13 Jan 2017

The most beautiful fairy tales of the Grimm Brothers

The everlasting success of animated films and the more recent live action versions are proof that fairy tales will never die. These fictional tales are always based on stories that try to portray the best and worst in society at the time they were written.

The tales told are often the result of ancient traditions passed on as texts or oral narratives.

Among the scholars who studied and collected our fairy tales, the best known are probably the brothers Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm, a literature professor and a librarian, respectively. Born in Berlin in the second half of the XVIII century, the Grimm Brothers collected and recorded all the main fairy tales of the German and European traditions, thereby making them famous in the world.

Their fairy tales are known today in a softer, cleaned-up version, without the harsher, more violent details, an editing choice heavily criticised by Jacob Grimm at the time:

“The difference between children’s and household tales and the reproach we have received for using this combination in our title is more hair-splitting than true. Otherwise, one would literally have to bring the children out of the house where they have belonged and confine them in a room. Have children’s tales really been conceived and invented for children? I don't believe this at all just as I don't affirm the general question, whether we must set up something specific at all for them. What we possess in publicized and traditional teachings and precepts is accepted by old and young, and what children do not grasp about them, all that glides away from their minds, they will do so when they are ready to learn it. This is the case with all true teachings that ignite and illuminate everything that was already present and known, not teaching that brings both wood and fire with it.”

Which are the best known Fairy Tales?

Though partly changed over time, the most famous fairy tales of the Grimm Brothers sound familiar to all of us. Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood, Tom Thumb, Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella.

The true story of Cinderella

The latter is a fairy tale best known in the more modern version, but its traditional German version may not be so widely known. Cinderella was a rich and beautiful girl. At her mother’s death, her father had remarried and her fate had changed, being treated as a servant by her stepmother and stepsisters, while her father stood powerless. Devoted to her dead mother, Cinderella had grown in her memory a hazelnut tree, which soon turned out to be magical.

One day, the local prince held a ball to find a wife. Cinderella asked permission to go to the ball, but her stepmother refused. When the stepsisters left to go to the palace, the girl went to her mother’s grave, under the hazelnut tree, and there she wished for a silver and gold dress. Her wish was granted and in such splendour she went to the castle to meet the prince, who was struck by her beauty. But the enchantment would soon come to an end... And at the stroke of midnight, while dancing with the prince, Cinderella suddenly had to leave the ball. This scene repeated itself on the second and third night, until the prince decided to spread pitch on the steps to the castle, to prevent the beautiful girl from running away. That final night, as she was running away, one of Cinderella’s slippers got stuck on the steps and the prince used it to look for her all over the town.

When he visited her home, he was deceived by the first daughter, who cut her big toe to make the slipper fit her foot. On her return journey to the castle, the little birds, friends of Cinderella’s, revealed the truth to the prince, who went back and finally met his true Princess.