The Brothers Grimm (German: Die Brüder Grimm or Die Gebrüder Grimm) Jacob Grimm (January 4, 1785 – September 20, 1863) and Wilhelm Grimm (February 24, 1786 – December 16, 1859) were German academics, linguists and cultural researchers who collected the old folk tales and published several collections of folk- and fairy tales, called Grimm's Fairy Tales, which subsequently became very popular.[1] Jacob also carried out academic work in philology, related to how the sounds in words shift over time (Grimm's law), he was also a lawyer, his legal work, "German Legal Antiquities" (German: Deutsche Rechtsaltertümer) in 1828, made him a valuable testimony about the origin and meaning of many legal historical idioms and symbolism.[2] They can be counted along with Karl Lachmann and Georg Friedrich Benecke as founding fathers of Germanic philology and German studies. Both brothers began to compile the first German dictionary. Jacob, who was able to complete the letters A, B, C and E, died on September 20, 1863 before completing the processing of the article with the letter F and "fruit".