Brothers Grimm, German Brüder Grimm, German folklorists and linguists best known for their Kinder- und Hausmärchen (1812–22; also called Grimm’s Fairy Tales), which led to the birth of the modern study of folklore. Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm (b. January 4, 1785, Hanau, Hesse-Kassel [Germany]—d. September 20, 1863, Berlin) and Wilhelm Carl Grimm (b. February 24, 1786, Hanau, Hesse-Kassel [Germany]—d. December 16, 1859, Berlin) together compiled other collections of folk music and folk literature, and Jacob in particular did important work in historical linguistics and Germanic philology, which included the formulation of Grimm’s law. They were among the most important German