l survive. The great
old folk-tales have acquired in their form a clearness and precision;
for in the process of telling and re-telling through the ages all the
episodes became clearly defined. And as irrelevant details dropped
out, there developed that unity produced by one dominant theme and one
dominant mood. The great old folk-tales, then, naturally acquired a
good classic literary form through social selection and survival. But
many of the tales as we know them have suffered either through
translation or through careless modern retelling. Many of the
folk-tales take on real literary form only through the re-treatment of
a literary artist. Mrs. Steel, who has collected the _Tales of the
Punjab_, tells how the little boys of India who seek to hold their
listening groups will vary the incidents in a tale in different
tellings, proving that the complete tale was not the original unit,
but that single incidents are much more apt to retain their stock
forms than plots. The combination we now have in a given tale was
probably a good form once hit upon and thereafter transmitted.

Jacob (1785-1863) and William (1786-1859) Grimm, both fine scholars,
incapable of any but good work, did not undertake to put the tale into
literary form suited to children. They were interested in preserving
folk-lore records for scientific purposes. And we must distinguish
between the tale as a means of reflecting the ideals of social and
religious life, of displaying all the genius of primitive man for
science to interpret, and the tale as a means of pleasing and
educating the child. The Grimms obtained most of their tales from the
lips of people in Hesse and Hanau, Germany. They were very fortunate
in securing many of the tales they were thirteen years in collecting,
from an old nurse, Frau Vichmannin, the wife of a cowherd, who lived
at Niederzwehrn, near Cassel, who told her story with exactness and
never changed anything in repeating. Grimm himself said, "Our first
care was faithfulness to the truth. We strove to penetrate into the
wild forests of our ancestors, listening to their noble language,
watching their pure customs, recognizing their ancient freedom and
hearty faith." The Grimms sought the purity of a straightforward
narration. They were against reconstruction to beautify and poetize
the legends. They were not opposed to a free appropriation for modern
and individual purposes. They kept close to the original, adding
nothing of ci