Lessons from a Grimm Life

A few days ago I finished Grimm's Fairy Tales. I've read most of the stories before, but some were new. I was reminded of a book I read earlier this summer about the origins of some of the tales.

Before I started my 1,000 Books project, I read The Wild Girl by Kate Forsyth . The Wild Girl is the story of Dortchen Wild, the neighbor and later wife of Wilhelm Grimm. Dortchen and the brothers Grimm grew up in Hessen-Cassel, a small German kingdom that fell to Napoleon. Dortchen was one of the sources of the fairy tales that the brothers collected and later published.

The love story between Dortchen and Wilhelm reads like a fairy tale. Dortchen's father was cruel and frowned upon and later forbade her friendship with the Grimm's. Dortchen's sisters all married and escaped the confines of the family home, but Dortchen was left to care for their father. It wasn't until after his death and the success of Grimm's Fairy Tales that Dortchen and Wilhelm found their own happily ever after.

Dortchen told Wilhelm: "Hansel and Gretel", "Six Swans", "Rumpelstilstkin", "All-Kinds-Of-Fur",  "Sweetheart Roland" and many others. Dortchen was given credit as a source of the stories, but not much is known about her.

The Wild Girl is excellent; it's a book that I would reread.

The Wild Girl