It is not that the stories already diffused in the German population. It is (I think) the person telling the stories was raised by a French person. In an analog

It is not that the stories already diffused in the German population. It is (I think) the person telling the stories was raised by a French person. In an analogy it is more like you write a German English dictionary, but the German words are French (and not yet absorbed by the German language). I find this surprising (of course not if you know the backstory)