degrimm1-4, Exercise 1: The old picture and its challenges

Model answer (check each point):

The traditional picture: two scholars gathered tales from ordinary country people, especially old peasant women, who passed on ancient German stories unchanged, and the brothers recorded them faithfully.

Three challenges from modern research:
1. Many informants were educated, middle-class acquaintances in Kassel, such as the Wild family, not rural peasants.
2. Some informants came from families with French-speaking roots, such as the Hassenpflugs, so the material was not purely "German" in its sources.
3. Some tales came from printed books and were adapted, so the collection was not solely oral, and the brothers revised the wording over the editions rather than recording it exactly.

The brothers' own prefaces helped to create the traditional picture, so it is both a source and something to be tested (check).