Fairy tales originated from myths and legends to explain events. They feature good triumphing over evil, magical creatures, and trials for the hero. Versions can vary, and some are sanitized for children. Modern media often references fairy tales, and a collection can be found online.
Ever since people have been recording their history, they have been telling stories. In the days when people didn’t know the world as much as they do now, they made up myths or legends to explain the events. The fairy tale was born from those stories.
Both children and adults love a good fairy tale. In the archetypal story, good conquers evil, the bad are punished, the good thrive. The hero and heroine must pass trials to prevail, and magical and magical creatures usually appear, but in the end the protagonist is victorious. Magic is generally the deus ex machina that saves the day.
A fairy tale can exist in several versions. A good example is Little Red Riding Hood. One release is strictly a cautionary tale. Little Red Riding Hood disobeys her mother, talks to the wolf and ends up being eaten by him. Then finish off all the naughty kids. However, another version of the story has Little Red Riding Hood being chased by the wolf, who grabs his hood, which, enchanted by her grandmother, burns his mouth. He plunges into the village well and drowns. Some versions have the wolf eating the grandmother but being killed by a hunter, who opens the wolf and saves the grandmother.
These stories can also often be sanitized so as not to frighten the children. Sleeping Beauty in her original form had the prince’s mother portrayed as an ogress who eventually attempted to have Sleeping Beauty and her children killed so the ogress could eat them. The Disney version features the terrifying Maleficent, but once she’s been defeated and Aurora awakens to that fateful kiss, all is well forever. They all live “happily ever after,” in fact. Disney’s version of Sleeping Beauty comes pretty close to the original, but many of her parents found it too scary for their children.
The fairy tale is an important component in children’s literature. Many modern themes in film and television are derived from the fairy tale, in motif if not plot. Modern people often use Cinderella as an example of any person or group with low prospects who succeeded despite the odds. “Prince Charming” is the beautiful-ideal of virility. The Shrek film series probably works as well as any other modern media in skewering the genre, but the jokes are much funnier when the viewer is familiar with the original tales. However, the story is an ideal medium for children to exercise their imagination.
A complete collection of the most common fairy tales can be found online at classicreader.com. Storybooks compiled and edited by literary critic Andrew Lang are available there. He compiled these books in the second half of the 19th century and his books by him are required reading for all fairy tale enthusiasts around the world.
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