|A fairy tale is a story,either told to children or as if
told to children, concerning the adventures of mythical characters such
as: fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, giants and others. These stories often
involve princes and princesses and modern versions normally have a happy
Often, fairy tales are disguised morality tales. This is true for the Brothers Grimm Fairy Tale Collection, and many of the drily witty, dead-pan social criticism beneath the surface of Hans Christian Andersen's tales, which influence Roald Dahl.
The fairy tale has ancient roots, older than the "Arabian Nights" collection in antiquity: Cup and Psyche, Bel and the Dragon. Fairy tales resurfaced in literature in the Contes of Charles Perrault, who fixed the form of Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella.
An extensive collection of European fairy tales were published by Andrew Lang in a series of books: The Red Fairy Book, The Orange Fairy Book, and so forth. These provide some excellent examples of the genre. Some have also classed the Middle Eastern tales from 1001 Arabian Nights as fairy tales.
According to a 2004 poll of 1,200 childen by UCI Cinemas, the most popular fairy tales are: