Fairy tale

A fairy tale is an English language expression for a kind of short story. It has the same meaning as the French expression conte de fée or Conte merveilleux, the German word Märchen, the Italian fiaba, the Polish baśń, the Russian сказка or the Swedish saga. These stories are not all directly about fairies,^[1] but they are different from legends and traditions (which usually say that the stories are true)^[2] and directly moral stories.

Fairy tales are usually set during the Middle Ages (but some are more modern) and typically include royalty, knights and fantasy elements such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, giants or gnomes and usually magic.

Fairy tales can also mean unusual happiness (for example, the expression "fairy tale ending", meaning a happy ending, even though not all fairy tales have a happy ending).^[3] Also, "fairy tale" can simply mean any unbelievable story.

Where demons and witches are seen as real, fairy tales can sometimes be similar to legends, where the story is claimed to be historically true. However, differently from legends and epics, they usually do not specifically mention religion and actual places, people, and events. They also do not say exactly when it happened. Instead, they say that the story happened "once upon a time".^[4]

Fairy tales are found in oral form (passed on from mouth to mouth) and in literary form (written down). Fairy tales' histories are hard to find. This is because only written fairy tales can be passed on for a long time. Still, literary works show that there have been fairy tales for thousands of years. Many fairy tales today have are based on very old stories that have appeared, though in different ways, in many different cultures around the world.^[5] Fairy tales, and works based on from fairy tales, are still written today.

At first, fairy tales were for both adults and children, but now children are mostly connected with fairy tales. Examples of traditional old fairy tales are Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood and "The Three Little Pigs". There can also be new fairy tales written by an author, like The Little Mermaid or Pinocchio. New fairy tales were for example written by Hans Christian Andersen, James Thurber and Oscar Wilde.

1. ↑ "fairy tale -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia". britannica.com. Retrieved 20 July 2010.
2. ↑ Thompson, Stith. Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology & Legend, 1972 s.v. "Fairy Tale"
3. ↑ Merriam-Webster definition of "fairy tale"
4. ↑ Catherine Orenstein, Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked, p. 9. ISBN 0-465-04125-6
5. ↑ Gray, Richard. "Fairy tales have ancient origin." Archived 2014-07-17 at the Wayback Machine Telegraph.co.uk. 5 September 2009.