fairytale – My Book Report, by Jean Age 20-Something

Title: Clever Maids: The Secret History of the Grimm Fairy Tales by Valerie Paradiz
Scored a: A
Status: Finished!

A bit of non-fiction this time! This took me a while to get through and held up the book backlog, which ended in two books being read in the same night once I finished, but it wasn’t because it was a bad book. In fact, I found it eminently readable and interesting.

Summary: This book focuses on the women that the Brothers Grimm collected the stories for their famous collections from.

It was fascinating. A history of the Brothers, a history of the women who crossed into their lives to work as story think tanks (not peasants like it’s often implied they went around collecting the stories from) and even the history of Germany during their time.

Valerie Paradiz has an engaging writing style, and I found the book moved swiftly when I had a moment to read. She’d toss in all sorts of trivia while she was at it (such as the explanation during Jacob’s letters to Wilhelm that they should remain together and eschew all else that some scholars thought they might be incestuous) to the discoveries of new sources of stories. I got excited every time they discovered a new treasure trove of story-telling sisters.

It’s a damned shame these women didn’t get the credit they deserved, and I’m glad Valerie Paradiz brought them to light for me to learn about. She even tied some of it into the fairy-tales that made the brothers famous which was a pretty nice touch.

And I’m still incredibly curious to find out what it was Ferdinand Grimm did.

Definitely worth a purchase if you’re interested in this slice of history.

My favourite fairytale, mostly for its oddness, is The Snake Who Became The King’s Son-In-Law or as I call it, ‘Herp: The Snake Who Was His Own Boostrap’.

Here it is in its entirety, taken from sacred-texts.com:

No. 7.–The Snake who became the King’s Son-in-law

There were an old man and an old woman. From their youth up to their old age they had never had any children (lit. ‘made any children of their bones’). So the old woman was always scolding with the old man–what can they do, for there they are old, old people? The old woman said, ‘Who will look after us when we grow older still?’

‘Well, what am I to do, old woman?’

‘Go you, old man, and find a son for us.’

So the old man arose in the morning, and took his axe in his hand, and departed and journeyed till mid-day, and came into a forest, and sought three days and found nothing. Then the old man could do no more for hunger. He set out to return home. So as he was coming back, he found a little snake and put it in a handkerchief, and carried it home. And he brought up the snake on sweet milk. The snake grew a week and two days, and he put it in a jar. The time came when the snake grew as big as the jar. The snake talked with his father, ‘My time has come to marry me. Go, father, to the king, and ask his daughter for me.’

Continue reading The Snake Who Became The King’s Son-in-Law