“The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs” is assigned KHM 29. The number comes from the Grimms’ Kinder- und Hausmärchen, commonly abbreviated KHM for Kinder- und Hausmärchen, or Children’s and Household Tales.
The tale follows a poor boy whose birth is marked by a prophecy that he will marry a king’s daughter. After surviving the king’s attempts to destroy him, the young man must obtain three golden hairs from the Devil. The Devil’s grandmother helps him by plucking the hairs while he sleeps and revealing answers to three riddles troubling nearby communities.
KHM numbering identifies a tale’s place in the Grimm collection, not its folkloric type. A common mix-up is confusing KHM 29 with ATU classifications: this story is associated with ATU 930, the “prophecy” tale, and ATU 461, involving the Devil’s three hairs. Those systems describe different aspects of a tale’s history.
The story was collected in German tradition and later appeared in many children’s adaptations. Some early English versions softened the title to “The Giant and the Three Golden Hairs,” although the Grimm version specifically names the Devil.