Marie Magdalene Elisabeth Hassenpflug (27 December 178821 November 1856) was a German author whose versions of various folk tales were an important source for the collection of tales by the

Brothers Grimm The Brothers Grimm ( or ), Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm (1786–1859), were a brother duo of German academics, philologists, cultural researchers, lexicographers, and authors who together collected and published folklore. They are among th ...

. She is best known for her versions of "

Little Red Riding Hood "Little Red Riding Hood" is a European fairy tale about a young girl and a sly wolf. Its origins can be traced back to several pre-17th century European folk tales. The two best known versions were written by Charles Perrault and the Bro ...

" (''Rotkäppchen''), "

Sleeping Beauty ''Sleeping Beauty'' (french: La belle au bois dormant, or ''The Beauty in the Sleeping Forest''; german: Dornröschen, or ''Little Briar Rose''), also titled in English as ''The Sleeping Beauty in the Woods'', is a fairy tale about a princess cu ...

" (''Dornröschen''), and "

Snow White "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is a 19th-century German fairy tale that is today known widely across the Western world. The Brothers Grimm published it in 1812 in the first edition of their collection '' Grimms' Fairy Tales'' and numbered as T ...

" (''Schneewittchen'').

Life

Marie Magdalene Elisabeth Hassenpflug was born in the

Ortsteil A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

Altenhaßlau of

Linsengericht Linsengericht is a municipality in the Main-Kinzig district, in Hesse, Germany. Geography Location The municipality lies in the Main-Kinzig district of Hesse. It is located in the valley of the Kinzig, south and southeast of the town of Gelnhaus ...

district in Landgrafschaft Hessen-Darmstadt, Imperial State of

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire was a political entity in Western, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars. From the accession of Otto I in 962 unt ...

on 27 December 1788. Her father Johannes Hassenpflug (1755–1834) had been married since 1788 to Marie Magdalena Dresen (1767–1840), who came from a

Huguenot The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...

family living in

Hanau Hanau () is a town in the Main-Kinzig-Kreis, in Hesse, Germany. It is located 25 km east of Frankfurt am Main and is part of the Frankfurt Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region. Its station is a major railway junction and it has a port on the ri ...

. On 14 October 1789, the family moved into a house called Haus Lossow at the marketplace's corner of Lindenstraße in Neustadt, when her father was appointed the ''

Schultheiß In medieval Germany, the ''Schultheiß'' () was the head of a municipality (akin to today's office of mayor), a ''Vogt'' or an executive official of the ruler. As official (''villicus'') it was his duty to order his assigned village or county (' ...

'' of Neustadt-Hanau. She grew up in that house, where the family lived until 1799. She had a brother, Hans Ludwig Alexander, as well as two sisters, Jeanette and Amalie. She was sickly when young, and one scholar, Heinz Rölleke, surmises that frequent bouts of being bedridden may have made her more receptive to fairy tales. Through another family, the Engelhards, she became friends with the Grimm family. Her brother Ludwig married Charlotte Grimm, the younger sister of the

. On 15 April 1799, the Hassenpflug family moved to

Kassel Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel and the district of the same name and had 201,048 inhabitants in December 2020 ...

, where her father transferred to the post of ''advocatus fisci'' (financial supervisor) of the Landgrafschaft Hessen-Kassel. On 21 August 1814, Marie Hassenpflug married Friedrich von Dalwigk zu Schauenburg, who was stationed in Hanau as a captain of the Kurprinz regiment. They lived on her husband's estate in Hoof (today part of

Schauenburg Schauenburg is a municipality in the district of Kassel, in Hesse, Germany. It is situated west of Kassel Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat o ...

) and in Hanau, where their son, Ludwig Alexander, was born on 24 January 1817. From 1819 to 1824, she served as a

court lady ''Court Lady'' () is a 2021 Chinese television series produced by Yu Zheng, starring Xu Kai and Li Yitong. Once renowned as Chang’an’s number one hedonist, Sheng Chumu could barely ride on a horse without falling off. Now, he has fallen hea ...

Herzogin ''Herzog'' (female ''Herzogin'') is a German nobility, German hereditary title held by one who rules a territorial duchy, exercises feudalism, feudal authority over an estate (land), estate called a duchy, or possesses a right by law or traditio ...

Marie Friederike von Anhalt-Bernburg, a daughter of the Landgraf and later Kurfürst Wilhelm IX/I of Hesse-Kassel. When her husband was the

chamberlain Chamberlain may refer to: Profession *Chamberlain (office), the officer in charge of managing the household of a sovereign or other noble figure People *Chamberlain (surname) **Houston Stewart Chamberlain (1855–1927), German-British philosop ...

of the duchess, they lived in the Hanau City Palace. She died in Kassel on 21 November 1856.

Literary significance

Hassenpflug wrote a series of fairy tales that the

Grimm brothers The Brothers Grimm ( or ), Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm (1786–1859), were a brother duo of German academics, philologists, cultural researchers, lexicographers, and authors who together collected and published folklore. They are among t ...

adapted for their children's and household fairy tales (''Kinder- und Hausmärchen'', KHM): ''Little Brother and Sister'' (KHM 11), ''

'' (KHM 26), ''

The Girl Without Hands "The Girl Without Hands" or "The helpless Maiden" or "The Armless Maiden" (german: Das Mädchen ohne Hände) is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm. It is tale number 31 and was first published in the 1812 edition of ''Children' ...

'' (KHM 31), ''The Robber Groom'' (KHM 40), ''Daumerling's Wanderings'' (KHM 45), ''

'' (KHM 50), ''The Water Mermaid'' (KHM 79), '' The Golden Key'' (KHM 200), ''Phoenix Bird'' (KHM 75a), ''The Blacksmith and the Devil'' (KHM 81a), ''Der Froschprinz'' (KHM 99a), the text fragment ''with the louse'', and possibly ''

'' (KHM 53). The identification of Herman Grimm's "Old Marie" with the much younger Marie Hassenpflug, which Heinz Rölleke made in a 1991 essay, also explains the sometimes verbatim correspondence with similar fairy tales by

Charles Perrault Charles Perrault ( , also , ; 12 January 1628 – 16 May 1703) was an iconic French author and member of the Académie Française. He laid the foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale, with his works derived from earlier folk tale ...

: her mother was a Huguenot from the

Dauphiné The Dauphiné (, ) is a former province in Southeastern France, whose area roughly corresponded to that of the present departments of Isère, Drôme and Hautes-Alpes. The Dauphiné was originally the Dauphiné of Viennois. In the 12th centu ...

, and thus the family was well acquainted with French fairy tales (Rölleke noted elsewhere that the family spoke French at the dinner table until the late 1880s), which Marie, as well as her sisters Jeannette and Amalia, then told to the Grimms. Marie_Hassenpflug_Bildnis

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hassenpflug, Marie 19th-century German women writers 1788 births 1856 deaths People from Main-Kinzig-Kreis Writers from Hesse German children's writers German women children's writers German folklorists Brothers Grimm German people of French descent