Read The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm for Free Online Page A

Buchgesellschaft, 1958): 243. Reprint of the 1930 edition.
    6 . See Heinz Rölleke, ed., Es war einmal . . . Die wahren Märchen der Brüder Grimm und wer sie ihnen erzählte , illustr. Albert Schindehütte (Frankfurt am Main: Eichorn, 2011).

NOTE ON THE TEXT AND TRANSLATION
    The present translation is based on Kinder- und Haus-Märchen. Gesammelt durch die Brüder Grimm , 2 vols., Berlin: Realschulbuchandlung, 1812/15. With the exception of the commentary on children’s beliefs, the evidence for the Kindermärchen , and the scholarly notes, my translation is the first complete English translation of the Grimms’ first edition. Those readers who know German and are interested in the complete German commentary and notes can readily obtain them in any reliable German reprint of the first edition. As for the scholarly notes to the tales, I have provided a thorough summary of each note to indicate sources, and I have also translated the variants of tales that I thought were important. These notes reveal, in my opinion, how knowledgeable and erudite the Grimms were at a very young age.
    I have endeavored to capture the tone and style of the different tales by translating them into a basic contemporary American idiom. My main objective was to render the frank and blunt qualities of the tales in a succinct American English. Eleven of the tales were published in different German dialects, and since it is practically impossible to match these dialects in American English, I did my best to reproduce the brusque manner of the narratives. As I have emphasized in my introduction, the Grimms’ tales, though diverse and not their own, share an innocent and naïve morality that pervades their works. It is this quality that I have tried to communicate in my translation.

VOLUME I

1
    THE FROG KING, OR IRON HENRY
    Once upon a time there was a princess who went out into the forest and sat down at the edge of a cool well. She had a golden ball that was her favorite plaything. She threw it up high and caught it in the air and was delighted by all this. One time the ball flew up very high, and as she stretched out her hand and bent her fingers to catch it again, the ball hit the ground near her and rolled and rolled until it fell right into the water.
    The princess was horrified, and when she went to look for the ball, she found the well was so deep that she couldn’t see the bottom. So she began to weep miserably and to lament: “Oh, if only I had my ball again! I’d give anything—my clothes, my jewels, my pearls and anything else in the world—to get my ball back!”
    As she sat there grieving, a frog stuck its head out of the water and said: “Why are you weeping so miserably?”
    â€œOh,” she said, “you nasty frog, you can’t help me! My golden ball has fallen into the water.”
    â€œWell, I don’t want your pearls, your jewels, and your clothes,” the frog responded. “But if you will accept me as your companion and let me sit next to you and let me eat from your little golden plate and sleep in your little bed and promise to love and cherish me, I’ll fetch your ball for you.”
    The princess thought, “what nonsense the simple-minded frog is blabbering! He’s got to remain in his water. But perhaps he can get me my ball. So I’ll say yes to him.” And she said, “Yes, fair enough, but first fetch me the golden ball. I promise you everything.”
    The frog dipped his head beneath the water and dived down. It didn’t take long before he came back to the surface with the ball in his mouth. He threw it onto the ground, and when the princess caught sight of the ball again, she quickly ran over to it, picked it up, and was so delighted to have the ball in her hands again that she thought of nothing else but to rush back home with it. The frog called after her: “Wait, princess, take me with you the way you