While documenting their abilities and importance, the author emphasizes the fact that Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm did not do what the sentimental "myth" about them says they did -- they did not preserve the folk tales/Volkstumlichkeit; instead, they substantially re-shaped them, to appeal to a bourgeois audience and reveal what they felt were profound truths about native culture and civilization. [104]

Born in 1785 and 1786, eldest of six siblings, die bruder were lawyers, and among the finest scholars in Germany. Middle class, they always suffered social slights and financial straits. They were eventually recognized for their accomplishments, moral integrity, and political courage in supporting the liberal Bildungsburgertum [3, 63].

It was a law professor, von Savigny, who got them interested in the customs and language of Die Volken as the Origin of Law.

Although very different personalities, the brothers were devoted to eachother and actually slept in same bed together while at the Lyceum and Marburg School of Law. The Family Motto was "Tute si recte vixeris" [2].

Their lives were academic -- contributing to folklore, history, ethnology, religion, music, jurisprudence, lexicography, and literature -- but they considered their work "as part of a social effort to foster a sense of justice among the German people" [9] who remained fractured and disenfranchised by useless but powerful Princes.

Jacob's last book -- he outlived his younger brother, but died before the ironically tragic unification -- was Deutsche Weistumer ("Precedents" - connoting the juristic wisdom of the ages maintained within the People's traditions).

The Grimm's primary method of collecting tales was to invite storytellers to their home. Most of the storytellers were the young educated but middle class women from the Wild family -- Wilhelm married Dortchen from this family, and their sister Lotte married into the Hassenpflugs (who were Huegenots), whose nursemaids, governesses, and servants told the tales they passed on to the Grimms. Women played major roles in the lives of these brave men.

Zipes emphasizes that "we tend to structure our lives according to fairy tales", and "once upon a time" keeps alive our longing for a better world that can be created out of our dreams and actions.[26]