Märchen aus Deutschland

The Brothers Grimm collected many fairytales that they wrote down, many of these stories include Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, Rapunzel, Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood and many more. The early collections were never meant for children, so they have changed dramatically by Disney and other companies to sell to children. They all consist of happy endings, or are changed to be less violent and gruesome. The real stories also had deeper, underlying meanings, which mainly used scary or violent tactics to get the point across. The difference in German and American cultures is that America uses softer, less vivid descriptions to teach lessons to children, such as everybody can achieve their dreams and good always wins. The German stories use fear and violent images to teach get the point across.
The Twelve Brothers is a Grimm fairy tale I have never heard of before. In summary, it is about a King who has twelve sons, and his wife is pregnant again. He tells his sons that if the baby is a female, he will have all the sons killed. The baby born is a girl so all of the sons go into hiding, when the daughter gets older she learns of her brothers existences and she goes in search of them. She finds twelve enchanted flowers which turns her brothers into ravens, and she must not laugh or speak for seven years or they will stay that way forever. Her step-mother convinces the king to have her killed, but just as she is about to be burnt at the stake the seven years end and her brothers save her. The moral of the story is that siblings will always love each other, even if they do not know each other. I cannot think of any other fairy tales in America that have this lesson.
Many fairytales usually start with "once upon a time" and end with, "And they all lived happily ever after." They also take place in certain locations such as castles, forests or small towns. There is also at least one person who is genuinely good and caring in the midst of evil or ruthless people. Usually a character is royalty, and affects the main character in some way. Magic is also usually involved in the story at some point or another, could be the cause of the main problem in the whole story. These criteria fit my definition of a fairy tale, every story I can think of has these aspects in some way or another.




http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-brothers-grimm/chapanal009.html
http://www.manatee.k12.fl.us/sites/elementary/samoset/gr2ftelements.htm