The Brothers Grimm were the first to make a significant scholarly attempt to collect the original versions of traditional folk tales, as told by ordinary people. They didnt always adhere perfectly to that dictum – some of the stories they collected from print sources and educated, middle-class tale-tellers, not just the common folk – but they were in many ways the first scholarly folklorists. They were also German nationalists, and their collections were intended to help foster a sense of German...
