Deutsche Sagen

Lore & Background

The first volume contains 362 short tales, provided in short summary with a source. The source is in some cases "oral", with the region where it was collected (as in no. 1, Die drei Bergleute im Kuttenberg "the three miners in Kuttenberg", marked "oral" from Hessen), in other cases with a reference to the tale's previous publication (as in no. 362, Die drei Alten "The three old men", attributed to "Schmidt aus Lübek", im Freimüthigen 1809. Nr. 1). The tales of the first volume tend to blend common concerns of the poor and working classes with magical realism including the attainment of wealth and status, and includes references to Frau Holle, the Wild Hunt, ghostly apparitions, and magic, the devil, dwarves, giants, kobolds, nixes, etc. Less than a dozen folk tales contain the German word for witch or witchcraft (hexen) but there are many mentions of the devil and one tale (#120) also mentions an old woman that was a magician or sorceress (ein altes Weib, das eine Zauberin war).

Reader's Guide

The second volume (entries numbered 363–579) focusses on historical legends, including numerous translations from Latin sources pertaining to Germanic antiquity, beginning with Tacitus (no 363. Der heilige Salzfluß "the sacred salt-river", Annales XIII. 57), spanning both medieval legend (e.g. no. 576. Hungersnoth im Grabfeld "famine in Grabfeld", Annales Fuldenses ad ann. 850) and early modern folkloristic records (e.g. no. 579 Die Gräfin von Orlamünde "the countess of Orlamünde", attributed to Wolfgang Lazius de migratione gentium libri VII in the edition of Waldenfels, antiquitatis selectae libri XII 1677, 4.465-474), blurring the lines between oral folk tradition and literary tradition. Numbers 505–514 group a number of Swiss entries, including Radbot von Habsburg (505), Rudolf von Strättlingen (506), Idda von Toggenburg (507), Auswanderung der Schweizer (508), Der Bund im Rütli (511) and Wilhelm Tell (512). A number of the stories record medieval antisemitic beliefs held by Germanic-speaking peoples, such as The Jews' Stone, The Girl Who Was Killed by Jews, and Pfefferkorn the Jew at Halle. A few of the tales were translated in the nineteenth century by various authors, but the first full translation into English was Donald J. Ward's The German Legends of the Brothers Grimm (1979).

Did You Know?

• The collection includes 579 short summaries of German folk tales and legends.
• The first volume contains 362 tales, the second volume entries 363–579.
• The first full English translation was published in 1979 by Donald J. Ward.

Structure and Sourcing Methodology

The Brothers Grimm published Deutsche Sagen in two volumes, the first in 1816 and the second in 1818, together comprising 579 brief summaries of Germanic folk narratives. The term "German" here extends beyond modern German-speaking borders, reaching back into early Germanic history. The first volume gathers 362 short tales, each presented as a concise summary accompanied by a source attribution. These sources vary considerably: some entries are marked simply as "oral" with a regional origin, such as the tale of three miners in Kuttenberg, noted as collected orally in Hessen, while others cite a prior printed publication, like the story of three old men attributed to Schmidt aus Lübek in the 1809 journal Freimüthigen. The second volume, spanning entries 363 through 579, shifts toward historical legend, drawing heavily on Latin sources from Germanic antiquity. It opens with a passage from Tacitus's Annales and stretches through medieval chronicles and early modern folkloristic compilations, deliberately blurring the boundary between oral tradition and written literary heritage. A notable cluster of Swiss entries, numbered 505 through 514, includes figures such as Radbot von Habsburg, Rudolf von Strättlingen, and the famous Wilhelm Tell.

Thematic Landscape and Cultural Content

The tales in Deutsche Sagen weave together the everyday preoccupations of poor and working-class communities with a rich tapestry of magical and supernatural elements. Characters and motifs include Frau Holle, the Wild Hunt, ghostly apparitions, dwarves, giants, kobolds, and nixes, alongside recurring themes of attaining wealth and social status through magical intervention. The devil appears frequently throughout the collection, yet the specific German word for witch or witchcraft (hexen) surfaces in fewer than a dozen entries. One notable exception is tale number 120, which references an old woman identified as a sorceress. This distribution suggests the Brothers Grimm were cataloguing a broader spectrum of the supernatural rather than focusing narrowly on witchcraft. However, the collection also preserves a troubling dimension of medieval and early modern belief: several stories record antisemitic narratives held among Germanic-speaking peoples, including tales titled The Jews' Stone, The Girl Who Was Killed by Jews, and Pfefferkorn the Jew at Halle. These entries serve as historical documents of prejudice as much as folklore, complicating the collection's legacy as a neutral repository of cultural memory.

Scholarly Ambition and Popular Shadow

Deutsche Sagen arrived on the literary scene in the wake of the Brothers Grimm's far more celebrated Kinder- und Hausmärchen, published in 1812 and widely known in English as Grimms' Fairy Tales. Despite sharing the same authors and a similar interest in Germanic narrative tradition, the Legends collection never achieved the broad popular appeal or cultural influence of its fairy-tale predecessor. Where Kinder- und Hausmärchen became a household staple and a touchstone for generations of readers, Deutsche Sagen remained largely a work for specialists. Its format—concise summaries paired with source citations rather than fully rendered narrative prose—reflected a scholarly sensibility aimed at documenting and cataloguing rather than entertaining. Nevertheless, the collection left a meaningful mark on the academic study of folk narrative, providing researchers with a structured, sourced compendium that could be referenced and built upon. The Brothers Grimm thus occupied a dual position: as popular storytellers through their fairy tales, and as rigorous folklorists through their legends, with the latter work continuing to inform scholarly discourse long after the former had secured its place in the public imagination.

English-Language Reception and Modern Access

For much of the nineteenth century, English-speaking readers encountered Deutsche Sagen only in fragments. A succession of translators rendered small selections: Thomas Roscoe published twelve tales in 1826, Thomas Keightley contributed nineteen in 1828, Thomas Crofton Croker added three that same year, William Thoms offered ten in 1834, and Joseph Snowe translated a single entry in 1839. Blackwood's Magazine printed fourteen more in 1844. These scattered efforts, while introducing individual stories to Anglophone audiences, fell far short of presenting the full collection. It was not until 1979 that Donald J. Ward produced the first complete English translation, published in two volumes by the Institute for the Study of Human Issues in Philadelphia under the title The German Legends of the Brothers Grimm. Today, the original German text is freely accessible online through platforms such as Wikisource and Projekt Gutenberg-DE, making the entire 579-entry collection available to any reader without cost. This digital availability has democratized access to a work that, for over a century, was confined to the shelves of specialists and a handful of partial translations.

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