Where did Rapunzel live?

Janelle Wood, daughter Elena and friend Amber © Doris Evans 

Did you know that Germany has a fairy tale road (Deutsche Märchenstraße)? And that many fairy tales were told with a specific setting in mind? And that many of these settings (castles, towns, landscapes) still exist today? Dr. Anna Bauer, DAAD-Lecturer in German School of Cultures, Languages and Linguistics at the University of Auckland, not only comes from the area, where the Grimm Brothers lived and worked, she also has an abundance of knowledge about the origins of their fairy tales. She shared her insider insights with an interested audience at the Auckland University on Tuesday, September 17.

Dr. Anna Bauer © Doris Evans

Many of the fairy tales that we're most familiar with today were collected by the brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in the early 19th century. The brothers had just finished their university studies in Marburg in Germany and moved back home to Kassel, about 200km north of Frankfurt, when they were asked to collect fairy tales. The people who told them the tales were from that area, and even though many tales originated from as far away as France, their stories had been adapted to fit different places and features found in the region around Kassel. 

That way some of the most famous tales are tied to specific places, e.g. Rapunzel to the Trendelburg castle, and Dornröschen (Sleeping Beauty) to the Sababurg castle. The outfit of Rotkäppchen (Little Red Riding Hood) is typical of the traditional children's dress in the Schwalm area between the towns of Kassel and Marburg, and Frau Holle (Mother Hulda) is said to have shaken out her duvets from the mountain Hoher Meißner south-east of Kassel. Today, the German Fairy Tale Route (Deutsche Märchenstraße) links all these and more spots together and lets you travel the less trodden path from Bremerhaven in the north down to Frankfurt in the mid-west of Germany. En route, you get to visit all kinds of different castles, some well maintained, some with only ruins left over, little villages, small towns and much more. Many people in the area are very fond of "their" fairy tales and have organised regular fairy tale events or put together spaces where you can engage with the local lore. In the centre of the route, Kassel stands out with its brand-new Grimm World (Grimmwelt) museum, which brings together the work of the brothers Grimm and many other fairy tale collectors and even writers from across the globe.

Auckland Goethe Society