Grimm

“ I expected that Grimm, confused by my condescension and advances, would receive me with open arms, and the most tender friendship. He received me as a Roman Emperor would have done, and with a haughtiness I never saw in any person but himself. I was by no means prepared for such a reception. When, in the embarrassment of the part I had to act, and which was so unworthy of me, I had, in a few words and with a timid air, fulfilled the object which had brought me to him ”

“ DEATH'S MESSENGERS.
GRIMM'S story of "Death's Messengers" was known in Europe as early as the thirteenth century, but does not occur in the Greek or Latin fable-poets.
Grimm's legend, as Englished by Margaret Hunt, is as follows:
"In ancient times a giant was once travelling on a great highway, when suddenly an unknown man sprang up before him, and said, 'Halt, not one step further!' What!' cried the giant, 'a creature whom I can crush between my fingers wants to block my way? Who art thou that thou darest to speak so boldly?' 'I am Death,' answered the other. ”

“ Grimm had, at last, awakened to the full conviction that all sound philology must be based on rigorous adhesion to the laws of sound-change, and he never afterwards swerved from this principle, which gave to all his investigations, even in their boldest flights, that iron-bound consistency, and that force of conviction which distinguish science from dilettanteism; up to Grimm’s time philology was nothing but a more or less laborious and conscientious dilettanteism, with occasional flashes of scientific inspiration; he made it into a science. ”

“ Grimm's admirable ones of German tradition, cannot compare. Fairy-tales made to order, as we often see them, with a mediæval Catholic tendency, or very moral and dry, are a bane to the youthful imagination in their stale sweetness. We must here add, however, that lately we have had some better success in our attempts since we have learned to distinguish between the naïve natural poetry, which is without reflection, and the poetry of art, which is conditioned by criticism and an ideal. This distinction has produced good fruits even in the picture-books of children. ”

“ Always at night, however tired she might be, she had turned to Grimm for comfort and hope. Each time had Grimm whispered to her that the prince or the fairy would come and deliver her out of the wicked enchantment. Every night she had taken fresh courage and strength from Grimm.
To whatever tale she read she found an analogy in her own condition. The woodcutter’s lost child, the unhappy goose girl, the persecuted stepdaughter, the little maiden imprisoned in the witch’s hut—all these were but transparent disguises for Lena, the overworked kitchenmaid in the Quarrymen’s Hotel. ”

“ Grimm have not thought it beneath them to devote their time and research to the task of collecting the old fireside Stories and Legends of Germany; and the result of their labours is a volume of tales of remarkable interest and attractiveness, distinguished no less for variety and invention than for pathos, humour, and graceful simplicity. ”

“ And as she was so beautiful the huntsman had pity on her and said, "Run away, then, you poor child." "The wild beasts will soon have devoured you," thought he, and yet it seemed as if a stone had been rolled from his heart since it was no longer needful for him to kill her. And as a young boar just then came running by he stabbed it, and cut out its heart and took it to the Queen as a proof that the child was dead. The cook had to salt this, and the wicked Queen ate it, and thought she had eaten the heart of Snow-white. ”

“ Immediately, Mrs. Ramsay seemed to fold herself together, one petal closed in another, and the whole fabric fell in exhaustion upon itself, so that she had only strength enough to move her finger, in exquisite abandonment to exhaustion, across the page of Grimm’s fairy story, while there throbbed through her, like the pulse in a spring which has expanded to its full width and now gently ceases to beat, the rapture of successful creation. ”

“ The witch fell into a great fury, rushed to the window, for from it she could see far and wide, and she caught sight of her step-daughter, hastening away with her dear Roland.
"It will be no good to you," cried she, "if you get ever so far away, you cannot escape me." Then she put on her boots, which took her an hour's walk at every stride, and it was not long before she had overtaken them. But the maiden, when she saw the old woman striding up, changed, by means of the magic wand, her dear Roland into a lake, and herself into a duck swimming upon it. ”

“ Next night they stole away; and, when they had sat under the tree a little while, they heard a fluttering noise over their heads; and the three crows came and perched upon it. "Sisters," said one of them, "some one must have overheard us, for all the world is talking of the wonderful things that have happened: the princess is well; the flower has been plucked and burnt; a blind man's sight has been given him again, and they have dug a fresh well that gives water to the whole town: let us look about, perhaps we may find some one near; if we do he shall rue the day." ”

“ Grimm, listening
in his fairyland, heard some of the earliest ballads, loved them,
pondered on them, and suddenly startled the world by announcing that
most ballads were not the work of a single author, but of the people at
large. Das Volk dichtet, he said. And that phrase got him into a
lot of trouble. People told him to get back to his fairyland and not
make such ridiculous suggestions. For how, they asked, could a whole
people make a poem? You might as well tell a thousand men to make a
tune, limiting each of them to one note! ”

“ Ah," she added, "so many have already gone to meet death for this, and thou art so young; I grieve that thou shouldst encounter such great danger." "Nothing can keep me from doing it," said he, "but tell me what I must do." "Thou shalt know everything," said the King's daughter; "when thou descendest the mountain on which the castle stands, a wild bull will stand below by a spring, and thou must fight with it, and if thou hast the luck to kill it, a fiery bird will spring out of it, which bears in its body a burning egg, and in the egg the crystal ball lies like a yolk. ”

“ So, here in the ogre’s castle, enslaved by a wicked spell, Lena had leaned upon Grimm and waited, longing for the powers of goodness to prevail. But on the day before Mrs. Maloney had found the book in her room and had carried it away, declaring sharply that it would not do for servants to read at night: they lost sleep and did not work briskly the next day. Can one only eleven years old, living away from one’s mamma, and never having any time to play, live entirely deprived of Grimm? ”

“ The King saw plainly that her heart was beating violently, and said, “My child, what art thou so afraid of? Is there perchance a giant outside who wants to carry thee away?” “Ah, no,” replied she. “It is no giant but a disgusting frog.”
“What does a frog want with thee?” “Ah, dear father, yesterday as I was in the forest sitting by the well, playing, my golden ball fell into the water. And because I cried so, the frog brought it out again for me, and because he so insisted, I promised him he should be my companion, but I never thought he would be able to come out of his water! ”

“ Hardly had he formed the wish than the marshal began, and said, "Your majesty, we live joyously here, but how is the Queen living in the tower? Is she still alive, or has she died?" But the King replied, "She let my dear son be torn to pieces by wild beasts; I will not have her named." Then the huntsman arose and said, "Gracious lord father, she is alive still, and I am her son, and I was not carried away by wild beasts, but by that wretch the old cook, who tore me from her arms when she was asleep, and sprinkled her apron with the blood of a chicken." ”

“ I will come to thee, and will have, in a bottle, some of the water of life. I will rub thee with that, and then thou wilt come to life again, and be as healthy as before.” Then said he, “I will gladly set thee free.” And everything happened just as she had said; the black men could not force a single word from him, and on the third night the snake became a beautiful princess, who came with the water of life and brought him back to life again. So she threw herself into his arms and kissed him, and there was joy and gladness in the whole castle. ”

“ They lay sleeping under a tree, and snored so that the branches waved up and down. The little tailor, not idle, gathered two pocketsful of stones, and with these climbed up the tree. When he was half-way up, he slipped down by a branch, until he sat just above the sleepers, and then let one stone after another fall on the breast of one of the giants. For a long time the giant felt nothing, but at last he awoke, pushed his comrade, and said, "Why art thou knocking me?" "Thou must be dreaming," said the other, "I am not knocking thee." ”

“ I knew she greatly favored her sister-in-law and Grimm, in consequence of their connections with Saint Lambert; and I was afraid of their machinations. This agitation opened my wounds, and rendered my correspondence so disagreeable as quite to disgust her with it. I saw, as at a distance, a thousand cruel circumstances, without discovering anything distinctly. I was in a situation the most insupportable to a man whose imagination is easily heated. ”

“ What are the fairy tales of the Teutonic people, which Grimm has so laboriously collected for us? They have lived through centuries of time, because they have told of genii and giant, governed by the will of puny man and made to do his bidding. Eagerly the race has read them, pleased to see symbolically pictured forth man's power over elements stronger than himself. ”

“ But the wizard king was not at home, and his grandmother sat at the door in her easy chair. "What do you seek?" said she. "Three golden hairs from the giant's head," answered he. "You run a great risk," said she, "when he returns home; yet I will try what I can do for you." Then she changed him into an ant, and told him to hide himself in the folds of her cloak. "Very well," said he: "but I want also to know why the city fountain is dry, why the tree that bore golden apples is now leafless, and what it is that binds the ferryman to his post." ”

“ Grimm's Hans in Luck is a perfect realistic tale, as are Grimm's Clever Elsa and the Norse Three Sillies, although these tales are suited to slightly older children. The drolls often appear among the realistic tales, as if genuine humor were more fresh when related to the things of actual life. ”

“ But I am likewise the knight who helped you to your victory over your enemies.’ ‘If you can perform such deeds as that, you are no gardener’s boy; tell me, who is your father?’ ‘My father is a mighty king, and gold have I in plenty as great as I require.’ ‘I well see,’ said the king, ‘that I owe my thanks to you; can I do anything to please you?’ ‘Yes,’ answered he, ‘that indeed you can. Give me your daughter to wife.’ The maiden laughed, and said: ‘He does not stand much on ceremony, but I have already seen by his golden hair that he was no gardener’s boy,’ and then she went and kissed him. ”

“ Then he perceived an aged woman with a head which nodded perpetually, who came towards him, but she was a witch. “Good woman,” said he to her, “Can you not show me the way through the forest?” “Oh, yes, Lord King,” she answered, “that I certainly can, but on one condition, and if you do not fulfil that, you will never get out of the forest, and will die of hunger in it.” ”

“ Grimm—who, by-the-bye, was a bigoted patriot—devoted himself chiefly to an investigation of the Teutonic tongues, and to a study of the German language; but the result of his labours has shown the changes that sounds undergo when a word is being distributed among different peoples. ”

“ James Grimm, in his erudite work upon the ‘Antiquities of the German Race,’ traces with great acuteness the connection between the superstitions of the Dark Ages and the magical formularies of Heathenism. The spells of witches, the abracadabra of quacks, and the loathsome furniture of Sidrophel’s laboratory are genuine descendants of the impostures and abominations which were practised for ages both in the Roman and Parthian empires. ”

“ But the precise and scientific collection of tales from the lips of the people is not much earlier than our century. The chief impulse to the study was given by the brothers Grimm. The first edition of their Kinder- und Haus-Märchen was published in 1812. The English reader will find a very considerable bibliography of popular tales, as known to the Grimms, in Mrs Alfred Hunt’s translation, Grimm’s Household Tales, with Notes (London, 1884) . “ How unique was our collection when it first appeared,” they exclaim, and now merely to enumerate the books of such traditions would occupy much space. ”

“ The affair made a noise, and it would really have been a wonderful circumstance had the cruelty of an opera girl made a man die of despair. This strong passion brought Grimm into vogue; he was soon considered as a prodigy in love, friendship, and attachments of every kind. ”

“ In the morning the dwarfs went to the mountain to dig for gold; in the evening they came home, and their supper had to be ready for them. All the day long the maiden was left alone, and the good little dwarfs warned her, saying,
"Beware of your step-mother, she will soon know you are here. Let no one into the house."
Now the queen, having eaten Snow-white's heart, as she supposed, felt quite sure that now she was the first and fairest, and so she came to her mirror, and said,
"Looking-glass upon the wall,
Who is fairest of us all?" ”