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By Root 1954 0

volume alone,” Wilhelm wrote to a friend, “quite by ourselves and hence very slowly, over a period of six years; now things are going much better and more rapidly.” The second edition was issued, 1819, improved and considerably enlarged, and with an introduction by Wilhelm, “On the Nature of Folk Tales.” Then, in 1822, appeared a third volume—a work of commentary, compiled partly from the notes of the earlier editions, but containing additional matter, as well as a thoroughgoing comparative-historical study.* The brothers published a selection of fifty favorites in 1825, and in 1837 released a third edition of the two volume original, again amplified and improved. Still further betterments were to be noted in the editions of 1840, 1843, 1850, 1857. Translations in Danish, Swedish, and French came almost immediately; presently in Dutch, English, Italian, Spanish, Czech, Polish, Russian, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Finnish, Esthonian, Hebrew, Armenian, and Esperanto. Tales borrowed from the Grimm collection have since been recorded among the natives of Africa, Mexico, and the South Seas.

* Johannes Bolte and Georg Polívka, Anmerkungen zu den Kinder- und Hausmärchen der Brüder Grimm, Leipzig, 1912–1932, Vol. IV, pp. 443–444. To the “story-wife of Niederzwehren” we owe nineteen of the finest tales: 6. 9. 22. 29. 34. 58. 59. 61. 63. 71. 76. 89. 94. 98. 100. 102. 106. 108. 111. Some four years after the brothers had come to know her, she abruptly fell into poverty and sickness, and in another few months had died.

* The Wilds were six daughters and one son, the Grimms five sons and one daughter. Frau Wild gave stories 18. 30. Lisette gave variants of 41. 55. 105. Gretchen gave 2. 3. 154., Dortchen 13. 15. 24. 39. 46. 49. 56. 65. 88. 103. 105. parts of 52. 55. 60. and a variant of 34. Die alte Marie herself supplied 11. 26. 31. 44. 50. and a variant of 53.

† Ludwig Hassenpflug later married Lotte Grimm. His sisters, Jeannette and Amalie, gave stories 13. 14. 17. 20. 29. 41. 42. 53. part of 26. and variants of 61. 67. 76.

‡ A family of eight sons and six daughters. Their contributions began only after publication of the first edition of volume one (1812), but in the later editions some of their tales replaced earlier numbers. From their village of Bökendorf, near Brakel, come stories 7. 10. 16. 27. 60. 70. 72. 86. 91. 99. 101. 112. 113. 121. 123. 126. 129. 131. 134. 135. 139. and parts of 52. 97. The von Haxthausens gave also 133. and 143. from Münsterland, as well as some half dozen others from various parts of the country. (Cf. Bolte and Polívka, op. cit., IV, pp. 437 ff.)

* Deeper meaning lies in the fairytale of my childhood than in the truth that is taught by life. (Die Piccolomini, III. 4.)

* Richard Cleasby, An Icelandic-English Dictionary, Oxford, 1874, Introduction, p. lxix.

* This volume underwent revision for its final edition in 1856. It has recently been wholly renovated, and increased to five sturdy volumes, under the editorship of Professors Johannes Bolte and Georg Polívka (cf. op. cit.).

TWO

The Types of Story

THE FIRST effect of the work was a transformation throughout the world of the scholarly attitude toward the productions of the folk. A new humility before the informant becomes everywhere perceptible after the date, 1812. Exactitude, not beautification, becomes thereafter the first requirement, “touching up” the unforgivable sin. Furthermore, the number and competence of the collectors greatly and rapidly increased. Field-workers armed with pad and pencil marched forth to every corner of the earth. Solid volumes today stand ranged along the shelf from Switzerland, Frisia, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland and the Faroes, England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France, Italy, Corsica, Malta, Portugal and Spain, the Basques, the Rhaeto-Romanic mountaineers, the modern Greeks, Rumanians, Albanians, Slovenes, Serb-Croatians, Bulgarians, Macedonians, Czechs, Slovacs, Serbs and Poles, Great, White and Little Russians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Finns, Lapps and Esthonians, Cheremiss, Mordvinians, Votyaks