Selected Folktales/Ausgewählte Märchen: A Dual-Language Book

by Jacob Grimm, Wilhelm Grimm, Stanley Appelbaum (Editor)

These 27 world-famous fairy tales have inspired countless adaptations in many languages and all public media and have, for millions of people, become an integral part of childhood. Included are such favorites as "Hansel and Gretel," "The Brave Little Tailor," "Cinderella," "Little Red Riding Hood," "Sleeping Beauty," and "Snow White" as well as less familiar ones: "The Danced-Out Shoes," "The Golden Bird," "The Six Swans," "Mother Holle," and "Straw, Coal and Bean." Stanley Appelbaum provides excellent English translations on pages facing the original German, allowing students to read some of the finest stories of the Brothers Grimm in the original while simultaneously improving their German language skills.

Genres: German Literature, Classics, Fiction, Fantasy, Language, Folk Tales, Literature

272 pages, Paperback

Published March 10, 2003

About the author

German philologist and folklorist Jakob Ludwig Karl Grimm in 1822 formulated Grimm's Law, the basis for much of modern comparative linguistics. With his brother Wilhelm Karl Grimm (1786-1859), he collected Germanic folk tales and published them as Grimm's Fairy Tales (1812-1815).

Indo-European stop consonants, represented in Germanic, underwent the regular changes that Grimm's Law describes; this law essentially states that Indo-European p shifted to Germanic f, t shifted to th, and k shifted to h. Indo-European b shifted to Germanic p, d shifted to t, and g shifted to k. Indo-European bh shifted to Germanic b, dh shifted to d, and gh shifted to g.

This jurist and mythologist also authored the monumental German Dictionary and his Deutsche Mythologie .

Adapted from Wikipedia.

Reviews

[Manny · Rating 5 out of 5]

My initial reason for reading this dual-language edition of the Brothers Grimm was to try and improve my German, and it certainly seems to have worked; when I started, I was peeking at the English shamefully often, but by the time I got to the end I was sometimes reading whole pages without a glance at the right-hand side. But never mind the pedagogical aspects: the book itself was so fascinating. As with Les trois mousquetaires and the Arabian Nights, I had somehow got the idea that it was a children's book. Was I ever wrong.

In the pre-Disneyfied version, the stories turn out to be most unsuitable for children. They are violent fantasies written in a clever faux-naive style, and it is easy to see why they have enjoyed their huge success. To give a couple of striking examples, in Allerleirauh the princess first has to escape from her home after her father announces that he is going to marry her (she reminds him too much of her dead mother); she takes refuge at another castle, where she is forced to work as a scullery maid and sleep, Harry Potter-style, in a cupboard under the stairs. Another remarkable story was Die Gänsemagd ; this time, the princess is forced to change places with her evil maidservant, who marries the prince while her mistress is given a job herding geese. At the end, the maidservant's treachery is uncovered. The king describes to her what she has done, pretending that he is talking about someone else, and asks what a suitable punishment would be. The conclusion is as follows:

Da sprach die falsche Braut: "Die ist nichts Besseres wert, als daß sie splitternackt ausgezogen und in ein Faß gesteckt wird, das inwendig mit spitzen Nägeln beschlagen ist; und zwei weiße Pferde müssen vorgespannt werden, die sie Gasse auf Gasse ab zu Tode schleifen." - "Das bist du," sprach der alte König, "und hast dein eigen Urteil gefunden, und danach soll dir widerfahren." Und als das Urteil vollzogen war, vermählte sich der junge König mit seiner rechten Gemahlin, und beide beherrschten ihr Reich in Frieden und Seligkeit.

["No better than this," answered the false bride, "that she be stripped naked, put into a cask studded inside with sharp nails, and be dragged along in it by two white horses from street to street, until she be dead." - "Thou art that woman," said the old King, "Thou hast spoken thy own doom, and as thou hast said, so shall it be done." And when the sentence was fulfilled, the Prince married the true bride, and ever after they ruled over their kingdom in peace and blessedness.]

As already noted, most parents will not want to read this to their kids. The thing that will make the adult reader increasingly uneasy, however, is the contrast between the brilliant writing and the underlying message. The heroes and heroines are beautiful, almost always blonde, and justified in committing any kind of barbaric cruelty against their enemies; I lost count of the number of evil witches, stepmothers and stepsisters who were burned alive, eaten by wild animals, torn limb from limb or blinded. It is obvious why the book was popular with the Nazis - so popular, apparently, that it was banned for a while after the end of World War II. But it's a masterpiece, and I think it's entirely appropriate that it's been reinstated.

Karl Ove Knausgård is one of the most insightful modern commentators on the Nazi era, and he has had many interesting things to say about this subject. In an interview he gave a few years ago, he defended himself against the charge that he was trying to glorify Nazism. Of course Nazism was beautiful, he said scornfully. If it hadn't been, how could it have seduced so many people? When I read the Brother Grimm in the original German, I felt I understood better what he had meant.

[Kyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

The introduction provides some excellent Grimm trivia, if naught else… Wilhelm concentrated on literature, while Jacob was more wide-ranging; and there are no fairies (I repeat, no fairies, so get out of here with those fairies) as fairies were French. It does a pretty nice job of introducing everything. Presentation of business at hand -- each tale's years, sources, provenance, whatnot -- isn't as dry as it could be thanks to the fun and light cross-referencing and compact digressions by Applebaum.

And the translations always seem really, really excellent. Some rhyming songs stretched a bit far to fit back into English, but the bulk of it is line-for-line impressive and well done. Dual-language seems to me quite rewarding and awesome, for big details (whether it feels better to say this or that, etc.) or small details (cross back line-by-line or sentence-by-sentence or graf-by-graf, etc.), or how you read at all.

Also, I guess folk tales can seem, when they're just bare English, off-point and bad; so when there's macabre or gruesome bits, those can be ironically twisted up in a way to mock what seems crazy and archaic. But they don't seem like that much in German. Everything has the same rich, aged, funny, kind of smelly character, where everything's as old as everything else, so you can be macabre a little bit anytime you want to. It's not just little tales that can do that, sure, but crazy-big monuments and movements and songs. And don't get me started on the grand dangers of blood and alcohol. Hitler didn't drink, fyi.

"Der Froschkönig" is the first, "Märchen von einem, der auszog, das Fürchten zu lernen" (they be dead on them gallows, y'idiot) the second, "Der Wolf und die 7 jungen Geißlein" (Big Swallow motif, yo; cut out of belly and replace with stones), the third, and "Brüderchen und Schwesterchen", "Rapunzel", "Die 3 Spinnerinnen" next.

"Hänsel und Gretel" (hot-as-hell oven) is the seventh, "Strohhalm, Kohle und Bohne" the eighth, "Das tapfere Schneiderlein" the ninth, "Aschenputtel" (dance with prince and then a super-quick wardrobe change) the tenth, "Frau Holle" and "Rotkäppchen" next, and "Die Bremer Stadtmusikanten" (talking animals whose dreams of rock musician stardom won't be cut short by any meddling humans) the thirteenth.

"Tischendeckdich" (Table-Set-Yourself, and don't forget the donkey who poops gold) is the fourteenth, "Daumesdick" the fifteenth, "Die 6 Schwäne" and "Dornröschen" and "Sneewittchen" the next, and "Rumpelstilzchen" (angry little person, who boasts too loud about his own cool name) the nineteenth, and "Der goldene Vogel", "Allerleirauh", "6 kommen durch die ganze Welt" next.

But I really like "Hans im Glück" most of all. It's so simple, just a guy going home after service, and powerful all the same. A careful series of exchanges… Seven years to gold. Gold to horse. Horse to cow. Cow to pig. Pig to goose. Goose to grindstone. And then that falls down a well, so he's "frei von aller Last" and happy still. Who would have thought?

"Die Gäusemagd" the twenty-fourth, "Die zertanzten Schuhe" (take better care of your sweet kicks, so no one realizes you sneak off to dance) the twenty-fifth, and "Schneeweißchen und Rosenrot" and "Die Meisterdieb" the last. These Germans and their silly folk tales. They can spin one pretty well when they feel like it, it seems like, for eventual translation alongside they original words, to which you just gotta word up. Word.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Grimms aren't very hard to read in German. Not half as hard as reading the newspaper, 19th-century language and all. So... read 'em in the originals.

Disney permanently poisoned fairytale language in English. The originals here still have a lot of the flavor, comedy, and sheer weirdness of Schwarzwald darkness. These are *supposed* to be bizarre, unfamiliar, and funny tales -- so tackle the German.

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I especially enjoy reading the fairy tales in the original. I've all but lost my German since school, but theis format is very satisfying, allowing me to manage most of the original with the occasional hint to keep things moving along.

There is a noticeable difference in reading these tales in German...a feeling that doesn't come across in straight english translation.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Appelbaum's translation is particularly faithful and sensitive to the style of the German stories as printed. An excellent text.

[Jace Ellis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found a lot of folktales I had never heard of, and even those I knew by name were far different (and better) in their Grimm version. I must say that this was quite the entertaining read. The folktales were very amusing and made me laugh out loud at times with their absurdity. Donkeys that vomit and defecate gold, a prince who is shoved out of a massive tower, landing unscathed, only to get his eyes poked out by a thorn bush, Cinderella's sister brutally chopping off their own heels and toes to fit their feet in a slipper, a bear and a human giving birth to a man-bear hybrid, a cow giving birth to a full human, a grandpa getting decapitated then getting his head plopped back on and continuing on with life as if nothing happened, a princess disgusted at a slimy frog, insulting it, and then hurling it at a wall only for the frog to transform into a prince and the two of them immediately fall in love (yup makes perfect sense)... And the list goes on. Quite amusing indeed.

[Sophie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Splendid collection, and I love that it has both the German and the English.

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was very helpful and a fun read