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 Fantasy: May 02, 2018 Issue [#8878] |
  Fantasy This week: Once Upon A Time - Then and Now Edited by: Kate - Writing & Reading   More Newsletters By This Editor   1. About this Newsletter 2. A Word from our Sponsor 3. Letter from the Editor 4. Editor's Picks 5. A Word from Writing.Com 6. Ask & Answer 7. Removal instructions 
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Although Mme. d’Aulnoy is credited for inventing the phrase to define her stories and those written by her Italian and French peers during that era, they are not the first written “Fairy Tales.” Spin back in time to Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales,” and further back to Ancient Greece for Aesop’s famous “Fables” (6th Century BCE) and, some historians claim, even farther back to ancient Egypt around 1300 BCE! 
The oral folk tradition of fairy tales is even longer, and draws from the rich history and mythology of the people whose culture it reflects. Some are woven into legendary narratives of interactions with the fairies, elves, dragons and giants which once lived more openly with mortals throughout the world. The ‘fairy tale’ as we now characterize it usually features characters found in such folklore (i.e., fairies, goblins, elves, giants, talking animals) and enchantments, a fantastic sequence of events and most often ending happily. They do not refer to specific locations, persons or time periods, as they often begin “once upon a time.”
Perhaps the best known fairy tales are the stories compiled by the Brothers Grimm, who collected oral folktales, originally written in the early 1800s, where the Brothers Grimm sought to preserve the characters and plots of oral German folk tales in written form. In later editions, the stories were edited to make them more suitable for children, and were published in the late 1800s as a collection entitled "Children’s and Household Tales." Pressure from publishers in the 1900s resulted in even more rewriting in translations to make them suitable for younger children, and today’s common image of the child’s fairy story was defined, perhaps along with the coinage of a happy ending as a ‘fairy tale ending.’ . (
The Fairy Tale continues its evolution today, while also holding fast its original and common literary image. American Heritage Dictionary defines a fairy tale as both “1. A fanciful tale of legendary deeds and creatures, usually intended for children,” and “2. A fictitious, highly fanciful story or explanation.”
Fairy Tales are embraced throughout the world, by adults and kids alike. From nursery rhymes (often a child’s first exposure to literature), to some manga {i.e., “Sandman”), and individual stories worldwide, creative authors of poetry and prose incorporate at times elements of oral history, science, local color, images, comics, film, manga, along with myth and fantasy. This literary form, an oral storyteller's tradition translated to written form, has morphed with the times, while holding its sense of magic, of possibility. 
Fairy Tales today evolve with the vision of the writers of stories and poems who transport us to magical and mystical places and show us events that occurred, or may yet occur, “once upon a time.”
