I read the first edition of Grimm's fairy tales in translation not too long ago after having wanted to for awhile, since the translation was released. The thin

I read the first edition of Grimm's fairy tales in translation not too long ago after having wanted to for awhile, since the translation was released. The thing I was most surprised by was how bizarre some of the stories were. Not how disturbing or dark they were, but how bizarre and dreamlike they were. Things coming out of nowhere in ways that seemed like nonsequiturs, I still can't tell if there's something about past culture that is lost on me, lost to time, or if the original storytelling was in fact poor, or what. I completely agree with the general sentiment of the linked article, and I think some of the commenters are exactly right to point out that these tales have been edited and reedited in various forms over time for all sorts of reasons, sometimes to make them less dark than they originally were. But some of the revisions I knew from animated films and mid to late twentieth century children's books weren't just happier, they made more sense, and were easier to follow for whatever reason. I loved reading the first edition and agree that it's great to go back to them. I also don't mean to suggest the originals were bad — I think some of the twists and plotlines were better in the originals. But I get the sense that some edits might have been made not to "lighten" the tales, but rather to just make them simpler. In some cases lightening might have been a secondary result of simplifying, and in other cases the latter type of edit encouraged the former.