Meine Damen und Herren gather round as we tell the tale of die Brüder Grimm! Two brothers in a pre-unified Germany who spent their days writing a German dictionary and grammar laws that were meant to be broken! Oh, and they also spent lots of time writing down stories so they didn't get lost! That's the part that you'll know them for! Dig out your Lederhosen, follow a path into the forest, and plan to live happily ever after with us and The Brothers Grimm!
Meine Damen und Herren gather round as we tell the tale of die Brüder Grimm! Two brothers in a pre-unified Germany who spent their days writing a German dictionary and grammar laws that were meant to be broken! Oh, and they also spent lots of time writing down stories so they didn't get lost! That's the part that you'll know them for!
Dig out your Lederhosen, follow a path into the forest, and plan to live happily ever after with us and The Brothers Grimm!
Source:
The Brothers Grimm by Ann Schmiesing
https://www.amazon.com/Brothers-Grimm-Biography-Ann-Schmiesing/dp/0300221754
Hi Friends! Our transcripts aren't perfect, but I wanted to make sure you had something - if you'd like an edited transcript, I'd be happy to prioritize one for you - please email doomedtofailpod@gmail.com - Thanks! - Taylor
Doomed to Fail is the podcast that brings you history's most notorious disasters
>> Taylor: In the matter of the people of the State of California vs. Orenthal James Simpson, case number BA09. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do.
>> Farz: Forting is in progress. hi, Taylor.
>> Taylor: Hi, Fars.
>> Farz: Happy whatever day. This is.
>> Taylor: Whatever, whatever.
>> Farz: Who cares? You know what? We're easy breezy. We're chill people. We're really cool.
>> Taylor: Yeah. cool. Welcome to Doomed to Fail. I am Taylor, joined by fars. We're the podcast that brings you history's most notorious disasters and epic failures twice a week, every week.
Taylor: One thing that I always talk about is how there's no mythical past
and today it's my turn, and.
>> Farz: I think we're on fairy tales.
>> Taylor: We are. This is. This is my fairy tale. One that I've been wanting to read this book, and I have it here on my phone. Oh, I'll tell you about a second. I'm going to make you guess. Hold, hold, please. Let me just. I'm going to just. I mean, there's, like, one other person, you know, so one, thing that I always talk about is how there's no mythical past. Like, Like, Putin thinks there's, like, a mythical Russia that was, like, perfect, you know, and trying to get back to that.
>> Farz: Right?
>> Taylor: But trying to get back to a past that was perfect, you know? And, like, that is not, a thing. The past was never perfect. The future is not going to be perfect. Like, that will never happen. But people will continue to try to do that by, like, looking into. Into the past and, like, trying to figure out people were like. And what they were thinking. And there's different ways that we can try to talk about that. Like, what stories were they telling? What was their language? Like? how do they express themselves with language? Things like that.
>> Farz: So, real quick, Taylor, on that note, can I interject for a second?
>> Taylor: Yeah, yeah.
>> Farz: So I was listening to this episode of Search Engine, and, they always cover really fun, interesting topics. And the one they did this week was about democracy and the birth of democracy in Athens. And they're like, the guy who was, like, the one talking about it was like, hey, like, well, this version we have in our minds of, like, the Athenian democracy, it's. It wasn't like that. Like, it was that now we would, like, be shocked. And one of the things that they did was really fun. I thought was once a year they would, they would pick one person in Athens. And it was part of this process called, like, the ostracized ostracism. Something. I forgot what it was, but it's where the word ostracizing comes from. We would think one person, like, he's to blame for our problems. And they would cast him out of the city and was like, what the.
>> Taylor: Fuck did I do? Let's do it again. That's so funny. I love that. What? I mean, what the fuck? Nothing. It's a mess. It always has been. That's really funny.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: Anyway, that poor person, Maybe they deserved it. I don't know.
Some people are obsessed with the mythic medieval German past
so let's talk about some people who are obsessed with the mythic medieval German past. Very specifically, German stories, German language. and, they wrote it all down. A lot of oral traditions. So they wrote books like. Or stories like. I'm gonna. I have it right here. I'm gonna read you some that you might know. The Frog Prince. I'm not even. Talk about Disney. Rapunzel. just two of them make. Making you guess. Hansel and Gretel.
>> Farz: Oh, are you. Am I supposed to be talking right now?
>> Taylor: Yeah, yeah, guess.
>> Farz: Oh, what am I getting? The. The German fairy tales.
>> Taylor: Yeah. No. Guess who. Guess who wrote these.
>> Farz: Oh, oh,
>> Taylor: Sleeping Beauty. Snow White. Rubble Silkskin.
>> Farz: The Brothers Grimm.
>> Taylor: Yes, it's the Brothers Grimm. Look at this beautiful book. I have. I have this beautiful brother's Grimm book that I read. I've been reading a little bit of, A, little bit. It's from 1954. it's gorgeous. I. Probably at the library. Yeah.
Let's talk about the Brothers Grimm. Um, so for this, I read the
let's talk about the Brothers Grimm. And one, thing that I learned that isn't necessarily true, but in part, if you. One of the ways you used to say, and they lived happily ever after would be had they not died. Like, they would live happily ever after had they not died eventually, you know? which is fun and very German.
>> Farz: Was that invented by them?
>> Taylor: no. So here, let me tell you what happened. So, the Brothers Grimm. Oh. so for this, I read the book the Brothers Grimm by. And schmeezing. And it's like the first English version, biography of them in, like, 100 years. And it's from, It just came out, like, last week. So that's the one that I've been, like, wanting to read because I was like, what is. What's up with them? What's their deal? I also kind of thought of them further in the past than, like, they are. But they do most of their work in, like, the mid-1800s. There are photographs of them. Like, dude.
>> Farz: They make sense, though, because, like, Germany, like, we think it's like an old country it's not, it's not a country. Like, that's like how Hitler was able to do what he was able to do. Because it was like just like a bunch of disparate little almost like tribes people that like kind of came together.
>> Taylor: Absolutely. And the Brothers Grimmer going to tie into that idea of like a perfect German past and a perfect German, like, we deserve this because the German people have this thing. exactly right. so the Brothers Grimm's Grimm are named Jakob. In Wilhelm, Jakob was born on or Jakob Ludwig Carl Grimm was born on January 4th, 1785. a year later, his brother Wilhelm Karlgrim was born on February 24, 1786. So they are very, very close. And you are exactly right. They live in, like in Hanau, which is in Hesse, part of Germany, part of the Holy Roman Empire when they're born. So their king and the people that are ruling them are like part of this Roman, Holy Roman Empire that goes to France, goes to England. Like that. All of the kings and queens are all like related and inter marry. And like we've talked about that before, like that is all happening around, around them like as they're born also. Just like, you know, it's. The French Revolution's happening, the American Revolution's happening. It's happening. When they're born, they will be rule Germany. that's exactly right. I wrote this down. We've talked about this before. But Germany is not a thing yet. It'll be ruled by kings until unification in 1871. and that's when it will become, like one Germany out of like 200 tribes of people. Like you said, they live in, in, in Hessa, which produced the Hessians. Remember the Hessians came to the United States to fight with the British. Do you remember that? They hired them. So they like, they, the British hired the Hessians and they were mean as. And they would come and they were just like fighting. They didn't give a shit. You know, there's like mercenary hired guys.
>> Farz: That's kind of how like, I don't know what it is and like, it's probably partially my ignorance, but there's something about like the Germanic people in this way that you're describing it that's just so metal. They just sound like the most brutal, vicious, like just.
>> Taylor: I know I kind of like, I think it in Dan Carlin sometimes he'll talk about like being in Rome and then all of a sudden like the Germanic tribes come down and they're like a foot taller than everyone. And they all have, like, red and blonde hair, and they're just like, you know.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: Coming to kill you. yeah, it's pretty metal, and that's who. Who these people are. So the, The Hessians, Hesse, is a very rough land. It's a lot of forests. it's not a lot of place to grow food. So they're, like, rougher, poorer people than the rest of, like, the eventual unified, Germany. also, the Brothers Grimm are very anti Semitic in their stories, in their lives.
>> Farz: Do we even have to say that?
>> Taylor: I just wanted to say it. I'm not going to talk about it a ton, but, like, that exists in their thing. which we could have assumed you didn't have to say, but I decided to say it anyway. so there were two out of nine children. Six of those children survived to adulthood. They have one brother who's kind of a dope, who's always kind of. They have to, like, always take care of. He, like, can't get a job. and then they have another brother who's actually a pretty successful painter and a sister that they love. So. But they're the two obviously most successful kids in their family. they were pretty well off until their father passed away. So when their father passed away, the boys were young, and they're, like, pretty much exactly the same age. They're just a year apart. and their grandparents and aunt were able to give them some money to pay for them to go to school. and pretty early on, Jakob is going to be the patriarch. he's the oldest boy and he has to take care of everyone when he's like a teen, after his parents. His parents die. they. It cannot be understated how much time they spend together. They spend all of their lives together. They spend. They sleep in the same bed when they're kids. When they go to college, they sleep in the same room. Two beds, two desks later, they share the same house. Like, they will always, almost always live together.
The Grimm Brothers went to university in Marburg, Germany
they're different in personalities, but, like, they need each other. They need to live together.
>> Farz: They're like the Menendez brothers.
>> Taylor: They're like the men brothers. Later, they'll take jobs where they'll be like, the salary is like this much a year. It's for both of you. You figure out how to. How to divide it up, you know, like, they're hired together at, ah, places.
>> Farz: Kind of cute, actually.
>> Taylor: Yeah. Like, they just, like, they're just like besties. Like, one of them. I'll tell you we'll get married, and then the other one just lives with them and they all, like, have a great time. They just, like, love it. So, yeah. they went to university in Marburg, Germany. and their villain, villain origin story is a lot like mine, which is about being poor in college and how mad that makes me. So they were pissed. Like, they. They were pissed that they were like, the rich people were getting scholarships. The rich people were, like, getting the opportunities that they weren't getting. And they were just, like, very not happy about that. but they did find a mentor when they were in Marburg called Friedrich Carl von Savigny. And he was a law historian, so he was doing some things that are pretty interesting. Like, his main thing is that laws cannot be universal across different peoples or different times, because people are different and you, like, understand things differently and you can't, like, a little bit, like, you can't judge people based on the laws of the past, but you also have to, like, be more, a little more, like, fluid with it. and so he was trying to see laws and understand the law in its historical context. It's, like, very heady, but, like, that's what he was. He was thinking of. And they were also thinking as well, like, how do we understand German and German history in its historical context?
>> Farz: It's got to be so hard without, like, the Internet or like, oh, my God. I know, because just from my episode, I was like, so what was happening in the US when this happened? What was happening in Vietnam was like, you. You can't look at anything in isolation on the global. Yeah, yeah, like, and for me, that was a pain in the ass chatgpt and the entire Internet at my disposal.
>> Taylor: I know. Exactly. No, you have to, like. And you have to, like, have your own library. And, like, I love it. You know, I love it when I'm like, oh, I actually own this book and I get to, like, reference it, but, like, you know, I don't have to. No, you know, also go to the Internet. so that's their mentor. So they're thinking about contextualizing history. and while this is also happening, Napoleon is happening. So it's Holy Roman Empire being torn apart by the Napoleonic Wars. People are poor, they are hungry, they are starving. All of the things, the people will say that the Grimm Brothers are part of the post Napoleonic German awakening. So after that being like, we need to be unified now. Like, we need to be our own. Our own country. so people were like, we are about to lose potentially Our national identity and our history and the way that they were thinking about, Germans. Like I said, there were, like, 200 principalities that eventually became. Became what Germany was in the 1870s. but they're looking at German history in two ways. In their stories. Obviously, that's what we know them for and also in their language. So in the German language, when they say the German people, the folk, all the things that you're going to hear Nazis say, they don't mean a person who has a certain biological whatever. They mean the people who speak German and have always spoken German, even though German's always been, like, a little bit different. Obviously their dialects. That's what they mean.
>> Farz: Is that real? So, like, they. All these different groups of people, these, like, tribal people, they literally all had the same language.
>> Taylor: It was very similar. So I don't know if you ever heard, like, Like, there's, like, High German, middle German, and Low German. So there's, like, different ways, like, people would, like, you would, like, write more formally in, like, High German. You would, like, write. You would maybe speak more to people in, like, Middle German. So it's, like, different things.
Linguistics is hard. I'm trying to do this in a week, you know
What song is it in Hungary? Like, the wolf, they say higher. Like, German.
>> Farz: Oh, yeah.
>> Taylor: You know? so there's, like. That's, like, the hochdeutsch that you speak in a certain area, so you can kind of understand each other, but, like, the. Yes. I think. I think the answer is yes. Like, they all spoke some form of what German is. And that's also where the Grimm brothers are going to spend a lot of their time is figuring out, like, where the words came from and, how, like, you can interpret people's stories based on, like, the version of the German they were using. Linguistics is hard. I was, like, kind of. I was like, kind of. I was reading a little bit about it. I was like, jesus Christ. I don't know any. This is very, very complicated.
>> Farz: It's just fascinating. It's like. It's like the second you start peeling a layer of, like, any topic in the world.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: You realize you could dedicate 14 lifetimes to that thing and never understand it completely.
>> Taylor: A thousand percent. Yeah, totally. I could write, like. And we're. I'm trying to do this in a week, you know?
>> Farz: Give me a break, people.
>> Taylor: Give me a break.
Jakob spent time hunting for ancient German stories after university
so after university, Jakob went to Paris for a job. That was the only time they were ever apart. But his family was so poor back in. In. In Hesse, and he went back and stayed with them again. But they have to have a job. And so Jakob gets a job as a librarian with the King of Westphalia. So the King of Westphalia in this time. Guess who it is.
>> Farz: I want to say something. Volkswagen, because of the Westphalia brand, but that's funny.
>> Taylor: No, it's. It's Napoleon's brother, Jerome.
>> Farz: His name's.
>> Taylor: It's Jerome. J E R O M M E. But yeah, right, that's funny. Jerome.
>> Farz: Napoleon.
>> Taylor: No Drum. Bonaparte.
>> Farz: I'm such an idiot.
>> Taylor: You're fine. so obviously, because like you remember, Napoleon gave all of his siblings things. And actually our friend Nadine suggested that I talk about Napoleon's sister more. And I bought a book that I need to read about her. But, But yeah. So Napoleon's brother, not qualified to be king of anything, is king of Westphalia and he has a library and Jakob is his librarian. So there's not a lot to do. Like, they're not like reading books all the time. So he gets to spend time hunting for stories. so they don't get lost to history. So it's. He doesn't. They don't necessarily find these stories, like folklore is a new word to entertain. They find them to understand, like the people in the past. Does that kind of make sense?
>> Farz: Sort of.
>> Taylor: So they don't want these things to be lost to history. So they're not like, oh, we're going to make children really happy with these fairy tales. They're like, these myths define who we are as a people. We should write them down because this is. The people are going to forget them, you know?
>> Farz: yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
>> Taylor: Does that make sense?
>> Farz: It kind of reminds me, you know what's funny is I want. Listen. 199% invisible. My entire dialogue now is just other podcasts.
>> Taylor: But, it's the worst. You gotta get someone to talk about us.
>> Farz: I'll try to figure that out. But they did this one episode on how you convey for 10,000 years that a site is dangerous, like a nuclear dump site, you know, and they were like, the only things that like had persisted over time are fairy tales and folk, songs. And so they like. Anyways, I forgot how it ended up. Like that was basically the conclusion they read was like a sign can change, language changes. Like all. Like our understanding of skull and crossbone has changed over time. So you can't persist forever. But like a fairy tale and like a song, like that lasts forever.
>> Taylor: And it doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be the idea, you know?
>> Farz: Exactly. Just Got to convey the idea.
>> Taylor: Yeah. so it's also very similar to Poggio Broccolini, who we talked about before in the Renaissance, finding the, all of Roman work and all of the ancient Greek work. And he went out to find them physically. Remember, he would go to, like, monasteries and find them. But the grand brothers, they weren't. These stories were not written down. They were in people's brains. So they would hear them and then write them down. it's going to be the beginning of a term called Heidelberg Romanticism. So they're like, you know, trying to again, also romanticize the past, but then, like, get this stuff written down on paper. One of the things that they found is, and they made. They publish is the Nibel. Nibelungenlied Nibelungen Lied, which is like an epic poem. in German it begins with. In English, this is what it begins with. In ancient tales, many marvels are told us of renowned heroes worthy of praise, of great hardship, of joys, festivities, of weeping and lamenting a bold warrior's battles. Now you may hear such marvels told. So it's like the German Ulysses, Iliad kind of story that they were able to, like, write down and like, do. And make that popular again. it's a mistake to say it's just old women. They got stories from. They got stories from a lot of people, and a lot of them were women, but a lot of them were younger, like, aristocratic women who had, like, been told these stories by their mothers and grandmothers, you know, throughout. Throughout generations. and when the grand brothers wrote them down, something that is interesting is that these were oral traditions. And so you can. Obviously, when you're telling a story, you. I'm using my hands. Use your hands, Use your face. You do all these things. Like the other day at Halloween at school, their teacher jump scared the kids telling them a scary story. And like, Florence cried. Hilarious.
The Grimm brothers changed some stories to make them more descriptive for children
So, like, that, like, an oral tradition of a story is very descriptive because of the storyteller, but when it's written down, it's not as descriptive. So when you say things like, oh, she had like, really big bright eyes. You have to, like, make it more descriptive in the. In the words. So they did change the stories a lot for, like, the audience. And to make it more descriptive, the general idea is still there, you know. and like I said, they really were doing this as a scholarly pursuit. So what those are necessarily like, for children. But children, like, wanted it. So they, changed some things they were told. Like, you should change This. I don't know if my version has this, but they also at one point did a little bit of a preface that's like, this isn't necessarily for kids. Use your own judgment. Which I think still stands. Like, if you are a parent, like, you know, use your own judgment.
>> Farz: Well, they're darker. I remember them. They're generally like darker stories.
>> Taylor: Yeah, they're like a little bit darker and they made them a little bit less dark. There's some things that are a little bit more, adult oriented. Like, Rapunzel changed a couple times. Like, initially though, you know, Rapunzel, you know.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: So Rapunzel initially, like the very first version of the story, the woman, the witch or whatever who had her in the tower, noticed that Rapunzel's clothes were getting tight because she was pregnant, and that's how she knew that the guy was coming up there. and then in the version of the book that I have, from the 1950s, they, Rapunzel gets kicked out of the tower. The prince falls out of the tower, his eyes get poked out. He crawls through the woods trying to find, like, berries and stuff. And eventually she finds him. She cries. Her tears bring his eyesight back, which happens in the Disney movie. Her tears bring him back to life. but when he has eyesight back and sees her again, she has twins. Like, she has babies. She's been taken care of. So, like, that stuff is, like, alluded to differently in different ways.
>> Farz: You know, I mean, even the concept of Rapunzel is kind of scary. Like, when you're a kid, you're like, wait, someone can keep me trapped somewhere for the rest of my life?
>> Taylor: Like, yeah, yeah.
>> Farz: It's called solitary confinement. It happens everywhere.
>> Taylor: Watch yourself. so they did that. there's also, like, a lot of work, like you just said, like, this could be your job is talking about this forever. But, like, some psychologists, have tried to, like, put what they were doing into different. Like into Jungian psychology, into Freudian psychology. Some people say it's because, like, oh, they hated. They hated women. So everything had to be manly and chivalrous. Like they, Or like, why is again, like, why is a stepmother always bad? Like, those are questions that are, like, good to ask. But they didn't originate those ideas. You know, they were, like, taking them from other people.
>> Farz: Right.
>> Taylor: So I don't know. I'm not gonna armchair analyze the Grimm brothers. We don't have time for that. so.
Nazi propaganda used fairy tales as a propaganda tool during World War II
But one thing that we should talk about is that so the way that the Nazis took these stories and made it a thing was like, this is our mythical past. Things were, look how brave we were. Look how brave the German people can be. And the majority m of people, obviously, like the Grimm Brothers meant people who speak German, and then they meant the, you know, people who are ethnically German. but during the Nazi regime, every house had a cop, had to have a copy of it of the fairy tale book, like, the main book that they wrote. So they had. They were like a collection. And then even after. After World War II, Allied occupied Germany banned the book of fairy tales for a while.
>> Farz: Why?
>> Taylor: Because it had been, like, used as, like, a. A, way to, like, like a propaganda tool to get people to be like, yeah, you're totally right. Like, look at this mythical past. And we were badass as. Let's go back to that. You know, obviously, in a terrible way.
>> Farz: That's. That's all real. All of it's kind of weird, like.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: Using that as Nazi propaganda. because I think.
>> Taylor: Yeah, because. Well, I mean, you were just saying we hear these stories of, like, the Germans who are really brave and really strong. You know, stuff like that. They're like, but is. Hell yeah.
>> Farz: But I don't think of that when I think of Roblox.
>> Taylor: No, not Rapunzel, but, like, the other ones. Like, other ones. Like, there's, you know, a lot of it is about, like, you know, people coming to the rescue to other people and things like that.
>> Farz: Interesting. Okay.
>> Taylor: I believe. but I should read.
>> Farz: Wait, does that mean it was banned in the US Too?
>> Taylor: No, it was banned in Germany. Yeah.
>> Farz: Interesting.
>> Taylor: but it's not anymore, because people are like, calm down. Their fairy tales.
In 1812, they published a first volume of Children and Household Tales
so at some point, Wilhelm, has heart problems. He's the younger brother, and they sent him away to a hospital and they gave him electric shock therapy to help with his heart problems.
>> Farz: I mean, he's gonna get his mind off his heart.
>> Taylor: Yeah. Which I don't know if it's, like, not good for your heart. but then he did end up going back, and they were. They were together again. So it was just one time when they were apart. so they're working in this library for, Napoleon's brother. and they don't have a lot. Lot of stuff to do, so they are writing. And they were. In 1812, they published a first volume of Children and Household Tales, which is what I was saying. The book that. That I have, that mine says Grimm's Fairy Tales, but it's the same Thing. and there's others. you know, others. A lot of different versions they'll publish in their lives. one thing that they talk about a lot, in trying to find these stories, the difference between natural poetry and artistic poetry. So they didn't like the rhyming sort of poetry, but they saw fairy tales as, like, a natural poetry with, like, a storytelling thing. Like, they would be like, we're storytellers. You know how people overuse that word?
>> Farz: You know, it's funny. As you're talking, I'm thinking, like, was Dr. Seuss deeper than I thought it was? Was that, like, something about, like.
>> Taylor: I mean, the Lorax is about. Yeah, the Lorax is about cutting down the forests. Like, it's all about, like, environmental policy and stuff. Yeah.
>> Farz: Yeah, man. So many layers of this onion.
>> Taylor: Yeah. Nothing is. Nothing is face value, I feel like, you know. so they are working library. They get honorary doctorates from the university that they attended in a couple other universities. And they're kind of annoyed by that because they're like, ew, you know, like, you guys were kind of jerks me when we were there. But now I've honorary doctorates. Thanks. they, do other stories as well, so they're famous for the German ones, but they also wrote or compiled Norse stories, Irish stories, English stories. So they have others as well that they did. Jakob will never get married, but Wilhelm does get married. He marries a woman named Henriette Dorothea Dorchin, and, call her Dorchin in the book I read. So. But they have known her since childhood. She actually is one of the people who told them some of the stories that they ended up publishing. And she sounds great. Like, they were very happy. They all three lived together. and they lived in a town called Gottingen. Gottingen. Oh, my God. G O T T I N G E N And they worked at the university, and it was in Hanover, so, like, a different principality than Hesse, but it was a different kingdom. But they, But they were like, cool, we like it here. Everything was. Everything was fine until 1837. There's a new king. The new king is named Ernest Augustus, the King of Hanover. He is the. He is the fifth son of George III of the United Kingdom and Hanover, which makes. I didn't even look at the thing. But essentially 1937 is the year that Queen Victoria comes to the throne in England. And the way that the laws were written, a woman could not rule over these German areas. So.
>> Farz: 1837, right? Yeah.
>> Taylor: 1837. Sorry. Yeah. 1837. so a woman couldn't be Queen of Hanover. It had to be a man. So somehow this guy got to be king. It's like he was, like, 19th in line to be king.
>> Farz: Wait, what did Queen Victoria have to do with Germany?
>> Taylor: Well, she was part. It was all part of, like, that Holy Roman Empire, and it was a lot of, like, that, like, intermarrying between those people, because at the same time, like, it's after the French Revolution. But remember how, like, Catherine the Great was a cousin of one guy? And remember how, like, the Tsar Alexander, him and King George were cousins?
>> Farz: No, but I'm, saying was. Was it part of the United Kingdom?
>> Taylor: I think kind of weird.
>> Farz: Okay.
>> Taylor: I think they just, like, they, like, ruled over, like, these different little principalities in certain ways, because also, like, post Napoleon, so they're, like, trying to figure out who's in charge of everything. It's a lot.
>> Farz: Right.
>> Taylor: But anyway, this guy's king, and he, decides to immediately dissolve the parliament and dissolve the constitution. And he wanted all of the civil servants, which included professors, which the Grimms, were, to sign an oath of allegiance to him, and they said no. So the Grimm brothers and five other professors become known as the Gotten. Gotten. It's hard to say. The Gotten Seven. So they are a group of seven professors from this town who said no to the king, and they were kicked out and then sent back to Hesse without jobs, without any money.
The Grimms are celebrated as a model for a more liberal Germany
later, they're going to be celebrated as a model for a more liberal Germany. And there are statues of them, like, all over. And people were like, talk about how their defiance of this king, who was like, dissolve the, constitution, was, like, very courageous. And there's, like, a one weird statue where, like, there's no one in it. It's just horse footprints. And people are, like, pissed about it because you can't even see the horse footprints. And you're like, you just. To do a statue of a horse.
>> Farz: Was there symbolism behind it?
>> Taylor: Yeah, I don't. I don't know. But a funny thing. So politically, they were centrist. the Grimms described liberal. The liberal idea of equality akin to cutting down all the mountains and burning all the. All the forests and just, like, flattening everything. So they were, But they definitely didn't want, like, whatever king, the new king wanted. So they're back in Hessa, which is great, because that's where they're from. They'd rather be there anyway. and they have to start working now to stop the censorship of like, this guy and other kings who are coming in and trying to censor, like, you know, different books for different reasons. and it's an interesting time in, like, the written word because the literacy rate in, like, German areas is going to go up from, like, 10% to 50% in, like, 10 years. So a lot of people learning how to read because books are becoming more accessible, you know, good for them. yeah. And that's when the Grahams become obsessed with German grammar, because that's really what they spent the bulk of their work on is, like, German grammar and words. They, like, didn't think that grammar needed to be ruled in, like, a certain, like, a really stiff way. They thought people could be more expressive with what they were saying. So they were taking, like, the different types of German and figuring out, like, what different words mean in the historical contest context and seeing German, the language, as like a living organism constantly changing, which is fun. and with that, I hope they can change some of their stories as well. It changed the meaning based on, like, the different words they were using. they are publishing their grammar books and books on German history, and they need to, like, change the typesetting all the time because they have, like, new letters. You know how German has, like, other letters? Like, there's like.
>> Farz: Yeah, yeah. It looks like almost musical notes mixed with, like, regular.
>> Taylor: Yeah, like, the two S's is like the big musical note looking thing. Yeah. So they were doing that one, thing that I thought was fun. did you know that in German you capitalize every noun?
>> Farz: No.
>> Taylor: So, like, if I said, like, oh, fars has a microphone, I would. I would capitalize fars and microphone, even though it's not a proper noun and it's not the beginning of the sentence. Sentence. and we still do that today. but the Grimms were like, that's dumb. Let's stop doing it. And they would publish their books without capitalizing every noun. But that didn't catch on.
>> Farz: People were like, no, everything changes.
>> Taylor: Yeah. so they go back to Hesse. They're working as librarians. They're kind of bored. They have to keep, like, at one point, there's like a fire or a flood or something, and they have to save a bunch of books and they have to copy them over and over again. Just like, not super fun. and that's when they start working on their German dictionary. So could you imagine writing a dictionary?
>> Farz: No. It sounds like these people were not even storytellers. They were like.
>> Taylor: Yeah, they're like professors. Yeah, exactly. Well, they are. Yes, exactly. Just like us. so they got to F before they died, and the German dictionary would be finished about 100 years after their death. But, like, in the book that I read, they mentioned that, like, someone who wrote an English dictionary, one of the first English ones, under the word dull, they wrote, writing a dictionary example of something that's dull. You're like, of course. it was mostly Jakob's passion. He was the more, like, introverted of the two. He's the one that didn't get married. You know, he was the older one. So he was like, I love this. Where, like, Wilhelm was like, we could also listen to music and look at art. And Jakob was like, nah, I just want to think about grammar all the time, you know? Yeah.
>> Farz: You seem really dedicated.
>> Taylor: Yeah. So there's a law called Grimm's Law. that's. That Jakob in, like, popularized. Like, someone else had thought of it, but he's one who, like, made it popular. but it's. This is where I was, like, reading about linguistics and very confused. But he has, like, a law of, like, the way that you start and stop. German words that, like, mean different things. It's very confusing. But that's what he was thinking about. He was thinking about linguistics, thinking about language.
Red Hood: Two German brothers finished writing a dictionary in 1859
eventually they will finish their lives in Berlin. They're going to move to Berlin. Berlin is starting to become like a more a, more modern city. It doesn't have, like, the. The Gothic, medieval things that, like, little German towns do. It's starting to, like, they live in, like, an apartment building that's, like, pretty new. they join parliament for a term, but they don't stay. But they kind of like, hang out when people are, like, having debates and things, and they'll, like, you know, get up and say something, bring in the context, talk about the German people, history, all those things. they had a library about 8,000 books. Like we were saying, like, you have to have the books at your house. So they would do things. Like. So they had. They. This. I saw this again and again. Like, you know, they shared a bed when they were kids. Then they shared a room with two beds and two desks when they were in school. And then later they have two studies that are next to each other and they would, like, run back and forth with different books, you know, to be like, oh, this, there's this and this and this. And, like, we have to keep writing and do these things. it was kind of like a mad rush to finish. But, like, they did not Finish their. The dictionary. But eventually it got finished. And, like, obviously there are dictionaries, so. Yay. Wilhelm, the younger one, died in Berlin, of infection at the age of 73 on December 16, 1859. He, was a younger one. he was the one who was married and had the four kids. The older one, Jakob, died, a couple years later in 1863. On September 20, it says he died from disease. Who knows what that means? He was 78. So, you know, he died. and he was like, the much more studious of the two. of their 8,000 book library, a lot of it was donated. So a lot of it is in different universities in Germany, along with a lot of their papers. And there are, you know, several, like, Grimm museums around Germany as well, that do different levels of, like, warning parents. It could get scary, you know. And, like, there's one where people go to. And they're disappointed because it's all about linguistics, which is fair because that's. That's hard.
>> Farz: I mean, good for them for, like, caring enough to.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: Do all that.
>> Taylor: I know. And it always makes me so nervous. Like, I think it was George Washington who would, like, have someone ride. Be with him all the time. He's just copy all of his papers and, like, try to get them to safety, you know, because, like, we only know what survives.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: You know, so that, like, that idea of being like, oh, we have to, you know, we have these books, we write things down, but, like, there's only seven of them or, like, whatever, you know, it's gonna. As things, like, progress. And now. Now, you know, there's obviously a ton of information and easy to get and copy. But then it was hard, you know.
>> Farz: I will say these towns in Germany are the most charming.
>> Taylor: I know.
>> Farz: It's like, God, they're so cute.
>> Taylor: So cute. Germany is so cute. We. We went to. Not in Germany, but went in Austria. We went to the town from the Sound of Music where, they got married inside of Music. And it's just like, oh, my God. You're like. In the Alps, there's, like, a lake. There's always, like, beautiful little houses. And it's like. It's like a fairy tale. And that's why, you know.
>> Farz: Yeah. Very, very. Yeah, it's really interesting. Made me think about a lot of things, like the. I mean. Yeah. Because it's so simplistic to look at, like, Little Red Riding Hood. It's like. Oh, it's like a story you tell your kids, and it's like, being like, oh, there's like a whole backstory behind it. And kind of Dove still dovetails with, like, everything else that was going on in world history as well.
>> Taylor: Yeah, totally.
>> Farz: Also harkening back to our conversation, or what I brought up last week was how I got into and watched and finished, the Three body problem.
>> Taylor: Oh, yeah. How was it?
>> Farz: So it was pretty good. But the start, the reason all the bad things happened was because a Little Red Riding Hood.
>> Taylor: Oh, really?
>> Farz: Spoiler alert. The guy tells aliens about Little Red Riding Hood and they have no concept of, like, lying to each other or, like, telling. And they realized that they can't trust humanity and they have to destroy us. I was like, oh, my God, this all happened because of you, Brothers Grim Bear.
>> Taylor: That's fun.
Yeah, because storytelling is also lying a little bit. You're doing that because of everything happening around you
Yeah, because storytelling is also lying a little bit.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: Because you're just making shit up. But then, like, why are you waking up? Waking up, Making up. I'm sorry. A certain thing at a certain time. You're doing that because of everything happening around you, you know?
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: That's cool.
>> Farz: Fun. Well, thanks for sharing that. Is this. Is this the end of the series or are we doing.
>> Taylor: I might do more later. I might take a break. I'm going to try to find something weird to do next week, like, weirder, and then maybe come back to it.
>> Farz: I like it. Do some weird.
>> Taylor: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Read some. Read some stories. they're. They're quite fun.
>> Farz: very cool.
Dublin Phil's Learner League starts up again next week
And I'm assuming, based off of the conversation earlier, we have no listener mail.
>> Taylor: Indeed, we have no listener mail. I do want to say thank you to our friend Chiara, who reached out to make sure that I was okay when I left social media in a huff.
>> Farz: if you do have anything, to say, please write to us at Dublin Phil Podmail. Ah dot com. And, we're. Hit us up on the socials.
>> Taylor: Yeah, we're on YouTube. We're on, all sorts of places. We're all over wherever. Tell your friends. Tell your friends.
>> Farz: Tell your friends.
>> Taylor: I do, I do. I just. I'm looking at my email now. Like, not like any more of an email in the last 10 seconds. But, the Learner League starts up again next week. And because it took a break, I don't know, it has, like, breaks. And I'm in a league higher than I should be because of, like, a number reason. And I just, like, laughed really hard. Cause I'm like, they're probably like, we really want to kick you out, but we don't kick people out for being dumb. So now you're in this league that's, like, going to be even harder. So you're going to even be further to the end and great. Like, you're. You're stupid. So. I'm so excited to do it again.
>> Farz: Somebody always has to be on both sides of the bell curve.
>> Taylor: Yeah. Yeah. They need. They need me to bring everybody down.
>> Farz: Yes. sweet. Well, if that's it, we can go ahead and cut off. Anything else you want to say, Taylor?
>> Taylor: No, thank you. First.
>> Farz: Sweet. Go ahead and cut it out.