Jacob Grimm
Author
Series
Formats
Description
In "Rumpelstiltskin" a miller's careless boast that his clever daughter can "spin gold from straw" is forced by the king to make good on this claim. A little man arrives to help the miller's daughter in exchange for her firstborn child. When the daughter, who by now is the queen, gives birth to a child, the little man comes to collect. He agrees to release the queen from her promise if she can learn the imp's name. According to researchers at Durham...
Author
Series
Formats
Description
In The Golden Bird a king who has been robbed of a golden apple commands his gardener's sons to watch the tree. Seeing that the thief is a golden bird, the youngest son tries to shoot it, but only knocks a feather off. Fascinated by the feather, the king decides he wants the whole bird. The gardener's son and his two brothers must make fateful choices in what turns into a fearsome quest to capture the bird. It is Aarne-Thompson folktale type 550,...
Author
Description
The Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm is fantastic collection of stories, decorated with Arthur Rackham's splendid illustrations. Included, are such well-known and loved stories as 'Briar Rose', 'The Frog Prince', 'Rapunzel', 'The Valiant Little Tailor', 'Hansel and Gretel', 'Little Red Riding Hood', 'The Robber Bridegroom', 'Tom Thumb', 'Aschenputtel', and many more.
Author
Series
Formats
Description
In Snowdrop (or "Snow White") a queen sewing by the window during a snowfall pricks her finger. Admiring the drops of blood on the snow, she wishes for a daughter "as white as that snow, as red as that blood, and as black as this ebony window frame!" The queen dies, but not before giving birth to Snowdrop. The girl's stepmother, a vain and vindictive woman, plots to eliminate Snowdrop, who grows more beautiful by the day. Snowdrop is left in the forest...
Author
Series
Formats
Description
In The Seven Ravens a peasant sends his seven sons to fetch water for his daughter's christening. Having lost their pails in the well, they are afraid to return home without having completed their task. The peasant, thinking they have gone off to play, curses them whereupon they are immediately transformed into ravens. When the daughter is grown up she sets off to discover the whereabouts of her long lost brothers. This folk tale exists in multiple...
Author
Series
Formats
Description
In Little Red Cap, or Little Red Riding Hood, a little girl walks through the woods to deliver wine and cake to her sickly grandmother. Having been warned by her mother not to stray from the path, she is tricked by a large wolf into picking flowers in a nearby field. During this time, the wolf, masquerading as Little Red Cap, swindles the grandmother into letting him in and devours her, and dons her clothing. When Little Red Cap arrives, the wolf,...
Author
Series
Formats
Description
In The Goose Girl a princess' maid turns on her mistress while traveling and forces her to switch roles with her. The False princess then kills the princess' horse to keep it from talking and forces the real princess to herd geese with the boy Conrad. Conrad begins to notice strange things about the new goose-girl and informs the king. The king coaxes the truth out of the real princess and the false princess is duly punished.
Author
Series
Formats
Description
In The Frog Prince", a spoiled princess grudgingly befriends a frog after a chance meeting at a pond. Forced against her will to spend time with the creature, he is ultimately revealed to be a handsome prince under a spell when she hurls him against the wall. In many other versions of the story the curse is broken by a kiss or a night spent on the princess' pillow. It is possible that the idea for the story goes back to Roman times when the emperor...
Author
Series
Formats
Description
In Briar Rose", better known as "Sleeping Beauty" seven good fairies are invited to be godmothers to the infant princess. An old, overlooked fairy feels slighted and puts a deadly curse on the princess. A kind fairy modulates the curse from death to 100 years of deep sleep which can be terminated by the kiss of a handsome prince. This combination of princess, sleep enchantment and prince exists in multiple folk tales going back as early as the narrative...
Author
Series
Formats
Description
In "The Valiant Little Tailor" a tailor parleys his success at killing seven flies in one stroke into a string of unlikely successes. Making a belt with the words "Seven at one blow" written on it, the gullible townspeople assume he means men. After a contest in which he tricks a giant into believing he is stronger, the tailor persuades the king he can rid the kingdom of giants. In exchange for this the king offers his daughter's hand in marriage...
Author
Series
Formats
Description
Ashputtel, or Cinderella, is a folk tale embodying a myth-element of unjust oppression and triumphant reward. In it, a young girl is forced by her cruel stepmother and stepsisters to a life of servitude, and to sleep next to the fireplace, earning her the nickname "Ashputtel". Elements of the Grimm treatment of this story are much more intense than the Perrault or Disney versions, with the stepsisters experiencing a more violent conclusion. The theme...
Author
Series
Formats
Description
In this tale, twelve princesses, each of astounding beauty, are locked by their father in their shared bedroom each night. Vexed to discover that their dancing shoes show signs of wear every morning, the king demands an explanation, which they refuse to give. The king offers his kingdom and marriage to any of his daughters as a reward to the man who solves the mystery. However, if the mystery remains unsolved after three nights, the erstwhile suitor...
13) The Golden Goose
Author
Series
Formats
Description
In "The Golden Goose" Dummling, the youngest and simplest of three brothers, is sent into the forest to chop wood. He shares his food and drink with a little gray man who directs him to a tree which, when chopped down, is found to contain a golden goose. Dummling sets off on a journey with the goose under his arm, eventually arriving in a kingdom wherein the king will offer his daughter's hand in marriage to any man who can make her laugh. This fairy...
14) Iron Hans
Author
Series
Formats
Description
In Iron Hans" a series of huntsmen disappear in a mysterious forest. It is eventually discovered that an iron-skinned man is dragging everything into the lake where he lives. The man is captured by the king and subsequently released by the prince, who then sets out on his own. What follows is a coming of age story in which the prince, with the help of the iron-skinned man defeats an army and wins the hand of a princess. The prince is reunited with...
Author
Series
Formats
Description
Snow-White, fair-haired, quiet and shy and Rose-Red, dark-haired, outspoken and lively, are two little girls living with their mother in a small cottage by the woods. They give shelter on a winter night to a kindly bear, who treats them gently and returns every night. In the summer the girls encounter a wicked dwarf whose beard is stuck in a tree. Freeing the dwarf, the girls are met with loud ungrateful recriminations for cutting his beard. More...
Author
Series
Formats
Description
The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids is a fairy tale that strongly resembles The Three Little Pigs and elements of Little Red Riding Hood. In it, a mother goat leaves her kids home alone, warning them not to open the door. A Big Bad Wolf shows up and tries to talk his way in, but the kids hold fast. When the wolf finally gets past the door through trickery, he eats all but one of the kids. The mother goat returns to find the wolf sleeping under a tree....
17) The Juniper-Tree
Author
Series
Formats
Description
The Juniper Tree is a German fairy tale that contains themes of child abuse, murder and cannibalism and is one of the Brothers Grimm's darker and more mature fairy tales. In it, a boy is murdered and made into a stew by his evil stepmother, who buries his bones beneath a juniper tree outside their house. The boy is reincarnated as a bird who flies forth from the tree and enlists the townspeople to help him exact revenge. It is thought that the Grimm...
18) Rapunzel
Author
Series
Formats
Description
Había una vez dos pobres campesinos, un hombre y una mujer, que estaban muy tristes porque no tenían hijos. Un día, la mujer le dijo a su marido que estaba esperando un hijo. Durante algunos días, la felicidad reinó en la casa, pero muy pronto comenzaron los problemas.
La colección Cuentos de bolsillo reúne los cuentos y fábulas de toda la vida relatados con una visión muy actual y acompañados por magníficas ilustraciones de artistas de...
19) Hansel y Gretel
Author
Formats
Description
Había una vez un leñador que vivía cerca de un gran bosque con su esposa y dos hijos habidos de la primera esposa, que había muerto. Los cuatro eran muy pobres y no tenían para comer. "¡Lleva los niños al bosque y abandónalos!" sugirió una noche la madrastra a su marido. "¡Se alimentarán de arándanos y así nosotros tendremos suficiente pan para los dos!"
La colección Cuentos de bolsillo reúne los cuentos y fábulas de toda la vida relatados...
Author
Publisher
Duke Classics
Description
The primal beating heart at the center of much of the Western literary canon can be found in the folk stories, myths, and fairy tales collected by the amateur folklorists Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm. Surprisingly graphic in comparison to their sanitized twentieth-century retellings, these intense tales are not for the faint at heart. A must-read for any fan of folklore.