelity to traditionwas a duty whichadmittedno compromise they werenot providing amusementfor children,but storing up materialfor studentsof folklore.8

This statementcontains a half-truthand does not reallyrepresentwhat the Grimmsthemselvessaid they weredoing. It is perfectlyevidentthat in fact the Grimmschangedand added a great deal how much one comes to realizeonly after comparingthe various editions and the few that have survived. manuscripts the Grimms. MargaretHunt certainlydid not mean to misrepresent possible,theyhadtaken that,wherever believed Sheseemsto havesincerely is down their stories almost word for word. The misunderstanding possiblebecausethe true pictureis very much confusedfor a numberof reasons. For one thing, the Grimms'attitudetowardthe tales and their methodsof recordingthem developedgraduallyover a period of years, and they have left behind a numberof statements,writtenat different timesand on diSerentoccasions,that do not alwaysseemconsistent. The aboutmethod,at timesevenheatedly;Jacob, differed themselves brothers as one would expect, was the more scholarlyand more insistentupon to oraltradition. Finally,thereis the prosestyleof Wilhelm's faithfulness language, They are writtenin a lyricaland highlymetaphorical prefaces. romanticprosecan be. All the as only German as obscureandas intricate same, a more or less coherenttheorydoes emergefrom the variousforewhichgoes far to explainthe Grimms'methodof words and statements, collectingand the changesthey madein theirmaterial. The theoryis not arguedwith scientificconsistency,but it can be extracted,much in the same way that Coleridge'scriticaldoctrinesmay be extractedfrom his scatteredwritings. All the laborsof the Grimms,whetherin philologyor in folklore,stem from a basic premisethat they sharewith most of the major figuresof the romanticmovement:there is a spiritualforce in nature that finds expression in literature. Nature means not only external nature mountains,forests,lakes but human naturewhich respondsto these things. One may call this force God, or the ImmanentWill, or the
8

Ibid., I, p. v.

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Over-Soul.Wordsworth captures the essenceof the faith whenhe writes in "Tintern Abbey"of A presencethat disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime Of somethingfar more deeply interfusedS Whose dwellingis the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man; A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls throughall things. The ancient poets, the Grimms and their fellow romanticsfelt, had lived closer to nature, and their works were thereforeimbued with fundamental truthsand values. Thesetruthsand valueshad been given theirnoblest embodimentin the ancient epic poetry, much of it lost, butthey still survivedin the humblerform of the folktale. Wilhelm Grimm comparesthe old poetryto a field of grainthat has been beaten downby a storm; in a few shelteredplaces, by shrubs and hedges, isolated ears have remainedstanding;these continueto grow, solitary andunnoticed, and at harvest time they are gatheredby the pious hands of poor gleanersto providenourishment for the winterand seed for the futureharvest.9(The imageitself is characteristically romantic.) The folktalesare of coursethe solitaryearsof grain;the pious handsare those of collectorslike the BrothersGrimm; the future harvestis no doubtthe future greatness of German literature that they foresaw springing from the nativesoil. Ideas such as these are recurrent themes in the forewords.In justifying the timeandlaborthey bestowedon these simple stories,Wilhelm Grimmwrotein the foreword to the 1812volume:
. their .. veryexistenceis sufficient to defendthem. Something that has pleased, moved, and instructedin such varietyand with perpetual freshness contains within itself the necessity for its being and surely comes from that eternal fountain that quickensall living things with its dew, even if it be but a single drop, clingingto a small tightly-folded leaf, sparkling, nevertheless, in the first light of the dawn.l
Kleinere Schriften,I, 320. lo Ibid S pp. 321-3229

A LITERARY APPROACH TO THE

185 Translation cannot renderthe double sense of ;'firsts' in this sentence. The drop of dew not only sparklesin the early light of the dawn, but it still reflectsthe glory of thefirstdawn, that primal creativedawn in which the older literature had flourished. The "eternalfountain" was for the Grlmmsthe mysticalpower of nature,the source of all good. Anythingpartaking of naturemust be good,and so the Grimms saw a naturalmoralityin stories that told of "faithful servantsand honest craftsmen,... fishermen, millers,charcoal burners, and shepherdswho live close to nature.'1l One is minded again reof Wordsworth who in the Prefaceto Lyrical that Balladsdeclared he had chosen"incidents and fromcommonlife" "in thatconditionthe passions situations because of menareincorporated with the and beautlful permanent forms of nature." In fairy tales the cycle of humanlife is intimately relatedto the cycle of nature,as in thlebeautiful passageat the beginlaing of "rThe TreeS' wherethe mother's 3ulliper pregnancy is describedin terms of the fruitfillness of nature, specifically of the juniperitself: In front of the hollse was a yard in which therestood a junipertree. wintertime the woman was standing vInder it peelingan apple, and Once in peeling the apple, she cut her as she was finger,and the blood fell said the woman, sighingfrom upon the snow. "Oh,l' blood in frontof herandwas the bottom of her heart, and she looked at the verysad. "If only I had a as white as snow." And as she childas redas blood and said this, she felt quite that cheerful;she had a feeling somethingwould come of it. She went backinto the house, and a monthpassedand two months,and thingswere green;and threemonths, the snow melted;and of the and the flowerscameout ground;and four months, and all the trees in the and their green branches becameentangledwith each wood put out leaves birds sang so that the whole other - there the little wood echoedand the Then the fifth month was blossoms fell from the trees. gone, smelled so sweet,and her heart and she stood under the juniper tree, which away by joy. And when the leapedand she fell on herkneesand was carried sixth month had passed, heavy and she became the fruit got thick and completely caIm. And the snatched at the juniperberries seventh month, and she and ate them very and sick. greedily,and she becamesad Then the eighthmonth passed,and she calledher and said, "If I should die, buryme underthe junipertree." husbandand wept soled and was glad until the Then she was conninth month had passed; then she bore a child as
11 Ibid. pp. 322-323.

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white as snow and as red as blood; and when she saw it she was so happy that she died.l2

In both "The JuniperTree"and "Cinderella" the guardianspiritof the dead motherpasses into a tree that magicallyprotectsher childrelz.In "BriarRose" the briarhedge is the symbol of natureguardingher rose: the princesswho sleeps inside the castle. When the right prince comes along, the briarsturn into Rowersthat separateof their own accord to let him pass. On the other hand, naturepunisheswhateveris unnatural and evil. The doveswho help Cinderella, peck out the eyes of her wicked sisters,and the two olderbrothersin "TheWaterof Life"are imprisoned by the mountains,as hard and unyieldingas their own pride. In the manyparallelsbetweenthe fairytales and Germanicmythology and legendthe Grimmsthoughtthat they detectedthe tracesof a primitive naturalreligion. The sleepingBriarRose surrounded by the hedge of thornsis like the sleepingBrunhildsurrounded by the ring of flames; the threespinnersare the Norns; the boy who goes to Hell to bringback the Devil's three golden hairs is like all the legendaryheroes who travel to the Underworld. Even ostensibly Christianfigures like God and SaintPeterwanderover the earthas Odin did. Such parallelssuggested to the Grimmsthat the fairy tales were not merelydelightfulstoriesbut had a deeperreligioussignificance:
They preservethoughts about the divine and spiritualin life: ancient beliefs and doctrine are submergedand given living substance in the epic element, whichdevelopsalong with the history of a people.l3

Thus the Grimms applied romantictheories of nature and art to the folktale. Wilhelm's prefaces reflect a strain of romantic primitivism thathas been attributed to Rousseau. Althoughthe Grimmsthemselves did not point this out, the folktales are a perfect example of "naive" poetry, in the sense of Schiller'sessay On Naive and Sentimental Poetry; they are the unreflectingart of men moved directly by nature itself insteadof self-consciouscontemplationof nature. The folktale might wellbe addedto the list of thingsin naturethat Schiller,at the beginning ofthe essay, says have a power to move us in a particularway:
There aremomentsin ourlives whenwe respondto nature in plants,minerals, animals, and landscapes,as well as in human nature, in children and in the
The translation of this and other passages from the marchenis from The Frog King and OtherTales of the BrothersGrim)n. 13 KleinereSchriften,I, 338.
12

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customs of country folk and primitive peoples with a kind of love and affectionate regard,not becauseit pleasesour senses,nor becauseit satisfiesour reason or our taste ... but simplybecauseit is nature.

In such a view, folklore,the literature of "commonfolk" and "primitive peoples," appearedas somethingthat had been produced,as it were, by nature itself working through human instruments,and romantic writers everywhereturned eagerly to folk literature for inspiration. Moreover,the emergentsense of nationalismgave men a furtherreason to cherish not only what grew from the soil but especiallywhat grew from the soil of their native land. Thus Sir WalterScott collectedthe balladsof the Minstrelsyof the ScottishBorder,and in America Washington Irving attemptedto celebratethe legendarypast of a country that had barely had time to acquireone. The Grimms,then, shared a widespreadinterestin the preservation and use of native culture. The originalityof their contributionlay in the care with which they collected folk materialsand in their respect for oral tradition. Collectionsof folktales had been made before, but the earliercollectors had relied primarilyon literarysources and had not scrupledto changethe storiesin whatevermannersuitedtheirfancy. The Grimms, too, occasionallywent back to literary versions, but it was their aim to preservethe marchen, as far as possible,in the form in which they were still being told in the Germanprovinces. But exactlywhat does this mean in 1812 when it comes to the actual matterof preparing storiesreceivedfrom oral traditionfor publication? It may be demonstratedthat the Grimms'genuine desire to preserve oral traditionwas consistent,at least in their eyes, with a considerable amount of changing and adding. It certainlydid not mean that they felt obliged to transmitevery story word for word. The fact that, as a rule, they did not take the storiesdown from dictationis evidentin the well-knownpassage describingthe exceptionalinstancewhen they did. This is the description of theirmost interesting contributor, Frau Katherina Viehman,the famousMarchenfrau of Niederzwehren.The Grimms had already published their first volume when they discovered Frau Katherina. Wilhelmwrote of her in the forewordto the 1815 volume:
This woman is still vigorous and not much over fifty ... she has firm, pleasant featuresand a clear, sharp expressionin her eyes; in her youth she must have been beautiful. She retainsthese old legendsfirmlyin her memory a gift that

ALFRED AND MARY ELIZABETHDAVID 188 she says is not grantedto everyone,for somepeoplecannotremember anything. She tells a story with care, assurance,and extraordinary vividnessand with a personal satisfaction at first with complete spontaneity,bllt then, if one requests it, a secondtime,slowly,so thatwitha little practiceone can takedown her words.l4

Thereis no evidenceherethat the storiesin the 1812volume,or for that matterthe stories of the other contributors to the 1815 volume, were ever recordedin this way; in fact, the implicationis strong that they werenot. Unfortunately all but a handful of the manuscripts from which the Grimmsworked were lost. But through a lucky accident of literary historywe do have a considerable numberof the storiesthat went into the firstvolumein an Urfassungthat makesit possibleto get somenotion of what sort of materialthe Grimmsstartedwith. In 1809 their good friendClemensBrentanoasked the brothersfor copies of tales in their collectionfor use in a volume of fairy tales that Brentanohimselfwas contemplating. They generouslymade a copy for him of practically everything in their possessionat the time. Nothing ever came of Brentano's own project, but the manuscripts sent to him by the Grimms have survivedamong his literaryremains. They are preserved today in a Trappist mo1lastery in Alsaceand werebroughtout in 1927in a handsome editionby ProfessorJosepllLefftz.15 The tales in this interestingvolume are often little more than plot summaries.Numerousmotits, later to be added, are not yet present. Some of the stories have alternatebeginningsand endings. There is no questionthat any of these storieswas a directtranscript from oral delivery.They seem to have been sketchedout from memorywith the aidof notes. They are clearlymeantto be reworked, and this is exactly whatWilhelna Grimmtells us in one of the passagestranslated by MargaretHunt, referredto above: "As for our method of collecting,our primary concern has beenfor accuracy andtruth. Wehaveaddednothing of our own, nor have we embellished any incidentor featureof the tale, butwe haverendered the contentjust as we received it.''l6 The key word
Ibid,p.329 Marchender Bruder Grimm:Urfassungnach der Original-handschrift der Abtei dlenberg im Elsass (Heidelberg,1927). 16 The translation of this and the passage immediatelyfollowing is our own, not Mrs.Hunt's. Taken from "Vorrededer BruderGrimm," Kinder-und Hausmarchen (Munich, Winkler-Verlag, 1955)? pp. 34-35.
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here is content. Wilhelmis carefulto distinguish this aspect of the collection from the question of style, and continues:
That the mode of expressionand execution of particulardetails is in large measureour own is self-evident;nevertheless, we have tried to preserveevery characteristic turn that came to our attention,so that in this respect,too, we mightlet the collectionretainthe diversified formsof nature. Moreover, anyone who has engagedin similarwork will realize that this cannot be regarded as a carelessand mechanicalsort of collecting;on the contrary, care and discrimination,whichcan be acquiredonly with time, are necessaryin orderto distinguishwhateveris simpler,purer,and yet more perfectin itself from that which hasbeen distorted. We have combineddifferent versionsas one, wherever they completed each other and where their joining togetherleft no contradictory parts to be cut out; but whenthey differedfrom each otherand each preserved individual features,we have given preference to the best and have retainedthe other for lhe notes.

Fromthis descriptionof their method it can be seen that the Grimms didnot make free use of their materialsas had been the practiceof Brentano and von Arnim in Des KnabenWunderhorn. The Grimms felt that such reworking would destroynot only the historicalvalue of their collection but the inner "truth"of the stories. However,this did not mean that they felt obligedto retellthe stories exactlyas they had heard them or that they mightnot combinedifferent versionsof a story (or to introducemotifs from other stories) in an attemptto arriveat the "best"form. They consciouslystrovein their retellings to retainthe flavor of oral narrative and, indeed,felt that it was their duty to purify the stories of any corruptionsor artificialities that might have crept in in the processof or;al transmission.They werethus not inventing details but simplydrawing,like the originalstorytellers, on the vast stockpile of traditional materialin an effortto approachthe idealform of a story, a form that might never have existed in fact but that was nonetheless "present and inexhaustible in the soul.''l7 This is to say that they had no hope of getting back to some ultimate, uncorruptedUrformof a story. Insteadthey aimedat a versionsuch as mighthave been told by some gifted storytellerlike Frau Katherina,some Homer of the fairy tale. In selectingthe best amongseveralvariantsor in combining details from different sources,the basis of theirchoicewas stylistic. It becomes important, therefore,to establish what they took to be the genuine
17

KleinereSchriften,I, 332.

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"folk style" for the changesthey made in the stories are to some extent influencedby their romanticconcept of the folk. Their ideas about nature and history turn out to have a direct influenceon the literarystyle of the KinderundHausmarchen. Wilhelm Grimm had stated that the ability to distinguishthe true folk materialfrom the false was a graduallyacquiredskillnand it was naturalthat as he heardand recordedmore and more stories,especially those told by Frau Katherina,he should have become conscious of a definitefairy-talestyle and attemptedto imitateit. This style became, especially for Wilhelm,an intrinsicpart of the value of the marchen and an objectivetest for what in a storywas "true"or "false." This gradually developingsense of style was appliednot only to new stories,but many of the olderones, alreadyprintedin the firstvolume,wererevised in the light of it. The historyof the seven editions of the Kinder-und Hausmarchen is a constantpolishingand refinement of the style.l8 Some of the favorite stories like "Snow White," "The Wolf and the Seven Kids," and "The Brave Little Tailor," were revised in almost every edition. The differencemay be seen by comparingany of these tales with a story like "Jorindaand Joringel,"which has hardlyundergone any change since the 1812 volume and seems mysterious,choppy, incomplete,and yet strangely powerful. In the first volume the tales had alreadybeen polishedconsiderably, but not enough to suit the Grimms'friendsvon Arnim and Brentano. "If one wants to exhibit a child's garment,"Brentanowrote to von Arnim,"it can be done in all honestywithout displayingone that has all the buttonsmissing,that is coveredwith mud, and that has the shirt stickingout of the breeches.''l9The brotherswere deeply concerned aboutthe genuineness of their stories,and Jacobdefendedtheirmethod vigorously in a seriesof lettersto von Arnim.20He admittedthat some changeswere inevitablein printingthe tales. However, he drew an analogybetweencollectingfolktales and breakingopen an egg. Even if it is done verycarefully,some of the white of the egg will run out, but
See Kurt Schmidt, Die Entwicklung der Grimmschen Kinder-und Hausmarchen (Halle, 1932). Schmidt prints the text of the Urfassung,after Lefftz, with all subsequent variants and additions, line by line on top of one another, so that one can followthe process of revisionin minute detail over a period of almost fifty years. ls Reinhold Steig, Achimvon Arnimund ClemensBrentano(Stuttgart,1894), p. 309. 20 Steig, Achim von Arnim und Jacob und Wilhelm Grimm,pp. 213-273,passim.
18

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the yolk remains intact;the yolk of the stories,he staunchlymaintained, they had preserved.2l Yet who was to say whatin a fairytale constituted the white and what the yolk? Jacob and Wilhelmthemselvesdiffered on this score, and on one occasion Jacob took his brotherseverelyto task for what he regarded as unwarranted changes. Eventually, perhaps realizingmore and more the subjectiveelementin their procedure,he abandoned the marchen to Wilhelmand concentrated on his philological studies. Von Arnim was much betterpleasedwith the second volume of tales, and he wrote Wilhelm: "You have been fortunatein your collecting,and occasionallyyou have been quite fortunatein lending a helping hand naturallyyou do not tell Jacob about this. You shouldhave done this oftenerand many of the endingsof the fairytales would have been more satisfactory."22 Wilhelm did, in fact, do this oftener. It is obvious today that the style of the Grimmfairy tales is in largemeasure the creationof WilhelmGrimm. Evenin the Urfassung, the storiesin his handwriting are more finishedand literary. If perhaps he has receivedmore than his due as a folklorist,he has neverreceived sufficientrecognitionas an artist except for the tribute of being universally read. For the most part the changes and additionsare those that might be made by any good storyteller to make his narrative more coherent, more dramatic,and more vivid. This particular aspect of the marchen has been thoroughlytreatedby ErnestTonnelat.23 Tonnelatexpressed his admirationfor the troublethe Grimmstook to polish the style of their narrative, a practicethat he noted was not common among their compatriots. He lists some twenty kinds of stylisticchangesmade in the marchen, only a few of which need be mentionedhere. The Grimmssuppliedmotivationwhereit was lacking. For example, in the first edition of "Rumpelstiltskin" the millersimplytells the king that he has a daughter who can spin strawinto gold. In the sixthedition we are told that he said it "to give himselfan air of importance."In the first edition the king merely summonsthe girl. In the second we are informedthat he loved gold. In the firsteditionhe tells the miller's daughterthat he will marryher if she succeedsin spinningthe straw into gold. In the second edition he thinks to himself, "I won't find a
21 22 23

Ibid, p. 255. Ibid, p 319. Les contes des freres GrimmCaris,

1912).

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richerwomanin the world." In the finaleditionhe thinks,"Evenif she is only a miller'sdaughter,I won't find a richerwomanin the world.'9 As one can see, the king's character is steadilydeveloped.24 As in the examples just cited, indirectdiscourseand statements about what the characters thoughtand did are replacedby dialogue,and thus the stories acquire a dramaticquality. The characterof the wicked queenin "SnowWhite"is madeblackerthroughher reactionswhen she thinksthat she has succeeded in poisoningthe heroine. In the Urfassung her reactionsare not even mentioned. In the first edition we are told that she "was satisfied,"that "her heart felt light," and that "she was glad." In the finalversionshegloats,'4Nowyou werethe mostbeautiful," "You paragonof beauty ... now it's all over with you" and the third time,"Whiteas snow,redas blood,blackas ebony! Thistimethe dwarfs can't revive you again."25Details are made more concreteand vivid, often throughthe use of simile. "Snow White"originallybegan, "The snow was falling from the sky"; this becomes,"The srwowflakes were fallinglike feathersfrom the sky." Many phrasesand expressions are addedto give the storiesa homely, colloquialflavor. Whenthe seven kids are cut out of the wolf's belly, they hop aroundtheir mother"like a tailor at his wedding." Rumpelstiltskin'slittle house stands"wherethe fox and the hare say goodnight to each other." The fatherof Hansel and Gretelis forced to abandon his childrena secondtime because'iW}loever says 'A' has to say 'B'." Animalsare given humorousnicknames; for example,the princesscalls the frog king "alterWasserpatscher." In the case of these last-mentioned additions, the aim is evidently not just to make a betterstory but to createthe atmosphere of a particular kind of story. Many of the homelytouchesthat charmthe reader with the naivete of these tales were added in a very sophisticated way to have preciselythis naive eSect. They wereput in to suggestthe folk originof the stories. Indeed,some of the characteristics that one would surelyexpect to have come from oral traditionare often the result of skilfulretouching. Asides to the audience,closing formulas,and many of the verses have been inserted. Everyoneknows that in fairy tales things happenin threes So did the Grimms,and if their sourceswere
Variantsare taken and translatedfrom Schmidt. Translationsof the Urfassung and the first edition version of "Snow White" are given in an appendixto The Frog Kix1g.
24 25

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content with only one or two occurrences from an obvious sequence, they occasionallymade up the deficiency. Thus many of the changesthey introducedwere meant to make the storiesconformmore closely to their notion of what a folktale should ideally be like. Their ideas on this subject,as has been said, were influencedby their romantictheoriesof natureand literature. Tonnelat also calls attentionto the place of the Grimmsin the RomanticMovement,26 but he does not show how profoundlyromantictheoryaffected the style of the marchen. The most interestingchanges are those in which the Grimms, no doubt quite unconsciously, modifiedthe stories to conformwith their idea of nature. Snow White's wicked stepmotherwas originallyher own mother. The Grimmswould have felt justifiedin such a change becauseof the wickedstepmothers in otherstories;in anycase,a mother's jealousyof her daughterwould have clashedwith their romanticbelief in the purityof the love that mothersin folk literatureought to show for theirown children. (Eventhe stepmothers love theirown daughters!) Similarrevisionsin otherstorieshave resultedin occasionalinconsistencies so that the samecharacter may be called"the mother"on one page and "the stepmother" on another.27 Some of the most characteristic changesemphasize the role of nature in the tales. Snow White'scoffin was at one time kept in the dwarfs' cottage and lit by candles;later it was transferred to the mountainside whereSnowWhiteis mournedby the owl, the raven,and the dove. The Grimmshad a lot of trouble findinga satisfactoryending for "Snow White." In the first edition one of the prince'sservants,who gets tired of havingto carrythe coffinaroundfrom place to place for the prince, thumpsSnow White on the back like a petulantchild punishinga doll, and thus the piece of poisonedapple is ejected. The endingis actually comic. In the final versionthe servantscarryingthe coffin trip over a bush, almost as if natureitself were taking a hand in restoringSnow Whiteto life and marrying her to the prince. In the manuscript version of "BriarRose" when the princesspricks her finger,we are told that everythingwent to sleep "down to the flies on the wall." In the first
26 Les freres Grimm,leur affluvre de jeunesse (Paris, 1912), especially ChaptorsI, II, and V. 27 E.g. in "Hansel and Gretel." In "The Twelve Brothers"a wicked mother-in-law turns into a "stepmother."

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edition the horses go to sleep in the stable,the doves on the roof, the dogs in the courtyard,and even the fire on the hearth. The fourth edition adds the final magictouch: "The wind dropped,and not a leaf stirredon the trees in front of the castle." Thus all of natureis made to fall asleep in sympathywith the sleepingprincess. Family relationshipsare emphasizedeverywhere. The opening of "TheWolf andthe SevenKids"is an excellent example. In the Urfassung the tale begins: "Once upon a time there was a goat who had seven kids." The first edition adds: "whom she loved dearly.' The second editionmakesit: "whomshe loved like a mother." In the fifthit reads: "Once upon a time there was an old goat who had seven young kids, and she loved them the way a motherloves her children." One should note, incidentally, the artisticcontrastin this last version betweenthe old goat and her young kids. The Grimmsbelievedthat the stories containeda naturalmorality, but they often pointedthe moralfor the reader. Thus when the queen at last feels at peace aftershe has poisonedSnow Whitewith the apple, theylateradded,"so far as a jealousheartcan everbe at peace." Because they found deeper spiritual meaning expressedwith childlike purity in the fairy tales, they believedthat their collectioncould serve '4asa book of education,"28 a book that would developthe moral character of children. Consequently they were sensitiveto objectionsraised by von Arnim and others againstthe first volume that certaindetailsand storieswereunsuitable for children. To these criticisms Wilhelmreplied in the forewordto the secondvolumewith the argument that what was naturalcould not be harmful. He comparedthe storiesto flowersthat might, for exceptionalreasons,give offenseto a few: such a one "who cannot enjoy their benefit,may pass them by, but he cannot ask that they be given a diSerentcolor or shape."29 Yet the Grimmsthemselvesmust have felt a few colors were too strong to be natural. The first volume had containedtwo stories in whichchildrenplay "butcher" and one child slaughters another. These tales were suppressed in the second edition. In the originalversion of "The Twelve Brothers,"the brothersactually carry out their vow to kill everygirl that they meet, and when their sistercomes to the house

28 29

KleinereSchriften,I, 331 lbid.

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in the forest,her youngestbrotherordersher to kneel: "Yourred blood must be shed this instant!" It is not that the Grimmsobjectedto the horror of such scenes there is nothing here to match the horror in "The JuniperTree." But the action of the twelve brothers,who are intimatelyassociatedwith nature in their forest retreat,would tend to contradict the Grimms' idea of nature whereas "The Juniper Tree" perfectlyconfirmsit. The tree is the symbol of nature,and throughit the murdered boy is broughtback to life and his unnaturalstepmother is destroyed. More than any other story, this mysteriousand primitive tale reveals the connection that the Grimms perceived between fairy tales and ancientmythologyand religion. Fundamentallythe Grimms were right -fairy tales derive from nature, although to a post-Darwinianand post-Freudiangeneration nature may not always appear as the pure moral force the Grimms thought it to be. The children's"butcher"game may seem more like natureto readersof The Lord of the Flies than the aSection of Hansel and Gretel for each other did to the BrothersGrimm. We may, if we like, see all of the stepmotherfiguresas symbolic substitutionsfor the motherfigure,as was reallythe case in "Snow White." No doubt there is a symbolic significancethat the Grimmsfailed to recognize in the many situationswherea princessis locked in a tower or wherethe hero mustperform impossible tasksto win herfroma jealousfatheror mother. Their own intimacygave them no reason to suspectthat the hatred of older for younger brothersis by no means abnormal. This is not to say that they were wrong. The truth that they saw in fairy tales is also valid. The motherand stepmother,the good and the wicked brothersin fairy tales are, after all, dual aspects of complex human relationships that are made pure and simplein fairy tales where good and evil are given separateidentitiesinstead of remainingclosely knit parts of a single psyche. What mattersis that these storiespresent recognizablepatterns of human behavior. The Grimms' achievement was to presentthem in such a way that their humanitycould be recognized by everyone by children, by adults, and especially by later writers for whom, as the Grimms had hoped, the marchenserved as
. . .

nsplratlon.

Although with their collection the Grimmsmade an invaluablecontribution to the study of folklore, still their final achievementwas in literature. The literaryinRuence of the marchen beganto be felt almost

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at once, not only in Germanyin writerslike E. T. A. HoSmann,but in other Europeancountries where translationssoon began to appear. Andersen is the mostbrilliant example. In England Dickens,Thackeray, and Ruskinall tried their handsat writingfairy tales that in their selfconsciousnessare a far cry from the simplicityand artlessnessthe Grimmswerestrivingfor. But the influenceof the Grimmsis perhapsnot limited to literary imitations of the marchenform. Many nineteenth-century novelists have what may be called a fairy-tale imagination.Objectsin the novels of Dickens,like Mrs. Gamp'sumbrella, have a life of theirown as they do in fairytales. OliverTwist,DavidCopperfield, and GreatExpectations all have typicalfairy-tale plots in whichan abusedchild must overcome obstaclesin a quest for security. Aunt Betsy Trotwoodperformsthe functionof a wise womanwho gives good gifts; Abel Magwitchis like the wild Iron Hans, both in his savagenatureand in the magicalway in whichhe repaysand tests the young hero who has been kind to him. Jane Eyreis both a Cinderella figureand the girl whose love releasesa beast-bridegroom from his spell. In the twentiethcenturythe tradition remainsvital. JamesThurberhas writtenexcellentliteraryfairy tales. F. Scott Fitzgeraldcreateda fairy-taleworld in which the kings and princesses are all beautifulbut damned. All this is a way of sayingthat fairytales today still speakto us and tell us about ourselves about our hopes and dreamsas well as about our fearsandanxieties.Theyareinspired by nature,then,as the Grimms would have us believe, and they have not lost their power to please, move, and instruct. What WilhelmGrimm said of them in 1812 can still be said today: their very existencejustifiesthem. Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana