Who Were the Brothers Grimm? Lives, Sources and Why They Changed Their Tales
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were scholars, not storytellers. Learn who the Brothers Grimm were, where their tales came from and why the stories kept changing.
In this article
The Brothers Grimm were Jacob Grimm (1785–1863) and Wilhelm Grimm (1786–1859), German scholars of language and folklore who published the famous collection Children's and Household Tales (Kinder- und Hausmärchen) in 1812 and 1815. They were not wandering storytellers collecting tales from peasants by the fire, as legend suggests. Most of their tales came from educated, middle-class friends and neighbors, many of them young women. Over seven editions published until 1857, Wilhelm heavily edited the stories, removing sexual content, adding Christian morals and making mothers into stepmothers.
Early Life
The brothers were born in Hanau, in the German state of Hesse, the eldest surviving sons of a large family. Their father, a lawyer and official, died in 1796 when Jacob was eleven, leaving the family in financial hardship. With the help of an aunt, the two brothers went to school in Kassel and then studied law at the University of Marburg.
At Marburg, their professor Friedrich Carl von Savigny introduced them to historical research and medieval literature. The brothers became fascinated by old German texts, songs and stories, and decided to devote their lives to studying the German language and its folk heritage.
The two were extraordinarily close. They shared a home, a library and a desk for most of their lives, even after Wilhelm married.
Why Did They Collect Fairy Tales?
In the early 1800s, the German-speaking lands were divided into many states and occupied by Napoleon's France. Many intellectuals in the Romantic movement wanted to preserve what they saw as the authentic voice of the German people, the Volk, in its songs, myths and tales.
The poet Clemens Brentano, who was collecting folk songs, asked the Grimms to help gather tales. The brothers began recording stories around 1806. Brentano never used their manuscript, which is lucky for historians: the surviving 1810 manuscript shows what the tales looked like before the Grimms began editing them.
Where Did the Grimms' Tales Come From?
The romantic image of the Grimms visiting peasant cottages is mostly myth. Their main sources were:
- The Wild family in Kassel. Dortchen Wild, who later married Wilhelm, contributed many tales, including "Hansel and Gretel."
- The Hassenpflug family, a family of French Huguenot descent who knew many French tales, which partly explains why versions of Perrault's stories appear in the collection.
- Dorothea Viehmann, a tailor's wife from near Kassel who sold produce and told the brothers more than forty tales. The Grimms praised her storytelling skill and portrayed her in the second volume's preface. She was also of Huguenot ancestry.
- Friends, relatives and published books, including older German literary sources.
So the "German" folk tales were, in part, French tales retold by educated German speakers.
Seven Editions, Many Changes
The first volume of 86 tales appeared in 1812; the second, with 70 more, in 1815. The first edition was scholarly, with footnotes, and wasn't very popular with families. Over the next decades Wilhelm took charge and revised the tales for a wider audience. By the seventh edition (1857), the collection had 200 tales plus ten religious "children's legends."
What Wilhelm changed
| Change | Example |
|---|---|
| Mothers became stepmothers | Snow White, Hansel and Gretel |
| Sexual references removed | Rapunzel's pregnancy hinted at more vaguely |
| Christian elements added | Prayers and references to God |
| Violence kept or even increased | Cinderella's stepsisters lose their eyes; Rumpelstiltskin tears himself in two |
| Style polished | Short notes became flowing, literary tales with recurring phrases |
You can see these changes tale by tale in our deep dives on the original Snow White, the original Rapunzel and Hansel and Gretel.
The Brothers' Other Work
Fairy tales were just one part of their careers:
- Grimm's Law. Jacob described regular sound shifts between Germanic languages and other Indo-European languages (for example, Latin pater corresponding to English father). It is a cornerstone of historical linguistics.
- German Grammar and German Mythology by Jacob.
- The German Dictionary (Deutsches Wörterbuch), begun in 1838. It was so enormous that it wasn't completed until 1961, long after the brothers' deaths. Jacob died while working on the entry for the word Frucht (fruit).
- The Göttingen Seven. In 1837, both brothers were among seven professors at the University of Göttingen dismissed for protesting the king of Hanover's revocation of the constitution. They eventually settled in Berlin under the patronage of the Prussian king.
Why the Grimm Tales Still Matter
The Grimms' collection is one of the most translated books in history. In 2005, the Children's and Household Tales manuscripts and annotated copies were added to UNESCO's Memory of the World Register. Their method of recording tales, noting variants and sources, helped found the academic study of folklore. Folklorists later built the ATU tale type index on similar comparative principles.
Quick Facts
| Jacob Grimm | 1785–1863 |
| Wilhelm Grimm | 1786–1859 |
| Birthplace | Hanau, Hesse, Germany |
| Famous book | Children's and Household Tales (1812, 1815) |
| Final edition | 1857, 200 tales + 10 legends |
| Other major work | Deutsches Wörterbuch, Grimm's Law |
Frequently Asked Questions
Did the Brothers Grimm write their fairy tales?
They collected and edited them rather than inventing them. However, Wilhelm rewrote the tales so heavily over the years that the final versions show a great deal of his style.
How many fairy tales did the Brothers Grimm collect?
The final 1857 edition contains 200 numbered tales and 10 children's legends.
Where did the Grimms get their stories?
Mostly from educated friends and neighbors in Hesse, especially young women from the Wild and Hassenpflug families, plus storyteller Dorothea Viehmann and older books.
Why are Grimm fairy tales so dark?
Folk tales were often violent, and Wilhelm Grimm kept or even increased punishments for villains, seeing them as moral lessons, while removing sexual content.
What is the first Grimm fairy tale?
Tale number 1 is "The Frog King, or Iron Henry." Read our explainer on the original Frog Prince story.
