The Brothers Grimm

Those fairytales that we know and love are not all that they seem...

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm collected fairytales and folk stories all their lives from poor country folk, travelling around Germany to do so. At least that is what we have been told. A recent purchase of a fascinating book "Clever Maids" by Valerie Paradiz helps lay that particular myth to rest, giving us an insight into how the brothers actually got their stories from sisters, mothers, neighbours and friends. Although scholars have known this for a few decades, I didn't and so spent a happy few days reading all about their quest for stories in the years of German Romanticism.