Helen mentioned that the brothers Grimm had nothing on the Irish-- their fairy tales are tame

I wonder if NicholasW or any of the other philologists (archaic but euphonious, so I don't give a damn), could confirm or deny my understanding that the fairy tales collected by the Brothers Grimm were more an excercise in documenting linguistics patterns, and shifts therein, than an attempt to entertain children. I also remember reading somewhere that Jakob and Wilhelm bowdlerised the stories a little after the first edition, apparently so that parents didn't have to worry about their own little Hansels und Gretels coming up to them after reading Sleeping Beauty and pleading: "Mutti, Vati what is necrophilia?"