Praveen's Reviews > The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales

First, I share with you how I decided to read this book. Read my silly coincidence!

A prelude fairy tale :)
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It was dark already when I was getting down through the steps, from my rooftop after my lazy late evening walk; I found a little creature jumping over my feet. I got scared for a moment, quickly came down, took a torch in my hand and climbed up back to the stairs.
There, not to my surprise, a little frog had placed himself just at the corner of a step. At the ground level of my building, there is a good amount of greenery and in and around rainy season small and medium-sized frogs and toads are found hopping here and there but I was surprised how this little frog had reached such a height in the building. As it was dark in the stairs, so I threw light from the torch on his husky little form but he did not jump anywhere. Seeing him stationary I sat one step below him. I noticed, while my torch through its piercing light had been staring at his rumpled form, the little frog’s curious eyes were staring at me.

Without the slightest sense of fear, he kept looking at me with a natural throbbing on his part of the body below his mouth, probably his throat. In fact, it was pounding strongly when I tried to touch him, he did not resist and only wiggled his head. His eyes still fixed on me, entire body steadfast, throbbing and beating still there in his throat. I switched on and off my torch several times to get him frightened but this brave frog was still staring at me stiffly with unfailing good spirits. Then clueless of what to do next to scare him, I came down, brought my phone with me to take some of his pictures.

To my astonishment, after the first flash of my phone, when the first picture of the frog was captured, he suddenly tilted his body to the left… His head still looking towards the phone, his eyes now fixed on my phone camera.
This way he was posing perfectly the right side of his body to my phone. I felt this behavior so strange and human-like that I kept cogitating for some time as if he was anticipating such a photoshoot. Then in a pleased mental state, I took a few more pictures, touched his head and the crusty surface of his back softly. This time he jumped quickly and disappeared in the dark towards the roof side.

OK Now, I won’t irritate you further with my silly tale…but before talking anything about the book you have to read what I saw that night!

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A Dream
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I saw a dream then at night, a frog was hopping along with me, beside my sluggishly moving bare feet in the green dew filled morning grass in a park. When I bowed down to touch him, he hopped in such a dramatic and frightening way that in his first jump he crossed the entire park and with his next he just flew like a bird… high… high… and very high… up to the clouds… and then within a moment became a cloud. A white cloud....and then turned dark a moment later!

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The Library
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Next morning after having finished the daily work I went to the library, as I do frequently when I have time and reached the segment where the books of my taste are found in the shelves.
The first book I picked was a bulky one. I read the title. I felt pleased and after sitting in my reading chair when I read the first story in the book, to my greatest surprise … I found the frog here again….Oh ! what a Froggy experience!
The title was…“The Frog Prince or the Iron Henry”…and there was a frog in the story that talked like a man.

When to get her ball from a deep spring, a princess, the most beautiful daughter of a king, takes help of this frog in the wild and promises him that she will allow him to stay with her and then after getting her ball back, she backs out and runs away to her palace.

Then one day someone says at her door, this:

“Open the door, my princess dear,
Open the door to thy true love here!
And mind the words that thou and I said
By the fountain cool, in the greenwood shade.”

Then the princess runs to the door and opens it, and there she sees the frog, whom she had quite forgotten.

Now at this point in time, I remembered my frog as well and saw the pictures I had taken last night on my phone and then looked at the picture of a frog at the door of the princess, made on a page of this book.

And I realized then...... Frogs are really powerful creatures ! I underestimated them !

They can’t only hop around ..... they can guide you to your right next book read in a strange dreamy way as well! :)

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The book Finally :)
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OK!... So this was my fairy tale leading me to this book!

Finally, let me say something about the book. A book with 210 fairy tales compiled in it by the Grimm brothers, Jacob, and Wilhelm in the early 19th century.
It includes many tales, some of them you might have heard from your parents and grandparents in your childhood. Like...

Cinderella, Snow White, Clever Hans, Girl without hands, Gossip wolf and the fox… etc.

These tales are full of enchantment and rapture, terror and wisdom, tragedy and beauty. These stories are kept alive by German peasants of the time told around the fireplace to entranced listeners.
This book has influenced people worldwide and is a principal source for artists and composers, who are re-creating these tales in new and innovative ways around the world.

I did not read all the tales in this book, but the reading of 50 odd tales from this book educated me enough to alter my views that these tales were made for the children only!

I think one must read these fairy tales to one’s children. However, the older people should read them twice because these are filled with such wisdom and simplicity that sometimes in the ruckus of life even one fairy tale from this book can fill your heart with childlike innocence and peace!

This compilation is truly a legacy of vibrant oral tradition!