What fascinated or compelled the Grimms to concentrate on old German literature was a belief that the most natural and pure forms of culture – those which held the community together – were linguistic and were to be located in the past. Moreover, according to them, modern literature, even though it might be remarkably rich, was artificial and thus could not express the genuine essence of Volk culture that emanated naturally from people’s experiences and bound the people together. Therefore, all their energies were spent on uncovering stories from the past. This is why their friend, the romantic poet Clemens Brentano, asked them in 1808 to collect all types of folk tales that he wanted to revise in a book of literary fairy tales. In 1810 they sent him 54 texts that they fortunately copied. Fortunately, I say, because Brentano proceeded to lose the manuscript in the Ölenberg monastery in Alsace and did not use the Grimms' texts. Meanwhile the Grimms kept collecting tales from friends, acquaintances, and colleagues, and when they realized that Brentano was not going to use the tales from their manuscript, they decided, upon the advice of a mutual friend and another romantic author, Achim von Arnim, to publish their collection that had grown to approximately 86 tales, which they published in 1812 and then another 70, which they published in 1815. Both collections formed the first edition and included footnotes to the tales as well as scholarly prefaces. Before I discuss the unusual quality of the tales in these two volumes, I want to comment briefly on the idealistic intentions of the young Grimms. That is, I want to summarize the ideological stance they took by publishing the tales they had collected.