Fairytales

In its simplest usage, a fairytale is a story for children. Most modern fairytales originated from the interpretations by The Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen and others like Charles Perrault, although all of these draw from earlier folk tales that have origins in oral tradition. It should also be noted that many of these, especially the Grimm Brothers originals, often have darker elements that are usually sanitised by modern child-friendly tellings.

Few fairytales actually feature Fairies. Most fairytales concern adolescents or innocents – children, orphans, princesses, while antagonists are figures like evil stepmothers or wicked witches. The story frequently requires a journey – often through The Woods – and the innocent undergoing peril to find rescue (often from a prince) and arrive at a place where they receive the gift of true love whereupon comes the refrain “… and they lived happily ever after.” The fantastic enters in the form of magic, talking animals and witches.

There have been a great many fairytale adaptations since the early days of cinema. For a time, Disney produced a series of classic animated versions and there have been a great many other works produced both animated and live-action, all drawing from classic and familiar tales. A number of these are musical and/or ballet interpretations.

There is also body of deconstructed fairytales where the elements of familiar stories are put to very different usages. The most common of these is seeing the fairytale updated into modern surroundings often with comical or less-than-innocent results, or of stories where Little Red Riding Hood encounters werewolves or Hansel and Gretel’s witch is a cannibal. Other versions posit the idea that characters from classic fairytales inhabit shared worlds.