Wilhelm Carl Grimm, b. 1786. While he and his brother Jacob were in law school, they began to collect folk tales. They collected, after many years, over 200 folk tales, including such famous ones as Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretel, The Bremen Town Musicians, and Rumpelstiltskin. Both Wilhelm and Jacob were librarians.
True story: I once worked in the reference section of a library in West Texas. We often answered reference questions over the phone. One day a caller asked me, “How do you spell Hansel?” “H-A-N-S-E-L,” I replied. The patron thanked me and hung up. About an hour later, I heard one of the other reference librarians spelling into the phone, “G-R-E-T-E-L.”)
Samuel Lover, Irish humorist, songwriter, and author, b. 1797. I remember this song of his from elementary school choir:
I’m lonesome since I crossed the hill,
And o’er the moor and valley,
Such heavy thoughts my heart do fill,
Since parting with my Sally.
I’ll seek no more the fine and gay,
For each but does remind me,
How swift the hours did pass away,
With the Girl I left behind me.
Steven Jobs, cofounder of Apple Computer Company, b. 1955. For Computer Guru Son.
Wow, I had no idea there were over 200 Grimm’s fairy tales! I’ll settle for the top 10 or 20, but this is interesting to know. My eldest is reading a book of fairy tales including some of Grimms’ that came out in the late nineteenth century that include a number I’ve never heard of, and that has different names for some of them (e.g. Snowdrop for Snow White.)
Pingback: Evolution was the first issue I felt passionate toward.