There's something that's a load of fun when it comes to fairy tales. Fairy tales aren't just short stories that are set in a fantastic storybook land, they aren't always just little morality tales, often wrapped in gruesome scenery; nor are they public domain cash cows for the Disney company to make bank on; they're something else entirely. They're older than we imagine (barring fairy tales written by more contemporary authors), often illogical, and don't follow the normal conventions of a short story.

History of Fairy Tales

Let's face it, we've probably been telling fairy tales since we first developed language. They're entertaining, able to teach lessons, and give us a fun escape. They can be religious in nature, but they aren't necessarily so. Even more remarkable, however, is how long some of these fairy tales have survived, migrating from culture to culture and evolving as they go, almost like a life-form!

Wilhelm Grimm posited in 1884 that the fairy tales he and his brother Jacob were collecting were far, far older than anyone thought, possibly predating the Dark Ages. The fascinating thing is that we've now learned that he's right.

Some fairy tales can be traced back to 6,000 years ago.

The Smith and the Devil is around 6,000-years-old, while Beauty and the Beast is usually placed between 4,000-6,000-years-old. Cinderella got many of its more recognizable plot elements when it reached China, but the story may actually have its origin in Ancient Egypt.

Scientists are able to trace these stories by looking for familiar stories and elements throughout world history, allowing us to also trace our own Indo-European language ancestry.

For example, let's look at Little Red Riding Hood. There are many, many different versions of this story that were floating around even throughout the medieval period.

Little Red's adversary has been anything from a wolf to a werewolf and even an ogress. Sometimes a heroic woodcutter rescues both her and her grandmother, and sometimes her grandmother has a trap prepared just in case the foolish wolf returns.

Other times, both Little Red and her grandmother are devoured with no rescue in sight. Sometimes her grandmother dies, but Little Red escapes on her own. In particularly morbid versions, she is sometimes asked by the wolf (or werewolf or what have you) to undress before climbing in bed with the disguised villain, and sometimes she is even tricked into eating the flesh of her grandmother and washing it down with her blood – a perversion of the Eucharist.

By tracing these various elements and connecting them to similar stories told elsewhere, you can get a general idea of which versions can be traced to places like India, where the wolf is often replaced with a tiger, and what elements probably popped up in Europe.

The Appeal of Fairy Tales

Most of us have grown up on fairy tales to one degree or another, even if the only form you know them from comes from Disney. There's something so appealing about them, though, and not in a snarky parents-can-easily-knock-one-out-before-bedtime type of way.

Fairy tales are seeped in fantasy, but they're usually secular. Moreover, when they do teach a moral (and they don't always) it's usually something rather broad, something that transcends the cultural barrier. We all want our children to judge people on the content of their character, to beware of strangers, to respect other people's property, etc.

Even when they don't teach a moral, people the world over find the story entertaining. Think Rumpelstiltskin, the trickster who forces the heroine to guess his name in order to save her child. It's a popular story that's been told in many cultures, even if the name isn't always Rumpelstiltskin and sometimes the character is a witch. Sometimes the heroine isn't even all that likable!

What I like about them, personally, is the dreamlike nature that pervades them. Short stories follow structure, with characters that are complex and a narrative that manages to weave subtext into the short time readers will have with it. They're wonderful, and I write a lot of them, but fairy tales take on a more ambiguous quality.

Whereas short stories that exist within the realm of fantasy will still try and follow the rules of the world the author has built, fairy tales don't concern themselves with the logical implications of the things that are happening.

If a donkey's severed head starts talking to the heroine, for example, she finds it neither strange nor frightening; but even so, there's no reason to assume that this is a normal occurrence in the world she inhabits. In the way our dreaming selves can find the inability to get up to speed during a zombie invasion frustrating but not improbable, or talking to one of your heroes akin to sending an email to a coworker, the characters of a fairy tale tend to take these strange events in stride, only bothering to react when some misfortune befalls them, like being turned into a frog.

The fairy tale never bothers to explain itself to you, for it just wants you to have a good time with it. It's simple, and while it exudes life lessons that are meant to be applicable to all, it dishes out these lessons in a flurry of chaos.

This is the joy of fairy tales.