25/02/2026
Wilhelm Grimm was born in Hanau on 24 February 1786, and with his older brother Jakob was dedicated to the preservation of German folklore.
And this is the German Fairy Tale Route. Linking 70 medieval towns, villages, and castle filled landscapes, brought to life with assorted heartless stepmothers and evil witches etc., by the Brothers Grimm in their fascinating, but cautionary, tales of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White & Co.
Some of the stories are thought to have been handed down by word of mouth, first recorded in the Middle Ages then edited by the Grimm brothers and published as a permanent record, together with those that they had collected themselves, as Kinder- und Hausmärchen. Children's and Household Tales.
Now Grimms' Fairy Tales.
Less known is that the brothers also worked on a German dictionary the Deutsches Wörterbuch, which they began publishing in 1852. But it was a huge work and not completed until 1961... almost a century after the death of Jakob in 1863.
And Wilhelm Grimm also published a collection of stories of the heroic ancients, Die deutsche Heldensage featuring Germanic heroes and kings, mainly from the 4th-6th centuries the Migration Period. These were also based on oral traditions, with themes of loyalty, honour, battle and downfall, captured in epics such as the Nibelungenlied.
Wilhelm Carl Grimm born 24 February 1786 in Hanau, Hesse-Kassel. Initially a lawyer, German linguist, literary scholar, Germanist, researcher of legends, and editor of Middle High German literary works, died 16 December 1859 in Berlin, Prussia.
Original source of photo unknown.
