It needn’t be Grimm. Western Folklore in Australia
In 1854, the eminent folklorist Joseph Jacobs was born in Sydney, New South Wales, though his working life was spent abroad – predominantly in England and the U.S.A. He wished that English speaking children could read tales which had emerged from the folklore of the British Isles, rather than those of the continent made popular by Charles Perrault in the 17th century, and the Grimm Brothers in the first half of the 19th century. Jacobs lamented that Perrault’s genius displayed in Cinderella and Puss in Boots had ousted the English classics of Catskin and Childe Rowland. Likewise, Tom-Tit-Tot had given way to Grimm’s Rumpelstiltschen and The Three Sillies to Hänsel and Gretel.
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