Original is the Brothers Grimm's own complete text: thirteen tales from Kinder- und Hausmärchen (seventh edition, Berlin 1857) and two legends from Deutsche Sagen (text of the third edition, 1891). The wording is theirs, uncut, grim endings included. Only the spelling follows today's rules (dass, musste, Schloss), as modern German editions do, and long paragraphs are divided for easier reading.

Leicht and Mittel are retellings written for this reader. Leicht uses short sentences in the present tense and softens the harshest moments; Mittel tells the whole tale in plain modern German and keeps the famous rhymes.

The Grimm texts are in the public domain. The digital text comes from the DiBiLit corpus of the Deutsches Textarchiv (CC BY-SA 4.0), after the Winkler editions (Munich 1977 and 1965); a few scanning slips were corrected against the 1857 wording.