Beyond the Brothers: The Women Behind the Tales

The Brothers Grimm were not the first to tell many of their stories. Surprisingly, there were quite a few important women behind the tales who played a major role in the founding of the original stories. Marie Hassenpflug was one of the first to tell many of the original fairy tales, orally, before they were ever officially published. She was responsible for stories like Little Brother and Little Sister, The Robber Bridegroom, Sleeping Beauty, The Girl Without Hands, and Red Riding Hood. This comes as a shock, especially being that these were some of the most graphic stories of female mistreatment. Even more interesting is that Hassenpflug battled long bouts of illness throughout her childhood, and storytelling served as an escape and solace in trying times. It has even been said that they helped nurse her back to health.

 

Another famed female behind the scenes of the original tales is Dorothea Viehmann. She was known to tell her stories over and over without changing a single word. She was responsible for more than forty tales that the Grimms eventually published, including Elsa and the Wild Swans and The Goose-Girl. The illustration to the left is a portrait of Viehmann done by Ludwig Grimm himself.

 

Unbeknownst to many, you can find the original sources for each tale in the appendix of Kinder-und Hausmarchen.