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“Soon after that she had a little daughter, who was as white as snow, and as red as blood, and her hair was as black as ebony, and she was therefore called little Snow White.”

“Once there was a miller who was poor, but who had a beautiful daughter. Now it happened that he had to go and speak to the king, and in order to make himself appear important he said to him, ‘I have a daughter who can spin straw into gold.’”

Do these sound familiar to you? Both of these stories have been retold by thousands of people in hundreds of different languages. The first is line is from the famous story that was made into a movie by Walt Disney called Snow White. The second is from a less familiar but still widely read story called Rumpelstilzchen (try to spell that word without looking at this page!)

But do you know who wrote these stories? They were not written by Walt Disney…these stories were actually collected by two brothers in the early 1800s and compiled into a series of books so generations of young readers could read and enjoy these timeless tales. They collected over 200 stories in total, which are commonly referred to as “Grimm’s Fairy Tales.” These stories have been translated into over 160 different languages!

Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm was born on Jan. 4, 1785 and his brother Wilhelm Carl was born on Feb. 24, 1786. The brothers were very close as children and helped raise their four younger brothers and one younger sister. They grew up in a small village in Germany and were determined to study law just as their father did when they were older.

In 1802 they went to the University of Marburg to study law but soon became very interested in the legends of the Middle Ages and folk poetry. Wilhelm married in 1825 but the brothers continued to live together in the same house. They both wrote many books, including a dictionary of the German language which is well respected and still used today. During this time, they also began to collect stories from the people who lived in the small villages in Germany. They recorded the stories as they were told from the “lips of the people”. The first volume of these stories titled “Nursery and Household Tales” was published in Berlin in 1812. A second volume of their collected stories was published in 1815 and a third was published in 1822.

The Grimm brothers wanted to preserve the stories as they were told, however, they occasionally changed the content of the stories to reflect their moral values. They also often collected several versions of a similar story which they had to combine into one story. For example, they had to decide if a witch or a wolf should live in the house found by Hansel and Gretel. Many of the stories that they collected were passed down from generation to generation.

The Grimm brothers also had the help of a talented peasant storyteller named Frau Viehmännin or “Gammer Grethel” as she was later called. She would repeat these stories to the brothers and they would write down the tales word for word.

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm lived their entire lives together and thanks to them we have these wonderful stories that we can enjoy and retell to our children for generations to come. See if you are familiar with some of the stories by the Grimm brothers by reading a few lines from their famous stories below. Also, try to write a fairy tale of your own! Who knows…maybe you will write the next Snow White or Cinderella. Be creative and have fun!