Almost every travel blog and website will equate The Black Forest with the Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales. But there is no literary connection between the Grimm Fairy Tales and The Black Forest. Its a myth fitting of The Real Black Forest.
The Myth: Why does everyone link The Black Forest to the Gimm Fairy Tales?
You might be surprised to know that The Brothers Grimm (Jacob and Wilhelm) were born in Hanau, lived and worked primarily in Kassel and Göttingen (all in the state of Hesse, Central Germany), and gathered most of their stories from sources in that region and Westphalia.
If you look at a map, the Black Forest is in the far southwest corner of Germany. The “German Fairy Tale Route” (Deutsche Märchenstraße)—the official trail dedicated to the Grimms—actually runs from Hanau to Bremen in the north. The two regions are separated by about 250 to 400 kilometers.
If the Grimms didn’t live there, why does everyone link the Black Forest to their stories?
Probably because people read about “dark, impenetrable forests” in Hansel and Gretel or Little Red Riding Hood, The Black Forest is the visual archetype. The Black Forest looks exactly like the setting of a Grimm story.
The “Other” Fairytale Guy:
While the Grimms didn’t live there, the writer Wilhelm Hauff did. He wrote The Cold Heart (Das kalte Herz), which is a famous, dark fairytale set specifically in the Black Forest. It involves glassblowers and charcoal burners, which were the actual industries of the region at the time.
Undoubtably the rolling hills of beech forests where the brothers Grimm lived, are not nearly as exciting or picturesque as the “dark, impenetrable forests” amongst the high mountains of The Black Forest. So bring your copy of the Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales and live the myth, reading the book while you hike our Black Forest Trail or St Peters Way (just look at the photos – the picture perfect setting of such tales).
