tales that have never appeared in English before; based on the seventh edition of 1857. Translated and edited by Jack Zipes, with
illustrations by John B. Gruelle. New York: Bantam Books, 1987. Or, The Grimms’ German Folk Tales. Trans.
Francis P. Magoun, Jr., and Alexander H. Krappe. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1960. Grimms’
tales were first published as Kinder und Hausmarchen, 1812; and revised and expanded by the Grimm Brothers for
the 1819 through the 1857 editions. The 1810 manuscript was published side by side with the 1812 first edition in
1975 by Heinz Rolleke. For commentary on the bourgeoisification of Grimm brothers’ progressive revisions of the
text from 1810 to 1857, see Zipes (1983), pp. 45-70, under Criticism. There are always numerous selections from Grimm
available: e.g., The Classic Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm. Illustrated by Joyce Mercer (about 100 ink drawings
and 7 in full color). London: New Century Press, 1935; rpt Studio Editions Ltd., 1992.
[A selection of 33 tales, including The Goose Girl, Ashputtel, Faithful John, Frog Prince, and Lily and the Lion.]
A. Cinderella (Aschenputtel) Pp. 86-92.
[Mother dies and her daughter weeps at her grave. After a year the rich father remarries a woman who
has two daughters, pretty of face but ugly at heart. They mock the daughter, drive her to the kitchen, trick her, and pour peas into the ashes and make her pick them out. Since she is always dusty and dirty she is called Ash Girl.
Father goes to a fair and brings gifts to the girls. The two ask for fine clothes and jewels; Ash Girl asks for a
twig from the first branch that brushes his hat. She plants the hazel twig on her mother’s grave. It grows to a
fine tree and advises her through a bird that sits in its branches. The King proclaims a festival whereby his son
might choose a wife. All eligible women are invited. Ash Girl would go but must first complete tasks. The birds
help her sort lentils. But that is not enough; the stepmother imposes more tasks. More birds help, but still she
cannot go because of lack of clothing. The bird in the hazel tree supplies Cinderella with a gown. She dances
until evening with the Prince but then wishes to go home. He follows her, but she hides in the dovecote. Her
father wonders if the mysterious woman could be Ash Girl. They get an ax and pick and break down the dovecote but
find no one inside—only dirty clothes. She has escaped out the back, returned the fine clothes to the bird in the
hazel tree and sits in the ashes in the kitchen. Next day the festival resumes and, at the end of the day, the
strange girl escapes the prince by climbing a pear tree. The father wonders if the mystery woman could be Ash
Girl and cuts down the tree. On the third day she goes to the festival with slippers of solid gold. In the
evening, as she wishes to leave, she runs down the stairs, but the Prince has placed pitch on the stairs and she
loses her left slipper. He proclaims that he will marry the woman whose foot fits the shoe. One sister cuts off
her toe to make it fit, but as she is taken to the wedding two pigeons in a hazel bush get the prince to look at
the blood in the shoe. The second sister cuts off her heal to make the shoe fit. Again the birds point out the
blood. So the prince returns a third time, wondering if there is any other daughter in the house. Ash Girl is
declared too dirty by the stepmother, but she washes her face, makes a curtsy and tries on the shoe. It fits.
This time the two white pigeons announce that the prince has the right bride. As the sisters come to share in
their sister’s good fortune, birds peck out their eyes. “For their malice and treachery they were punished with
blindness for the rest of their lives.” (For modern adaptations of this story, see Cinderella: Grimm, below)].
B. All Fur (Allerleirauh). Pp. 259-63.
[The king promises his dying wife that he will not remarry until he
finds someone as beautiful as she. Their daughter grows up to have the same golden hair, so the king chooses her.
The king’s counselors are angry and the princess is shocked. She delays the king by demanding three dresses—one
golden as the sun, one silver as the moon, and one shining as the stars. The king complies and provides a cloak
of a thousand pieces of fur from every kind of beast in the kingdom as well. The daughter puts the dresses in a
nutshell, makes her face dirty with soot, and flees under cover of night and the cloak of many skins. She sleeps
in the hollow of a tree where a neighboring king and his huntsmen discover her. The king puts her to work in the
kitchen sweeping ashes. He gives a feast and Allerleirauh gets permission from the cook to have half an hour off
to observe the festivities. She appears in her golden dress and dances with the king, then disappears. The king
orders bread soup, which she makes and slips in a gold ring. They trace the soup to Allerleirauh, but she denies
knowledge of the ring. On the next occasion she appears in her silver gown. This time she pours the soup over her
golden spinning wheel. Again they fail to prove that she is the source of the spinning wheel. The third time she
appears in her shining dress, and the king slips the gold ring on her finger. The king orders soup again, and she
puts in it a golden reel. This time the king sees the ring on her finger, identifies her, and marries her. (For
modern adaptations and revisions of this story see the section entitled Allerleirauh, Tattercoats, Cat Skin,
Donkey Skin.]
C. Little One-eye, Little Two-eyes, Little Three-eyes.
[A woman has three daughters; one with one eye, another with two, and a third with three; One-eye and Three-eyes scorn Little
Two-eyes as being common, make her do all the dirty work, and feed her little. Once, while she is watching the
goat and weeping in the field, a woman stands before her and tells her to wish upon the goat and a table full of
food will appear. She wishes, food appears, and she feasts. The jealous mother and other daughters wonder why she
no longer eats the scraps they give her and attempt to spy out her secret. She charms One-eye to sleep and eats
anyway despite the mother’s trick; when spied on by Three-eyes she charms two of her eyes but forgets about the
third and is exposed. The mother kills the goat, and they eat it. Little Two-eyes asks for the heart and buries
it outside her window. A magical fruit tree springs up which will give her alone its golden apples. A prince
comes by and asks for fruit; the two sisters attempt to obtain some but fail. Little Two-eyes, who has been
hidden under a tub, rolls fruit out to him. He is pleased and takes her with him. The tree in turn follows her to
the palace. After the prince marries her, the two daughters appear at the palace, poor and destitute. Little
Two-eyes pities them, and they repent in their hearts for having been so unkind. For an illustrated children’s
version see Manheim under Allerleirauh in Modern Children’s Editions. For an Appalachian adaptation of
this story, see “Jack and the Bull” under Male Cinderellas.]
D. The Three Little Gnomes in the Forest. Pp. 50-55.
[A man with a daughter loses his wife and marries a woman who has lost
her husband and also has a daughter. The stepmother favors her own daughter and makes her stepdaughter do the
nasty work. One winter day she tells the maiden to gather strawberries in the woods. The girl objects but is
forced to the task. In the woods she comes upon a little house with three little men living in it. They pity her
being in the snow and ask her why she is there. She tells of her task and shares her meager breakfast with them.
They tell her to sweep the snow from the back door, which she does. So they grant her three gifts: that she shall
become more beautiful each day, that gold will come from her mouth, and that a king shall take her for his wife.
Meanwhile she has discovered ripe strawberries shooting from the ground; she fills her basket and returns home.
The stepmother becomes even more jealous now that the maiden has gold and beauty, and permits her own daughter to
go into the forest to seek strawberries. When she meets the gnomes she refuses to share her food with them. When
they ask her to sweep the snow away she tells them to do their own sweeping. So they give her three evil gifts:
she shall become more ugly each day, toads will fall from her mouth, and she will die wretchedly. So she returns
to her mother empty handed and accursed. In anger the step-mother boils some yarn and tells the maiden to go to
the river, chop a hole in the ice, and rinse it. While the girl is there the king rides by, feels sorry for her,
and takes her to the castle. He falls in love with her, marries her, and she gives him a son. The wicked
stepmother visits and, with the help of her daughter, throws the queen out of the window into the icy river. She
turns into a duck, returns to her baby, turns back into a woman, and suckles her child. She tells the boy to
invite the king into the room and to swing his sword three times over the duck’s head. The king does and she
turns back into her self. They baptize their child, then ask the stepmother what someone would deserve if he
dragged another out of bed and threw him out the window. The old woman says the scoundrel would deserve nothing
better than to be put into a barrel studded with nails and rolled down the hill into the water. So she pronounces
her own sentence. She and her daughter are nailed inside such a barrel and rolled into the river. For an
illustrated children’s version see Manheim, under Allerleirauh in Modern Children’s Editions.]
E. The Lettuce Donkey. Pp. 435-40.
[A male Cinderella story. A young hunter goes into the woods where he meets an old crone
who asks for food and water. He gives her what he can, and she tells him that he will come to a tree with nine
birds in it fighting over a cloak. He should shoot into the bunch, pick up the cloak, and swallow the heart of
the bird he shoots. Thereafter he will find gold under his pillow and be granted his wishes. Events happen as the
crone said they would, and the youth becomes rich. He sets out on his own and comes to a castle where an old woman
and lovely girl live. The old witch wants the youth’s gold and sends the girl to get it. The youth falls in love
with her but she not only robs him, she makes him vomit up the heart and swallows it herself, so now she has
gold. The old witch wishes for the cloak as well and sends the girl again. The youth takes her with him into the
Garnet Mountain where precious stones grow. As he sleeps she takes the cloak and as many precious stones as she
can and abandons the youth in the wilderness. Three giants come by. The youth plays like he is asleep and hears
them speak of the powerful clouds at the summit who can carry one where he wishes. So he goes to the summit and
is carried to a walled kitchen garden. There he eats a head of lettuce which turns him into a donkey. Another
head restores him to himself. So he takes both heads and returns to the palace. The witch is hungry for his
lettuce and is turned into a donkey. So too her servant woman and the lovely daughter. The youth gives the three
to a miller, with instructions to work them hard. The old donkey dies and the other two become ill. The youth
feeds them from the good lettuce and restores them. The girl asks forgiveness, explaining that her mother made
her do as she did even though she loved him. She even offers to vomit up the bird’s heart. But the youth tells
her to keep the heart for he plans to make her his own trusted wife. They marry and live happily together until
they die. Andrew Lang includes the story as "The Donkey Cabbage" in The Yellow Fairy Book, illustrated by H. J.
Ford (London: Longmans, Green & Co, 1894; rpt New York: Dover Publications, 1966), pp. 42-49.]
F. Iron Hans Pp. 482-88.
[Hunters disappear in a terrifying wood until a particularly brave hunter discovers how they are
being pulled into a deep pool. He drains the pool and discovers a Wild Man in a suit of rusty iron at the bottom.
The Wild Man, called Iron John, is imprisoned, and the queen put in charge of the key. The prince’s ball falls
into the cage; to get it back the boy gives Iron John the key. The Wild Man takes the boy with him into the
forest and raises him. The boy keeps watch over a spring to make certain that nothing falls in. Three times he
fails in his watch, first by putting his sore thumb in the water to cool it, then by dropping a hair into the
pool, then, while looking into the reflection of his own eyes, dipping his hair in the water; each time the
intrusive object is turned to gold. So he is cast out on his own, though with promise of aid from Iron John if he
should need it. He goes to a city where he works as stable boy at the palace. The princess is attracted to him
after surreptitiously observing his golden hair. A war breaks out and the golden youth saves the day through
brilliant knighthood on a horse supplied by Iron John, who functions as a fairy mentor. When it comes time for
the princess to marry, the king throws a golden apple to the suitors. Three times the boy in disguise catches the
apple and disappears. On the third occasion he is traced to the stable and admits that he is the one who caught
the apples and won the battle. The princess then exposes his golden hair. Iron John appears at the wedding as a
baronial king, himself transformed from his wild and rusty condition. The boy’s virtuous behavior has freed him
from an enchantment that had bound him. See also Manheim under Allerleirauh in Modern Children’s Editions
and the several entries under Male Cinderellas in Modern Children’s Editions.]
G. Mother Holle. Pp. 96-99.
[A widow has two daughters, one, a stepdaughter who is very beautiful, and the other, her
natural daughter who is lazy and ugly. They make the stepchild work like Cinderella, carrying out the ashes and
doing all the spinning. One day as she is spinning by the well the reel becomes all bloody. As she leans over
the well to rinse it, it falls into the water. When she tells her step-mother of the accident she is sent back to
retrieve the reel. As she comes to the well she is so distraught that she jumps in, only to awaken into a lovely
meadow. There she comes upon an oven full of bread which calls out, “Take me out, or else I’ll burn.” So the girl
takes out all the loaves. Then she comes upon an apple tree which calls out, “Shake me, my apples are ripe.” So
she shakes the tree and gathers the apples into a pile. Then she meets an old woman with sharp teeth who speaks
kindly and offers her lodging and food if she will clean the house and shake the feather bed until feathers
fly thick as snow. This the girl does and is well rewarded with good food. But after a time the girl becomes
homesick. The old woman, who is called Mother Holle, gladly releases her and shows her the way home. As she
passes through a door back into her old world, a shower of gold falls upon her and sticks to her clothing. As she
comes back the cock crows: “Cock-a-doodle-doo! My golden maiden, what’s new with you?” When the stepmother sees
all the wealth the girl has brought with her, she sends her lazy daughter to obtain the same. But the lazy daughter
will not take the bread out, nor shake the apple tree, and is lazy in the house of Mother Holle as well. When
she returns she is covered with pitch rather than gold. The cock crows: “Cock-a-doodle-doo, My dirty maiden,
what’s new with you?” The pitch never comes off. See also Andrew Lang’s version of Mother Holle in The Red Fairy
Book. Illustrated by Lancelot Speed. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1890; rpt. New York: Dover Publications,
1966. Pp. 303-06.]
H. The Goose Girl. Pp. 322-27.
[A widowed queen plans the marriage of her beautiful daughter to a prince in a far away land.
The queen prepares a splendid dowry, then gives the child a handkerchief with three drops of blood on it from the
mother’s own finger, which she claims will protect the girl when she is in need. She then sends her daughter on
her way, mounted on a horse named Falada, who could talk. She has only her chambermaid to accompany her. When she
comes to a stream she asks for water. The maid refuses to get it for her, so the girl drinks from the stream
without using her golden cup. Her handkerchief responds, “If your mother knew, her heart would break in two.”
They travel on and again the girl is thirsty; again the maid refuses to help, and again the handkerchief bemoans
the insurrection. As the princess stoops over the stream to drink, her handkerchief falls into the water without
her knowing it, but the maid sees and knows now that the girl has no power over her. So she threatens to kill the
princess and extracts an oath from her never to tell what has happened. Then she switches horses and makes the
girl wear her shabby clothes while she dresses as the princess. When they arrive at the royal palace, the maid
claims to be the brides and has Falada the talking horse beheaded. The head is nailed to a wall, but it still
speaks gnomically to the true princess. The true bride is then set to work as a goose girl. She attracts the
attention of Conrad, the goose boy, who tries to obtain a few strands of her golden hair as she combs it in the
field. But when he approaches a wind, at goose girl’s request, blows off his cap, and he runs after it. Next day
the same thing happens, and the boy tells the king of the strange doings. Each night she speaks to Falada who
sympathizes with her in the refrain of the handkerchief. The king overhears the head speak and witnesses the
strange behavior of the wind. He inquires of the girl what she is hiding, but she refuses to say, only
acknowledging that she took an oath under the open skies that she would not bemoan her sad plight to anyone. The
king suggests she tell her story to the iron stove, if she can speak to no person, but he hides behind the stove
and hears her tale. He then introduces his son to the true princess, but all three keep the secret that they
know. At the wedding feast the king asks the false bride if she can solve a riddle and asks what punishment a
woman would deserve who deceived her lord, using the story of the wicked chambermaid as his example. The false
princess says that the villain should be stripped naked and placed in a barrel studded with nails, then dragged
through the streets until she is dead. The king announces then that the false bride is that very person and that
she has pronounced her own sentence, which is immediately carried out. The prince then marries the true bride.
See Tom Davenport’s film adaptation of the story under Movies.]
I. Snow White. Pp. 196-204.
[In the middle of winter a lovely woman pricks her finger and three drops of blood fall on the
snow. She wishes for a child with skin white as snow, lips red as blood, and hair as black as ebony. Snow White is born, as
white as snow, as red as blood, and with black hair. As in Cinderella stories her mother dies, and her father
remarries. The stepmother would be most beautiful herself and, addressing the mirror on the wall, learns that
Snow White is her rival. Like the jealous stepmother in Cinderella narratives, she attempts to destroy her
stepchild, but the huntsman slays a boar instead. Snow White escapes into the woods, where, as in Allerleirauh
and other Cinderella analogues, she becomes housekeeper in a different court. The stepmother pursues her and
three times attempts to kill her, first by tying her laces so tightly that she suffocates, then by placing a
poisoned comb in her hair. In the first two attempts, the dwarfs arrive home from work in time to unlace her or to
remove the comb. On the third attempt, the wicked stepmother gives her a poisoned apple which she eats and
dies, but she is so beautiful that the dwarfs cannot bury her in the earth. Instead, they carry her to a mountain top where
they guard her glass coffin. A prince, who loves her, asks for the coffin but is refused. At last his declaration of
love for her so moves the dwarfs that they consent. But in bringing the coffin down the mountain they slip and as
the coffin bumps to the ground the jolt jars the apple from Snow White’s throat. She awakens and she and the
prince are married. The stepmother comes to the feast, but they force her to wear iron slippers heated over the fire and brought
to her on tongs. The red-hot slippers so burn her that she dances until she falls down dead.]
Disney’s film adaptation of Grimm’s narrative (see Movies) abandons the perverted slipper motif, but adds
other Cinderella components, particularly the stepmother’s forcing of Snow White to be a scullery maid. Also, in
Grimm we are told that the house of the seven dwarfs is neat and clean. In Disney it is a mess, and Snow White
becomes cleaning woman for them. They have a festive ball, as in Cinderella, at which Snow White dreams of her
Prince, whom she met at the well while drawing water for her scullery work for the stepmother. As in Disney’s
Cinderella, there is only one test (rather than a midnight test, here a high noon test) rather than three trips
to the festival or, in Grimm’s Snow White, three attempts by the stepmother. Here the stepmother gets her first
try but then is pursued by the dwarfs to her death. As in various Cinderella stories, the oppressed girl is
helped by friendly animals. There is no fairy godmother in this narrative, though in Grimm one senses that the
heroine is somehow protected by her deceased mother’s wishes that she be as beautiful as snow, blood, etc. Her
beauty wins the hearts of the dwarfs, the huntsman, and, ultimately, the prince. A typical children’s book
adaptation of Disney’s revision is Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Story adapted by Teddy Slater
Margulies; Illustrated by Guell. A Golden Book. Racine, Wisconsin: Western Publishing Company, Inc., 1993.
Perhaps the most handsome recently illustrated version of the story is Snow White. Illustrated by Charles Santore. New York: Park Lane Press, 1996.