The Turnip Princess and Other Newly Discovered Fairy Tales

March 1, 2015

Schonwerth (1810-86), a lawyer and official in the Bavarian royal court, was a younger contemporary of the Brothers Grimm. Like the Grimms, he became a collector of folktales and customs. Eichenseer, a historian and preservationist who directs the Franz Xaver von Schonwerth Society, has discovered a trove of the fairy tales collected by Schonwerth, editing and publishing them for the first time. They have been translated by Tatar (John L. Loeb Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures; chair, the Program in Folklore and Mythology, Harvard Univ.). The tales are brief, featuring the various adventures of intrepid young men or enchanted animals, struggling against giants, dwarfs, witches, or intemperate kings, often culminating in marriage with a princess. Many feature handsome princes who are displaced and must disguise themselves as peasants or craftsmen. The reward of patience and virtue is a common theme. While narratively rougher than the stories of the Grimms or Hans Christian Andersen, they share many motifs, though often with altered details, especially the gender of characters. The tales are vigorous, direct, and less artful then those of the Grimms, suggesting greater authenticity, closer to the source. VERDICT These eminently enjoyable tales offer a rich new take on the material of the Grimms and Andersen.--Thomas L. Cooksey, Armstrong Atlantic State Univ., Savannah

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