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nce upon a time in a land far, far away, fairy tales began to emerge and were spread throughout the earth. While there are no written records or any real knowledge of how or when they began or by whom, it is widely held that these tales started out as oral traditions that were told before the recording of time. What is known though is that these tales have been told and retold for thousands of years and to this day continue to be told and passed down from generation to generation. The common features that fairy tales often share are the characters. They include mystical creatures such as goblins, elves, giants, dragons, witches, wolves, princes, princesses, kings, queens, talking animals and dwarves. One line of thought is that the mythical creatures were understood to have been immortal supernatural beings, best described by the Greek word daimon, meaning spirit. The belief was that they had once been angels who left their jobs in heaven to come down to earth to dwell among humans. Interestingly the Bible book of Genesis contains references to both a talking serpent and angels who forsook their positions in heaven, instead choosing to dwell on earth amongst humans, and were thus cast out of heaven and barred from returning, constraining them to the vicinity of the earth. Many people will be familiar with the Biblical story of David and giant Goliath and how David slew him using nothing more than a catapult or slingshot. The book of Revelation also speaks of a dragon that was hurled out of heaven and goes on to reveal it to be the Devil. With that
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said, fairy tales rarely contain any religious content apart from weddings or the christening feast in Sleeping Beauty. It is widely accepted that these stories started out as being rather dark and often gruesome and were intended to be a form of entertainment for adult audiences. In 1697 Charles Perrault published Histoires ou contes du temps passé, avec des moralités: Contes de ma mère l’Oye, (Tales and Stories of the Past with Morals), containing romanticized versions of the popular tales. Among them were the classic Little Red Riding Hood, Puss in Boots and Cinderella. The Grimm brothers published Kinder und Hausmärchen (Children’s and Household Tales) in 1812, which included their reworked versions of some of Perrault’s stories, however their stories were frequently edited due to content deemed unsuitable for children. The styles of dress associated with fairy tales mirrored the kind of clothing which would have been worn in medieval Europe. For example the rags worn by Cinderella represented the poverty of the hardworking peasants of the time, whereas the splendour of the gowns she wore once transformed into a beautiful princess by her Fairy Godmother, epitomized the rich, upper class, gentle folk. The merchandise and costumes available to adults and children alike bear testimony to the pleasure that these fairy tales continue to bring to generations of people even in our modern day. This is in part due to their popularisation by corporations such as Disney through which they live on.
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