Fairy Tale Road - Observation #3

For those cities where the connection to a Grimms’ fairy tale was rather loose, various towns have “adopted” a story as their own. Sure, Bremen has the Bremen Town Musicians and Hameln has the Pied Piper. Then, there are those towns whose primary connection to the Brothers Grimm is solely based on a birthplace (Hanau), childhood home (Steinau), or a university town where the duo taught (Marburg or Gottingen). What happens the rest of those quaint little German towns that find themselves peppered along this route?

Answer: you adopt a fairy tale and put up a monument that references this fairy tale. (Reminds me of the Texas walnut bowl factory, snake farm, giant ball of twine, or candle factory). Still, thumbs up to the marketing gurus who conceived the notion and put the tourist route together. After all, I am proof porsitive that the marketing worked….

The tale of the “little boy who lost his sock” and monument in Lauterbach.



Pied Piper in Hameln, although this tale is legitimately connected to this town.



The “little girl and the goose” story and her monument in Gottingen.



While technically not a fairy tale, Bodenwerder, home of Baron von Munchhausen, the teller of great whoppers. This monument tells of one of this stories…the horse that was cut in two.