Grimm's Fairy Tales Coloring Pages
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were two German brothers who loved old stories. In the early 1800s they started writing down the tales people told around the fire, and their book became one of the most famous story collections in the world. The first versions were a lot darker than the ones we know today, and the brothers softened them a little more with every new edition.
A few of their witches have a page of their own, too. You'll find them on our fairy tale witch coloring pages.
Jump to: Famous Tales | Still Well Loved | Hidden Gems
The Famous Tales
Cinderella (Aschenputtel)
In the Grimm version there's no fairy godmother and no pumpkin coach. Cinderella plants a hazel twig on her mother's grave and waters it with her tears, and the tree that grows there, along with a flock of helpful birds, gives her a gown for the ball. Oh, and her slippers aren't glass. They're gold...
The Frog Prince
A spoiled young princess dropped her favourite golden ball into a deep well and burst into tears. A frog offered to fetch it, but only if she promised he could be her friend, eat from her plate and sleep on her pillow. She promised, grabbed the ball and ran off without him.
That night the frog came knocking at the castle door, and her father the king made her keep her word. She put up with him at dinner, but when he hopped onto her bed she lost her temper and flung him at the wall. Down dropped a handsome prince instead! There's no kiss anywhere in the Grimm version. There is a loyal servant named Henry, though, who'd been so sad about his master that he'd bound his heart with iron bands, and on the ride home they snapped one by one with joy.
Hansel and Gretel
Two children lost in the woods find a little house made of bread and cake, with windows of clear sugar. The old woman who lives there seems kind enough at first, but she has very different plans for her guests...
Hansel and Gretel coloring pages
Little Red Riding Hood
The Grimm brothers gave this story a happier ending than the older French one, thanks to a huntsman who happens to pass Grandmother's cottage. Even better, there's a little-known second part where Red Riding Hood and her grandmother outsmart another wolf all by themselves...
Little Red Riding Hood coloring pages
Rapunzel
Rapunzel was named after a leafy salad plant. Her mother craved it so badly that her father climbed into the enchantress's garden next door to steal some, and that one bunch of greens ended up costing them their baby daughter...
Rumpelstiltskin
A boastful miller told the king his daughter could spin straw into gold, which was a terrible idea, because she couldn't. A strange little man could, though, and his price went up every single night...
Rumpelstiltskin coloring pages
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Here's a surprise: in the very first edition of the Grimm brothers' book, the jealous queen wasn't Snow White's stepmother at all. She was her own mother! The brothers changed it a few years later, but the magic mirror stayed exactly the same...
Still Well Loved
The Bremen Town Musicians
A donkey, a dog, a cat and a rooster were all too old to be useful on their farms, so they ran away together to become musicians in the town of Bremen. On the way they spotted a cosy cottage full of robbers eating a huge dinner. The animals climbed onto each other's backs, with the donkey at the bottom and the rooster on top, and burst into song through the window. The robbers ran off screaming.
Later one robber crept back in the dark and got scratched, bitten, kicked and crowed at all at once. He told the others the house was full of monsters, and they never came back. The animals liked the cottage so much they stayed for good, which means they never actually made it to Bremen.
The Elves and the Shoemaker
A poor shoemaker had just enough leather left for one pair of shoes. He cut it out, left it on his bench and went to bed, and in the morning he found a perfect pair of shoes waiting for him. They sold so quickly that he could buy leather for two pairs, and the next morning those were finished too. It went on like that until he wasn't poor anymore.
One night near Christmas he and his wife hid in the corner to see who was helping them. At midnight two tiny men with no clothes at all hopped up onto the bench and stitched away until dawn. His wife felt so sorry for them that she sewed them little shirts, trousers and shoes. The elves were thrilled with their new outfits and danced right out the door. They never came back, but the shoemaker did well for the rest of his life.
The Twelve Dancing Princesses
Every night the king locked his twelve daughters in their bedroom, and every morning their shoes were danced to pieces. Prince after prince tried to find out why, and every one of them fell asleep on the job. Then an old soldier came along. A wise woman had warned him not to drink the wine the princesses offered, and she'd given him a cloak that made him invisible.
That night he followed them down a hidden staircase into a forest of trees with leaves of silver, gold and sparkling diamonds. He snapped off a twig from each one as proof. The princesses rowed across a lake to a glittering castle and danced until dawn. When the soldier showed the king his twigs, the secret was out, and he got to choose a princess to marry. He picked the eldest, since he wasn't so young himself.
The Golden Goose
The youngest of three brothers was the only one kind enough to share his lunch with a little old man in the forest. As a thank you, the old man showed him a goose with feathers of pure gold, hidden in the roots of a tree. That night at the inn, the innkeeper's daughters tried to sneak a feather, and their hands stuck fast to the goose.
The next morning the young man set off with his goose under his arm and the girls stuck behind him. A parson tried to pull them free and got stuck too, and so did everyone who touched the parson. Soon a whole wobbling parade was stumbling through town. The king's daughter had never laughed in her whole life, but when she saw that parade she laughed until she cried, and in the end she married the young man.
The Fisherman and His Wife
A poor fisherman caught a flounder that turned out to be an enchanted prince, so he let it go. When he got home to the rundown little shack he shared with his wife, she was cross that he hadn't asked for a wish. Back he went, and the fish gave her a pretty cottage.
It wasn't enough. She wanted a castle, then to be king, then emperor, and every time the fisherman went back, the sea looked darker and rougher. Finally she wanted the power to make the sun and moon rise. This time, when the fisherman called the fish over the crashing waves, it simply told him to go home. His wife was sitting in their old shack again, right where she'd started.
Hidden Gems
The Goose Girl
A princess set off to marry a faraway prince, riding her talking horse Falada with her maid beside her. On the way, the maid bullied her into swapping clothes and places, and when they arrived, everyone believed the maid was the princess. The real princess was sent to look after the geese.
The maid made sure Falada could never tell anyone what had happened, but the princess asked for his head to be hung above the town gate. Every morning as she drove the geese underneath, it spoke to her. In the end the old king heard her pour out the whole story, put her back in her rightful place and saw to it that the maid got what she deserved.
The Six Swans
A king married the daughter of a witch, and his new wife turned his six sons into swans with enchanted shirts. Only their little sister escaped. She learned that to break the spell she'd have to stay completely silent for six years while she sewed six shirts out of starflowers.
She kept at it even after a king found her in the forest and married her, and even when his mother told awful lies about her and nobody would listen, because she wasn't allowed to speak up for herself. On the very last day, the six swans swooped down and she threw the shirts over them. Her brothers turned back into men, all except the youngest, whose last shirt was missing a sleeve, so he kept one swan's wing for the rest of his life.
The Brave Little Tailor
A little tailor swatted seven flies with one blow and was so proud of himself that he stitched "Seven at One Blow!" onto a belt. Everyone who read it assumed he meant seven men, and he didn't bother to correct them.
He fooled a giant by squeezing a lump of cheese and pretending it was a stone, then tricked two more giants into fighting each other by dropping rocks on them while they slept. When the king sent him after a unicorn, he dodged at the last moment so its horn stuck fast in a tree. By the end he'd married a princess and become a king, and he never once let on that it all started with a few flies on his jam.
The Juniper Tree
This is the darkest tale in the whole collection, so we'll keep it short. A cruel stepmother did something terrible to her stepson, and his little sister Marlene, heartbroken, buried what was left of him under the juniper tree in their garden.
Out of the tree flew a beautiful bird that sang its sad song all over town. A goldsmith gave it a gold chain to hear it again, a shoemaker gave it a pair of red shoes, and the millers gave it a heavy millstone. The bird flew home and dropped the chain for the father and the shoes for Marlene. The millstone landed on the stepmother, and that was the end of her. Then, in a puff of smoke, the boy was back, safe and sound.
Mother Holle
A hardworking girl dropped her spindle down a well, and her stepmother told her to go and fetch it. She jumped in and woke up in a sunny meadow. Along the way she took fresh loaves out of an oven before they burned and shook a tree until all its ripe apples tumbled down.
At last she reached the house of Mother Holle, a kind old woman with very big teeth. The girl worked for her and shook out her featherbed every day until the feathers flew, which is what makes it snow down here on earth. When she grew homesick, Mother Holle sent her home under a shower of gold. Her lazy stepsister tried the same trick and came home covered in sticky black pitch instead. Mother Holle shows up as Frau Holle on our witches from myth and folklore page too.