The Grimm's Fairy Tales for Dummies

So, I am a nerd (as most of you are aware) and I wanted to give a small crash course on the history of the Brother's Grimm, the fairy tales and why they felt the need to compile all these stories into a book.

First of, some of these fun stories were published by a man named Charles Perralt (such as "Little Red Cap" "Cinderella" and "Puss in Boots") in 1697. These stories were meant to be read by much higher-class folks in those days. So the Brothers Grimm decided that they wanted to re-explore some of these tales and write them for the everyday folk.  So they compiled a few of these stories along with many others and published them in a volume with 86 stories (mind you I'm skipping to the gems here) in 1812. Then a few years later in 1815, a second volume was published that contained 70. The fist editions were highly criticized because the public saw the stories as too sexual, violent or just overall, not child friendly. So many changes were made over the years. For example, Rapunzel asking the enchantress why her dress was too tight. And changing the mother from Hansel and Gretel and Snow White into a stepmother. So all sexual references were taken out, and the violent punishments for villains was amped up.

What most people do not understand is that these stories were not necessarily meant for children.  As a matter of fact, many of these stories were violet as shit (if anyone is interested, look up “The Maid With No Hands” or “Child of Mary”). These stories were ones that had been passed down by word of mouth by the common people.  So imagine two women milking cows and while doing so, trading stories about a singing bone or 13 Little Men in the Woods.

As a side note: a few years later there was a smaller edition of only 50 stories intended for children.

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