Fairy tales are traditional stories with magical elements and talking animals, often used for education and entertainment. They feature fantasy and magic, short storylines, and a conflict between a hero and villain with a happy ending. They provide practical or moral lessons and were important before modern technologies. Different types of folktales exist, including cumulative, humorous, and realistic. They were initially passed down orally and later collected in books by authors such as the Grimm brothers. The original author is often unknown, and different versions exist in different cultures.
A fairy tale is a traditional type of story that tries to explain something or that is meant to help people do well in the world. Such stories are usually based in fiction with magical or supernatural elements and are often woven around talking animals, real, peasant or mythical creatures. Initially passed down through oral tradition, they were an important means of education and entertainment before the development of printed materials and modern technologies, and remain vital in preserving aspects of the culture in which they occur.
Main features
How exactly to define what a folktale is and isn’t is a matter of debate, but stories that fall into this category generally exhibit some very distinguishable characteristics, such as starting with “once upon a time” and ending with “and they all lived happily ever after”. happy”. .” They traditionally feature elements of fantasy or magic, as well as creatures such as giants, goblins, fairies, elves and dwarves. They are usually quite short, often taking only a few minutes to tell or read, and the storylines are often melodramatic in nature, with a conflict between a hero and a villain where all ends happily, good triumphs and justice is properly served. .
Another feature of a fairy tale is that it survives or is well known for multiple generations. Initially, people passed down these stories orally, and this method of sharing tales, coupled with the general difficulties and slow travel, often resulted in the development of more than one version of the same story. Even so, the heart of the storylines and the reasons for telling them typically remain the same, mirroring the values and culture of the society from which they originated.
Realism and purpose
In general, these stories are usually fictional in the sense that the people, places, and events depicted are largely fictional. In fact, people usually readily admit that they’re probably not true. However, they are closely related to legends, as people sometimes come to see at least one aspect or character as real. A good example would be the story of a witch told in a group who believe that witches really exist.
Regardless of how real audiences believe stories to be, folktales almost always provide some practical or moral lesson. Alternatively, he can explain how something works or came about. The Three Little Pigs, for example, teaches that being willing to work and think critically about how to prepare can protect someone from intruders or general danger. The fact that people can derive and apply practical meaning from characters and storylines is part of what makes them so popular and enduring.
Reasons for initial common use
Before the Internet, newspapers, radio, television and other types of media, technology could not be relied upon to pass the time, and much of the world was illiterate. As a result, people relied on storytellers for both entertainment and education. Additionally, groups needed ways to preserve their cultures. Fairy tales met all of these needs, providing lessons that were long-lasting and constructed in a way that members of a group could understand based on their experiences and beliefs.
Get up to print
In 1450, when Johan Gutenberg invented the movable type printing press, the emergence of the book publishing industry made it possible for people to publish books of different genres. In the 1800s, Europeans actively began collecting regional folktales into books in an effort to record and preserve their cultural history. Examples of people involved in this movement are Joseph Jacobs from England, Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm from Germany and Peter Asbjornsen and Moe Jorgen from Norway. Their versions of these stories can still be found in anthologies and picture books around the world.
Actions
Various types of folk tales exist in the world today. The cumulative variety features a plotless story where events follow a repeating pattern. Tales of this type include The House Jack Built and There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly. Fairy tales or beast tales, such as The Three Billy Goats Gruff, feature animals that talk like humans and usually teach lessons about the rewards of being brave, independent, and intelligent. The humorous subcategory includes goofy stories about characters who do ridiculous things and make funny mistakes. A good example is Jack and the Three Nonsense.
There are also realistic folktales, such as Bluebeard, that contain very little magic and feature a more believable or realistic plot, setting, and characters. Religious stories feature biblical and other faith-based characters, while novels are filled with stereotypical sweet, beautiful women and strong, handsome men, who are often mistreated but rise to love, power and fame, or who they are some kind of royalty – Cinderella is a classic in this subcategory. Magical versions center around spells or enchanted items that usually help the main character succeed. The Chinese story The Magic Belt falls into this group. Other types include why or pourquoi, fairies, buffoons, tricksters, and tall tales.
Paternity
With oral tradition carrying these folktales from generation to generation and from place to place, tracing an original author is difficult, if not impossible. Most of the time, they’re labeled “anonymous” or “traditional,” but sometimes, specific versions have attributions noting the person or group of people who wrote or preserved particular narratives, which helps maintain the different arrangements of the narrative. same straight stories. Sometimes, this appears in print along with the country the story is thought to be from.
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