As I browsed through the list of fairy tales, I was surprised by how many there are. I am aware of how few I know, only a handful Yet there are hundreds and thousands. I read that fairy tales were designed to entertain and to teach morals, and supposedly reflected the spiritual and cultural beliefs of the time.
As I read them, I am confounded by how gruesome, violent and murdersome they are. There seems to be a lot of cannibalism. Who would have predicted that!
But we can find a few that are more on the light-hearted side. I am particularly partial to numskull tales. I had to include the Catholic Painter, as this is an excellent example of cynicism about religion.
Unfinished Tales A boy finds a key and a mysterious casket. He opens it. A calf's tail lies the casket. 'If the tail had been longer, the tale had been longer too.'
Numskull Tales A manservant is sent to buy the best matches. To make quite sure he strikes all the matches in order to try them before he returns.
Numskulls carry timber down the hill. Then they understand that it would have been better to roll it down. They carry it back up and roll it down.
Religious Tales The Lazy Boy and the Industrious Girl The Lord and Peter come across a very lazy boy and a very clever, industrious girl. The Lord decides, to Peter's astonishment, that these two are to be married.
The Catholic Painter A Catholic painter washes his hands in the holy-water, but escapes corporal punishment when he paints an image of the Virgin Mary on his penis. The parson believes that a miracle has happened.
Our conclusion for the day comes from Albert Einstein:
“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” ― Albert Einstein
How did fairy tales get that formal name? They are folklore stories with a specific definition of being a children's story about magical and imaginary beings and lands.
Merriam Webster indicates that the adjective "fairy-tale" is characteristic or suitable to a fairy tale - marked by seemingly unreal beauty perfection, luck, or happiness.
Fairy tale, the noun, is defined as a story (as for children) involving fantastic forces and beings (such as fairies, wizards, and goblins) or a story in which improbable events lead to a happy ending, or a made-up story usually designed to mislead.
Is Star Wars a fairy tale? It says it is in megaessays.com.
Is The Hobbit a fair tale? It too is identified as a true fairy tale.
The most famous (well-known) fairy tales?
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs tops the list on one site, but Cinderella on another. What about Beauty and the Beast? I think that comes after our first place tie and others like Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, Puss in Boots, Rapunzel, come after these top three.
It seems to me that the easy answer for what makes fairy tales so beloved is their presentation in movies. Our top fairy tale movie producer is Disney and we've benefited from wonderful renditions of fairy tales.
And what about Fairy Tale Jokes:
The little tin soldier had been in the army ever since he was a tiny baby. He was in the infantry!
Rapunzel is not a fairy tale It's a hairy tale.
My girlfriend wanted a marriage just like a fairy tale. Fair enough. I gave her a loaf of bread and left her in the forest.
Why was Cinderella no good at playing hockey? Because she was always running away from the ball!
What kind of pet did Aladdin have? A flying car-pet!
Why was Cinderella such a poor football player ? She had a pumpkin for a coach !
Today we have two pictures on the same day - one with the blue sky and gold trees, and the second cloudy and all the colour gone from the trees. That's Autumn - lots of mood swings - but not the happy fairy tale ending of spring. That is, unless you are willing to wait a few months.
