A poor but clever tailor finishes the giant's coat in the allotted time and earns fame and fortune.

A tailor who kills seven flies with one blow outwits the king and earns half of his kingdom and his daughter's hand in marriage.

What do you think of an agreement between a giant and a tailor? It is not quite equal, right? Well the giant offered the tailor to be his servant. The tailor could not refuse, but he began thinking of a way to get himself out of this trouble. Is it possible to fool a giant or the poor tailor’s fate is predestined? Children and adults alike, immerse yourselves into Grimm’s world of folktales and legends! Come, discover the little-known tales and treasured classics in this collection of 210 fairy tales. Brothers Grimm are probably the best-known storytellers in the world. Some of their most popular fairy tales are "Cinderella", "Beauty and the Beast" and "Little Red Riding Hood" and there is hardly anybody who has not grown up with the adventures of Hansel and Gretel, Rapunzel and Snow White. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s exceptional literature legacy consists of recorded German and European folktales and legends. Their collections have been translated into all European languages in their lifetime and into every living language today.

A little tailor with his cunning wit outsmarts two giants, the huntsmen and a king to wed the princess, thus becoming king.

Our ancestors lived in a world saturated with spiritual significance. Unusual events occurring within the contingencies of life were easily comprehended in terms of spiritual reality (the work of the gods for example) and the future was generally pictured in terms of the after-life. People could thus feel a measure of security in their present circumstances and some certainty about their future. In contrast, our ordinary existence today seems bereft of any spiritual significance, generating insecurity in our lives and uncertainty in the face of what has now become an unknown future. In this series of essays, the author describes unusual events in his own life that he chose to follow, or act upon. In so doing, he slowly discovered that a certain kind of non-random event can be a hint of unknown futures seeking to unfold into existence. These essays together form the outline of an art form, or method for proceeding from personal insecurity and uncertainty towards comprehension of the spiritual significance lying within ordinary life.

Samuel D. Fohr holds that the Grimms' tales are not just childish 'fairy tales', but are filled with spiritual symbolism, and as such have value for adults as well as children. Snow White, for example, is a story of creation and spiritual growth, and its message parallels Hindu and Judaic creation myths. Hansel and Gretel and Cinderella both portray the journey back to God. Fohr also looks at recurring themes in the stories, and answers such questions as: Why are giants always evil and dwarves always good? What is the symbolic significance of the hungry wolf who appears in many stories? Exactly what are genies, and why are they always trapped in bottles? A delightful but serious examination of cherished stories, this book reveals new meaning in familiar tales. Also included is an extensive bibliography and an Appendix on the authenticity of the Grimms' tales. The author is a professor of philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford. He received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Michigan and has taught courses in both Western and Eastern Philosophy. He is the author of Adam and Eve: The Spiritual Symbolism of Genesis and Exodus, and editor of more than a dozen volumes of The Collected Works of Rene Guenon. To say that Fohr retrieves fairy tales from the nursery on the one hand, and retrieves them from mere entertainment for adults on the other, is only the start of the matter. Like Freud, Jung, and Levy-Strauss, he recognizes the wisdom folktales embody, but he goes beyond those students of myth in arguing that the authors knew what they were doing: they crafted their tales consciously. This is a courageous and cogent book that goes a long way toward revalidating a literary genre that modernity has irresponsibly trivialized. - Huston Smith, author of The World's Religions, etc.