10 best Grimm fairy tales

This story was recorded by Dortchen Wild, a storyteller who married Wilhelm Grimm. As it turns out, the theme of leaving children in the woods was quite popular in European folktales. A French story, "Le Petit Poucet" from 1967, starts out almost identically, while Madame d'Aulnoy's "Finette Cendron" mentions three princesses who get lost in the woods and find their way to an ogre's house.

A miller's daughter is locked in a castle and forced to spin straw into gold. Fortunately, Rumpelstiltskin comes to her rescue, spinning straw into gold in return for her valuables. In the end, it doesn't quite work out for Rumpelstiltskin, who suffers the unusual death of being "split in two." The famous name comes from the German word "Rumpelstiltz," a type of goblin found in German mythology.

This sinister Grimm tale may be based on true events. A glass window in a church of Hamelin depicts a piper and has an inscription that states in 1284: "By a piper, clothed in many kinds of colors, 130 children born in Hamelin were seduced, and lost at the place of execution near the koppen." Even today, no one is sure why the children were taken away or what exactly happened that year.

Some Grimm fables are just too dark to be made into Disney classics. "Death's Messenger" tells the story of death, who appears as a person and is nursed back to life by a healthy man. Death promises to spare no one, but tells his savior that he will give him a heads-up before his final hour. Needless to say, death works in mysterious ways, and the youth doesn't quite get what he bargained for.

The Brothers Grimm are immortalized with this statue in Kassel. In their dark tale, a man makes a pact with an evil dwarf, promising to give up his son in exchange for riches. The outcast son goes on a series of harrowing adventures involving a snake, a princess and a magic ring. Atypically, nobody seems to have the redeeming qualities one would expect to find in a typical fairy tale protagonist.

Girl meets frog, girl kisses frog, girl gets frog-turned-prince. We all know this famous amphibious story by the Brothers Grimm, but many may not know it also goes by the title "Iron Heinrich." First published in their 1812 edition of tales, this was the first work in their collection. Moral of the story? Never say never.

German scholar Eckhard Sander revealed the story of the fair princess poisoned by her step-mother may have been based on the true story of Margarete von Waldeck, a German countess born to Philip IV in 1533. She fell in love with a Spanish prince, whom her parents disapproved of, then died at the age of 21 under mysterious circumstances. A poisoned apple, perhaps?

The misadventures of a donkey, dog, cat and rooster are memorialized in the German town of Bremen where visitors are greeted by a large bronze statue of the group of critters. The story may have arrived in Europe via India as early as 91 B.C. As the town's historical website points out, in India, musical animals were thought to exist at that time and could have provided inspiration for the tale.

The story of the long-haired princess has been a favorite for decades. Few know that Rapunzel is another word for a vegetable called a rampion, which has leaves like lettuce and roots like a radish. The English phrase "let your hair down" may have hailed from the story of this golden-haired maiden.

In this tale, a struggling, elderly cobbler is mysteriously aided by magical elves. Originally titled "Die Wichtelmänne," this tale has made numerous appearances in contemporary pop culture. In the Harry Potter series, for example, house elves like Dobby (pictured) look after human wizards and are never seen again once given clothing, just as in the Grimm story.