Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm: A New English Version (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

These are not just the sort of thing that fairy tales don’t bother with, and to which it’s silly to expect answers; they are more than that: they are clumsy storytelling. I thought it was possible to deal with them and improve the story.

‘But the wedding will be fun. Bears always dance well.’

Once there was a poor man who couldn’t support his only son any more.

‘Oh, that’s not right,’ said the chief. ‘That’s a dirty trick.’ Even the robbers, hard-hearted as they were, were moved to pity.

before he knew what was happening, he was a donkey. Needless to say, that made the cabbage taste much better.

What I especially like about this tale is the young hunter’s cheerful good nature. It’s remarkable how few details of behaviour we need to evoke a personality.

‘And what about you, Cinderella?’ he said.

He sat down and collected his thoughts. They were quite easy to collect, because there weren’t very many of them, and they all concerned the same subject – what a burden his life was.

She has many names. The Grimms call her Aschenputtel, but she is firmly Cinderella in English. In our centrally heated homes today, when few children have ever seen a cinder or know what one is, Cinderella just sounds like a pretty name, but I thought it needed a little context.