February 10th, 2023

Salty Sam’s Fun Blog for Children

Number 417

The Brothers Grimm

 

 

Hello Everyone

 

 

When you go to bed do you read yourself a bedtime story?

 

Maybe you are really lucky and have one read to you.

 

A lot of children like to read in bed.  lt helps to read a nice story with a happy ending – otherwise you could get nightmares!

 

You may go to a library every week to pick up some books to read.

 

There are many children’s books on the shelves to choose from nowadays but this has not always been so. 

 

ln the olden days, storytelling around the fire was more common than reading books.  Television had not been invented and stories were passed down from parents to younger generations and were an important form of entertainment in people’s homes.

 

Women could make them up while doing mundane chores around the house and there were even travelling storytellers who earned their living from telling stories.

 

There weren’t that many children’s authors around, but we do know about the Brothers Grimm.

 

Their stories were told, alongside stories from the Bible, to children to serve as moral instruction for them.  They were extremely popular. For some children of the time this literature was all they read.

 

l am pretty sure that you will have heard of some of their stories.  They are very famous. 

 

You will probably have heard of Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, The Frog Prince, Hansel and Gretel, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Rapunzel, Rumpelstiltskin, The Twelve Brothers, The Twelve Dancing Princesses and The Goose Girl to name but a few.

 

The two brothers, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were born in Hanau, near Frankfurt in Germany; Jacob in 1785 and Wilhelm in 1786.

 

They moved with their family to the country town of Steinau and loved the rural life there.  Nine children were born into the family but not all survived.

 

As children, they had strict Puritanical instruction.  They were tutored at home and went to the local school.

 

When the brothers’ father died in 1796, the family began to struggle with money.  They had to leave their large house and it was only because of the help of a generous aunt the brothers were able to continue their education and eventually go to the University of Marburg.  They studied hard and did well; but still lacked money.

 

They went on to work as librarians and researchers and not what we would think of as writers. 

 

As industrialization changed society, with people moving from small villages into larger cities, the old traditions of storytelling were dying out and the two brothers started collecting the precious local folklore so that it would not be lost forever.

 

So the famous stories we associate with the brothers actually existed before they were born.  We can call them common stock.

 

The brothers made it their life-time quest to collect as many as they could.

 

They interviewed everyone they could to collect these stories.  They wrote them out in their own words. 

 

They published the stories in 1812 as part of a collection entitled Nursery and Household Tales.  The second part was published in 1815.  The seventh and final edition was published in 1857 and by this time the stories were made more suitable for children to read.

 

To begin with they were quite dark, scary tales; some of them had violence and mediaeval-style torture in them and weren’t actually intended for children.  There weren’t even any pictures – which was probably just as well because they would have been horrible!

 

But nowadays, we call them Grimm’s Fairy Tales and the stories have been changed quite a lot in some cases to make them suitable for modern-day children to enjoy.

 

ln 1837, Jacob and Wilhelm were working as professors in the city of Gottingen.  King Ernest Augustus demanded oaths of allegiance from all professors in the city and the brothers refused to comply.  Consequently, they were banished from the town along with five other professors who had also refused.

 

Without jobs and an income the brothers were forced to borrow money from friends as they continued to work on their story collection.

 

This sounds like a fairy story too, doesn’t it?

 

But luckily, the story had a happy ending because their books sold well.  Some people say that in their lifetime only the Bible and Shakespeare outsold them.  They did write other stories but their fairy tales were the most famous ones by far.

 

They were stories collected from all over Europe.

 

After 1840, the brothers went on to acquire teaching posts in Berlin and were given money to support them in their work by the Academy of Sciences.  They had a short political career as well, and at the end of their lives had turned their attentions to the ambitious task of writing a German dictionary. 

 

They only got to the word ‘fruit’.

 

By the time Wilhelm died in 1859, the brothers’ collection had grown to 211 stories and they had illustrations to go with them.  Jacob was very close to his brother and lived with him and his wife and children.  He was very upset at the death of his brother and went on to die in 1863.

 

The two brothers were buried next to each other in Berlin-Schőneberg.

 

Many millions of children have enjoyed their stories since their death because they have been translated into more than one hundred languages.  

 

And many writers have continued to write more fairy tales to continue the tradition of this ancient art.  Furthermore, Walt Disney used some of the brothers stories to make into popular animation films.  l am sure you know them too.

 

 

lf you like my blog, please support it by telling all your friends and followers about it.

 

Thank you!

 

And see you again next Fun Friday!

 

Love and kisses

 

 

Salty Sam

www.christina-sinclair.com

 

 

 

Bill and Bob’s Joke of the Week

 

Bob:  Why did the tomato turn red?

 

Bill:  Because it saw the salad dressing!

 

 

Salty Sam © Christina Sinclair 2015

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of material from this blog without express and written permission from this blog’s author and owner is strictly prohibited.

Links may be used to www.christina-sinclair.com

 

Picture Gallery

 

Jacob and Wilhelm

 

A ‘fairy tale’ castle

 

There is a toy pattern for a Little Red Riding Hood on Blog Post 395

 

 

 

 

     THE SALTY SAM NEWS DESK

 

 

This week, Miss Pringle told her class a really interesting story.

But she didn’t tell the children the end of the story because she wanted them to think about what it meant.

I will recount the story to you to and you can think about the meaning of the story too.

 

Here it is…

 

Once upon a time there was a little ant.

He fell into a deep hole.  The soil was very soft and sandy and as he tried to crawl out, the sides just kept falling in on him and he made no progress.

Then a mouse fell into to a hole.  The sides of the hole were very soft and as the mouse struggled to get out, the sides just kept falling in and the mouse kept slipping back down into the hole.

Then she picked up a stick in her mouth, put it against the side of the hole and used it as a bridge to climb up and escape from the hole.

Then a goat fell into a deep disused well.

His owners thought because the goat was old, there was no point in rescuing him and decided to bury him in the deep hole.

As they started shovelling soil in on top of the goat, the wise, old animal shook the loose earth off its back and stood on it as it fell to the floor.

Little by little, in this way, the goat managed to raise itself to ground level and then just walk away…

 

 

 

 

 

*********************

TO ADVERTISE ON THIS BLOG

PLEASE CONTACT:

christina.sinclair.ads@aol.co.uk

*********************

Quick Quiz

 

Do you know the answers to these general knowledge questions?

 

1. Which forest in Germany gave its name to a famous gateau?
2. What does ‘to be away with the fairies’ mean?
3. What animal did Red Riding Hood meet?
4. What mountains lie to the north of ltaly?
5. Which river does Paris stand on?
6. What did Rumplestiltskin want spun into gold?
7. What are the capital cities of Hungary, Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine and the Czech Republic?
8. What is the name of the front door of a castle?
9. How long did Sleeping Beauty sleep for?
10. How did Hansel and Gretel get lost?

 

 

 

 

 

lt’s the Weekend!

 

 

HOW TO MAKE TWO LlTTLE BROTHERS

Here are two little brothers.

All the yarn used is double knitting.

They are very small dolls, so although the knitting is easy to do, the construction needs very nimble fingers.  The dolls are really tiny.

The dolls can have any colour hair you want to have.

 

DOLL FRONT (KNIT ONE)

Using 4mm knitting needles and white dk yarn cast on 8 stitches

Knit 2 rows of stocking stitch

 

Change to the colour of the sweater

Knit 10 rows of stocking stitch

 

Change to white dk yarn

Knit 6 rows of stocking stitch

 

Change to dark grey dk yarn

Knit 2 rows of stocking stitch

 

Don’t cast off

Cut off the yarn leaving a length of about 20cm and thread this through the stitches on your needle and pull the knitting needle away

 

DOLL BACK (KNIT ONE)

Using 4mm knitting needles and white dk yarn cast on 8 stitches

Knit 2 rows of stocking stitch

 

Change to the colour of the sweater

Knit 10 rows of stocking stitch

 

Change to white dk yarn

Knit 2 rows of stocking stitch

 

Change to dark grey dk yarn

Knit 6 rows of stocking stitch

 

Don’t cast off

Cut off the yarn leaving a length of about 20cm and thread this through the stitches on your needle and pull the knitting needle away

 

DOLL LEGS (KNIT TWO)

Using 4mm knitting needles and white dk yarn cast on 8 stitches

Knit 8 rows of stocking stitch

 

Change to the colour of the shoes (dark red)

Knit 2 rows of stocking stitch

 

Don’t cast off

Cut off the yarn leaving a length of about 10cm and thread this through the stitches on your needle and pull the knitting needle away

 

DOLL ARMS (KNIT TWO)

Using 4mm knitting needles and the colour of the sweater dk yarn cast on 6 stitches

Knit 6 rows of stocking stitch

 

Change to white dk yarn

Knit 2 rows of stocking stitch

 

Don’t cast off

Cut off the yarn leaving a length of about 10cm and thread this through the stitches on your needle and pull the knitting needle away

 

 

TO MAKE UP

1. Sew up the side seams of the body and head right sides together using over-sew stitching
2. Turn the body and head the right way out
3. Sew along the inner leg seams using over-sew stitching right sides together and turn the legs the right way out
4. Tightly bind the ankles twice around with shoe-colour yarn
5. Stuff the legs
6. Sew across the top of the legs and the bottom of the body from behind (lay the legs across the stomach as you work) to attach the legs
7. Sew along the under arm seams using over-sew stitching right sides together and turn the arms the right way out
8. Tightly bind the wrists twice around with sweater-coloured yarn
9. Stuff the arms with the ends of the yarn left over from the knitting
10. Sew the arms securely to the sides of the body so that they point forward
11. Stuff the head and body and pull the top of the head shut – secure the yarn
12. put a few stitches of the hair colour into the top corners of the face to make the face rounder
13. Sew a strand of white yarn into the back of the neck and wrap it around the neck a couple of times, pull tight and secure the yarn into the centre back of the neck once more
14. Embroider a face onto the front of the head using one strand of black yarn (you can pull double knitting yarn apart to get thinner strands)
15. The eyes are French knots made with the yarn wrapped around the needle 3 times
16. Sew a rosy cheek under each eye with pink yarn using a lazy-daisy stitch

 

TIP

As with all toy making, when you stuff the body, put the stuffing into it in tiny amounts so that you can get the body shape to be exactly as you want it to be.

 

 

DOLL TROUSERS (KNIT TWO)

Using 4mm knitting needles and the colour of the trousers dk yarn cast on 14 stitches

 

Knit 2 rows of garter stitch

Decrease 1 stitch at the beginning of the next 2 rows of stocking stitch

Knit 6 rows of stocking stitch

 

Purl 1 row

Purl 1 row

 

Cast off

 

TO MAKE UP

 

1. Sew the two halves of the trousers together using over-sew stitching and right sides together along the front and back seams (down to the garter stitch rows at the bottom of the trousers)
2. Then sew the inside leg seams
3. Turn the trousers the right way out
4. Thread a length of the trouser colour dk yarn (30cm/12 inches) through the channel at the top of the trousers
5. Put the trousers onto the doll and tie a bow at the front of the trousers pulling them in as you do so
6. Crochet 12 chains into 2 lengths of shoe-coloured yarn and attach the ends of the straps to the front of the trousers and the back of the trousers (crossing the straps across the back as you do so)

 

The little brothers can then make friends with the little sisters from Blog Post 336.

 

 

Please note that the material on this blog is for personal use and for use in classrooms only.

It is a copyright infringement and, therefore, illegal under international law to sell items made with these patterns.

Use of the toys and projects is at your own risk.

©Christina Sinclair Designs 2015

 

 

Quick Quiz Answers

 

1. Which forest in Germany gave its name to a famous gateau? – The Black Forest
2. What does ‘to be away with the fairies’ mean’? – daydreaming
3. What animal did Red Riding Hood meet? – The Big Bad Wolf
4. What mountains lie to the north of ltaly? – The Alps
5. Which river does Paris stand on? – The River Seine
6. What did Rumpelstiltskin want spun into gold? – straw
7. What are the capital cities of Hungary, Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine and the Czech Republic? – Budapest, Vienna, Bratislava, Kiev, Prague
8. What is the name of the front door of a castle? – portcullis
9. How long did Sleeping Beauty sleep for? – in the fairy story it was 100 years
10. How did Hansel and Gretel get lost? – the birds had eaten their breadcrumb trail and so they were unable to follow it back home

 

A portcullis