degrimm1-2, Exercise 2: Volksmaerchen and Kunstmaerchen

Model answer (check the definitions against a folklore reference):

A Volksmaerchen is a tale that comes from popular tradition, passed on by telling, with no single author. A Kunstmaerchen is a tale composed by a named author as a literary work, such as those by Novalis or Tieck.

The difference is hard to apply to the Grimm collection because the brothers took tales from informants (some of whom had read printed versions), wrote them down, and then revised them over several editions. The result is neither a clean record of oral tradition nor a purely authored work, so scholars ask tale by tale where the text came from and how much was changed (check, see Chapters 4 and 5).