I have been studying and translating the Grimms’ tales for the past 40 years, and it has always disturbed me that they have been considered as wonderful tales for children à la Disney. Moreover the recent banal and stupid filmic adaptations have annoyed me immensely. So, when the bicentenary of the first edition of the Grimms’ folk and fairy tales arrived in 2012, I decided to translate this edition for the first time into English and to try to set the record straight concerning the intentions of the Grimms and their unique tales.
When Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm published their famous Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children's and Household Tales) in 1812, followed by a second companion volume in 1815, they had no idea that such stories as Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretel and Cinderella would become the most celebrated in the world. Nor did they ever think that their collected tales would eventually be considered great children's literature. Clearly, if they were living today, they would be shocked to discover how their tales have been misread and hyped and spread throughout the world in all sizes and shapes, not to mention in films and TV programs that might make them shudder.
Yet, despite their great fame, or perhaps because of their fame, few people today are actually familiar with the original tales of 1812/15. This is in part due to the fact that the Grimms published six other editions during their lifetime, each extensively revised and expanded in content and style, up until the final edition of 1857. From then on this so-called definitive edition has been translated into more than 120 languages and often translated into English with illustrations geared to charm children.
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Interestingly, the Grimms, who were great philologists, never intended their original edition to be read by children, for it contains scholarly prefaces and notes and blunt and bizarre tales such as How Children Played at Slaughtering, Riffraff, fabulous animal stories, farces, and fragments about toads and spiders. Moreover, the Grimms did not shy away from erotic and scatological tales or from depicting gruesome family conflicts. So, Rapunzel is impregnated by a prince, and Snow White's mother, not her stepmother, wants to murder the innocent girl. Lovers betray one another. Animals are more humane than humans. Many of the tales were recorded in dialect. Most of them did not have fairies, and almost all of them can be traced to European, Middle Eastern, and Asian sources.
For the very first time, I have published the first complete English translation, The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm (Princeton University Press). All 156 stories from the 1812/1815 edition are now available in one beautiful book, accompanied by sumptuous illustrations by Andrea Dezsö. From strange tales such as The Hand with the Knife, Herr Fix-It-Up to Princess Mouseskin and The Golden Key, wondrous worlds unfold in this new collection -- heroes and heroines are rewarded, weaker animals triumph over the strong, and simple bumpkins prove themselves not so simple after all.
These unusual and startling tales resonate with diverse voices, rooted in oral traditions, that are absent from the Grimms’ later, more embellished editions of tales. While the tales in this first edition that I have translated cannot be considered the “authentic“ Grimms’ tales because they originated in different regions of Europe, they are beguiling because they enable us to see how the Brothers worked as scholars and storytellers, using their knowledge and imagination to transform and create striking narratives that have influenced millions of readers.
