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The Elves and the Shoemaker

fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 14, 2026
Entity authorityQ473398 ↗
Source-derived summary

"The Elves and The Shoemaker" (German: Die Wichtelmänner) is a set of fairy tales collected by the Brothers Grimm (KHM 39) about a poor shoemaker who receives much-needed help from three helpful young elves.

The original story is the first of three fairy tales contained as entry 39 in the German Grimm's Fairy Tales under the common title "Die Wichtelmänner". In her translation of 1884 Margaret Hunt chose The Elves as title for these three stories.

The first tale is of Aarne-Thompson (AT) type 503* ("Helpful Elves"), also classified as a migratory legend (AT-7015). The second is of AT 476* type ("A Widwife [or Godmother] for the Elves"), also categorized as a migratory legend (AT 5070). The third tale is of AT 504 type ("The Changeling"), also categorized as a migratory legend (AT 5085).

Origin

The set of related tales was published by the Brothers Grimm in the first edition of Kinder- und Hausmärchen (1812), as tale no. 39. Their versions of the three stories are based upon the accounts of Gretchen Wild (1787–1819).

In the first edition, the three stories are subtitled "The Shoemaker for Whom They Did Work", "The Servant Girl Who Stood In as Godmother for Them", and "The Woman Whose Child They Exchanged", respectively, although the Grimms did not give titles to the individual tales in later editions.

Editorial summary

“The Elves and the Shoemaker” enters the record as fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Elves, Shoemaker and fairy can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1884, 1812, 1787, 1819—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1812. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Elves, Shoemaker and fairy.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“The Elves and the Shoemaker” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Elves, Shoemaker and fairy provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q473398. VIAF identifies the subject as 181845049. The Library of Congress control number is n79141463. None of the 3 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1884, 1812, 1787 and 1819.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “The Elves and the Shoemaker”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow The Elves and the Shoemaker primary sources, The Elves and the Shoemaker archive and Elves research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “The Elves and the Shoemaker” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.