Professor David Peimer
The Grimm Brothers

Professor David Peimer - The Grimm Brothers

- Okay, so today we’re going to dive into, look at the Brothers Grimm. I don’t have to mention what the surname sounds like. And going to look at their fascinating and intriguing contribution to, obviously, German literature, but also I think world literature through folk tales, fairy tales, which you all know so well. And the amount that these guys actually did, and the really quite interesting life that they lived, and the, which I’ll come to as well, but I think most importantly, how the period they live in, this is the period of Goethe, of Shiller, the great playwright, and almost a resurgence or renaissances in German literature. Obviously, Goetha being the biggest name of all. And the Brothers Grimm are part of this whole period, which is, in a sense, post the French Revolution, just post the Napoleonic era, really, when they do their primary adult years and work. And it’s, I think, the sense of the forging of German nationalism and the dream of a German, one huge German unified state from over 200 small principalities to become, you know, this one, the third, First Reich, I suppose, which culminates of course, in Bismark, et cetera, in the mid to the end of the 1860s, 1866 to 1871, which is the culmination, the unification of Germany period. So they’re writing as German nationalism is on the rise. Of course, there are revolts, there’re revolutions. It’s a post Napoleonic era. And the beginning of the, or rather the furthering of being caught up in the enlightenment era, separation of religious, and state, and judiciary, and other powers, and of course reducing he divine rule of monarchies.

So this is a period where they are writing and discovering, and their main obsession is the German language. They write a German dictionary called the Grimms’ Dictionary, which they spent years and years on. They’re obsessed with collecting folklore, folk stories. They’re putting it into, let’s call it, inverted commas, simple, ordinary, daily language, almost, how to tell these stories, and the link between those stories and German national identity and emerging German identity, emerging sense of a German nationalism and state, as opposed to all the principalities dotted all over what we’d call Germany today. So this is the era they’re living. It’s a romantic era. It’s a hoped for era amongst these type of characters. They’re very different from the peasant class, of course. But this is their aim overall. Of course, they get disillusioned and so on. And the fact that it’s post Napoleonic, I think is really important. So that’s to paint the picture of when Jacob and Wilhelm, the Grimm brothers, live. We see their dates there. These are two pictures. Interestingly, all the pictures I was able to find and that I remembered was always of the two of them together. It’s very rare to find a picture of them on their own. Always together, working together, living together in fact, which I’ll come to, and prodigious amount of of work that they did. And I think really helped forge so much in German language and cultures. As did others go to many others. Their aim with these folk tales was actually originally not really meant as little bedtime stories and fairy tales for kids. It was meant for this bigger reason that I mentioned, German cultural identity, nationalism, et cetera.

But of course, they then adapted it more and more as the stories took on for kids. So that’s just a little bit of a context for them. And this is another picture here of the same guys, at a younger age, obviously. This is more or less at their university age. These are endless drawings they have. Others have done them themselves, always together, drawn together by others, and the picture’s always of the two of them. This is another picture here of the Brothers Grimm. On the top, of course, the youth that we all once upon a time had, 1837, the two brothers, 10 years later, 1847 on the left, the two brothers. Okay, it’s just one thing I wanted to mention before diving in to the brothers is I read an interesting article the other day which I thought I’d share because it fits with what happened to so many of their stories. We know them Rumpelstiltskin, Snow White, Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella. I mean, we know so many of their stories, and there were over 200 that they collected, edited, partly rewrote, which then became “The Book of the Grimm’s Fairy Tales”, basically translated into over 100 languages and known globally. So I want to have a look a little bit later at the contrast between what they actually wrote in the 1830s, 1840s, et cetera, when they were compiling all these stories, I want to contrast that, and actually I’m going to read some of their stories, and you’ll see how much more visceral and emotional and how gruesome and gory the details are, and the physical violence and the graphic descriptions compared to what I would say has become the Disney-influenced and culturally-influenced western sanitization of their stories today.

And if I may mention, the University of Oxford and many others in the UK, America, and other parts of the world have all embarked, as we all know, in cancel culture and politically correct political correctness. And I just read, Oxford released this the other day, as has many other universities everywhere have, that Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” and other Oxford, and other mediaeval literature taught in the Oxford English literature modules, we’re going to have trigger warnings, in the phrase of today. And I quote, “There might be potentially upsetting themes "in the works from the Middle Ages, "from "Beowulf” to the mediaeval tale of Sir Gawain in “The Green Knight,” and a trigger warning is now put at the head of every module, English literature. “Students should seek support "if anything about the material troubles you.” Sorry, I can’t tell being satirical about it. And this is a quote from the actual trigger warning on the module. “Mediaeval literature,” mediaeval we’re talking about, “mediaeval literature often portrays extreme physical, "emotional, and psychological stress. "In addition, there are are graphic representations "of violence, which may be extreme.” This is being written in the 21st century in our times, very recently, as a trigger warning for students coming in to to what we call a university. I find it extraordinary. This is mediaeval. This is “Saw a Girl Wearing”, “The Green Knight”, this is “Canterbury Tale”, “The Wife of Bath”, I quote, “It is crude and promiscuous.

"And it portrays a knight who does not want "to marry a hag because she is ugly.” And they quote from “The Wife of Bath”. “You say that just as worms destroy a tree, "just so a wife destroys her husband, "And that one must be sensitive "to how our students might respond.” “The Prioress’s Tale”, there’s also concerns some academics because of the nuns, et cetera. “The Man of Law Tale”. “In the tale we observe an evil sultaness "who thwarts Christianity in Syria.” If you find this upsetting, please do tell us and we will offer support. Sir Gawain in “The Green Knight” accuses women of tricking men. Should you find this upsetting or disturbing, please contact us. We will support. The book of Marjorie Kemp, the 14th century Christian, she is portrayed as, and I quote from the website, “as a woman who went out of her mind "and was wonderfully vexed and laboured with spirits. "She cried, she roared, she wept, "she fell down on the ground, "so fervently did the fire of love burn in her heart.” This is all seen as potentially upsetting, disturbing, whatever else for students at one of the greatest universities ever existed. And at many universities, you know, all around the world, of the UK, America, Canada, I mean everywhere. It’s obviously, we all know.

I say this because I’m going to talk about the sanitization of the Grimm’s original writing in the 1830s, 1840s, and the stories they took which had been around for centuries before, stories told amongst the peasant class, the working class, the ordinary, you know, let’s call them the people of the land. So stories which were circulating and just told all the time. They didn’t write their stories, the Grimm brothers. They collated, collected, rewrote, edited, and published. So this goes so deep into cultural identity, perhaps not only Germany as I’m going to argue, but globally human nature. And the the silent sanitization of so many of them, and of course Disney is the ultimate master of that. Okay, going on to the two brothers themselves, they were academics. As I said, they collected and they published folklore, folk tales and folklore, and that’s what fascinated them. Not stories for children or children’s books, but folklore. Because of course, you know, with the emancipation, and more and more education happening, people can read and write more and more, they’re discovering oral literature in Germany, and elsewhere, but for them, Germany mainly, and putting it into books, you know, so people more and more can read and write and study. They almost originate the study of folklore and folk tales. We think back to the ancient Greeks. I mean, what’s “The Odyssey”? It’s a folk tale. There’s no, there’s no proof, I can’t recall of that, that the Trojan horse ever actually existed. I mean, do we rarely believe the Trojans were so naive that hundreds of Greeks were building a massive wooden horse on the beach, and then a massive wooden horse was taken there to the outside this incredible city of Troy? There wasn’t a single spy who saw the Greeks building?

But the Greeks are going to leave a present? There’s a Trojan horse for the Trojans? I mean, you know, it boggles. I can’t believe it that it happened. But as an idea, it’s brilliant, you know, of warfare and of course what we call today the intelligent services or you know, the spies, commandos. So anyway, they wrote Cinderella. They created The Frog Prince, Hansel and Gretel, Red Riding Hood, the Pied Piper, Rumpelstiltskin, Sleeping Beauty, so and so, and it goes and on. All of these come out of these two guys finding the stories, putting it together. It’s a remarkable achievement, I think, for two guys coming out of Germany. And these stories become so global, which is fascinating to me. They had a light, their father’s death, ‘cause the father died when he was very young and they were very young. And from being a pretty prosperous family, having servants, a huge house, they lost everything. They were dependent on relatives for handouts, for food. It literally went that extreme pretty quickly when they were kids. But they managed to get an aunt and others to help finance so these two brothers could, of other siblings, could go to the University of Marburg. And that’s where they developed their curiosity through the influence of one of their professors in German folklore. And this began a lifelong dedication. It’s also the rise of romanticism that I mentioned, 19th century Europe. Obviously the Enlightenment feeds into this.

And a, along with the rise of romanticism in Europe, is a renewed or revived interest in traditional folk stories, which some romanticise, some sensationalised, some subverted, you know, all portrayed in many different ways. We can read, you know, some of these stories in very different interpretations. And the brothers wanted to, they saw it as a kind of purest form of national literature and culture because it went back centuries. They thought of the ancient Greeks telling these stories again and again. If they’d known Africa, they might have known, you know, ancient Africa, the storyteller’s stories go back and back and are retold and retold. Some ancient Greeks, even the Romans, and many other cultures everywhere in the world, it was oral storytelling, and that’s how cultural identity would’ve been established. The morals, the values told through, because I love theatre and stories of course, told through stories because most people couldn’t read or write. So the analysis, their understanding either performed, reenacted stories, but told, and through that you’d learn the ideas, the values, and let’s call it a sense of belonging or an identity could emerge of a particular group, of a culture. You know, for the Jewish cultures, it’s stories, it’s endless stories that so much is captured inside the richness of metaphor and the endless possible meanings in metaphorically structured stories.

So they thought that a national literature and a culture could be written and discussed and made much more conscious in the culture, which was their real reason for collecting these story time stories. And in addition, the German language obsessed them, so they began a many, many year hard work on the German dictionary. They took, they adapt. Of course, it’s been adapted by Disney, as I said in the sanitization, Snow White and many others. And, which I’m going to come to later, how the Nazis took their stories and incredibly, insidiously, as one expects obviously from the Nazis, how they used it in absolute extreme and grotesque propaganda. I mean, really disgusting. Their father was a magistrate, et cetera, lost all the finances and then went on. Each of these brothers graduated at the head of their class. So there was a strong work ethic, hard work ethic, and the idea of rags to riches, having nothing, poverty and money, the poor and the rich, which so many of the stories touch on, which I’m going to come to, a desire to see the unification of the over 200 German principalities into a single state. And they thought that German literature should also revert in its writing to simpler forms, which they defined as folk’s poetry or natural poetry, as opposed to or artistic poetry. They wanted the natural poetry, not the artistic. And at the time, with a lot of other writers who they were called more of the romantic ilk, who they saw taking traditional folk tales by turning them into poetic artistic expressions of literature, artistic poetry or , they were seriously against it and pushing this kind of folk poetry, this natural people’s poetry. And that’s what’s interesting with Goethe’s language even, I was talking last time, where Goethe and Faust and the others tries to bring in as much of this natural poetry.

But Goethe being Goethe can’t resist sometimes, of course, very often, almost a combination of the two, the so-called folk poetry and the artistic. They’d helped finance their mother and their siblings, these two brothers. They get a job with the Hessian War Commission. And in a letter Wilhelm wrote, “We five in the family only eat once a day.” So these two brothers were financing all of them. That was the truth. He wasn’t making this up. “Jacob was appointed court librarian "to the king of Westphalia.” 1812, they published the first volume of 86 folk tales of German legends. They also published about Danish, Irish, Norse mythology and folk tales. They’re researching all, the whole idea of folk tale begins with them, and scholarly researching. 1825 Wilhelm marries a lady called Henrietta, who is a childhood friend who had also given the brothers many of these tales which had come from her family tradition, and she’d grown up also in a prosperous family. And some of their servants had told them the stories. Jacob never married and lived with Wilhelm and his wife. So this is how incredibly close these two brothers were. They moved to Gottingen in the Kingdom of Hanover and got professor jobs there. 1835, they published a book called “German Mythology”. 1837, they lose their professorships at the university because they have some, it’s a bit ambiguous, but, they’re not storming the barricades, but they have some support of the Peasants’ Revolt in the 1830s in Germany. And they carry out working on their German dictionary.

1840, Frederick Wilhelm of Prussia invites them to be professors at the University of Berlin. They carry on working on their German dictionary, the history of the German language, mediaeval literature, German literature, and mediaeval of Europe, and the folk tales. Their dream, as the 1840s go on, their dream of a unified Germany dwindles. Their disenchantment increases. And of course, this is the 1840s, but 1866 to 1871 is the crucial Bismarck period where the unification of Germany does happen. In the late 1840s, Jacob resides from his professorship, publishes the history of the German language. Wilhelm keeps his job. Then they retire from teaching and they devote themselves finally to the German dictionary for the rest of their lives. So that’s in essence a very, you know, the highlights, if you like, of these brothers’ lives. Fascinating because they are so much part of enlightened thinking, open mind. They have a utopian dream about German nationalism. They have a utopian hope of the unification of Germany, the German language, the German culture. They’re highly erudite. They’re now from the seriously upper class aristocratic. But they’re romanticised, I would say, or at least past perhaps sentimentalised, at the minimum are influenced by let’s say the peasant class stories going back centuries. It’s always that combination, isn’t it? You know, the people who collate and find are often the university class, dare I say. But where it originates is from ordinary people living ordinary lives over centuries and just battling to get food and families fed and bit of clothing and a bit of a job here and there.

So the rise of romanticism, and I would say a romantic sense of German nationalism in popular culture is what they are arguing for in the 19th century. They see, the Grimm brothers wrote in letters that a folklore which is built on a national identity can be found in popular culture with a common folk, the people, the folk. And this whole idea of the folk takes root, not only with the Grimm brothers but with so many others. And obviously we see how it goes through the rest of the century into the 20th century and now even, of course. And it takes root in such a powerful way. And I think that’s what’s fascinating to me. It’s the root of it because of the times that it’s in. And they wanted their tales to reflect something about German cultural identity. They invited storytellers, peasants, storytellers, travelling players, what we call, I mean, today, actors, travelling players, storyteller to their home to tell stories and transcribe them. Wilhelm’s wife Henrietta is a very interesting character because her family mixes with the maids, the servants, and many others, and so many stories come through that line. That’s where Hansel and Gretel came from. That’s where Sleeping Beauty came from, came from Wilhelm’s wife and all the, let’s say the servant class that she knew. And they added, of course, Christian motifs, of course, into the stories and tried to add in bits of, let’s call it ancient Germanic faith ideas, really, which is a bit of a vague description, you know, but ideas of Arianism, Teutonic, all the rest of it.

They try to put in a little bit of that and, you know, heroic, and all that, and a lot of the Christian values. Of course, they try to put in discipline coming from the Prussian influence where discipline relies on fear. Little Red Riding Hood, discipline relies on fear and what happens when you go against. I’m going to come to that a little bit more. I’ve mention how much violence, grotesque, and so many other things become sanitised in our times. In the original of Snow White, for example, the queen is Snow White’s mother, not her stepmother, and she orders her huntsman to kill her daughter, Snow White, and then bring home her daughter’s lungs and liver so she’s, the mother, the queen, can eat them. And the story ends with the queen dancing at Snow White’s wedding, wearing a pair of red hot iron shoes that burn her feet and kill her. That’s in the original Snow White. So to give you a version of political correctness, cancel culture, whatever, starting with Disney, how it became so sanitised in our times. I think it’s linked to this is the reality of mediaeval world, pre mediaeval. This is the reality people are living. This is the imagination. This is their fantasy. I think it’s also very linked to God and natural forces because, of course, science hasn’t taken roots. We’re talking about mediaeval and pre mediaeval times when these stories begin. And it’s like almost like ancient Greek. It’s the natural forces that are linked to spirits and are linked to lived daily experience.

Another story of theirs called “The Goose Girl” has, in “The Goose Girl is a servant who is "stripped naked, "pushed into a barrel studded with sharp nails.” And I’m quoting from the original Grimms’ book. The Grimms’ version of “The Frog Prince”. Well, that doesn’t describe a princess kissing the little frog, all cute. No, the princess in a fit of fury and rage picks up the frog and hurls it against the wall and smashes it. It’s a very different approach to the frog prince. It’s the cruelty, the violence, the physical dismemberment, you know, blood and guts, which is picked up later and completely perverted to me, pre-Nazis and by the Nazis, obviously. It’s a reflection of mediaeval culture, isn’t it? It’s a reflection of Dark Ages going into mediaeval period. All of these things, you know, we can imagine these stories being told. What do they have? Maybe a few candles, a bit of fire, ordinary people, peasants, a bit of a straw mattress, maybe a bit of a pig to eat once every few weeks or, you know, whatever. We can’t imagine this hard, cruel, violent world. But the Grimm brothers did try to bring in a certain rustic simplicity, part of German culture, German origins for them. We see all of this, the beginnings of it, they romanticised it. They thought this is how we can create a great Germanic identity. No clue how this could be taken and the dark side, if you like, completely perverting into what’s ultimately the most extreme form with the Nazis.

So we always need to know that when stories begin in cultures, how they can be twisted, turned by ideologues, by fanatics, by small and large groups anywhere in the world. How these stories can easily be taken and turned into propaganda because they’re so rich with metaphor and possible interpretation. There’s also something about in Germany, for them, they wanted things rooted in the forest, Little Red Riding Hood, forest, because that was a dark and dangerous place. We can imagine in mediaeval times, even after mediaeval, going into the forest is dark, dangerous, scary. There’s no light except maybe a bit of moon, star. You know, there’s sounds of the animals in the forest. There’s craziness. There’s a wild sense of, let’s call it, the prime evil or the animal world, you know, just outside the town or the city or whatever. Of course, in England we have Robin Hood and the highwayman, and we have all the highwayman’s short stories, and smugglers and robbers and, you know, so many of these. If you look at the English ones, you know, the English have the pirates, you know, and the sea ‘cause they’re going out there. And you know how we romanticise and it’s fun and, you know, so we can think of our own versions today. So Little Red Riding Hood’s mother sends her daughter to deliver food to the grandmother’s house, knowing that the forest is a dark and dangerous and evil place.

She knows it, the mother. So there’s conflict between the parent and the child generation. There is who’s, you know, there’s, everything is tough and hard. Food, famine from what their own lives were, I think. It’s a tough world these guys are describing. So they moved away from the romanticist and into their kind of folk, natural poetry as they called it, because they saw this art poetry as, and I quote them, “artificially constructed.” Okay, it’s Little Red Riding Hood, a sweet, these are later 19th century drawings. There she is. It’s a bit of a benign forest. But this wasn’t the original intention of what they wanted at all. But what’s interesting to me in the engraving is the forest trees are huge, and tiny Little Red Riding Hood, there she is so small. But it’s not a threatening, scary image. But when you read the original, it’s a very threatening, scary forest. And you can imagine meeting the scary characters that she does. This is again from a later version of Sleeping Beauty. These are, purposely, I’m trying to draw now some ideas of the sanitised Steeping Beauty here and the beautiful pictures and all the rest of it. This is from a very early published version of the Grimm Brothers and their stories. Very, very early one published. Of course, the great story, the Pied Piper, we all know so well. What’s the Pied Piper? It’s about the death of hundreds and hundreds of kids, because they’re so conformist, or so stupid, or so naive, or hypnotic, or conforming or one fascist leader, and they all get wiped out by falling over the cliff. So it’s, you know, it’s metaphor. So of course it can have any of 10, 20 meanings, which is the power of these stories, of course.

Is it about Prussian conformity? Is it about everybody fit in, follow thy leader, thy strong, great leader? Is it about hypnosis in music? And is it about little children trying to run away or not? Who knows. Many things. But they saw this as part of, I suppose discipline. Because they wrote a lot about the Prussian discipline and the need through a certain amount of fear and expressed in these stories. By the 1870s, the tales had become hugely popular. In the original publication, it received a very lukewarm response from critics. Sales were pretty low actually. So that’s why they kept needing their jobs at the university. And only much later, interestingly, after the unification of Germany, the 1870s, by then the tales had become hugely popular in Germany, were being translated, getting out to English language countries and elsewhere. And they were added, in the 1870s, they were added to the teaching curriculum in Prussia. Fascinating. So the kids would study it at school. And in the 20th century, the second most popular book published in Germany and the German language were the Grimm Brothers Fairy Tales. The second most popular book and is is debate if it remains that today. But this, because of digital, you know, we can’t exactly quantify. So the second most popular book for decades after the 1870s was the Grimm Brothers Fairy Tales.

Number one, of course, the Bible. Here we see, this is one of their very early, in fact, this is the earliest one, yes, their very earliest version of their German dictionary, which they kept adding to and developing, the Grimm brothers publishing the German dictionary. Others did as well. When you look up, if one reads about the history of the unification of Germany, often there’ll be at minimum a footnote, but at better, at least a paragraph or couple that the Grimm Brothers and their dictionary was crucial and important around this whole period of unification. So this is, I think if I remember, this is the earliest version of the book. This is the brothers at a later age in their lives. You know, this seriousness, every picture, there’s not one of them smiling. Always together. Of earnest and serious and a kind of sad but wise quality, if I may be slightly archetypal for a moment and young here. This is from, you know, we all know these beautiful books. But you know, hundreds of beautiful books and kids loved them. You know, the fairy tales, how became the Brothers Grimm. So all that dark side has become sanitised, has become beautiful and magical adventure land stories. It’s inspiring kids almost everywhere in the world, I imagine, not only in the West, I think. And it’s, you know, and wonderful, wonderful stories. But we have to be honest. It is sanitised from the graphic physical grotesqueness of when they were written. This is a picture of Germany with all those of the German Reich. 1871 is when it’s actually established. You can see so many of the small states, over 200 principalities, little city states, all that, et cetera.

I’m sure William and Trudy have gone into this much, much better than me. But finally, it all becomes one, the unification of the first German Reich, which is what they were dreaming and hoping, got very disillusioned in the late 1850s into the 1860s. But finally, it happens. But of course by then it’s too late for them. But just to give us a visual of actually how recent all of this is, you know, how many states there were before. And of course, I’m sure you can imagine here, you know, this is from one of these pictures of the Sleeping Beauty. And look how it’s portrayed. One can’t have a better picture of the Arian blonde youth who is strong and fit and beautiful, and flowing hair and assertive and direct eyes, and yet feminine, and yet woman, and yet youthful, perhaps an idealism here. Striking. And so is so different from a Sleeping Beauty, who knows, we can imagine in other ways. And these images are powerful. Not only because not everybody can read or write and the images tell the stories often, but it reflects our culture at different times, interprets their own mythological stories and therefore identity. In Nazi Germany, the Grimm stories were used to foster nationalism and obviously to promote vicious antisemitism. Some examples of their stories, and they were antisemitic, there’s a story called “The Girl Who Was Killed by Jews”. There’s another story called “The Jews’ Stone”. There’s another story, “The Jews Among Thorns”. These are stories they collected. They were in the German literary and folklore history going back centuries and centuries, told through generations.

In “The Girl Who was Killed by the Jews” and in “The Jews Stone”, in those two stories, we see blood libel by Jews against innocent German children. In both stories, the children are violently killed and mutilated. The myth of the blood-libel of course widely propagated Middle Ages and so on, is inside the folk tales told by ordinary people all around the land. The children in these stories are also, they’re also bought in exchange for large sums of money. So of course the link with Jewish, inverted commas, wealth and greed, end inverted commas, are also common to these stories. There’s wealth, there’s greed, there’s blood libel, there’s religion, there’s dirty, deceitful, rich Jew, et cetera. It’s rooted at, I’ve only mentioned three of the stories. Then “The Jew Amongst Thorns”, a Jewish man is shown as deceitful for money. And the fact that he’s Jewish is the key. He’s not any other religion. He’s Jewish. And is a horrible character because he’s deceitful about money. Anybody ever ask what religion Scrooge was? Stories paint the Jews as murderous, deceitful, greedy, rich, et cetera. The Nazis decreed, Goebbels and the Nazis decreed that every household in Germany should, should, not must, should own a copy of the book of the Grimm fairy tales. And after the war, fascinatingly, the Allies banned the Grimms’ fairytales for a fairly short period. That’s interesting to me. A book of fairytales was decreed by the Nazis for almost every household in Germany.

And after the war, the Allies are that in touch with our propaganda works in culture and culture identity and stories and mythology that they ban it. The power of stories. The power of myths and legends. The power of metaphor never stops. 1937, Walt Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”. Of course, it’s been sanitised by now. It shows the triumph of good over evil, innocence over oppression. And in fact, the Grimms’ tales, I would argue, they provided much of the early foundation on which Disney managed to build their empire. They saw it and how they could sanitise it. Or if I’m being too critical with that word, how they could at least adapt it to the American rags to riches immigrant stories and so on. And the Cinderella motif, which has become probably the most well-known motif of all, story of a poor girl finding love and that good, rich prince. You know, she’s poor, she’s treated terribly by the family, her brothers, sisters, her mother. She’s treated, she’s just told to clean and be a servant. You’ll never amount anything. Ugly. Everything horrible you can imagine. She has redemption and salvation and she marries the rich prince. And the truth comes out later. You know, talk about American mythology and contemporary western rags to riches, the wise individual overcome the horrors of your past. Whatever. All of it is in the Cinderella story metaphor. And of course, “Pretty Woman”, and so Richard Gear, Julia Roberts, so many other movies and stories play with the Cinderella motif. But I want to suggest that in Cinderella we see the brutal, and all the others, the brutality, the violence, gruesome details of the original sanitised. Because the 20th century, they began the debate that children should be shielded from cruelty, perhaps.

And the old debate, which I’ve learned from my beloved sister who is a psychologist in Israel, do you prepare children for the hardness of life or do you protect them from the cruelties of life? Or of course, more realistically, how do you play the two? Prepare and protect constantly. So if you believe they need to be shielded, then of course take out the cruelty, the gruesome. If not, you show the darker. Others believe that children can discern what is a story and what isn’t. They can discern, understand more about the violence. These are debates which are current in our own times now. It’s also been argued that these folk tales speak to primal urges of survival. What will one do to survive? Obviously, conflict. Can’t have a story without conflict. I was re-looking at Tevye, at “Fiddler on the Roof” the other day. It’s one of the most brilliant I’ve ever seen. Again because there’s conflict at every level. There’s inner conflict of Tevye, there’s obviously a family conflict, there’s a conflict with the Russian constable and the Russian, the all of that is everywhere. It’s one of the reasons I think it’s such a brilliant musical. Hansel and Gretel reflects his very real first. ‘Cause what’s Hansel and Gretel? When famine comes, the people who are meant to care for you and feed you will fail. Room story, their own life, family story. Hansel and Gretel faced their father’s inability to protect them from famine. Back to the Nazis. So they used Grimm for propaganda purposes. And give you one example that the Nazis, this is a lot of stuff they wrote, claimed that Little Red Riding Hood symbolised the German people suffering at the hands of the Jewish wolf.

And that “Cinderella’s Arian purity "distinguished her from her mongrel stepsisters.” And I’m quoting her from German propaganda sources. We go on to the stories of Rapunzel, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, the shoes that were danced to pieces, the iron, so many of them came out and then became sweet and innocent under the Disney adaptations. Not exactly aligned to what they collected in the early part of the 19th century. Another example of Cinderella. In the original of the Grimms, the stepsisters actually cut off parts of their feet to fit into the slipper, encouraged by their mother. What’s the matter if you lose a few toes? What’s the matter if you cut up your heel? The mother says, “Come on. Do it.” You know, you get rich, marry the prince. And the prince puts one of them, the stepsisters, into his carriage. And then sees the bottom of the carriage is filling up with her blood. Takes her back. And he trades her for the other stepsister who also gets in. But she’s also bleeding in the carriage because she’s cut her heel and the other stepsister has cut her toes off to fit into the slipper. None of this is in the contemporary Disney and post Disney versions. Sleeping Beauty is not awoken by a kiss of her true love. No, in the original, Sleeping Beauty is awoken by the pain of childhood as a passing king impregnates her while she slept. In Rapunzel, Rapunzel’s prince falls out the window and is blinded by thorns below the palace. And so we go on. Sleeping beauty, here she is. So many of these stories obviously involve a gap between rich and poor.

And the rich are usually spiteful and ugly in their physical appearance, unless they’re part of the nobility. This is really important. If they are in the nobility, whoa, they’re rich, but they’re kind, they’re handsome, they’re beautiful, compassionate, forgiving. Christian sentiments are given to the rich and powerful. Obviously the Grimm brothers wanted to keep up with the aristocrats of their era. The poor are usually mocked and scorned, but always sweet or maybe even pure. Some of the common poor/rich scenarios. We have the evil-looking rich mother or stepmother that’s often a character who favours one daughter over the other. We have sibling competition and rivalry and we have conflict between parent and child. Fascinatingly. And it’s almost like Shakespeare’s “Titus Andronicus”. It’s like Shakespearean almost in how the conflict goes through every level, in the family, between the siblings, children, everywhere. And it’s extreme and it’s grotesque. The mother and the favoured daughter are often rich, but ugly. The unfavored daughter has usually to do the household chores, but she can be poor and kind and ultimately beautiful. The nobility is entirely excluded. They’re always rich, always good or kind, because of course the Grimm brothers did not want to anger a royal.

And of course when fairy tales, when these folk tales were first created, marriages between nobles were obviously arranged. And most marriages between the commoners were also arranged based on wealth. And the wealth thing is so big in all these stories. Partly, I think Grimm, their own family story, which is why I wanted to mention at the beginning, but also because it’s so crucial and of course how the Jews are then portrayed in relation to that. We start to get a whole picture of how powerful mythology is in cultural identity, how it can be perverted, twisted, turned, romanticised, sensationalised, propagandised. The villains or the authority are often bad parents. Not only bad authority, authority figures, cruel siblings, they are unjust kings. Look at Charlie Chaplin, how he plays with authority all the time. And you know, so many in authority and wealth have all these qualities as well. But we need to remember the stories are full of fantasy and magic and witches and princes and princesses and adventures and knights and dragons and castles and magical things happening and wands and so on. So at the same time is a world of magic and wonderment. And that’s the charm. Without that, we don’t have the charm. And brilliant writers of today who understand, and filmmakers, understand the role of magic and charm and wonderment, even if there’s grotesque cruelty happening, understand if you have that, you can, shall we say, seduce or enchant an audience. There’s an imaginative, magical, almost fantastical world that has been created. Let’s cut to this phrase, fantastical. And of course, everyone lives happily ever after.

Or the goodies live happily ever after at the end. It’s a formula guaranteed to be a smash hit. Interestingly, the story of Cinderella herself has been researched and found in ancient China, in ancient Egypt. In Egypt, her slippers are red leather. Okay, this is again the picture of the brothers. Here we have another version, a drawing of, a sketch, rather, of Sleeping Beauty. We all know the story so well. And here Cinderella and the story of it, the magical, the charm, the little bit of lights, the blue sky. There’s nothing scary here. It’s sanitised completely away from the original that the Grimms published. What that may say about German identity is a whole story, which I’m sure we can imagine. What it may say about human nature, because these stories are global, they’re not just German anymore. You know, what the original stories tell us, what about human nature and cultural identity is fascinating, I think beyond the Germanic. So in the Grimms, in Cinderella, in the Grimm story, her wishes come true. Not from the wave of the fairy godmother’s wand, but from a hazel tree growing on her mother’s dirty grave, which she waters with her flowing tears. When the prince comes to find the dainty foot that matches the single slipper, the step sisters do not show, shove, and shriek, but they chop themselves up. And the descriptions are graphic. Cut off the big toe. Try and force the foot into the slipper. The other one pops off a heel. The blood spurts. And at the story’s end, the whole story at the end, Cinderella gets together with the prince. The wedding has two white birds, but they don’t cheerfully tweet Cinderella on her way to happily ever after castle land.

No, the two white birds come down suddenly like vultures and heck out and bite out the evil stepsisters’ eyes. This is in the original compared to the sanitised. So amidst all the turbulence of the post Napoleonic era and the French conquered Germanic lands, these two brothers are driven by a nationalism. They’re looking for a community. They’re looking for something against the French overall reaction against Napoleonic conquests. How can we use language, literature to bring out a sense of German national identity, even though it’s been smashed by Napoleon, or at least, you know, controlled or ruled? And they believed in the power of original myths and stories and legends, folk tales. They looked at how the Bible might be full of folk tales in a similar way to help forge a sense of cultural belonging and identity. Fascinating. So here we know, of course you could see another one, you know, of the similar story. “Mirror, mirror on the wall.” Okay, but is this a picture of pride? Is this a picture of sanitised? Is it sheer arrogance, you know, the girl behind? We have to, or the little kid behind there? Are the hints of something to show the pure hubris of it all. There’s a story that the Grimm brothers collected, which they found, and I think this goes to Roald Dahl perhaps and many, I think, I’m petty sure Roald Dahl must have read the original, the story from Grimm Brothers is called “How the Children Played at Slaughtering”. A group of children are playing at being a butcher and a pig. And it ends with a boy cuts the throat of his little brother, only to be stabbed in the heart by his enraged mother because he’s killed his brother. But, unfortunately, the mother stabs him in the heart.

But that meant she left her other little child, the third child alone in the bath where he drowned. Unable to be cheered up by the neighbours, she then hangs herself. This is mother with three little kids. “How the Children Played at Slaughtering”. It’s extraordinary that it’s so brief, so visceral, and so imaginatively powerful. It’s our country too, but it cuts to the chase, but it’s grotesque and violent. But is it so far from human nature? Is it so far from the reality of how humans have always lived? Is the veneer of civilization that thin? We ask these questions eternally. Here’s another story, “The Children of the Famine”, where a mother threatens to kill her daughters because there’s nothing else to eat and she’s hungry. The daughters offer her slices of bread, but it doesn’t stave off her hunger. She says to them, “You children, my daughters, "you’ve got to die or else I’ll waste away.” An extraordinary story called “The Children of Famine”. Snow White’s own mother who orders the huntsman, as I said, to stab her to death, bring back her lungs and liver as proof of your deed. “And after that, I’ll cook their lungs and liver "and add salt and eat them.” This is about telling children. Okay, go back to sanitised and unsanitized and what that means. What fascinates me is how we can change and adapt any story from our cultural mythology and identity to suit the purpose that we want in our era compared to other eras. What also fascinates me is the origin of these stories. Hansel and Gretel’s mother abandons them in the forest, again, story of abandonment.

To put it another way, the fairytale of Rumpelstiltskin, you know, he comes and he go, we go on and on. W. H. Auden wrote, “One of the few indispensable "common property books upon which western civilization "and western civilization can be founded "is the Grimm Brothers Fairy Tales. "And I would put it next to the Bible in importance.” That’s W.H. Auden. “The fictional characters,” and by the way, the fictional character of all fiction, “with the highest” what’s called in contemporary jargon “with the highest name recognition "in the English language is Cinderella.” The biggest known name of all fictional characters ever created and translated into English is Cinderella. So I wanted to bring all this out as examples for us, going back to the beginning, of sanitising and changing and adapting the fairy tales. For me, what it does is show how cultural identity through the use of mythology and stories, going way back, can be twisted, turned, and put into any meaning. Because they are so rich in metaphorical, metaphorically resonant meanings. There are so many possible meanings that they go deep and they can be turned and be used for propaganda or good or bad purposes, whatever, in different ways to, as culture moves. They’re not dismissed. They’re not, you know, sort of banned forever because they’re too powerful. But how they can change. And I think it goes back to the origins of simple storytelling, human beings needing to make sense of their lives, their community, their world. How do you make sense of their values and their world, their lives? Through stories. And so the myths and the legends get passed all the way down, can be changed.

And I think secondly, how in this particular case for Germany, how their, if you like, noble ambition to search out all these stories, ‘cause again, they didn’t write them, to search out all these stories to find a sense of German identity, German belongingness, a connection that all Germans could make in the aim of nationalism and German unification could turn out in such a totally different way. They also originated the first study really, serious studies of these ancient stories. The ancient Greek stories of Homer and the many of the others, and “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey” and then the Roman stories, they had been studied in various, you know, in classics departments at universities all over. But fairy tales had never been taken seriously. These little stories had never been taken seriously and was seen as a bit of a joke and a bit of a okay. But I think that underestimates the power. I think it underestimates the power of how these stories can resonate. And I would just like to leave us with this last image. “Mirror, mirror on the wall.” And I’m not going to get into a whole Freudian analysis here at all. But “Mirror, mirror on the wall,” you know, what’s the identity of us all? And where does it come from? Okay, thank you very much, everybody. And been given some questions.

Q&A and Comments:

Marion, “I never forgot when my son "was in kindergarten in Israel. "Psychologists, religious, came to speak to the parents. "Told us that Hitler came to power as a result "of being grown up with the Grimm tales.” I didn’t know that, Marion. Interesting.

Q: Richard “Etymology of Grimm in German. "In German language it means fury, "rage, menace, destruction. "Who would have a name like that?”

A: I dunno if we can blame them for their surname. I mean, that was their surname. I know it’s a pretty, you know, and they’re never smiling in any of these images. “The name means something else. "To be taken over by the language by the brothers "and create German and English meaning.” Yeah, that we’ll have to look at. Interesting idea.

Q: Judy, “Are you familiar with the story "The Jew in the Bush” where the Jew is tricked “into admitting theft and is hung "in place of the real thief?

"He’s told that I save many a poor soul. "Close enough. "This is an example of latent German antisemitism.”

Q: Yes. Arlene, “When I was 12, I read the unabridged translation "to English of the fairy tales. "They gave me nightmares. "What effects do the stories have on German youth?”

A: That’s fascinating. That’s really, really interesting. Hm. That would be a really interesting idea for a talk. Arlene, thank you.

Q: Carol, “When the princess threw the frog against the wall "and smashed it, did it just die?”

A: No, it becomes a prince. But it has to be broken up first or hurt.

Q: Judith, “Are the original folk tales "available in book form?”

A: Yeah. I mean, I haven’t found in one book every of the original over 200 in one book. I’ve found all different pieces here and there. So I have to check if it’s available in one or in various translations all over.

Q: Margaret, “Was there no German dictionary?”

A: Well, no, they were working on it. But the Grimm brothers added a huge amount to the work on their own version of the dictionary. And is noted as really important.

Q: Marion, “Do you think the fact that Disney "was an anti-Semite attracted him to the Grimm?”

A: That I don’t know. That’s an interesting question. I don’t know. Have to find out if he knew the original stories and then how that he adapted or they, the Disney company, adapted them.

Q: Julian, “Did you say, do you mean "that some of the antisemitic tales entered "Grimms’ Fairy Tales?”

A: No, they never wrote anything. They simply, they collated and collected from as many people as possible in Germany these original stories. They then, they rewrote into this language that I’m talking about, this sort of folks poetry, this folks language, made them short, brief stories, cut out anything inessential, and published. They didn’t originate any story.

Q: “Are they reproduced or excluded?”

A: Yeah, as I’ve mentioned before, the content warning, I dunno if they have a content warning. Well, they probably do, you know, if one can actually study the originals somewhere at an educational institution.

Q: Romaine, “Do you think a children’s writer "has a responsibility to children to protect them "from primitive urges and reality?”

A: I have read Roald Dahl and loved it. I loved “Lord of the Flies”. I don’t think any, I don’t know. If you read “Achilles”, if you read “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey”, it’s grotesque. The descriptions of war and the cutting and the chopping of limbs and throats and slitting and blood. And, I mean, look at “The Iliad”. It is so graphic. And it’s not only war. It’s about revenge and killing in every way. And “The Odyssey” as well. I think that it’s gone all the way through human history, to be frank. And these stories were told throughout ancient Greece and then afterwards in ancient Rome and elsewhere, Roman stories, you know, Egyptian, so many others. I mean, look at her, look at in Judaism. I mean the story of Abraham and Isaac and, you know, “Sacrifice your son.” I mean it’s, do I think they have responsibility? I mean, it’s such a profound question. I don’t think, I think their children can discern. And I think that you give a context when you tell a story, it’s a story, it’s a fairytale. You explain what it is. But, you know, my daughter, when she was four and I took her to her first production ever and it was to see “Scrooge”, and I said, “Look, you might be a bit scared ”‘cause Scrooge is not a nice guy. “He’s a very horrible, mean person.” And at the age of, she wasn’t even four, she was three and three quarters or something, she said to me, “Look, I know it’s all play-play. "It’s not real. "Theatre, it’s play-play.” I share that with you. Everybody has their own experience, of course.

Q: Joy, “Did German folklore include more cruelty "than the folklore of other nations?”

A: Well, that’s a fascinatingly interesting question because I’ve looked at Russian, studied a bit of Russian folk tales, certainly from England, and others. I don’t think it’s more cruel. I just think that it’s collated in such a way by these brothers and all put together so you have one whole big collection. But I think there are so many stories from many parts of the world, which are as vicious, cruel, graphic. You know, I’ve just mentioned ancient Greek as one.

Q: Gitta, “Fiddler on the Roof.” “Are you suggesting Sholem Aleichem "drew his stories from German?”

A: No, no, no, no, no, no. Sorry, I’m not suggesting that he drew at all from German folk mythology. No, I was just saying “Fiddler on the Roof” it stunned me when I watched it again for the umpteenth time, how brilliant the script is because it’s conflict on every level. It’s family, generational, it’s societal, it’s tradition, it’s religion. It is conflict in such a charming way, such a stunningly brilliantly written way. I think it’s one of the best things written. So I was talking about it from that context and how these ones build in so many, so much conflict. There’s conflict between the mother and the children and then the father then and the siblings. There’s rivalry and competition, conflict all the way through. And I think there’s so much conflict, helps make it such a endlessly-told story. That’s all I was saying. I don’t think Sholem Aleichem got anything to do with German folk mythology, that I know of.

Q: Suzanne, “How did the German public react to the cruelty?”

A: Well, in the beginning when they published them in the early 19th century, very lukewarm response from critics and from sales. It only took off really in the 1860s and in the 1870s. After unification is when they really took off, the sales. So it’s a whole different period in a way. And they’re loved there. But at the same time, they’re loved everywhere. Whether sanitised or however you know these stories. Let’s look at, you know, Frankenstein’s story. Let’s look at Dracula. I mean, these are what we would call invasion literature stories today of the Victorian ideals. The Victorian ideals and the freak show, the half man, half woman bringing freaks, elephant man, half man, half woman, showing them in circuses all around. Bringing so-called red Indians. Performing the Buffalo Bill, other, you know, red Indian stuff of the late 19th century, early 20th century in England. You know, these are the noble, these are the savages. So it’s Caliban in Shakespeare. I’m not sure that other cultures are less forgiving. Or more forgiving, sorry. I have a student who’s currently doing a PhD on the Victorian ideals and the portrayal of freaks and the notion of freaks. Put them in a cage in a circus, you know, make a lot of bucks. And these are freaks. They’re half man, half woman. They’re short, they’re dwarfs, they’re this that. You know, that was huge, let’s not forget. Okay, so I think many other cultures have their own way. Foucault’s book “Madness and Civilization” captures it, of how cultures change over time in the way they represent madness, how they represent otherness in a way, or difference. Okay, but these are fantastic questions.

Q: Richard, “So the good Walt Disney shifted the blame "from the real evil mother.” “Do you think stepmothers worldwide should launch "a class action suit to wake us up?”

A: Great idea. “Evil doesn’t go away. "It’s us and we come out in one way or the other.”

Dan Spot, “Great point, Richard. "Launches class action.”

Q: Hillary, “What about the 20th century feminist analyses?”

A: Yep, and that’s a very important question, Hillary. I’m purposely avoiding it today because it’s got to be dealt with appropriately, with its proper amount of time, the feminist interpretations of some of these stories. You know, the girls are always going to be beautiful or ugly and et cetera, which are fascinating and important, but I think for another whole talk.

Joan, “Old parental threat. "I brought you into this world. "I can take you out of it.” Exactly. Well, King Leer about his children, “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is "to have an ungrateful child.”

Q: Sabrina, “When was the first sanitised edition printed?”

A: I’m not sure exactly cause I’d have to check the exact German or the English translations and the changes.

“The Disney brilliance,” as you’re saying, Lou, “was to sanitise and adapt them.” Absolutely.

Q: Jack, “Do you talk about the Lang Collections? "12 books, each of a different colour?”

A: No, I didn’t have that. No, I didn’t talk. That’s so interesting.

Q: Romaine, “Did Bruno Bettelheim not explore fairy tales?”

A: Yes, he did. Which should be another talk. Thank you. That’s great, Romaine.

Q: Judy, “What about Hans Christian Anderson?”

A: Yep, but we are looking at Germany, so I’m focusing on the Grimm brothers at the moment and how that fits into the picture of the world of German rising nationalism.

Q: Janet, “What is the name of the story "about the hungry mother and the daughters "offered her bread?”

A: I’d have to go back to my notes and check it. It’s slipped my mind for the moment. Yeah, their bread is not enough. She’s got to kill the kids and eat them. Then her need will be satisfied. Perhaps if another Freud came, they’d have a whole, they’d have a serious time with all these.

Q: Galaxy, “What was the greatest influence on the brothers "which gave them their creativity?”

A: It’s a really interesting question. I think when they started hearing these stories, they thought, because let’s imagine nobody’s taking these stories seriously. They’re just little peasant stories told around parts of Germany at the time. They’re the first to take them seriously and promulgate them as something really important. And I think they originate in that way.

Q: Where they get the creativity from?

A: I think just the idea of taking something belittled and seen as not serious literature or serious thought. But like maybe pop songs today even, you know, like, eh, and put it out there.

Sandy, “The Disney movies were so child-friendly. "Bambi’s parents burnt in fire. "The Lion King”, “Hamlet”, “Dumbo, the dead parents.” Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.

Did I read this to your students in your own? Okay, thank you.

Q: “How can you compare the warnings of readings "the Grimm brothers and universities "and ignore the violence youth are exposed to "watching entire movies?”

A: That’s a great point. Because you can turn on any movie, you can turn on any animation. Look at the violence in animations. It’s extreme. Bash, kick, punch, punch, and really, it originates from, you know, “I don’t like what you said, punch, kick, push, bash, next. It’s the immediate expression of emotion. There’s no subtlety, there’s no nuance, there’s no slow build and release of emotion. It’s a child. It’s impulse driven. It’s impulse bound. And it hooked and quick emotion, quick action that catches the story. And the violence is repeated. I agree. Look at the Marvel animations. Look at all these other, all the films.

Q: Karina, "Was there a relationship between these stories "and "Shock-Headed Peter” also?“

A: I don’t know, actually. It’s a great idea. Great point.

Roberta, "The uses of enchantment.” A book I remember the meaning, “Importance of Fairy Tales.” Yes. Yeah, I think we cannot forget it’s a world of magic, adventure, forests, and night skies, and strange sounds in animals, in mystery, witches, spells. It’ all of that adventure world as well, which I think is essential. Helps give it a lot of the charm. And of course, castles, prince and princesses.

Okay, so thank you so much everybody. Emily, thank you. And hope you all have a great rest of the weekend and take care.