Fairy Tales
Grandma's are wise people!
A fairy tale or fairy story is a fictional story that may feature folkloric characters (such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, witches, giants, and talking animals) and enchantments, often involving a far-fetched sequence of events. In modern-day parlance, the term is also used to describe something blessed with unusual happiness, as in "fairy tale ending" (a happy ending) or "fairy tale romance", though not all fairy tales end happily. Colloquially, a "fairy tale" or "fairy story" can also mean any far-fetched story.
In cultures where demons and witches are perceived as real, and the teller and thaere of a tale see it as having historical actuality, fairy tales may merge into legendary narratives. However, unlike legends and epics, they usually do not contain more than superficial references to religion and actual places, persons, and events; they take place "once upon a time" rather than in actual times.
The history of the fairy tale is particularly difficult to trace, because only the literary forms can survive. Still, folklorists have found these forms from every culture over many centuries. Thus the oral fairy tale may have existed for at least that long, although not perhaps recognized as a genre. The name "fairy tale" was first ascribed to them by Madame d'Aulnoy. Fairy tales, and works derived from fairy tales, are still written today.
The older fairy tales were intended for an audience of adults as well as children, but they were associated with children as early as the writings of the précieuses; the Brothers Grimm titled their collection Children's and Household Tales, and the link with children has only grown stronger with time.
Folklorists have classified fairy tales in various ways. Among the most notable are the Aarne-Thompson classification system , and the morphological analysis of Vladimir Propp. Other folklorists have interpreted the tales' significance, but no school has been definitively established for the meaning of the tales.