Fairy Tales | my-journal

The Brothers Grimm

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were academic, linguist, cultural researchers, lexicographers and authors who together collected and published folklore. They are among the best know storytellers of folk tales popularizing such as Cinderella, the frog prince, and Hansel and Gretel.

The Grimm Fairy Tales came from old folktales from Germany. These Stories where told by mouth, they were not written. The tales where developed around the medieval era in the 19th century. Some of the stories where similar to Aesop’s Fables. The Grimm brothers collected the tales to save them from being lost, because at the time Germany was being suppressed by the French, and they wanted to get rid of all German writings. So the Grimm bothers gathered up old manuscripts of the stories and comprised them into a book. They also collected some tales from ordinary people who still knew the stories.

In The Peasant and the Devil, A Peasant found a devil in his fields, sitting on fire. He guessed he was sitting on treasure. The devil offered the treasure only if for two years half of the peasants crop was his. The peasant agreed and said that to prevent disputes, the half above the ground was the devils and the half below ground belong to the peasant. The devil agreed, so the peasant planted turnips. In the end the devil got nothing and went back into the in rage and the peasant got all the treasure.

This Story reflects my life a lot. I only make deals that I know I can win and I find loop holes in deal to make sure I get what I want. Now does that make me a bad guy or does is it make me smart because I now I am always going to win? Even in the story the peasant out smarted the devil a simple peasant can outsmart the devil “the ruler of all evil”. If you can outsmart the devil does that make you worse than him? (Brothers Grimm)

WORK CITED

O’Neill Thomas “Guardians of the Fairy Tale: The Brothers Grimm” Living in the World: Cultural Theme for Writer.1st ed. Boston: Wadsworth 2014.44-57.print

The Brothers Grimm. “The Peasant and the Devil”. Fairy Tales. 1812. Project Gutenberg 2008http://www.gutenberg.org/ Internet