Grimm Brothers Fairy Tales List: The Famous Tales in Order, With Their Numbers

The Grimm brothers fairy tales list, in its final 1857 edition, holds 200 numbered stories plus 10 children's legends, running from The Frog King (no. 1) to The Golden Key (no. 200), with classics like Hansel and Gretel (15), Cinderella (21), Little Red Cap (26), Snow White (53) and Rumpelstiltskin (55) along the way. Below you will find the most famous tales in numerical order, short notes on the ten everyone knows, how the collection grew from 86 tales in 1812 to its final size, and the best places to read every story online. These are the tales that still feed books, films and video games two centuries later.

How many fairy tales did the Brothers Grimm collect?

The Brothers Grimm collected 200 numbered tales plus 10 children's legends in the final version of their Children's and Household Tales, published in 1857. Folklorist D. L. Ashliman's Grimm Brothers' Home Page at the University of Pittsburgh traces the growth:

• 1812: volume one appears, "an unpretentious book containing 86 numbered folktales."
• 1814: volume two appears, "pre-dated 1815, adding 70 stories to the previous collection."
• 1819 to 1857: six more editions follow during the brothers' lifetimes, and the final one contains "200 numbered stories plus 10" children's legends.

Ashliman adds that the book "is destined to become the best known and most influential book ever created in the German language." The Library of Congress counts the same way, describing storyteller Dorothea Viehmann as having contributed "35 of the 210 tales that appear in the authoritative seventh and final edition (1857)."

One important detail: the Grimms collected and edited these stories rather than inventing them. As Jack Zipes explains in The Public Domain Review, the tales "were collected mainly from literate people whom the Grimms came to know quite well," and some came from books or letters.

What is the Grimm fairy tales list in order?

The standard Grimm fairy tales list in order follows the numbers of the final 1857 edition, often written as KHM numbers after the German title, Kinder- und Hausmärchen. Ashliman explains that "The number preceding each title represents the tale's KHM number, i.e., the tale's number in the Grimms' final edition (1857)." Here are the best-known tales in that order, with English titles as given in Ashliman's complete numbered list and the German titles:

• No. 1 The Frog King, or Iron Heinrich (Der Froschkönig oder der eiserne Heinrich)
• No. 4 The Story of a Boy Who Went Forth to Learn Fear (Märchen von einem, der auszog das Fürchten zu lernen)
• No. 6 Faithful Johannes (Der treue Johannes)
• No. 9 The Twelve Brothers (Die zwölf Brüder)
• No. 11 Little Brother and Little Sister (Brüderchen und Schwesterchen)
• No. 12 Rapunzel (Rapunzel)
• No. 15 Hansel and Gretel (Hänsel und Gretel)
• No. 17 The White Snake (Die weiße Schlange)
• No. 19 The Fisherman and His Wife (Von dem Fischer un syner Fru)
• No. 20 The Brave Little Tailor (Das tapfere Schneiderlein)
• No. 21 Cinderella (Aschenputtel)
• No. 24 Frau Holle (Frau Holle)
• No. 25 The Seven Ravens (Die sieben Raben)
• No. 26 Little Red Cap (Rotkäppchen)
• No. 27 The Bremen Town Musicians (Die Bremer Stadtmusikanten)
• No. 28 The Singing Bone (Der singende Knochen)
• No. 29 The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs (Der Teufel mit den drei goldenen Haaren)
• No. 31 The Girl without Hands (Das Mädchen ohne Hände)
• No. 37 Thumbthick (Daumesdick)
• No. 39 The Elves (Die Wichtelmänner)
• No. 44 Godfather Death (Der Gevatter Tod)
• No. 46 Fitcher's Bird (Fitchers Vogel)
• No. 47 The Juniper Tree (Von dem Machandelboom)
• No. 49 The Six Swans (Die sechs Schwäne)
• No. 50 Little Brier-Rose (Dornröschen)
• No. 53 Little Snow-White (Sneewittchen)
• No. 55 Rumpelstiltskin (Rumpelstilzchen)
• No. 57 The Golden Bird (Der goldene Vogel)
• No. 64 The Golden Goose (Die goldene Gans)
• No. 65 All-Kinds-Of-Fur (Allerleirauh)
• No. 83 Hans in Luck (Hans im Glück)
• No. 89 The Goose-Girl (Die Gänsemagd)
• No. 97 The Water of Life (Das Wasser des Lebens)
• No. 101 Bearskin (Der Bärenhäuter)
• No. 116 The Blue Light (Das blaue Licht)
• No. 133 The Shoes That Were Danced to Pieces (Die zertanzten Schuhe)
• No. 136 Iron Hans (Der Eisenhans)
• No. 153 The Star Talers (Die Sterntaler)
• No. 161 Snow-White and Rose-Red (Schneeweißchen und Rosenrot)
• No. 187 The Hare and the Hedgehog (Der Hase und der Igel)
• No. 200 The Golden Key (Der goldene Schlüssel)

English titles vary by translator. Margaret Hunt's classic translation on Project Gutenberg, for example, calls no. 6 "Faithful John," no. 37 "Thumbling" and no. 50 "Little Briar-Rose," but the numbers stay the same, which is why the KHM number is the safest way to find a tale.

Which Grimm fairy tales are the most famous?

The most famous Grimm fairy tales are the ten or so that became worldwide classics: Snow White, Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Cap, Rapunzel, Little Brier-Rose, Rumpelstiltskin, The Frog King, The Bremen Town Musicians and The Brave Little Tailor. A quick guide to each, by number, based on Margaret Hunt's translation on Project Gutenberg:

• The Frog King (1). A princess's promise to a frog comes back to bite her. It opens the whole collection.
• Rapunzel (12). A girl with very long hair is locked in a tower by a sorceress.
• Hansel and Gretel (15). Two siblings abandoned in the woods find a little house "built of bread and covered with cakes" and outwit the witch who lives there.
• The Brave Little Tailor (20). A tailor swats seven flies, stitches "Seven at one stroke!" on his belt, and talks his way into a giant-sized reputation.
• Cinderella (21). In the Grimm version, called Aschenputtel, help comes from a tree on her mother's grave and two white pigeons, not a fairy godmother.
• Little Red Cap (26). The Grimms' version of Little Red Riding Hood.
• The Bremen Town Musicians (27). Four old animals set out to become musicians and scare off a band of robbers.
• Little Brier-Rose (50). The Grimms' Sleeping Beauty.
• Little Snow-White (53). The mirror, the poisoned apple and the glass coffin all come from this tale.
• Rumpelstiltskin (55). A little man spins straw into gold and can only be beaten by guessing his name.

Other tales are less known but much loved by readers who dig deeper, such as The Juniper Tree (47), Fitcher's Bird (46) and The Seven Ravens (25), the story of a sister who walks to the end of the world to rescue her brothers. We tell that one in full in our article on the seven ravens story.

Which Grimm tales are missing from the final list?

Several tales from the first edition are missing from the final list because the Grimms removed or replaced them. Zipes, in The Public Domain Review, names "The Hand with the Knife," "How Some Children Played at Slaughtering," "Puss in Boots" and "Bluebeard" among the stories "deleted in the following editions for various reasons." Some, like "Puss in Boots" and "Bluebeard," "were considered too French to be included."

That also explains why the list changed shape. Marina Warner notes in The New York Review of Books that "by the Grimms' final and definitive edition in 1857, the total had grown to over two hundred, many quite different from the original form." For how the first versions differed, see our guide to the Grimm fairy tales original versions.

Where can you read the complete Grimm fairy tales list?

You can read every numbered Grimm tale online through university and library collections. The most useful options:

• Ashliman's numbered list at the University of Pittsburgh: all 200 tales with English and German titles, folktale type numbers and links to his translations.
• Margaret Hunt's Household Tales on Project Gutenberg: the classic complete English translation, organized by number.
• The history at the source. GRIMMWELT, the Brothers Grimm museum in Kassel, explains that the illustrated "Small Edition," "which brought the Brothers world renown," was published in 1825, and that the brothers' personal copies of 1812/1815, with handwritten notes, were added to the UNESCO "Memory of the World" list in 2005.
• The first English translations. The Library of Congress notes that the tales were first translated into English by Edgar Taylor as German Popular Stories, in two volumes, in 1823 and 1826.

Where does Coins Catcher: Co-op Lands fit?

Coins Catcher: Co-op Lands is an online co-op 3D platformer by solo developer Alehundred whose story comes from tale no. 25 on this list, The Seven Ravens, twisted on purpose. In the game, a shadowy curse traps a princess and her seven brothers, her guardians, become seven giant beasts, one per historical era, from a wolf in Italy 1956 to a giant spider in Alexandria 300 BC. Up to 8 players, 10 cm (about 4 inches) tall, collect coins, spend them on talents and to unlock the next eras, defeat the enemies and the beast of each era, then race up its tower for the Magic Gem; seven gems break the spell. It plays together online across PC on Steam, mobile and VR, with voice chat for everyone.

FAQ

How many Grimm fairy tales are there?

The final 1857 edition contains 200 numbered tales plus 10 children's legends, 210 texts in all. The first edition was smaller: 86 tales in 1812 and 70 more in the second volume dated 1815.

What is the first Grimm fairy tale on the list?

The Frog King, or Iron Heinrich (Der Froschkönig oder der eiserne Heinrich) is number 1 in the final edition. The last numbered tale is The Golden Key (no. 200).

What are 10 famous Grimm fairy tales?

The Frog King (1), Rapunzel (12), Hansel and Gretel (15), The Brave Little Tailor (20), Cinderella (21), Little Red Cap (26), The Bremen Town Musicians (27), Little Brier-Rose (50), Little Snow-White (53) and Rumpelstiltskin (55).

What does KHM mean in the Grimm fairy tales list?

KHM is short for Kinder- und Hausmärchen, the German title of Children's and Household Tales. A KHM number is a tale's number in the final 1857 edition, so KHM 25 is The Seven Ravens and KHM 53 is Little Snow-White.

What are examples of lesser-known Grimm fairy tales?

Good examples are The Juniper Tree (47), Fitcher's Bird (46), The Singing Bone (28), Godfather Death (44), The Girl without Hands (31) and The Seven Ravens (25). They are darker and stranger than the famous ten and worth reading in a faithful translation.

Sources

1. Ashliman DL. Grimm Brothers' Home Page. University of Pittsburgh, 1999-2013.
2. Ashliman DL. The Grimm Brothers' Children's and Household Tales (Grimms' Fairy Tales). University of Pittsburgh, 1998-2020.
3. Armenti P. A Grimm Beginning. The Catbird Seat, Library of Congress, 2012.
4. Grimm J, Grimm W; Hunt M, trans. Household Tales. Project Gutenberg, eBook #5314.
5. GRIMMWELT Kassel. The Children's and Household Tales. GRIMMWELT Kassel.
6. Zipes J. The Forgotten Tales of the Brothers Grimm. The Public Domain Review, 2012.
7. Warner M. Rescuing Wonderful Shivery Tales. The New York Review of Books, 2015.

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