Folklore and Nation in Britain and Ireland: The role of the grimms' deutsche sagen in the collection and creation of national folk narratives in Northern Europe

The influence of the Brothers Grimm on the collection of folk narratives is often seen to stem from Kinder- und Hausmärchen (1812–15). Much less attention is given to the more obviously political Deutsche Sagen, which followed in 1816–18. This chapter, stemming from a large, international project on the influence of the Grimms in northern Europe in the nineteenth century, focuses on the long-term influence of the latter work, which was directly associated with the Romantic nationalistic movement, something clearly apparent from the ‘Introduction’ and the use of the word ‘Deutsche’ in its title. Within a year it had set off a cultural tsunami of folk-tale collection throughout northern Europe and also in Ireland and Scotland, which focused mainly on folk legends, material which would play an active role in the creation of new forms of national literature, art and music in many of the countries involved. This is the focus of the chapter, which also pays some consideration as to why England was not as involved in this process of ‘creating’ new forms of national culture, many of which still have a role to play in our own time.