FAIRY TALE - FAIRY TALES - DEFINITIONS, ANTHOLOGIES, and MISCELLANEOUS Stories, Folktales, Folklore, Fairy Tales, Legends, Myths, History, Nursery Rhymes, Fantasy & Facts Story Lovers World The Story Lovers World home page is at: http://www.story-lovers.com To add to the category below, please e-mail jackie@storyloversworld.com

FAIRY TALE - FAIRY TALES - DEFINITIONS, ANTHOLOGIES and MISCELLANEOUS Stories, Folktales, Folklore, Fairy Tales, Legends, Myths, History, Nursery Rhymes, Fantasy & Facts Scroll down or click on your choice below • Fairy Tale Definitions • Online links to stories/info - Fairy Tales • SOS: Searching Out Stories - Fairy Tale Anthologies

FAIRY TALE DEFINITIONS

Online links are in blue and underlined. Click on them for more information.


1) Take a look at the Themes In Folklore section.
84.04.01: Folklore in the Oral Tradition, Fairytales, Fables and Folk-legend
http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1984/4/84.04.01.x.html

2) And another article as well.
Children's Literature -- Articles -- Fairrosa Cyber Library
http://www.dalton.org/libraries/fairrosa/disc/fairytale.definition.html


3) Both "folk tale" and "fairy tale" suffer from the same problem: both are used two ways--generically and discretely. Generically, "Fairy Tales" is used to mean any story that is not factual. As a discrete category, Fairy Tales or Wonder Tales are those forms of narrative that include magic helpers, magic objects, or some form of bestowed magic to assist the protagonist to achieve his/her task or reach his/her potential, often by moving from a "common" to a "royal" state. ("Royal" is fairy tale code talk for self-actuating or secular language for "blessed.")

There is a lot of overlap and few hard lines, but when you begin to think in terms of types of story (myth, legend, fable, parable, noodlehead story, joke, tall tale, historical story, porquois tale, personal story, trickster tales and such), you start getting the hang of what each is. Fairy tales don't fit into any of the other categories (except, depending upon who's telling and who's listening, myth).

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ONLINE LINKS TO STORIES AND INFORMATION ABOUT FAIRY TALES AND FAIRY TALE ANTHOLOGIES

Online links are in blue and underlined. Click on them for more information.
Story titles are in quotation marks.
To retell any stories, get permission from the copyright holder if the material is not in the public domain.
Short descriptions included for your convenience and to save you research time.

• http://www.sfsite.com/09a/fairy16.htm
Fairy Tale Anthologies edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Winding from SFSite.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimm's_Fairy_Tale_Classics
Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics from Wikipedia. A Japanese animated anthology series by Nippon Animation. Full text.

• http://www.fairytalescollection.com/
A Collection of the World's Fairy Tales. Full text stories from Hans Christian Andersen, Mark Twaid, Aesop, Frank Baum and The Brothers Grimm. Excellent.

• http://webtech.kennesaw.edu/jcheek3/fairytales.htm
Classic Fairy Tales. Many of the links are outdated, but those that are still active are excellent.

• http://www.mythfolklore.net/andrewlang/
All of Andrew Lang's Fairy Books. Excellent.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fairy_tales
List of fairy tales from Wikipedia.

• http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/tales/east/other.htm
A Collection of Fairy Tale Sites. Lots of bad links, but what's left is worth it.

• http://comminfo.rutgers.edu/professional-development/childlit/snowwhite.html
"Snow White." For storytellers, teachers and librarians.

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SOS: SEARCHING OUT STORIES AND INFORMATION ABOUT FAIRY TALES AND FAIRY TALE ANTHOLOGIES
Advice, Comments and References from Storytellers, Teachers and Librarians
(excerpts from Storytell posts plus original research)

Book titles and online links are in blue and underlined. Click on them for more information.
Story titles are in quotation marks.
To retell any stories, get permission from the copyright holder if the material is not in the public domain.
Storytell posts are added as they are received by Story Lovers World.


1) Trickster Tales (World Storytelling), 40 multicultural tales from around the world by Jo Sherman.
http://www.JosephaSherman.com


2) This book isn't completely a book of fairytales because it has poems as well. It might be a good one to start with for a child's collection. The book that came to mind for a new baby is The Children's Book of Virtues by William J. Bennett. Here is the index of the specific sections.
Courage and Perseverance
Responsibility/Work/Self Discipline
Compassion/Faith
Honesty/LoyaltyFriendship


3) Grimm's Fairy Tales is an "Illustrated Library" book. It has a really pretty cover and begins with "The Twelve Dancing Princesses." The language has been adapted a bit to make it more modern but not so much as to lose the original meaning. It has 55 tales in all. This is a new 2000 printing originally copyrighted in 1945.


4) Time for old magic, an anthology by May Hill Arbuthnot. It was published many years by Scott Foresman & Co., with the most recent date being June 1996, but I wouldn't hesitate in getting an earlier edition. Her books were often university textbooks, but she takes such an assortment from ordinary folklore anthologies from all over the world & the past, that it is not an academic book except in the compiler's own efforts at placing the material in context. An online book search will turn up a wide range of prices & conditions. The only potential drawback, aside from the need to be a used book, is that it's not really illustrated for children & so any artwork is unlikely to add to the fun of the stories.


5) For a single in print, well illustrated book, Geraldine McCaughrean has: The Golden Hoard: Myths and Legends of the World; The Bronze Cauldron Myths And Legends Of The World; The Silver Treasure: Myths and Legends of the World; and The Crystal Pool: Myths and Legends of the World (Myths and Legend of the World Series , No 4). Or there's the paperback series of Virginia Hamilton's Favorite Fairy Tales Told in Japan (Favorite Fairy Tales Book 13) ... with each title featuring a different country. They are illustrated. Includes Japan, Spain, Denmark, Dzechoslovakia, India, Ireland, Greece, Sweden, France, Norway, Germany, Scotland, England, Russia, Italy and Poland.


6) For something with younger appeal & childlike illustrations there's Tomie dePaola's Favorite Nursery Tales from Putnam (1986 & still in print! shows its general appeal -- back when it first appeared it was a starred book in the review journal, Booklist).


7) If you are going for classics I would recommend English Fairy Tales (Everyman's Library Children's Classics) by Joseph Jacobs. It may not be multicultural, but it has some simply marvelous stories in it.


8) A Treasury of Children's Literature, edited by Armand Eisen. It cost $24.95. It has traditional stories, Aesops Fables, Grimms Fairy Tales, Mother Goose, Children's Classics, Some Poems, American Tales, Night Before Christmas and Hans Christian Anderson Fairy Tales in it. It has 30+ stories and lots of beautiful illustrations.


9) Wal-Mart has a couple of different books for $9.98, including 5-Minute Fairy Stories. The illustrations are great. The 320 pages are edged in gold, which gives the book a golden box look when it is closed. There are 28 stories in the book. It is not listed at Wal-mart's website. They also have the Grimm's and the Andersen's. Barnes and Noble also has several fairy tale collections with colorful illustrations for the younger set.


10) Stories and Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children of All Ages by Harold Bloom (Editor). Includes The Necklace of Princess Fiorimonde by Mary deMorgan) and certainly is a book that will last a long time and be dipped into over and over through the years.


11) Michael Foreman's World of Fairy Tales. This book fits the "growing into" category. The illustrations are wonderful and he's selected from Australia, Japan, Mexico, Canada, etc., as well as more traditional tales like Beauty and the Beast.


12) Jack Zipes' big book on The Brothers Grimm: From Enchanted Forests to the Modern World, or his two-volume set of The Arabian Nights, Volume I: The Marvels and Wonders of The Thousand and One Nights (Signet Classics), based on the "unexpurgated" Burton translation.


13) Andrew Lang's 'color' fairy tale books are really great. He has a 'green' fairy book, a 'red' fairy book, a
'yellow' fairy book, and so on. They are reprints of 19th century texts and contain all of the original illustrations, and contain stories from all over the world.
http://www.mythfolklore.net/andrewlang/


14) Jane Yolen's Favorite Folktales from Around the World (Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library).


15) East O the Sun and West O the Moon & Other Norwegian Fairy Tales (Dover Juvenile Classics)
There are probably several anthologies by this name, but one is an old favorite indeed, and comes as a Dover Book. It's not general, it's drawn from the Norwegian folk tales collected by Asbjornsen and Moe, and was translated by Andrew Lang's contemporary British folklorist, and Grimm's confidant, George Dasent. Great pictures by great Norwegian artists. Includes versions of many great familiar stories: "The White Bear" (title story), "Farmer Weathersky," "The Princess Who Had to Have The Last Word," "The Lad who Went to the North Wind" (beat stick beat), "The Twelve Dancing Princesses," "The Squire's Bride," and lots of less familiar ones, including some cool little short ones. The real stuff, good for kids, good for adults. Not as heavy-handed as the Grimms (though that can be nice too)-- light, bright, and hard-edged, in the true Marchen manner.


16) If you want lots of stories from all over, there is Joanna Coles' collection of Best-Loved Folktales of the World (The Anchor folktale library). Jane Yolen's collection is also good. One of the nicest for pictures for older youth and adults is Folk Tales and Fables of the World, retold by Barbara Hayes and illustrated by Robert Ingpen---a little literary as opposed to oral in style but a very attractive and useful book.


17) There's a lovely edition of The Golden Book of Fairy Tales (Golden Classics). It has some very striking artwork and nice translation of a range of stories.

18) Literary Movements and Genres - Fairy Tales (hardcover edition).


19) The Witch Must Die: The Hidden Meaning Of Fairy Tales by Sheldon Cashdan. It deals particularly with the Fairy Tales that are healing and transformational for young children. Cashdan offers elegant analyses of how fairy tales speak to basic human concerns, highlighting the roles played by iconic images like glass slippers, gingerbread houses, evil stepmothers, and sorcery. He shows how fairy tales differ from culture to culture, what happens when classic fairy tales are "Disneyfied," and why it is that fairy tales can have a surprisingly salutary effect on adult readers. Not since Bettelheim's The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales (Penguin Psychology) has the underlying significance of fantasy and fairy tales been so insightfully and entertainingly mined.

Created 2002; last update 9/8/09.