This book sheds new light on the central role of the Grimms' all too often neglected Deutsche Sagen (German Legends), published in 1816-1818 as a follow up to their famous collection of fairy tales. As the chapters in this book demonstrate, Deutsche Sagen, with its firmly nationalistic title, set in motion a cultural tsunami of folklore collection throughout Northern Europe from Ireland and Estonia, which focused initially on the collection of folk legends rather than fairy tales. Grimm Ripples focuses on the initial northward wave of collection between 1816 and 1870, and the letters, introductions and reviews associated with these collections which effectively demonstrate how those involved understood what was being collected. This approach offers important new insights into the key role played by Folkloristics in the Romantic Nationalistic movement of the early nineteenth century. Contributors are: Terry Gunnell, Joep Leerssen, Holger Ehrhardt, Timothy R. Tangherlini, Herleik Baklid, Ane Ohrvik, Line Esborg, Fredrik Skott, John Lindow, Eilis Ni Dhiubhne Almqvist, John Shaw, Jonathan Roper, Kim Simonsen, Rosa THorsteinsdottir, Liina Lukas, Pertti Anttonen, Ulrika Wolf-Knuts, and Susanne OEsterlund-Poetzsch.

This book explores commemoration practices and preservation efforts in modern Britain, focusing on the years from the end of the First World War until the mid-1960s. The changes wrought by war led Britain to reconsider major historical episodes that made up its national narrative. Part of this process was a reassessment of heritage sites, because such places carry socio-political meaning as do the memorials that mark them. This book engages the four-way intersection of commemoration, preservation, tourism, and urban planning at some of the most notable historic locations in England. The various actors in this process-from the national government and regional councils to private organizations and interested individuals-did nothing less than engineer British national memory. The author presents case studies of six famous British places, namely battlefields (Hastings and Bosworth), political sites (Runnymede and Peterloo), and world's fairgrounds (the Crystal Palace and Great White City). In all three genres of heritage sites, one location developed through commemorations and tourism, while the other 'anti-sites' simultaneously faltered as they were neither memorialized nor visited by the masses. Ultimately, the book concludes that the modern social and political environment resulted in the revival, creation, or erasure of heritage sites in the service of promoting British national identity. A valuable read for British historians as well as scholars of memory, public history, and cultural studies, the book argues that heritage emerged as a discursive arena in which British identity was renegotiated through times of transitions, both into a democratic age and an era of geopolitical decline.