Guess Who Turned Forgotten Legends into Timeless Tales
It’s another Guess Who with Kevin! Inspired by Paul Harvey’s The Rest of the Story, Kevin has crafted a series of “guess who” articles, which he’s generously sharing with our readers!
For some, the pursuit of knowledge runs in the family. Just as other notable duos have worked side by side in their respective fields, so too did a pair of German brothers, Jakob and Wilhelm.
They were researchers at heart, scholars dedicated to language and history. Though they spent much of their lives compiling a massive dictionary, their legacy lives on through a very different project, one that began during their university years.
As students, Jakob and Wilhelm developed a fascination with history and storytelling. They weren’t just interested in dates or events—they were intrigued by the stories people told to make sense of the world. They noticed how ancient texts, like those attributed to Homer, blurred the line between fact and fiction. This inspired a thought: if old myths could contain grains of truth, could other tales, those passed down by word of mouth, also reveal something meaningful about human experience?
Some of these stories had been written down. Most, however, lived only in memory. They belonged to the oral tradition, kept alive by older generations in small towns and rural villages. Once those storytellers passed on, the tales would vanish with them.
And so, in their early twenties, the brothers began a mission: to seek out these legends before they were lost forever.
They approached their work as academics, but what they found was more than they expected. The stories were rich, strange, and hauntingly beautiful. And the people who told them, peasants, soldiers, widows, were just as fascinating.
One old shepherd would trade an afternoon of tales for a jug of wine. A down-on-his-luck soldier bartered his stories for warm clothes. An elderly woman, fearful of being thought mad, agreed to speak only if children were present, so Wilhelm arranged for children to listen while he hid nearby, quietly scribbling her words.
The most reliable source turned out to be the wife of a tailor, who had an uncanny ability to recite her stories exactly the same way each time, word for word, no matter how often she was asked.
After five years of work, the brothers had gathered eighty-six stories. But when they tried to analyze them for historical meaning, they came up short. Disappointed, they shelved the manuscript.
It may have stayed forgotten, had a friend not come across it and urged them to publish.
A small Berlin printer took the job, and just before Christmas in 1812, the first volume of their stories was released. The brothers expected little in return. They were scholars, not businessmen, and made barely any money from the publication. Throughout their careers as librarians and professors, they never earned much.
But the stories they collected, those simple folk tales, would go on to become some of the most beloved ever told.
Their book would be translated into dozens of languages, printed in thousands of editions, and sold in the millions. Today, it’s second only to the Bible in terms of global reach and cultural significance.
They were the Brothers Grimm, Jakob and Wilhelm.
Their names may have faded behind the title of their collection, but their work lives on. Thanks to their curiosity and dedication, generations of children have grown up with stories like Hansel and Gretel, Snow White, Cinderella, and Tom Thumb.
And now, you know the story behind the storytellers.
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