Bright Dreams & Blood

GRIMM'S FAIRY TALES -- Pantheon ($7.50).

Unlike the fairy stories of Hans Christian Andersen, Laboulaye, Lang and Perrault, Grimm's Fairy Tales (as they became known in translation) were not primarily literary creations. The by-product of philological research, their collection began with the chance discovery by Jacob Grimm of a selection from the Minnesingers in the library of his law professor. Scholarly Jacob and his gentler, gayer brother Wilhelm, who had shared the same bed as children, the same room as students, from that moment dedicated their lives to tracking down, deciphering and recording their country's folklore.

In their joint task Jacob was the indefatigable collector, Wilhelm the devoted editor. But the purpose of both was to preserve intact the rhythms and patterns of a primitive, oral literature. Their first publication, in 1805, was a collection of folk songs, Des Knaben Wunderhorn. The following year Napoleon overran Westphalia. Jacob, who spoke French, got a clerkship in the war office and in 1808 was appointed superintendent of King Jerome Buonoparte's private library. The job assured the brothers an income with which to continue their life work.

Myth & Minstrelsy. From a tailor's wife of Niederzwehren, from peasants and villagers, from family friends and old nursemaids, from medieval manuscripts and ancient collections, the Grimm brothers gleaned the vast leavings of literature that had been blown into medieval Germany over the centuries by the winds of Hindu mythology, Irish balladry, Gothic minstrelsy. But today Cinderella, Rapunzel, Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Tom Thumb, et al. have become so much a part of western folklore that the Brothers Grimm's labors in reviving them have been largely forgotten, watered-down, or vilified.

This new edition of the complete Margaret Hunt translation, revised and corrected by James Stern, should re-establish their reputation. Editor Stern has maintained a fastidious regard for the simplicity of the original, replacing "Thou mayst" with "you may" and never caviling at the robust bloodshed that originally accented most of the tales. Josef Scharl's imaginatively crude pen & ink decorations likewise serve to emphasize the primitive, rustic quality which the Grimms faithfully preserved.

Pure Red and White. Despite the qualms and squeams of Victorians and 20th-century progressive educators, Grimm's Fairy Tales are naive rather than cruel. Their welling blood is a bright paint which stains each character in the true color of his wickedness. In the original Grimm, here reproduced, stepmothers are so hardhearted that the reader can have no sympathy with them whatever. The Queen in Snow White actually eats the supposed liver and lungs of her hated stepdaughter. Cinderella's stepmother will not acquiesce in her ugly daughters' loss of a throne merely because their feet are outsize. With the practical observation that "when you are a Queen you will have no more need to go on foot," she casually lops off a toe or a heel to make the Prince's slipper fit.

To children the final expression of evil is killing. Their world has no room for "fates worse than death." When wicked robbers drag a lovely maiden to their cave, ply her with three kinds of wine, and strip her beautiful body, what possible evil have they in mind? Grimm's answer is simple and forthright. They cut her up, salt her well, and eat her.

How Happy Endings? Yet in Grimm's world the worst ills are easily repaired. Red Riding Hood and her grandmother emerge intact from the belly of the wolf, and a head sliced off here & there is replaced in a trice with the aid of a magic twig. Beyond the moment of its awful accomplishment no horror endures, and a happy ending, with obedience rewarded and virtue ennobled, is always in prospect.

In this complete volume, with all the tales spread before him--some short, terse, and mannered, some spun out lazily in rhythmic musical repetition--the reader can see the overall pattern of the Grimm brothers' work. What they sought to preserve could be seen in a peasant storyteller's intense face by a flickering fire, conjuring bright dreams in dark and childish minds. It may be that the reading of Grimm's tales hinders some sensitive children from adjusting themselves to the world's grim realities. But it may also be that the tales renew the wonder of the world.

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