The Brothers Grimm

Hello! We are Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, but you probably know us as the Brothers Grimm. We were born just a little over a year apart in a town called Hanau, Germany. Jacob was born on January 4th, 1785, and Wilhelm was born on February 24th, 1786. We weren't just brothers; we were best friends! We did everything together, especially reading and learning. We loved books and stories more than anything. When we grew up, we went to a university to study law, but we soon discovered our real passion was for the old stories and history of our country.

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A long time ago, most stories weren't written in books. Grandparents and parents told them to their children out loud, and those children grew up and told them to their own kids. We were worried that these wonderful, magical tales might get lost or forgotten forever. So, we decided to become story detectives! We traveled around and listened to storytellers share their tales. We wrote down every word very carefully. We heard stories about a girl with a glass slipper, two children lost in a forest who find a gingerbread house, and a princess with very, very long hair. In 1812, we published our first collection of these tales, called 'Children's and Household Tales,' so that children everywhere could enjoy them.

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Besides collecting fairy tales, we had another giant project. We wanted to create a dictionary of the entire German language! It was a huge job that took many, many years. We wanted to understand where words came from and how they changed over time. For us, every word had its own story, just like every fairy tale had its own magic. We loved language just as much as we loved the adventures of princes and princesses.

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We both lived long and happy lives, always working together on our books and research. Wilhelm lived to be 73 years old, and Jacob lived to be 78. Even though we are not here anymore, our work has lived on. The fairy tales we saved so long ago are now famous all over the world. Every time you read about Cinderella, Snow White, or Hansel and Gretel, you are helping to keep the magic of storytelling alive, which was the most important thing to us.