When I was in high school one of my favorite books was called the Sevenwaters Trilogy and I had no idea that it was a Grimm fairy tale until today
Daughter of the Forest Daughter of the Forest is based loosely on "The Six Swans" Sorcha must sew six shirts from a painful nettle plant in order to save her brothers from a witch's enchantment. They have been turned into Swans and can only be returned to their true forms if she creates a shirt for each brother with her own hands - and she must remain completely mute until the task is finished. But Sorcha falls in love, and this complicates her mission.

Six brothers have been turned into swans by their evil stepmother. They can only take their human forms for fifteen minutes every evening. In order to free them, their sister must make six shirts out of starwort for her brothers, and neither speak nor laugh for six years. A king finds her doing this, is taken by her beauty and marries her. When the Queen has given birth to their first child, the King's wicked mother takes away the child and accuses the Queen, and again with the second and the third. The third time, the Queen is sentenced to be burned at the stake. On the day of her execution, she has all but finished making the shirts for her brothers; only the last shirt misses a left arm. When she is brought to the stake she takes the shirts with her, and when she is about to be burned, six swans come flying through the air. She throws the shirts over her brothers and they regain their human form, except for the youngest brother, who is left with a swan's wing instead of a left arm (in some versions she does not finish the sixth shirt in time, and the youngest brother is left as a swan.) The Queen, now free to speak, can defend herself against the accusations. Her mother-in-law is burned at the stake instead.

I guess it just shows that everything stems from fairy tales and even unintentionally I cannot keep myself away from reading them.

Another one of my favorite fairy tales my mother used to read to me was The Twelve Dancing Princesses. Its about a King who has Twelve Daughter who sneak out of their rooms each night to dance and each night they wear out a pair of shoes. The King who is curious about how the girls wear out their shoes decides to hold a competition for the men in the kingdom. He says whoever can figure out what the girls do each night can marry which ever one he chooses.

I remember whenever my mom would read this to me, my sisters and I would dress up in her silk fabric and force my little brother to dance around the room with us. I always wanted to be one of those princesses who went dancing each night.