Study notes: Grimms' Fairy Tales
German household tales the Grimm brothers collected in the nineteenth century, not stories they invented from nothing. You will meet a golden bird, musicians who are really animals, a sleeping princess, and siblings lost in the woods. The plots are short and strange. Kindness is sometimes rewarded and sometimes not. This edition is the public-domain English translation that has been on Project Gutenberg for years. It is a storybook, not a history of how children should be treated.
Themes
Wit versus strength. Home and exile. Warnings that got exaggerated so children would remember them.
People to follow
Hans, Briar Rose, the fisherman and his wife, and a crowd of kings, witches, and animals.
Talk about
- Which character wins by being clever rather than strong?
- What would you change so the ending felt fair?
- Which story is really about greed?
Public-domain text.