Selected Tales of the
Brothers Grimm
Selected, Translated, and with an Afterword by Peter Wortsman
archipelago books
English language translation and afterword © Peter Wortsman 2013
The postscript “The Return of Little Red Riding Hood in a Red Convertible” previously appeared in A Modern Way to Die, small stories and microtales, by Peter Wortsman, Fromm Publishing Corporation, New York, © Peter Wortsman 1991.
Translations of “The Singing Bone,” “Hansel and Gretel,” and “The Children of Hameln” previously appeared in Tales of the German Imagination, From the Brothers Grimm to Ingeborg Bachmann, Selected and Translated by Peter Wortsman, Penguin Classics, 2013.
© Peter Wortsman 2013
First Archipelago Books Edition, 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Based on the 7th edition of Kinder- und Hausmärchen published by the Brothers Grimm in 1857.
Archipelago Books
232 3rd Street #AIII
Brooklyn, NY 11215
www.archipelagobooks.org
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
available upon request.
eISBN 978-1-935744-771
Cover art: Pascale Monnin, 20 x 24 inches mixed media
The publication of Selected Tales of the Brothers Grimm was made possible with support from Lannan Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.
Contents
Foreword by the Brothers Grimm
The Golden Key
The Singing Bone
The Tale of the Juniper Tree
Hansel and Gretel
The Golden Goose
The Owl
A Fairy Tale About a Boy Who Set Out to Learn Fear
The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs
The Brave Little Tailor
The Frog King, or Iron Henry
The White Snake
The Queen of the Bees
The Drummer
The Marvelous Minstrel
The Musicians of Bremen
The Children of Hameln
The Master Thief
The Blue Light
Tom Thumb
Faithful Johannes
Hans My Hedgehog
All-Kind-of-Hide
The Seven Ravens
The Leaping, Peeping Little Lion’s Lark
The Girl with No Hands
Rumpelstilzchen
Rapunzel
The Robber Bridegroom
Sleeping Beauty, or Thorny Rose
Cinderella
Snow White
Little Red Riding Hood
Schlaraffenland
An Afterword: Facing Fears and Furies: The Unexpurgated Brothers Grimm
The Return of Little Red Riding Hood in a Red Convertible: A Postscript
Foreword by the Brothers Grimm*
We take comfort in the fact that when a storm or some other mishap hurled by the heavens thrashes an entire crop to the ground, among the low-growing hedgerow, or the bushes lining the way, a small patch is invariably spared and a few ears of grain withstand the onslaught. When the sun once again shines down on them, they keep on growing, solitary and unnoticed – no sickle fells them for the silo. But in late summer when they rear up ripe and full, hungry hands come to seek them out, laying them, ear upon precious ear, meticulously binding them in bundles, and far more prized than any other sheathes, they are carried home; they provide nourishment all winter long and even give seeds for future planting.
This is how it seemed to us, when we saw that of all that blossomed in former times nothing survived – even the memory thereof was almost erased – nothing, that is, but a few folk songs, a handful of books, some legends, and these innocent household tales. Hobbling kitchen stools by oven and hearth, stone stoops, holidays still celebrated, meadows and woods in their very solitude, and above all the untroubled imagination are the hedgerows that provided refuge in the storm, preserving them and facilitating their transmission from one age to another.
It was perhaps high time to collect these fairy tales, for those who ought to safeguard them are fewer and fewer in number. Indeed, those few who still retain the knowledge of them tend to know a good many tales, for though other people pass away around them, they don’t pass away for the people – but the custom of storytelling itself is on the wane, just like the knowledge of all those secret nooks in homes and gardens passed on from grandparent to grandchild, yielding to the constant shifting of an empty sense of splendor, a custom as elusive as the smile that plays on our lips when we speak of these household tales, a custom that may seem lavish though it costs but little. In those few places where they can still be found, fairy tales are such that we wouldn’t think of asking if they’re good or bad, poetic or insipid – we know them and love them precisely because this is how we first heard them, and we take pleasure in them without hesitation. How great is the grip of living custom: This, too, does poetry have in common with all the immutable constants of life, that we remain favorably disposed to it even when pressed by other priorities. We may, moreover, readily observe that fairy tales only took hold in places inclined to a more vibrant receptivity to poetry or where imagination has not yet been extinguished by the contrarieties of life. Yet neither will we, for the same reason, extol these fairy tales nor defend them in the face of contrary views: Their mere existence is enough of a safeguard. That which in so many ways and time and again delighted, moved, and educated carries its own imperative and surely derives from the same source that dabs all life with dew, and even if it were only a single drop caught by a little leaf, it nonetheless shimmers in the early-morning light.
Which is why this modest poesy is infused with a purity that seemed so wondrous and enchanting to us as children – these tales have, as it were, the same pale-blue, immaculately glimmering eyes that stay the same size, while the body’s other parts are still so delicate, weak, and ill-equipped to stand their ground. This is the reason why with the present collection we do not merely wish to serve the history of poetry and mythology; it was also our intent that this poesy that comes alive and thrives in the delight it gives likewise serve as a primer for the very young. We did not for said purpose seek the kind of purity attained by the skittish elimination of all too common conditions and situations that dare not be denied, nor do we share the commonly held delusion that whatever appears in a printed book also happens in real life. We sought the kind of purity to be found in the truth of a straightforwardly told tale without any infelicities hidden in the manner of its telling. In the process of compiling this new edition we took pains to weed out every turn of phrase not appropriate for children. Should readers nevertheless object that here and there parents may find elements that make them bristle, and which they may deem objectionable, so that they would rather not put the book in children’s hands, in certain cases they may be right, and they can easily make their own selection – but as a whole such measures are surely unnecessary for those with a healthy state of mind. Nothing can plead our case better than nature itself that made these flowers and leaves grow in just such a color and shape; should they not be held to be appropriate, according to any one person’s special standards, he cannot insist that they should therefore be cut or colored differently. Or to put it another way, rain and dew fall as a blessing for everything that grows in the ground; whosoever dares not plant his sprouts outside because they are too delicate and might be damaged, but would rather grow them in his room and sprinkle them with distil
led water, would not therefore demand the elimination of rain and dew. But all that’s natural can thrive and this is what we should strive for. As a matter of fact, we know of no other healthy and powerful book compiled by the people, notably the Bible, in which certain questionable elements abound, more so than in our book; yet judicious practice finds nothing bad in this but, rather, as the saying goes, takes heart in it. Children fearlessly point at the stars, while others, bound by superstition, believe it disturbs the angels.
We have been collecting these fairy tales for some thirteen years; the first volume, which appeared in 1812, contained mostly what we gathered little by little from the folklore of Hessen, in the regions bordering on the Main and Kinzig rivers, in the county of Hanau, where we come from. The second volume, completed in 1814, was compiled in record time, partly because the project itself had made friends who helped us in our work, wherever needed, in the thrust and spirit of our intent, partly because fortune favored our endeavor, and happenstance conceded results to dogged and diligent collectors. For those who keep their eyes and ears open, such folk wisdom is more common than one might suppose, and this is particularly true of local customs and particularities, popular sayings and jests. Those splendid Low German fairy tales are the fruits of fortuitous kindness and friendship; the confidential nature of the dialect very much favors a narrative integrity. There in those fabled old bastions of German freedom, legends and fairy tales were preserved as an almost routine leisure and holiday form of entertainment, and the country is still rich with inherited customs and songs. There where, in part because the written word has not yet disrupted or blunted time-honored ways with a surfeit of foreign influence, in part because such inherited lore keeps memory from slacking off, particularly among peoples whose literature is deemed insignificant, folk traditions still serve as an all the more powerful and undiluted surrogate. So Lower Saxony appears to have preserved a greater store of such lore than all other regions. What a more comprehensive and richer collection might have been compiled in Germany in the sixteenth century, back in Hans Sachs’s and Fischart’s day.
It was one of those fortuitous coincidences that we happened to meet a peasant woman in the village of Niederzwehren, near Kassel, who told us the majority and the most beautiful of the fairy tales in the second volume. Frau Viehmännin was still fit and not much more than fifty years old. Her facial expression had something firm, wise, and pleasant about it, and her big eyes shone clear and sharp. She kept all the old legends firmly lodged in memory, and she herself said that such a gift was not granted to all and that some people couldn’t remember anything. Her manner of telling was thoughtful, deliberate, and uncommonly lively, clearly taking pleasure in the telling; she would first tell it freely off the top of her head, and then, if asked to do so, she would repeat it again slowly, so that with some practice one could record the words. Certain elements have thus been preserved verbatim and will be recognizable in their fidelity. Whoever may be inclined to suspect the slightest falsification of the traditional account, or any laxity in her retention of the tale, and therefore, the impossibility of long-term preservation, ought to have heard for himself just how precisely she stuck to the telling and how meticulous she was; she never changed a word when retelling any part, and promptly interrupted herself, correcting any inadvertent slip of the tongue on the spot. The attachment to tradition is much stronger among such people who live their lives in the selfsame way day in and day out than it is to those of us inclined to countenance change. It is precisely for this reason that such painstakingly preserved narratives display a certain emphatic immediacy and intrinsic proficiency in the telling, which other more polished literary creations never achieve. The epic fundament of all folklore is like the manifold shades of green dispersed throughout nature that satisfy and soften our perception without ever trying our patience.
In addition to the fairy tales in the second volume, we also received from other similar sources countless supplements to the first and also many better versions of tales we had included. As a mountainous country far off the beaten track and mostly devoted to agriculture, Hessen has the advantage of being better able to preserve old customs and traditions. A certain innate seriousness, and a healthy, industrious, and plucky disposition, which we are obliged to recognize, in addition to the size and comely stature of the men of this land, the original seat of the Chatts,* have thus been preserved; this, in contrast to the dainty and diminutive stature to be found in other lands, notably in Saxony, must rather be deemed an advantage. To the overall picture of which we must add the effect of a harsher, albeit often splendidly lovely, landscape, as well as a certain severity and gruffness in way of life. The Hessians must definitely be counted among those peoples in our German fatherland who, over the course of time, held most strongly to their characteristics as they did to their lands.
We wanted, therefore, to add to this second edition the material we had collected since the appearance of the first. So the first volume has been almost completely reworked, the incomplete fleshed out, some tales simplified and streamlined in the telling, and there are not many texts that were not in some way improved. We once again proofed suspect passages, that is, elements of foreign origin or supplements to the original, which we then proceeded to eliminate. Furthermore, we added new tales, including some from Austria and German-speaking parts of Bohemia, so that the reader will find some texts with which he is altogether unfamiliar. So it became possible not only to include what we had reluctantly removed from the original but also to add new passages that rightfully fit here, and which, we hope, will enhance the scholarly value of the whole.
As to the manner in which we collected this material, we were first and foremost beholden to fidelity and truthfulness. We did not, that is, add our own two cents, nor did we embellish any circumstance or feature of the legend but rather transmitted its contents as we received it; the fact that the phrasing and style of individual tales is largely ours seems self-evident, but we tried to preserve every idiosyncrasy we found so as in this regard to likewise leave our collection all the diversity found in nature. Anyone involved in a similar task will, moreover, readily admit that this cannot be deemed a casual and carefree endeavor; quite the contrary, a painstaking attentiveness and tact is called for, a set of skills that can only be acquired in the process, to distinguish the simpler, clearer, and yet more quintessential from the bowdlerized version. Whenever we found different versions of more or less the same tale that seemed to complete each other, and there were no contradictions that had to be excised in combining them, we presented the narrative as one, but if there were considerable variations, whereby each had its own unique traits, we favored what we thought to be the best version. These variations seemed more noteworthy to us than the kind that merely involved a slight modification and some tinkering with the established archetype, since the latter may, rather, merely constitute various attempts to approach the inexhaustible paradigm. Repetitions of individual sentences, narrative elements, and preludes must be viewed as nothing other than epic refrains that keep reoccurring whenever the tone shifts.
We gladly retained a distinctive dialect. Had we been able to do so throughout, the telling of each tale would doubtless have benefited. This is an instance in which cultivation, stylistic finessing, and artfulness prove detrimental, and one immediately fathoms that a refined written language, as dexterous, lucid, and clever as it might otherwise be, renders the telling more tasteless and corrupts the spirit of the original. It is a shame that the Low Saxon dialect spoken around Kassel, as well as in the border regions of the old Saxon and Frankish district of Hessen, is an imprecise and sadly inseparable mixture of Lower Saxon and High German.
To our knowledge no such collection of fairy tales exists in Germany. Either a few tales deemed worthy of transmission were preserved by chance or else they were merely viewed as raw material around which to build more substantial stories. We herewith declare ourselves opposed precisely to such adaptations. It is in
deed doubtless true that a poetic development and evolution underlies every living poetic inclination, an ongoing development without which any transmitted tradition would be sterile and stiff; this is precisely the justifiable reason why every region has its own unique characteristics and every dialect speaks in its own special way. But there is still a big difference between that half-unconscious poetic development from the wellspring of life, much like the quiet growth of plants, and a deliberate distortion of tradition clipped and glued together based on altogether arbitrary criteria; it is this that we cannot countenance. The only guideline then would be the poet’s own prevailing stance, a measure contingent on his cultivation, whereas the natural development of the folk spirit prevails over that of the particular and does not permit the expression of private appetites. If we concede a scholarly value in oral tradition, that is, if we acknowledge that such lore contains the traces of prehistoric outlook and culture, then it goes without saying that this value is almost always undermined by such adaptations. Poetry itself has nothing to gain from it. Then where else does it truly live than at that place where it meets the soul, where it cools and refreshes or warms and fortifies? But those adaptations of such legends that strip them of their simplicity, their innocence, and their pristine purity tear them out of the context in which they belong and where they are forever prized. It may be, and this is the best-case scenario, that we add to the telling a certain finesse, a spirit, and in particular a wit that pokes fun at the foolishness of the moment, a gentle elaboration of sentiment of the sort often found in our common culture fed by the poetry of all peoples. But this complement is more a matter of appearance than purpose – it presumes the single listening or reading of the tale to which we’ve grown accustomed in our time and gears itself up to that end. Such wit grows stale, however, in the repetition, whereas the enduring narrative nuggets forever retain a certain calm, quiet, and purity in their effect. The studied hand of such adaptations is much like that of the gifted unfortunate, who turned everything he touched, including food, into gold, and thus, in the very lap of luxury, can neither still our appetite nor quench our thirst. Notwithstanding the mythological imagery meant to be conjured up by the sheer force of the imagination and with all those weighty and ponderous words, how barren, empty, and shapeless is the result! Our criticism, by the way, is only directed at such so-called adaptations that seek to embellish fairy tales and make them appear more poetic, not at a free interpretation of such tales that situate them as poetic expressions of the moment; for who would want to limit the poetic impulse by walling it in?