Grimm Fairy Tales [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

Boo

2009-01-20, 10:01 PM

I mean the tales written by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm during the 19th century, not the comic containing women with the anatomy of 'prawn fishers' if you get my drift. Pun unintended.

I'm trying to go through all their stories, but I'm having trouble finding them all, let alone reading them all. There's more stories from them than there are songs by the Beatles. Well, that's the feeling I'm getting from them anyway.

Now before anyone decides to point this out: Yes, I know they didn't write the stories themselves. They are derived from folk tales around Europe at the time, and many were reedited later on in the brothers lives to make critics happy. Including the fact that step-mothers were often the actual mothers in the original stories.

Right, well, my question is this: Can anyone link me to a site that has all the stories in it? The original Grimm versions? Right now I just have Wikipedia's summary, or whatever. I don't like summaries unless I'm in a rush, which I'm not.

Mauve Shirt

2009-01-20, 10:07 PM

I don't know if it's all of them, but there are a lot of them here. (http://www.familymanagement.com/literacy/grimms/grimms-toc.html)

Boo

2009-01-20, 11:30 PM

Thanks!

If that's all of them, then I guess they really didn't have more tales than the Beatles had songs. Although a few Beatles songs were more like little chants, or random stuff like the one Harrison wrote while waiting for... someone. I forget... Well, anyway, thanks again.

Mauve Shirt

2009-01-20, 11:33 PM

I don't think that is all of them, actually. I seem to remember my compilation has over 9000 400 stories in it, but I don't have it with me. And all of the directories I've found only go up to 210. Mine includes omitted tales, but that's still only around 20 or 30 more. I'm probably wrong.

Boo

2009-01-21, 12:00 AM

400? Wow... Well, I need to find them all some time.

Until then, how about we just make this topic into a talk about Grimm tales? Since the question has been answered, and I don't like making small topics.

Now, MS, is this an online compilation? Book? What?

Rutskarn

2009-01-21, 12:02 AM

Those can't be the original Grimm's Fairy Tales.

Why? Because they're on a family website.

The original Grimm's tales were...not exactly family-friendly. Just because they have fairies in them doesn't mean there were nice.

bluewind95

2009-01-21, 12:29 AM

I've heard some fairly... disturbing things about some of those original fairy tales. Specifically... Sleeping Beauty (although I dunno if that one is of the Grimm brothers, honestly). Apparently it wasn't a kiss that woke Sleeping Beauty. :smalleek:

I suppose that if enough of their tales are like that.... they live up to their name of "Grimm"...

Boo

2009-01-21, 12:57 AM

@^: Brothers Grimm was 'happily ever after a kiss', not whatever you're thinking of.

Those can't be the original Grimm's Fairy Tales.

Why? Because they're on a family website.

The original Grimm's tales were...not exactly family-friendly. Just because they have fairies in them doesn't mean there were nice.

Hmm? Not all their tales were so horrid, plus I'm putting a terrible ending to them all anyway when I get around to finishing the setting. Think American McGee's Alice. Not his latest one, which is still probably a good game, but Alice.

For those of you who are confused as to what I'm talking about specifically, I'm writing up a location in the FFRP section.

Moving along, the site looks good from what I've read. I don't know if they are all directly Grimm, or just rewrites. I figure they're direct copies since they seem to keep a bit of gloom about them, but I dunno. I haven't read all of them.

Rutskarn

2009-01-21, 01:11 AM

I was, in fact, slightly incorrect. Although most of the fairy tales recounted by the brothers Grimm did, in fact, prominently feature rape and murder, the two brothers purified many of them in the name of Christianity.

However:

The first volumes were much criticized because, although they were called "Children's Tales", they were not regarded as suitable for children, both for the scholarly information included and the subject matter.

There was still objectionable material there.

Boo

2009-01-21, 01:20 AM

Yes, their stories probably involved all the sins in one way or another. But we're not going to bring that up since it's forbidden.

Instead, I'm going to say that I already mentioned that they changed the original stories themselves due to both criticism and religion. Seven Ravens, I think, is an example of them changing the story by themselves. Cinderella was changed from Mother to Step-Mother since people didn't think it was good for their children to think of their own mothers as evil. Not until their preteen years anyway.

EDIT: And what is wrong with you? You don't even hint that you're wrong, no, you defend to the bitter end that you are right! Even when you're wrong! In fact, you should try to trick the person into letting you be right by slowly switching sides in the argument as to who is right or wrong.

Archpaladin Zousha

2009-01-21, 01:33 AM

And I know that a magic sword that gives you the power to draw it and yell "ALL HEADS OFF EXCEPT MINE!" causing everyone in the room to be instantly decapitated can hardly be kid friendly.

I want a sword that can do that.

Satyr

2009-01-21, 02:53 AM

As far as I know, the Grimm collection includes around 220 stories, including some fragments.
The Grimm's collection was rather bloodthirsty. Sexual connotations are there, but were - mostly reduced to more obscure metaphors. Violence on the other hand was absolutely okay in the presentations of that time.
The older fables of Hans Sachs (a German renaissance writer and playwrigth) are a lot baudier, as were many, many older stories.

Serpentine

2009-01-21, 10:20 AM

Mauve Shirt

2009-01-21, 10:32 AM

Ok, I found my book, it'd been lent to a friend. Turns out there are only 200 tales, 210 including the religious tales and 242 including the omitted ones. I was confusing the fact that this book has over 600 pages with the amount of stories. SORRY!

Rutskarn

2009-01-21, 10:46 AM

Found something that says it has all of them, at Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/grimm10a.txt). Good source, recommend it. I looked at Sleeping Beauty: Unless this is a later version than it claims, I think the raunchiness of it might be previous to the Grimm Brothers, unless it's just a myth.

As I stated, Grimm did, indeed, sanitize Sleeping Beauty.

Umbrella was correct in that violence was left intact, but sexuality was mostly purged.

bluewind95

2009-01-21, 12:24 PM

As I stated, Grimm did, indeed, sanitize Sleeping Beauty.

Umbrella was correct in that violence was left intact, but sexuality was mostly purged.

Then... the first version did indeed have waking up with something that wasn't really a kiss? :smalleek:

DomaDoma

2009-01-21, 12:48 PM

Then... the first version did indeed have waking up with something that wasn't really a kiss? :smalleek:

It's worse than you're imagining. She gave birth to twins - while still asleep - and one of the twins sucked the bit of spindle (flax?) out of her finger. Then there's the second part, where the (very surprised) prince has an ogress mother who tries to eat said twins.

bluewind95

2009-01-21, 12:51 PM

...... Horrifying....

I am almost curious about finding that version and reading it, though. :smalleek:

DomaDoma

2009-01-21, 01:00 PM

Never mind, I'm conflating the most gruesome aspects of two versions (the ogress one being Perrault, of all people.) They can both be found here (http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0410.html).

Tirian

2009-01-21, 01:01 PM

Then... the first version did indeed have waking up with something that wasn't really a kiss? :smalleek:

The Grimm Brothers didn't write it that way in any edition. The way-original version of the story is called Sun, Moon, and Talia, and was written by Giambattista Basile in 1634. Charles Perrault (i.e. Mother Goose) adapted this story to form Sleeping Beauty in 1697, and he is the one who sanitized it to being an enchanted sleep broken by a kiss instead of a supposed death engendering a rape and one of the subsequently-born twins sucking the poisoned splinter out of her fingertip. This was the version that the Grimm Brothers stole adapted in 1812 for their own set of stories.

If you want to read "the good stuff", the key word for your Google search is "Pentamerone".

bluewind95

2009-01-21, 01:33 PM

Narmoth

2009-01-21, 02:24 PM

DomaDoma

2009-01-22, 08:59 AM

I... I read that version.... just... :smalleek:

I honestly don't see how anything positive could be learned from such a tale. I thought those tales were supposed to give good teachings...?

I think I like the "clean" version better.

Yeah, the version I have actually does have an alleged moral - "those whom fortune favors/find good luck even in their sleep" - which is just about the worst possible interpretation on the already lousy moral of "no matter how your heart is grieving/if you keep on believing/the dream that you wish will come true". Only with adulterous necrophiliac pregnancy.

To find a worse lesson to draw from a children's story, you pretty much have to turn to The Poisonous Toadstool.

Also, if this is the kind of story they came up with for kids in the actual Renaissance, I'm not really sure how the version of the High Middle Ages where every horrible aspect happens at once (plus malevolent deities) ended up with Simeon Star-Eyes, but my masochistic relationship with George R.R. Martin has derailed enough threads as it is.

Seer

2009-01-23, 05:41 AM

I remember hearing that the guy who put his wife in a pumpkin shell and there he kept her very well... actually was a guy who cut his wife's head off and kept it in a pumpkin shell...

Ah, there were others. Almost all the old nursery rhymes.

DemonicAngel

2009-01-23, 06:29 AM

I must quote something about a grimm tale, specifically Little Red.

"Little Girls, this seems to say,
Never stop upon your way.
Never trust a stranger friend;
No one knows how it will end.
As you're pretty, so be wise;
Wolves may lurk in every guise.
Handsome they may be, and kind,
Gay, or charming - never mind!
Now, as then, 'tis simple truth -
Sweetest tongue has sharpest tooth!"

you do know that in the original tale, the wolf was just a stranger which raped both red and her mother, don't you? (; and there was no hunter/woodcutter to save them

2009-01-24, 07:47 PM

I thought those tales were supposed to give good teachings...?Not necessarily. AFAIK fables were always intended as moral tales but fairy tales were originally told simply for entertainment. As they became increasingly codified/commercialised for children it became fashionable to stick a lesson at the end

Of course the original variants of many fairy tales also had morals to impart. Just not ones that we'd necessarily want today's children to learn. For example, the moral in Cinderella is that manners, charm, and beauty will only get you so far in life. To really reach the top you need connections... ie a fairy godmother :smallwink:

Kato

2009-01-27, 03:30 AM

Though being German I've gotta admit I never cared to read the original stories. (though, know at least the most popular ones, I think)

Anyway, concerning the morals...
weirdest was what I picked up about... er... what is it in English? Rumpelstilzken? It said something about... female masturbation and the unability to got preagnant because things keep stuck down there. (Whoever doesn't know the story... there's this young girl who is held captive all alone and then Rumpelstilzken appears (whichs name in German is kinda related to something around 'stick' (noun and verb at the same time) who helps her out. Later in the story she becomes the queen and (in the original) Rumpelstilzken appears and because she didn't keep a promise he makes something... er... plug her whole, if I describe this properly)

Boo

2009-01-27, 04:35 AM

Are you sure that's the original? I know the Grimm one isn't, but did they really tone it down from that? Wow...

The Grimm tale goes something like this:

A farmer tells his king that his daughter can make gold out of thread. The king throws the farmers daughter into a tower, and if she doesn't come up with gold after three days, she'll lose her head (or something). Rumpelstiltskin (I think it means 'dirty stick') appears, and helps her in exchange for a trinket. On the third day, she doesn't have anything else to give, and he asks for her first born child. She accepts.

Soon after, she marries the prince (I think) and has her first child. Rumpelstiltskin returns for it, but she refuses. Feeling smug, he tells her that if she can guess his name in three days, then she can keep her child. First, and second day she doesn't guess correctly. During the second day, a man tells her that he overheard Rumpelstiltskin singing a song where his name is stated. On the third day, she tells him his name. Furious by this loss, he stamps his foot so hard into the ground that it splits him in half because the bone was forced up by the immense strength he put into his stomp.

That's where the story ends from what I remember.

Eldan

2009-01-27, 05:40 AM

I think there was at least one version I saw once where Rumplestiltskin was associated with the devil. You know, because of the whole "dancing around a fire chanting his name three times"-thing.

Boo

2009-01-27, 05:47 AM

I think he was compared to the devil, not associated with him. (memory is foggy on that particular story)

hamishspence

2009-01-27, 11:32 AM

The Science of Discworld II: The Globe, mentioned this- and pointed out the name is a clue. What is a stilt with a rumpled skin?

Kato

2009-01-27, 12:47 PM

@BU: That's pretty much what I thought the story was, but I think it's the child proof version.

@hamishspence: That's where I got the original from, but gotta admit I didn't do any research on it but trust Terry&friends.

And the stilt with the rumpled skin refers probably to male genitalia... or concerning the masturbation topic it's said to deprieve from it is something looking similar, though I wonder what devices were used back then. (I don't WANT to know, I just wonder)

Ceska

2009-01-27, 01:23 PM

Yeah, the version I have actually does have an alleged moral - "those whom fortune favors/find good luck even in their sleep" - which is just about the worst possible interpretation on the already lousy moral of "no matter how your heart is grieving/if you keep on believing/the dream that you wish will come true". Only with adulterous necrophiliac pregnancy.
Made me laugh out loud. :smallbiggrin:

I honestly don't see how anything positive could be learned from such a tale. I thought those tales were supposed to give good teachings...?
What the comrade Om said. Fairy tales weren't originally intended for children, that's mainly a development from late 18th century, iirc.
The moral stuck onto the end of many such tale is similarly from that time-frame, though mostly quite artificially done if the story is kept intact, or requiring serious alteration of the original story, eg the Grimm tales.

Fri

2009-01-28, 02:17 AM

Nah. There are two things.

1.It might be a case of Value Dissonance (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ValuesDissonance). You know, different sets of values now and then, here and there.
2.It's scare tactic. Don't go to the forest or a wolf will rape and eat you, yadda yadda? Not much morale, but forest are scary and dangerous, and the stories are meant to discourage childs from going into the forest..