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The Evolution of Fairy Tales

© Arden Davidson

Once Upon a Time, fairy tales weren't even meant to be read by kids. The term "fairy tale" actually orginated from the French phrase, "contes des fee", and French fairy tales of the 17th century actually featured a lot more fairies than the tales we are so familiar with today.

In addition, many early French fairy tales were actually quite cruel and gruesome, partly because many were being created by women who were rebelling against the contraints placed on them by their restrictive society.

It's actually quite amazing how most fairy tales have evolved over the years. For example, the original version of "Beauty and the Beast" was published in 1740 by Gabrielle-Suzanne de Vielleneuve. The original was a long and intricate tale, which delved into a lengthy geneological history of the characters, the reason for the curse, and the "politics" of the fairy world...Not quite the light-hearted tale that Disney Studios so recently fed our minds.

Although large numbers of literary fairy tales were written in 17th century France, most of the tales which are still told and retold now are far older in origin. Many of the stories were edited and changed as they were written down, removing the darker and more gruesome elements of the stories. However, there is still some controversary today on whether they've been "cleaned up" enough. There is an interesting article entitled "Shoud Children be Read Fairy Tales" at http://www.socsci.kun.nl/ped/whp/histedu... that addresses this subject.

For a great place to check out some of the classic fairy tales visit Children's Story.com at http://www.childrenstory.com/tales/index... Kids can enjoy reading modern versions of "Cinderella", "Puss-in-Boots", "Snow White" and many more online.

The SurLaLune Fairy Tale page at http://members.aol.com/surlalune/frytale... contains annotated fairy tales for the pleasure and study of fairy tales. The site is constantly updated and continues to grow.

You can also read 209 different Grimm's Fairy Tales by visiting http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~spok/grimmtmp/

And that, my friends, is MY happy ending.

The copyright of the article The Evolution of Fairy Tales in Children's Poetry is owned by Arden Davidson. Permission to republish The Evolution of Fairy Tales in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.